Eva scratched her nose. “You prefer Tinker Bell?”
“Just use my name, dammit!” She snatched at the crossbow.
Eva held on for a second while Pia tugged uselessly on it. Then the other woman let go, and she staggered back a step. “You know,” Eva said casually, and Pia tensed. She had learned to be wary of Eva’s ultracasual tone of voice. “If you were in my unit, I’d be all over your ass for losing your weapon, and I wouldn’t let up until I’d chewed off a good ten pounds or so of flesh.”
Pia scowled as her face turned warm. “Well, I’m not in your unit, and in case you don’t remember, I got grabbed and shoved around a lot in the dark. As I recall, you were the one who did most of the shoving.”
Eva slanted a look at her. “That make it okay? You gonna drop your weapon whenever you sneeze too? Maybe when somebody gives you the stinkeye?”
“The stinkeye?” she said, her embarrassment and annoyance successfully diverted. She covered her mouth to muffle her snort. People had died tonight. Laughter wasn’t appropriate. “All right, no matter how crowded, confused, dark or fiery it got, I should not have dropped my weapon.”
“That’s more like it. Sort of.” Eva punched her in the shoulder, and she staggered again. “Stick with me, Tink. I’ll get you sorted out.”
“Well, isn’t this too cute for fucking words,” said an all-too-familiar voice. “Apparently you two got a little girl-bonding time in. How does that saying go? It isn’t really cheating when there isn’t any penis.”
Both Pia and Eva turned to stare at Aryal, who stood a few feet away with her arms crossed, regarding them both with stormy gray eyes. The harpy wore her usual outfit of fighting leathers, but this time instead of holstered guns, she had two swords strapped to her back, along with long knives at her thighs. The harpy looked lean, muscled and all too eager for some kind of fight.
Aryal said to Pia, “You are the worst goddamn trouble magnet I have ever seen, and coming from a harpy, you know that’s actually saying something.”
Pia sighed and rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger. “Hello, Aryal.” Nice to see you too. Not.
When she dropped her hand again, the world had shifted. Eva had moved to stand slightly in front of her instead of at her side. Eva was staring at Aryal with a cold expression on her bold features.
“Are you that insolent when you talk to Dragos?” Eva said between her teeth. “Because you sure as hell shouldn’t be talking to his mate that way.”
Wait, what? Pia did a double take at Captain Psycho. Eva was defending her to Aryal, and talking about respect?
The harpy laughed. “What did you do?” Aryal said to Pia. “Flick your perky cheerleader ponytail at her too? You’re like some kind of insidious virus, but I thought you only infected people with the Y chromosome.”
“Hey, look at me,” Eva snapped. Fascinated, Pia did just that, her gaze bouncing back to Eva, whose hard, black eyes glittered in the torchlight. “I’m talking to you. She isn’t.”
Aryal smiled and said between her teeth, “Yeah, I think you may regret that.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” said Eva. “I hear Tinker Bell here can kick your ass, and she’s a nice person. I’m more like you. I’m not nice. Just think what she and I together could do to you.”
Aryal’s smile vanished. Oh-kay, that might not be a good sign.
“For God’s sake, both of you,” Pia hissed at both of them. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Pia saw both Johnny and Hugh circling closer. The two males were watching Eva alertly. When Pia looked around, Andrea, James and Miguel were not far behind.
Then the world changed again, as Quentin moved in, seemingly from nowhere. He shoved between Eva and Aryal, his body moving with liquid, lethal grace, and he didn’t stop moving until he came nose to nose with the harpy, who shifted to face him. They were within a couple of inches of each other in height and glared at each other, their tall, lean bodies combat tense.
Quentin said in a low, bitter voice, “Pia’s right, you demented bitch—this is not the time or the place for your made-up vendettas. Decent, innocent people have died here tonight, and their bodies aren’t even cold in the ground.”
“Don’t pull that guilt-making crap on me,” Aryal exclaimed. “Dead people are dead, and they don’t know shit. And what happens between me and your special friend is none of your business, jackass.”
“You think I don’t know how long and hard you’ve tried to investigate me?” Quentin growled. “You’ve been trying to pin something on me for over two years now. And what have you found? Exactly nothing. So quit taking your resentment of me out on Pia.”
Was that why Aryal didn’t like her? Pia and Eva looked at each other. Eva raised her eyebrows, asking her silently, What the fuck? You know anything about this?
Pia shook her head and shrugged. For all she knew, it could be true.
The harpy’s nose wrinkled as she stared at Quentin, and she coughed. “Oh gods,” she said, staring at him with repugnance. “Are you a cat? You stink like a cat. That’s just bloody fucking great. Not only is Quentin Caeravorn part Wyr, but he stinks like a cat.” She threw up her hands. “Makes my whole fucking night to know this. If yet another Wyr with feline tendencies ends up as a sentinel, I’m going to slit somebody’s wrists.”
Quentin looked more out-of-control furious than Pia had ever seen him, his skin flushed dark and features clenched tight as a fist. Violence pulsed in the air. That was when the pegasus and all the gryphons arrived, even Rune, every tall male using his body like a battering ram to break the other two apart.
Graydon actually shoved Aryal by slapping the flat of his hands against her shoulders and making her stagger back a few paces. Normally he was so mild mannered and easygoing, Pia found it shocking to see him get violent. He demanded, “You realize what a line you’ve been walking this week, dipshit?”
“What?” Aryal snapped. “I’m not the criminal here!”
“Hell, you haven’t even been trying to walk a line.” Graydon stared at her with angry incredulity. “You’ve been staggering all over it like a drunk at a single’s bar. Do you want to keep your job or not?”
Aryal snarled, “I will win my job back just like all you other sonsabitches—by hammering down any bastard that gets in my way.”
“Is that so, Smurfette?” Quentin sneered at her from across a barrier made up of two gryphons and a pegasus. “And here I thought you were an example of affirmative action in the workplace.”
Rage detonated in Aryal’s expression. She flicked out both stiffened hands, and talons sprang out on all her fingers and thumbs. Then she plowed forward, only to be brought up short when Graydon came at her from behind and pinned her in a headlock.
“Smurfette,” breathed Eva rapturously.
“Everybody has gone nuts,” Pia muttered.
She looked from Eva to her other bodyguards, who had all come to surround her. And she had thought they were the psychos. They looked positively sane in comparison to the crazy pants developing between Quentin and Aryal.
Her gaze lingered on Eva’s delighted face. Well, almost all of them looked sane.
She shoved her way through the bristling testosterone to reach Quentin, making sure he saw her before she put a hand on his bicep. The warm muscle beneath her fingertips felt rock hard with tension.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Come on. Come talk to me.”
At first he didn’t respond, his blue eyes two ice chips of fury. He watched the harpy with a killer’s face, a muscle leaping in his clenched jaw.
Once upon a time, that expression would have scared her spitless. Funny how things had changed. She tugged harder at his arm, injecting more authority into her voice. “Quentin, walk away with me right now.”
Finally hi
s attention snapped to her. She smiled at him, and he jerked his head once in a nod. Still, she entwined one arm firmly with his as she led him to one side. When Eva made as if to join her, she sent the other woman a warning glance, and Eva responded by hanging back several steps.
At six-foot-two, Quentin stood half a head taller than she did. Even though she now knew that he had a strong enough Wyr side that he could change into his animal form, she still saw a strong resemblance to an Elven heritage in his graceful bone structure. Like Dragos, Quentin was broader in the shoulders than most Elves. His mixed race heritage had given him a spectacular combination of strength and beauty.
Before Dragos, she had enjoyed having a crush on her sexy boss. Now the crush had comfortably and quite irrevocably settled into friendship.
“Someday I’m going to fucking kill her,” Quentin said between his teeth. “Just so you’re warned. That harpy is unendurable.”
“Okay,” she said, soft and quiet. “You’re not going to get any argument from me.”
His gaze fully focused on her. “That looks like blood on your clothes. Are you all right? You weren’t hurt?”
“I wasn’t hurt,” she told him. “The blood isn’t mine.”
“Well, that’s something, at least.” He put his arms around her with a deep sigh.
She hugged him tight. “Did I see you fly in on the pegasus?”
“Yeah, that’s Alex,” he said. “Going through the Games together has given us a chance to do some bonding. He’s a really good guy. I hope he wins through to the end. I think the sentinels could use someone as even tempered as he is.”
She glanced over her shoulder, noting that Alex had separated himself from the sentinels once Quentin had walked away. The pegasus stood nearby as well, watching the events in the clearing unfold, his hands on his hips.
She turned back to Quentin. “Are you okay?” she asked gently. “You’ve lost some people tonight, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, I did,” he whispered. His eyes were bloodshot. “But I’m not the only one. A lot of folks lost people tonight.”
“Can I do anything for you?” She rubbed his back.
He shook his head and gave her a not-quite smile. “Other than keep yourself safe, no. Thanks.” He looked around at the devastation, his expression turning grim once more. “I’m just glad Dragos did the decent thing and mustered the Wyr to help.”
Quentin made no secret of the fact that he disliked Dragos, nor did Dragos hide the fact that he tolerated Quentin for Pia’s sake. When Pia had asked Quentin about his decision to enter the Sentinel Games, he had told her, “I don’t have to like Dragos in order to decide that I want to invest in my community. He may be Lord of the Wyr, but he’s just one man, after all. The Wyr demesne is a lot bigger than he is.”
Now her answering smile turned wry. “You sound surprised at the thought of Dragos doing something decent.”
He searched her mild expression. She could tell he was looking to see if he had offended her. When he saw that he hadn’t, he shrugged. “Yeah, what can I say,” he said. “You’re always going to be the best part of him.”
“I think that might be the only thing you both agree on,” she told him.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thanks for the de-escalation. I’d better go see what I can do to help.”
“Okay.” She gave him another quick squeeze and let him go. “As long as you go in the opposite direction of Aryal. Just avoid her completely. Nobody needs any more strife right now, Quentin.”
He glanced at where Aryal and Graydon were still arguing, and his face hardened, but he said, “Fair enough.”
He kissed her cheek, then walked away to join Alex. She turned to find Eva, and as she did so, she looked around at everybody else in the clearing. Many people, both Elves and Wyr, were watching the sentinels.
Just as many Wyr, if not more, were watching her as well, their expressions closed and unfriendly. Jolted, she looked from one person to the next. Each Wyr turned away when her gaze fell on him or her.
They didn’t have to meet her eyes or say anything. She could see what they thought in their faces.
They thought she had started the whole thing.
She thought back to how everything had begun, a few minutes ago, then back to last year, and her mouth compressed into an unhappy line.
Maybe they were more right than she wanted to admit.
From that point on things seemed to move quickly. The sentinels took their squabbling elsewhere for a few minutes and returned in short order, each one wearing a tight face and the promise of imminent violence. Danger burned so hot in their auras, all the other Wyr turned subdued and quiet.
Still troubled, Pia settled on the corner of a nearby bench and concentrated on cleaning off her crossbow, while the last of the arriving Wyr fighters dried off and stowed their parachutes away, and last minute preparations were made. Eva and Johnny stayed with Pia, and they didn’t talk much either.
Elven horses were brought out, only these weren’t prettily saddled for a day’s ride in the Wood. The horses wore head guards and neck plates, their bodies covered in blankets of protective chain mail. The animals had clearly been trained for war. They stamped the ground and blew through their nostrils, eager and restless.
After talking with Calondir, Dragos called Miguel over to him and sent him off with another Elf. Within ten minutes, Miguel returned, carrying exquisitely tooled leather armor suitable for a female of Pia’s height and frame. Pia’s slim runner’s build was very compatible with an Elven body type, and the peanut bump wasn’t obtrusive enough to cause a problem.
The armor was lined with a finely crafted, tough chain mail and padded with cotton, and it was heavier than it looked. Pia liked to think she recognized good sense when she saw it, though, and she didn’t complain about the weight.
“It’s a gift from the High Lord,” Miguel said. His dark eyes were filled with admiration as he ran a hand down one piece. “This is really fine. It’s got an aversion spell woven into the chain mail.”
Pia stood, and Miguel and Eva helped to strap it into place on her, adjusting each buckle to make sure of the fit. She squatted when they asked, and twisted and turned. She said, “It doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would.”
“It shouldn’t,” Eva told her. “You’re wearing about fifty thousand dollars’ worth of battle bling.”
She almost fell over. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. Elven armor is kinda like those wafers of wayfarer bread that you like so much—it’s top-of-the-line and hard to come by. This stuff is not only resistant to sword cuts and knife throws, but it can block a bullet as long as it isn’t an armor-piercing round fired point-blank at you. It’s water repellant and lightweight too. With a little training in it, you shouldn’t have any impairment in speed or stamina when you run.” After tugging one last time on a shin plate, Eva slapped Pia’s leg lightly and stood.
Pia felt a little like one of the horses that had just been saddled. She gave Eva a leery glance. “Training.”
“Yep, and that’s first on our agenda when we get back home.”
“What are you talking about?”
Eva stood hipshot with her arms crossed as she looked over the clearing. She said, “Fact is, you need somebody on you, Tink, and it can’t be the sentinels who take time off their regular work to do it piecemeal. It needs to be someone full time who has the ability to work with your schedule and needs, and who can coordinate the right staff for each occasion. So I put in a quick word with the Old Man earlier, about the possibility of a job transfer.” Eva’s gaze slid sideways to her. “If you would be amenable to working with me, that is.”
Pia blinked rapidly. Evil Eva had asked for a job transfer to work with her? “I had no idea,” she said inanely. “He never said anything.”
/> Eva lifted one shoulder. “Well, we just barely had time for me to bring it up telepathically. Why don’t you think about it, see how it sits? Nobody’s deciding nuthin’ without you.”
“Why’d you ask?” The words burst out of her before she could stop it.
A small smile played around the edges of the captain’s bold mouth. “First, I like you,” Eva said bluntly. “I didn’t want to, and I didn’t expect it, but I do. Second, I’ve been doing the same thing for a while now. Sometimes you just need a change of pace, know what I mean?” Pia nodded as she watched the other woman’s face. “Third, you’re a challenge, and I need that too. You’re always going to be facing something. You’re always going to be in the public eye, and always going to be a target. Plus, you’re gifted, and you’re smart, but I gotta tell you, Tink, sometimes you’re kind of stupid too.”
She scowled. “I’m not stupid.”
Eva said, “Crossbow.”
“Fuck you.”
Eva laughed softly, and after a moment she joined in. “Fourth,” Eva said. “It may take me a while, because sometimes I’m kind of stupid too, but I recognize a top dog when I see one. And that’s what you are. You surprised me with it, and I’m not talking about you kicking my ass, or Aryal’s ass, or anything like that, because I haven’t even seen you fight yet, so clearly I’m going on faith about that bit.”
Pia toed a clump of grass. She muttered, “I can too kick your ass.”
“Beside the point. Being an alpha is much more than kicking someone’s ass.” Eva grinned. “I watched you order the Lord of the Wyr—the Old Man himself—out of the room, and he went. You don’t get more top dog than that. Shit, girl, I damn near genuflected, and I’m not even sure what that word means.”
“If this is about Johnny, I don’t want you to change careers because you feel like you might owe me something.”
“I won’t lie to you,” Eva said quietly. “This is partly about Johnny, but I wouldn’t change careers because I feel like I owe you. I could always find some other way to repay you. It’s everything, Pia. It’s the total package.”
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