Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(106)

But wasn’t what happened even more outlandish? It had all happened to her and even she had trouble believing it.

She felt the same disorientation she always did after she and Dragos had separated for a while. She told herself fiercely, he is coming after me. He said he was. We’re mates, maybe. Probably. Or now, according to Graydon, I’m his hoard. Which makes no sense. Anyway I’m pregnant with his son. He may not love us, but that’s got to matter to him. Right?

“I see,” said the Fae King at last. He finished his wine and set the glass aside. “Well, you have been through quite an adventure these last several days, haven’t you?”

“Look,” she said. She felt so hollow it hurt, and the edges of the room were too far away. “Am I a guest or a prisoner? Are you going to torture me for some strange reason I don’t understand—because just in case you’re not, I want you to know I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m not doing so well right now.”

The Fae King made a moue and tsked. “Cuelebre didn’t take care of you at all, did he? My dear, why in the world would I have any reason to torture you?”

“I don’t know.” She threw up her hands and let them fall into her lap. “It’s been a hell of a day for a couple of weeks now,” she said. There was no reason to hide the exasperated exhaustion in her voice so she didn’t try. “And I don’t understand half the things that have happened to me, not least of all why you would have your goons drug me instead of walking up to me in the street and introducing themselves.”

“That,” said the Fae King, “is a very good point. Let’s just say we were unsure how you would react and we were unwilling to let you slip away again. Since, from all reports, you were surprisingly protective of the Wyrm when talking with the Elves in South Carolina.”

She froze. She hadn’t seen that one coming. What could he have been told? How should she respond?

She said through numb lips, “If that confrontation had escalated any further, two Elder demesnes could be at war right now. If that happened, a lot of people would have gotten killed. Sure, I stole from him, but I’m not a murderer. If you had a report of that confrontation, then you know I was going to see him to the Elven border and take off, but then we had some Goblins in trucks smash into us. And somehow that event leads back to you, doesn’t it.”

He gave her a heavy-lidded smile. “Well, you see, one of these days I’m going to finally succeed in killing Cuelebre. You just got in the way. Unfortunate, but all of that is in the past now.” He waved a hand. “I think we should consider you more as a conscripted employee, rather than a guest or prisoner. I can see a lot of uses for you. So many people have so many things I want.”

“I didn’t know this was a job interview, or I would have put on a suit,” she said, fury making her reckless. Whoa, throttle back there, filly. He’s not torturing. Remember, that’s a good thing.

He threw back his head and laughed. “I do like you, Pia. This is very simple: you will do as you’re told. If you do you will have, comparatively speaking, a very comfortable life. If you don’t? Oh, I don’t recommend that one. I really don’t.” He stood. “Conversation’s over. Piran, Elulas, see her to her room and make sure she stays put. Remember to pat her down for anything she could use to pick a lock. Oh, and find her something to eat. Poor thing has purple circles under her eyes. She looks like she’s ready to pass out.”

Her kidnappers approached. Her own personal Thing One and Thing Two. She stood and went with them. What else was there to do?

They let her use the bathroom on the ground floor. She was relieved to find that the house wasn’t too medieval. At least it had running water and a flushing toilet. Then they took her up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway to a bare room with nothing in it but a narrow bed and two folded blankets and a barred window.

Then Thing One gave her an infuriatingly thorough search while Thing Two watched. The Fae felt along the seams of her clothes, ran his hands up the insides of her legs and squeezed her crotch, probed between and underneath her br**sts and made her take off her shoes so he could inspect them.

She gritted her teeth and suffered through it. She was able to hold on to her rage only because it was obvious from the Fae’s flat, bored expression that the search had no sexual undertones. There was no way she could have sneaked a thin, flat lock pick in with her if she’d tried.

They locked her in the room. She shook out a blanket on the bare mattress and fell on it, listening as the two Fae spoke to each other in their Celtic-sounding language. One set of footsteps walked away, hopefully to bring her some kind of sustenance. She was going to have to choke down whatever they brought her so that she could stabilize and get ready for the next steps, whatever those were. She hoped it wasn’t meat.

It looked to be evening outside, gray and leaden with the promise of rain, which left the room shadowy. Her gaze tracked across the bare walls as she rested. Dragos? she tried. Are you there?

Nothing but a deadened silence. What did that mean? Cautiously she expanded her awareness. She couldn’t feel anything, no land magic, no other Fae, nothing but the chill heavy blanket of Urien’s Power. Was he able to suppress magic in his vicinity? If so, that was a pretty handy self-defense mechanism.

Her eyebrows rose as she looked down at herself. She wasn’t glowing. He must be able to suppress magic but not undo those spells already in place. Whatever the specifics, she was guessing he could sense any nearby upsurge in Power.