Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(21)

Soon she would start thinking about her next steps and try to make a plan. Even if Cuelebre couldn’t come this deep into the Elven demesne, he had more money than God and probably more employees too. She didn’t dare stay too long.

She would close her eyes for just a little while.

She woke with a start several hours later. For several bleary moments she couldn’t remember where she was or why. Then memory flooded in, and she sagged back against the pillows.

Okay. Life sucked. But at least she didn’t have another freaky sex dream where she got bitten.

The room felt sticky and overwarm. Though the curtains were drawn, it seemed from the diffuse light that the sun was at a much lower angle than when she had first lain down. She pushed out of bed and dressed in some of her new clothes, lowhipped capris, sandals and a red tank with spaghetti straps. Her br**sts were high, rather small and firm, so she didn’t bother with a bra.

She peered outside. It was early evening, maybe around five o’clock. She went to the bathroom to splash her face with cold water. After dragging a brush again through her recalcitrant hair, she pulled it back in another ponytail. Then she went to the kitchen/dining room area, which was separated by a counter and bar stools. The dining area had sliding glass doors that opened to a large deck with a few simple pieces of patio furniture. Stairs led to the beach.

She went down the stairs. She stood on the sun-warmed sand and breathed deep for several minutes as she gazed at a limitless horizon and listened to the murmurous dance of a calm ocean as it played against the shore. Kicking off her sandals, she walked close to the water’s edge and let sea foam surge across her toes. It was very cold. The tension that had taken up residence between her shoulder blades eased. She watched a seagull hover over the water and let herself exist in the moment. Then she walked along the water’s edge.

With the onset of early evening, there were few people on the beach. A woman with two children wandered along the water’s edge about fifty yards away, picking up shells and rocks, until someone shouted from a cottage and they went inside.

She sighed and tried to think through the obstacle course in her head. She bounced from idea to idea like a pinball in an arcade machine. At least the sleep had helped to clear her mind.

She wondered if Keith were still alive. She was surprised to find she felt sadness at the thought. She wondered at the shadowy Power that had given her an artifact strong enough to get past Cuelebre’s aversion wards. She shied away. Don’t think about that.

Then she thought about Quentin’s fierce protectiveness, his stubborn insistence on helping her and the bone-cracking hug he had given her. Her eyes watered. Okay. Don’t think about that either. Keith was gone. Quentin was gone. Her life was gone.

She scowled and scrubbed at her eyes. So what did she know? Cuelebre knew her name. Got that problem covered. He knew what she looked like. He might even know what she smelled like, so she could change her appearance, maybe dye her hair and cut it short, but she would have to be extra smart to obscure her scent trail.

I can’t stay here, and I need to ditch the Honda. I need to get new wheels and make it an arbitrary switch, difficult to trace, maybe change rides a couple of times fast. It might slow him down. I need to move in a random way and disconnect completely from Quentin and my past. And I need to find a way to block that bastard from my dreams.

To do that, she would need more magical expertise than she could muster. Her mother could have kept herself obscured, in both a psychic and physical sense, but her blood didn’t run as strong in Pia. While she had a highly educated sense for magic, she couldn’t do half the things her mother could have done.

The last gift Quentin had given her the night before had been an 800 number that he had made her memorize. I know people in Charleston, he’d said. If you need help, call them.

Did she dare? Who were these people? She turned north and started walking back to the beach house. And did she dare stay here another night?

She glanced at the sky and paused. In the distance over the water, a patch of the sky rippled. It looked like the watery shimmer of heat waves off an asphalt highway on a hot summer day. But the May evening was cooling down, the sky just starting to darken in the east and there was no asphalt anywhere near that ripple.

She shaded her eyes. What was it? It was big and seemed to be getting bigger fast. She watched the patch grow, her stomach clenching. She’d never seen anything like it before, but she knew it was wrong.

Wait a minute. That shimmering patch of air wasn’t growing bigger. It was getting closer.

Oh shit.

Pia’s thinking splintered into raw instinct. She whirled and sprinted. She may not have inherited many of her mother’s abilities, but if there was one thing she could do with an extravagance of talent, it was run. Her bare toes dug into the sand and she nearly flew down the beach.

But nearly flying isn’t the same as really flying. Even as she pushed with all the speed she had in her, she knew she wasn’t going to be able to outrun what hurtled toward her.

A shadow engulfed her from behind. She caught just a glimpse on the sand in front of her of an enormous winged shape with a serpentine neck and a long wicked head. Then the shadow collapsed in on itself and a split second later, a mountain slammed into her back.

She crashed into the sand so hard it knocked the breath out of her. The mountain resolved itself into the hard, heavy body of a male. Muscle-corded arms came down on either side of her. Huge hands latched onto her slim wrists while a long thigh crossed over the backs of her legs.