Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(79)

The faerie snickered. “It’s gotta be on this chart. I’m sure I wrote it down somewhere.”

Pia looked over the dense black scribbles that covered the tablecloth. “We were going to talk about something. Weren’t we?”

“Sure we were. You’re going to take over my PR job.”

“Okay.” She nodded. It was the perfect solution. Of course it was.

But wait. There was something she needed to remember about that. Doubts, other considerations, deadly good reasons why she shouldn’t accept. There was something. . . .

Something that twinkled in the air, a feminine Power so light and delicate and effervescent she only just noticed it, after hours of sitting saturated in its presence.

Her best friend was writing something down. T-r-i-c-k-s. The faerie drew hearts and flowers around the word as she hummed to herself.

“Tricks,” said Pia.

Tricks looked up from the doodling, tongue between her teeth.

Pia put one elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, and smiled at the other woman. “Is your Power by any chance related to charm or charisma?”

Tricks scratched the tip of one ear. “So what if it is?”

“I don’t think I should say yes to anything you ask me while we’re in the same room together and I’m drunk, that’s all,” Pia said.

One of Tricks’s eyelids lowered to half-mast, a crafty, unrepentant look. Then the faerie grinned, and sunshine and happiness burst into the room. “Oh, pfft!” she said.

The afternoon descended into early evening. Dragos, Kristoff and Tiago watched the evening news in Dragos’s office. Kristoff stood with an arm wrapped around his middle, one hand covering the back of his neck. Tiago stood with his feet planted apart, arms crossed. Barbed-wire tattoos flexed as his biceps clenched.

Dragos sat at his desk. He tapped his steepled fingers against his mouth as he watched Cuelebre Enterprises get bitch-slapped on national television.

Two beautiful people were on the screen. One was a human female reporter. The other was the Dark Fae King.

For the first time in many decades, Dragos looked on the face of his enemy. Urien had typical Dark Fae coloring and features, with overlarge gray eyes, high cheekbones, white skin and black hair that fell to his shoulders. His hair was pulled back, revealing elegant, long pointed ears.

“. . . of course, scrapping the project is quite a financial blow to the people of this community and to the state of Illinois,” said Urien, with a charming, regretful smile. “And not only for potential jobs that have been lost. We lost a valuable source of clean and economical power that would have been produced by a new electric-generating nuclear power plant, and we have Cuelebre Enterprises to thank for that. As you know, the nation faces the challenge of reducing our carbon emissions. The only way we can achieve lower emissions is by developing energy efficiencies and clean technologies, such as wind and solar power. Nuclear energy has got to be part of that mix. . . .”

Dragos punched the mute. He looked at Tiago and his miserable assistant.

Tiago said, “Urien looks good for a dead man.”

“Too good,” Dragos growled.

“I can’t believe what a f**king hypocrite he is,” Kristoff said bitterly. “He’s talking about clean energy and lower emissions when he’s still blowing up mountaintops and he has one of the most polluting companies on the planet. You know our DOE contact, Peter Hines, rejected the RYVN grant application like we asked. He got fired today. And Urien’s media blitz hit earlier this afternoon. Stocks are down in six of our companies.”

“The ones headquartered in Illinois,” said Dragos.

“Yup.”

“Oh, buck up, Kris,” Tiago said, impatient. “Did you think Urien would take losing his pet project lying down? Of course he was going to strike back. At least you’ve got the satisfaction of knowing you really pissed him off. Usually he has nothing to do with human media.”

Kris chewed a nail. “I know what’s going to happen next. RYVN is going to reapply for that grant with Hines’s replacement. After this, public sentiment will be on their side.”

“They’ll get that grant over my dead body,” Dragos snapped. “I said do what it takes to tear the RYVN partnership apart and I meant it.” He surged to his feet and slapped his hands on the desk. Tiago was silent and Kris looked at his feet while Dragos battled his rage. After a moment he continued, with a semblance of calm, “Get ahold of Hines, offer him a job. He’s a bureaucrat—he must be able to do something we like.”

Kris said, “Maybe he can join our Washington lobbyist team.”

“Go.” Kris fled. Dragos turned his hot gaze onto Tiago. “And for God’s sake, will you go find that slippery mother-f*cker so I can tear him to shreds?”

“Working on it,” said Tiago. “He can run from me but he cannot hide forever. We’ll get him, Dragos.”

He glared as his sentinel strode out. Locating Urien wasn’t happening fast enough. He snarled down at his desk and made himself lift up his hands and get a grip on his temper. I’ve got to stop tearing the furniture up. There’s too goddamn much to do. No time for another repair and remodel.

His thoughts shifted to Pia. He glanced out the window and frowned at the early-evening light. He left the office and jogged the stairs up to a silent penthouse. He strode through the rooms. They echoed with emptiness.