Dragon Bound (Elder Races #1)(99)

I swear I don’t. His response was strong and immediate. Whatever has happened, we can fix it.

Could they? How?

Tell me where you’re going, he said. We’ll do it together.

Dragos, just give me the afternoon. She held on to a door handle as the Porsche hit an open stretch and gathered speed. I need to calm down and think, and I need to find out some things before I can talk to you.

Silence pulsed. Then, quiet and silken, he said, I could use your Name to call you back.

She sniffled as she stared out the window. She said, Threats aren’t a good idea right now, big guy.

Seconds trickled by. Then he told her, You have the afternoon. After that I’m coming to get you.

You’re giving me a whole afternoon of my own time? Gee, thanks. Big of you, said the part of her that was sarcastic with hurt. She managed to bite it back and stay silent.

Then he was silent too and she was alone.

Without him.

Rune and Graydon stood in Dragos’s office, their hands on their hips as they wore identical scowls.

“At least she’s protected,” Graydon said. “She’s got Aryal and Bayne with her.” He did not look reassured by his own words.

Rune asked, “Did she say where she needed to go or what was wrong?”

“No.” Dragos prowled the perimeters of the room. It was too small, closed in. “She just said she needed time. I told her I’d give her the afternoon.”

Rune said, “You’re really going to give her the whole afternoon?”

“Fuck, no. I lied.”

He threw open the French doors with such violence the glass shattered. The sharp May wind whipped through the room. The fresh air lessened his sense of confinement, but he still vibrated with the need for action.

“The witch isn’t answering her phone,” he said. “Find someone to put a tracking spell on this and do it fast.” He held up a fist. It was the one with her pale braided hair on his wrist.

“On it,” Gray said. He dove out the window and changed in midair.

Dragos and Rune regarded each other. Bayne and the harpy were excellent warriors. They were a couple of his finest.

But an afternoon could be a very long time in New York with the Fae King at large and intent on mischief.

An afternoon like that could be a very long time indeed.

Pia gave Aryal directions when necessary, but other than that the trip to Brooklyn remained mercifully silent. Soon they arrived at the large Brooklyn Wyr health clinic she had used for the last couple years. The clinic was housed in an unadorned square, concrete-block building in a neighborhood filled with pawn and barber shops, liquor and rent-to-own stores and businesses offering paycheck loans. A fugitive dereliction hovered around the edges of the streets, a sense of something sharp and desperate that huddled in shadowed places waiting to show its teeth after nightfall, but the clinic itself was open during the daytime, and it had a professional, caring staff and a high number of half-breed patients, so it was perennially busy.

Aryal pulled the Porsche to the curb and switched off the engine. Both she and Bayne snapped open their seat belts as they scanned the street.

Pia’s stomach clenched again. “Stay here,” she said.

“Sorry, Pia,” Bayne said. The gryphon moved fast. He was out of the car and standing guard before she could get her car door open. Aryal slid around the front of the Porsche and joined him.

She strangled the impulse to yell at them as she climbed out. She looked from one sentinel to the other. Aryal’s expression was stony, Bayne’s eyes carefully blank. She wondered what they thought of their destination, what kind of telepathic conversation might be going on behind those killer faces.

“Here’s the thing,” she said. She pointed at the building. “Nobody in there knew we were coming. You guys are not going to go in and scare the shit out of anybody who happens to be inside, so just guard the entrances and stay the hell outside.”

Bayne pursed his lips as he considered her. She narrowed her eyes and said, “I could have left without you. I really wanted to, Bayne. Don’t make me regret trying to play by your rules.”

Aryal said suddenly to him, “Take the back exit.”

Bayne scowled. “Fine,” he said. He spun on one booted heel and stalked away.

Pia didn’t wait to hear more. She took off for the front doors. She had almost reached them when Aryal grabbed her by the shirt and shoved her against the side of the building.

“What the hell!” she sputtered. Shock ignited into outrage. Her fists came up to knock the sentinel’s hands away.

With almost contemptuous effortlessness, Aryal held her pinned in place with a forearm across her throat.

“Shut up,” snapped Aryal. “I’m not hurting you. You and I are going to have a talk.”

“Let go!” Pia dug in her heels and tried to yank the harpy’s arm away from her throat. Aryal caught her wrist. Slender steel fingers bit into her flesh.

Aryal gave the street a quick scan with blade-sharp eyes. “You have caused more trouble in the last couple of weeks than a street gang of Wyr-rats running amuck,” the harpy said. “I want to know what the f**k you’re up to now.”

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is my business if it puts Dragos in danger again.”

Pia tried to shove the knuckles of her free hand into the harpy’s midsection, but Aryal avoided her with a neat twist of her hips. “I’m not hurting anybody. All you need to know is Dragos promised me the afternoon.”