Dragos Goes to Washington (Elder Races #8.5)(12)

Now that she had given him some reassurance, he sounded perfectly mild and sane. Ha. She had gotten to know him all too well, and that perfectly mild and sane voice of his wasn’t going to fool her ever again.

She told him, “Yes, please.”

Now that the plane was on the tarmac and no longer moving—and her stomach was completely empty—she actually did feel better.

She squared her shoulders and opened the bathroom door. Dragos leaned against one of the seats, waiting for her. He handed the purse to her, while his sharp gaze ran down her body.

She sighed. “It’s not a big deal. The only thing I’ve put in my stomach since lunch yesterday was coffee.”

“We’ll rectify that as soon as we get to the Wyr residence.” Straightening, he nodded to the two pilots waiting near the head of the plane. “Have a good week. I’ll be in touch when we finalize a time for our departure.”

“Very good, sir,” said Andrew.

Putting that rather ignominious arrival firmly behind her, she followed Dragos as he strolled down the aisle, and they deplaned into the sunny day.

*     *     *

Eva was waiting for them in the pickup lane, leaning against an armored black Cadillac Escalade.

Preferring to drive, Dragos took the keys and slid into the driver’s seat, while Pia got into the front passenger seat and Eva climbed in the back.

Actually, he would have preferred to avoid the heavy D.C. traffic altogether and fly directly to the Wyr residence, but there were strict no-fly laws over the area where they were headed. His cloaking ability was excellent, but he wasn’t altogether sure what the human sensors could detect of his presence.

Prosaic radar technology couldn’t detect him when he was cloaking, but he would bet the Cuelebre Enterprises gross profit for the year on humans having more than just mechanical sensors guarding their capital. If he were a human in charge of guarding such an important city, he would have squadrons of witches laying protection spells over the city like gigantic, invisible spiderwebs.

In any case, now was also not the time to break human laws and get everybody riled over something relatively unimportant. Not when humankind had become so nervous at the perceived damages caused by the Elder Races in the last two years.

The Elder Races held a lot of magical Power, the most in the world. But humans held a lot of power of a different sort, in terms of sheer numbers in their population, along with military strength. Over the last few centuries, their numbers had multiplied so that their presence virtually covered the earth.

Continuing to coexist was the very best thing that could happen for everybody concerned. If they couldn’t achieve amicable coexistence . . .

Well, the world would get a lot colder and meaner, if that happened. The possibility troubled him more than he liked to say.

So he throttled back his impatience, put the car in drive and pulled sedately away from the curb and into traffic.

“Tell the house staff to prepare a meal for when we arrive,” he said over his shoulder.

“You got it,” Eva said.

He glanced in the rearview mirror. Eva’s dark head bent as she texted on her phone. His attention turned to Pia, who watched out her window curiously. She had never been to D.C. before and was hoping to find time to sightsee some of the famous landmarks.

Did she look more pale than usual? She wasn’t wearing makeup. Frowning, he asked telepathically, You okay?

She turned to smile at him. Don’t fuss. I’m fine.

Fuss? He wasn’t a fusser. Scowling, he accelerated aggressively to cut across traffic to the fast lane. After he finished the maneuver, he told her shortly, You look pale.

I always look pale. She placed a slender hand on his thigh. Her light touch managed to dispel his bad temper. She said aloud, “How long do we have until we need to leave for the White House this evening?”

“Couple hours.” He glanced at her again, noting the dark shadows underneath her eyes. “There’s time to eat, and you can take a nap before we go.”

She shook her head at him with a smile filled with feminine pity. “Oh no, I can’t. I’ve never been to the White House before. I’m not going to just throw on clean clothes and run my fingers through my hair, like you do.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Well, at some point I am going to shave too.”

Her eyes danced. “So am I. Plus, there’s the makeup, and I’m going to put my hair up, so I need to allow time for hot curlers.”

He loved it when she pinned her hair up in big, fat curls, in a style reminiscent of sixties chic. It bared the elegant line of her neck, which he loved to explore with his mouth.

Later, when it was time to take her hair down, he would be the one to do the small chore, letting the curls fall loose one by one as he kissed the nape of her neck and slid down the zipper of her dress.

In an instant, he was hard again and aching for her. It was hard to believe he had just taken her so many times on the plane. The mating frenzy was the only thing that had ever held him in its grip for long.

If it was a prison, it was one he didn’t want to leave. He relished its claws digging underneath his skin, driving him to extremes. But they wouldn’t have time now to succumb to another bout of lovemaking until after the evening’s function.

Forcing the urge back, he exhaled on a long, steady breath.