Dragos Goes to Washington (Elder Races #8.5)(26)

Then Eva returned with several different packages of antihistamines. Together, they scanned the dosage directions.

“Don’t operate any heavy machinery, may cause drowsiness. . . .” Eva read aloud.

Pia popped a dose out of foil wrap and swallowed them. “Or in other words, keep the coffee coming.”

“You sure you feel up to this?” Eva pursed her lips in concern.

“I am totally up for this,” Pia said grimly. “Let’s go.”

With that, she plunged into the day’s preparations. It seemed that everyone had saved up at least a dozen questions to ask her. There was a mistake on the order of fresh flowers. Would the substitutes do? What about the seating arrangements for dinner?

Thankfully, her leg stopped itching after about a half an hour or so. When the doctor returned her call, a couple of hours later, she was so busy she let the phone call roll to voice mail. She could call Dr. Medina back in the morning.

The afternoon sped by too fast. Dragos arrived back at the residence in a foul mood. He was standing in the middle of the foyer watching staff scurry past, his hands on his hips, when Pia found him.

“How did your day go?” she asked.

“I hate people.”

He sounded grumpy, but no more than usual when he had to deal with a lot of people. She held her face up to him. He took his time kissing her and did such a thorough job, she was flushed and laughing when he finally lifted his head again. “How are things going here?”

She looked around. “You might not be able to tell by looking, but it’s a controlled kind of panic. It’s just as well I didn’t go with you today—there was too much to do here, but I think I can let go and get ready for the evening now. Come upstairs with me?”

“I will in a minute. I’m going to get a scotch, and I want to talk to Bayne first.”

“Okay.” She left him to jog up the stairs to their suite.

Last night, the outfit she wore was classic chic. Tonight, should she go romantic and wear the midnight blue dress? Or perhaps sophisticated with the silk taupe pantsuit?

Upstairs, the bedroom had been cleaned and straightened, and the packages of antihistamines had been stacked on the bedside table. Seeing them reminded her.

She kicked off her jeans to inspect her thigh. It hadn’t itched for several hours, but the patch of skin was still red and angry looking. So, the hives had gone down some, but the irritation wasn’t gone. She was masking a symptom, not eradicating the problem.

Sighing, she grabbed at the open package. After double-checking the instructions, she swallowed another dose.

There was no way she was going to try to take off the pendant at this point. Later tonight, she could take it off and see how she was really doing then.

Because nothing short of a full-scale natural disaster was going to keep her from getting through the dinner party this evening.

Chapter Seven

Downstairs, Dragos ran over security plans for the evening with Bayne. Every Wyr would be on duty that night to make sure the perimeter of the property was guarded tightly. All the nearby streets were cordoned off for three blocks in every direction, and guards were mounted on the tops of nearby buildings.

Inside, while the house was too old to have a modern-day security system running through the walls, Bayne had installed tiny hidden wireless cameras in every room, which were monitored in the security room in the basement, behind the wine cellar. The house’s Wi-Fi network was a closed system, and it was backed up with an electric generator and a second server. They were as secure as modern technology could make them.

None of it calmed the dragon’s uneasiness at staying in an unfriendly city. All the security in the world wouldn’t protect the building from a long-range missile strike.

That was an extreme, highly unlikely scenario, but extreme shit happened. While he knew that the other demesnes, along with the different human police agencies, would also be on high alert throughout the city, he didn’t like to trust his safety or that of his mate to other people’s efforts.

Compulsively, he went below to make sure the openings to every tunnel had not been accidentally blocked off by all the trunks, boxes and furniture accrued over the last hundred and twenty years.

Yes, he was paranoid, but he had also been hunted before, several times throughout the ages. Being paranoid and untrusting had kept him alive, and he was vitally interested in maintaining that status quo.

Finally, he went upstairs to find the bedroom in chaos.

Pia had thrown different outfits along with matching jewelry sets on the bed. Small cardboard boxes littered one of the tables. As he raised his eyebrows and looked around, he found her crouched in front of the closet. She was wearing her dressing gown, her hair was rolled up in the hot curlers again, and she was busy pulling out shoes.

All her shoes. As far as he could tell, when she stood up, she carried in her arms every pair that she had brought on the trip.

As she caught sight of him, she muttered, “I’m so behind. I thought I was going to wear either the midnight blue dress or the silk pantsuit, but now neither one seems right, and I can’t make up my mind!”

She threw her armful of shoes on the floor beside the bed.

He walked up behind her and put his arms around her. Her body vibrated with tension. He tightened his grip on her. The hot curlers hampered his desire to put his mouth in her hair, so instead, he put his mouth to the hollow where her neck met her shoulder.