Kinked (Elder Races #6)(15)

Quentin shook his head. Guess there was all kinds of crazy. He checked the contents of his envelope. Aside from documents he would need when he reached the Czech Republic, there was a printout of an electronic plane ticket. He noted the time of the flight and sighed. No wonder there was a car waiting downstairs. He had been so busy that day, sorting first through his sentinel duties and then seeing a healer and arranging matters at Elfie’s, that he hadn’t yet had time to stop at the penthouse to see Pia and the baby. He’d hoped to talk to her before they left, but now he couldn’t.

He gave Kris a nod and left, taking the elevator down to the lobby. As he went, he called Pia’s cell. It rolled over to voicemail without ringing, which meant her phone was turned off. Was that coincidence, or intentional?

After the automated prompt, he said, “I’m sure you know by now what happened this morning. I wanted to see you and Liam before I left, but now I can’t. Listen, Pia, I—I’m sorry.” Sorry for everything. Sorrier than you can know. He bit the words back, guilt sitting like a ten-pound weight in his chest. “I just wanted you to know, it’s never going to happen again. That’s a promise.”

After he disconnected, he tried Ferion’s number, but that phone call rolled over to voicemail right away too, as the new, overburdened High Lord never answered his cell phone anymore.

Instead of leaving a voice message this time, Quentin hung up then texted Ferion, his fingers moving quickly over the small screen. Going to Prague this pm. Will call when I get there.

For a moment he hesitated, teetering on the edge of adding more. But Numenlaur was too painful and charged a subject to put into a text message. He hit send, clicked off his iPhone, shoved it into his pocket and when the elevator doors opened, he strode through the crowded lobby to the main steps outside.

The day had started out bitter and was ending gray and bleak, but the bite of the cold wind felt good on his skin.

A black Cadillac Escalade idled at the curb. Winding through the heavy crowd of rush hour pedestrians on the sidewalk, he opened the passenger door. Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons poured out of the interior. He looked inside.

Alexander Elysias lounged in the driver’s seat, his long body relaxed. As a pegasus, he had the distinction of being the only herbivore among the seven sentinels, all the rest being predators of some sort. The difference played out in his personality as well. He was easily the most even tempered and patient of them all.

Predator Wyr tended to be dismissive of herbivores, an unfortunate tendency that did not play out among the sentinels. All of them had watched Alex’s fighting in the Games arena. Not only had they seen Alex’s proficiency for combat for themselves, but they had also come to realize that his easygoing demeanor went hand in glove with a strong, steady personality, keen intelligence and a kind of innate dignity that tended to settle the most abrasive and volatile of them.

The expression on Alex’s handsome, dark mahogany face was pensive. It vanished into a welcoming smile as soon as he saw Quentin. The tension that had been knotted between Quentin’s shoulders eased as he returned the smile with a lopsided one of his own and slid into the passenger seat.

Going through the Sentinel Games together had been a bonding experience of sorts. Out of all the people who lived and worked in the Tower, Quentin had just two friends. One of them was Pia, and the other one was Alex.

“Hey there,” he said. “You’re the first thing that has gone right this whole gods’ cursed day.”

Alex said, “I can imagine. So far I’ve heard about fifty different versions of what happened this morning.” He craned his neck, looking beyond Quentin to the crowded sidewalk. “Where’s Aryal?”

“She decided to make her own way to the airport.” Quentin slammed the door, settled his pack between his feet, buckled his seat belt and slumped back. “No doubt she’s flying.”

“If it was any warmer out, I’d offer to shapeshift and fly you out too,” said Alex. “It can be a good way to beat rush hour traffic, but in this weather you’d freeze your balls off.”

A grin hooked the corner of Quentin’s mouth up. “Your concern for my balls is touching. Really.”

Alex laughed as he shifted gear and pulled away from the curb. “I just didn’t want you screaming like a girl in my ear the whole way.” He shot a glance at Quentin. His eyes were dark, intelligent and calm. “Want to talk about it?”

Quentin sighed and rubbed the back of his head, then admitted the truth. “Dragos banished us, and we deserved it. We’re supposed to work our shit out someplace else. He’s sending us to Numenlaur.”

Any vestige of humor in Alex’s face vanished. “Numenlaur. Man, that’s gonna be a hard trip.”

“Tell me about it.” He heard himself saying, “Still, I’m … glad he thought to send someone there to check on things.”

“Careful, buddy,” Alex said. “You might be getting close to admitting that Dragos isn’t as bad as you thought he was.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said immediately.

A smile crept back over Alex’s dark features. “Of course you wouldn’t.”

Quentin glowered at the lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic. “I’m never going to like him. That’s all there is to it. He’s arrogant, demanding, he has an evil temper, and I’m pretty sure he invented the word ‘conniving.’ ”