Kinked (Elder Races #6)(25)

An evil gleam crept into her narrowed gaze. “A truce?” she said. “Just because we smacked each other around, did a little bump and grind and exchanged more than three words at a time? Fuck, no.”

That internal whip that drove him?

Sometimes it felt good.

He purred, “There we go.”

She still refused to let him drive, even though he knew she didn’t care about the rental policy. There was nothing more infuriating than someone who was being pedantic about something you know they don’t give a damn about.

She drove back to the highway entrance, and in a matter of moments they were moving southwest toward the Bohemian Forest. He made a mistake once. He didn’t make it twice. He wasn’t about to ride shotgun without a seat belt on while she was in the driver’s seat.

Prague and the immediate surrounding area were densely urban, but once they traveled beyond a certain point they were surrounded by scenes of almost desolate beauty, the countryside washed of all its colors in the wintry day. It was as if a giant, unseen hand had taken all the smog from the industrialized area and smeared it over the landscape.

Quentin knew better. He had traveled through the Czech Republic in finer weather and remembered the blue skies, green fields and richly hued lakes.

They traveled in silence for a while. Neither one of them reached to turn on the radio. The heat from their earlier passion lingered, like half-seen coals in a banked fireplace. Images of what happened kept flashing in his mind’s eye. The way she had tricked him and pinned him against the metal door, her lean body pressed against his. The way he had slammed her into the ground and held her, hands around her throat.

His hand on her breast. Her thighs clamped on his. Her body undulating underneath him.

It disturbed him, but not because they were so violent.

Because he wanted to do it again.

He felt like something dark at his core, something that he had kept leashed all his life, had broken loose and was running renegade. He, who took control whenever he could, didn’t feel in control of himself at all. He shifted restlessly in his seat. When he glanced at her Aryal was frowning, lost deep in thought.

She broke the silence first. “Dragos had said that to the best of his knowledge, Numenlaur had only one crossover passageway, the one that led here to Earth that was barred so long ago. But the Numenlaurian army was in the Lirithriel Elves’ Other land when we confronted them, so is there really only one crossover passageway from Numenlaur or does it connect to that Other land as well?”

When the Earth had been formed, time and space had buckled, creating Other lands that were connected to Earth and sometimes to each other by dimensional crossover passageways. They were magic-rich places where combustible technologies didn’t work, and where time ran differently than it did on what Quentin liked to think of as the mainland.

Sometimes the Other lands were immense, as was the Dark Fae land of Adriyel, and they had several crossover passageways to other places. Sometimes the Other lands were mere pockets of space that led nowhere.

Quentin’s eyes still felt dry from the sleepless night and the long flight. He rubbed them as he said, “Dragos is right. Numenlaur does only have one passageway.”

She sent him a frowning glance. “You know this for sure, how?”

“I talked to Ferion when I went to get supplies,” he told her. As she turned her head to look at him fully, he added irritably, “Don’t get pissy about it, and keep your eyes on the road. I wasn’t selling state secrets. Dragos never said anything about keeping our assignment under wraps.”

She looked like he had stuffed a slice of lemon in her mouth, but after a moment she grumbled, “Fair enough. I wasn’t aware that you had a personal connection to the new High Lord.”

“It’s not a close connection,” he said. “We’re family by marriage.”

“It’s close enough that you were able to get him on the phone,” she pointed out.

He pressed his thumb and forefinger against his closed eyelids until he saw red stars. “When I was younger, we spent some time together, took vacations and went hunting, that sort of thing. Now that he’s become the High Lord, I think getting him on the phone is going to become harder and harder to do over time.”

She mulled that over. “I’ve heard that Ferion was the late High Lord Calondir’s son, but is he Beluviel’s son too? It takes two to make a baby, and the woman has the more significant role in the process by far, but at some point Beluviel always disappears from the conversation.”

“Ferion is not Beluviel’s son,” he said. “He was born a long time ago. I don’t know the whole story, other than Beluviel and Calondir hadn’t always gotten along. They had been living separate lives when Ferion was born. Later, they came back together when the Elven demesne was formed in what became the United States, and they stayed a strong partnership ever since, at least in a public and political sense. I can’t speak to the reality in their private lives.”

Aryal pursed her lips. “Since Beluviel was Calondir’s consort, why didn’t she become the High Lady, or whatever she would have been called?”

He shrugged. “Like I said, I’m not on the inside of that family circle, but from what I’ve heard, Beluviel didn’t want to become Lady of the Lirithriel Elves.”

“Pity,” she said. “I don’t have anything against Ferion, but I’ve always liked Beluviel.” She glanced at him. “So what did he say when you talked to him?”