Lord's Fall (Elder Races #5)(83)

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Almost. There is one more thing to do.”

Almost? What did that mean? What else needed to be done? And please God, could it wait until morning?

Before she could ask him, the questions melted into darkness and she plummeted deep into sleep.

• • •

Dragos made contact with Grym to let the sentinel know that he and Pia had returned. Telling the sentinel about what had happened in the Elven demesne could wait until later. It was too big of a story to share in a quick telepathic exchange.

As soon as Dragos was certain that Pia had fallen deeply asleep, he slid out of bed, dressed again in his dirty clothes and strode up a flight of stairs to the Tower’s rooftop. The winter night was bitter cold, and lit with a massive spray of colored lights. He could sense Soren’s presence lingering, but he ignored the Djinn for now.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the God Machine.

No longer a string of plain wooden prayer beads, the Machine looked like a perfect cut diamond, the largest and most sumptuous diamond Dragos had ever seen. It shone like a beacon in the darkness, the only true light in a world filled with uncertainty and shadows. Power burned in his hand, an eternal black lotus.

A perfect jewel, and Power.

They were his two most favorite things in the world, aside from Pia and the baby.

“No, you don’t,” he said to Taliesin’s seductive Machine. “You cannot influence me that way.”

He changed into the dragon, launched and flew out over the water. Past the New York harbor to open sea, and still further, flying strongly while the wind burned in his lungs and the stars overhead in the velvet night sky outshone everything on Earth.

Finally he reached a point where he was surrounded with nothing but dark ocean, sky and wind. The Djinn had wisely stayed back in New York, and he sensed no creature below the ocean’s surface.

He threw the Machine as far as he could. The bright diamond/black lotus flashed in the night as it arced through the sky. It worked its magic on him even as he let it go and watched it fall. When it disappeared into the water, he yearned to dive after it.

But another lodestone drew him, the memory of Pia, soft and warm and sleeping in his bed, and his yearning for her was even stronger than the lure of the Machine. He didn’t hesitate as he wheeled in the sky and flew back to the city, back home.

He landed on the roof and changed, more tired than he had been in a long time, and that was when the Djinn Soren chose to reappear, materializing in front of him in the figure of that tall, white-haired man with a craggy face, and shining, starred eyes.

“Do not ask me for that favor right now,” he growled at the Djinn.

“Are you sure?” asked Soren, with a bladelike smile. “It is a small favor, after all, quickly asked and granted, and then you will be debt free once more.”

Dragos gritted his teeth at the bait the Djinn so adroitly dangled in front of him. He snapped, “Ask.”

“Last year, my son Khalil told me the details of the Oracle’s prophecy,” Soren said. “He and I agreed that it posed some interesting questions.”

Dragos’s expression shuttered. He turned away from the Djinn’s intensely curious gaze and stood with his hands on his hips, watching the New York skyline. “Careful, Soren. You get just one answer.”

The Djinn walked over to stand by his side. “The prophecy talked about you along with the other primal Powers, not just as a beast but as Beast.” Soren asked softly, “Why did you never cast a God Machine into the world?”

Dragos remained silent for a long time as he looked out over his city. New York was such a magnificent teeming brawl. As solitary as he was by nature, he still loved living right here, squarely immersed in the middle of all this rich, messy life.

He said, “I never felt the need.”

EIGHTEEN

The next morning, the Sentinel Games resumed.

Pia was incredulous when she heard the news. Her head was under her pillow—her own pillow in her very own bed, rapture, joy, joy—and Dragos had just lifted up a corner of it to whisper good-bye to her. She grunted and lifted her head to peer at him, her rapture rudely interrupted.

He was showered, shaved and dressed in black jeans and a black T-shirt, and he looked so tired. He never looked tired. Their bedside clock read 6:42 A.M. She hooked her fingers into a belt loop of his jeans.

“Really?” she whined. “Nooo. I mean, really? Why?”

“Because when shit happens, it doesn’t take a day off,” he said. He sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed her back. “The relentless pace of the Games is as much a part of the weeding process as anything else. If someone doesn’t like that, it’s better that they back out now before they run into real trouble as a sentinel, trouble that won’t slow down or go easy on them just because they’re having a bad day.”

Heh, yeah, she got that, but she didn’t have to like it. “They didn’t almost die,” she whispered. “You did.”

He bent his head and played with her fingers. She looked at the short black curl of his eyelashes against his cheeks, loving him so much that it twisted her into a pretzel. He said quietly, “That’s all the more reason for me to be present.”

She took in a quick breath, and suddenly she was wide-awake.

Because the problem is that people do talk.