Serpent's Kiss (Elder Races #3)(77)

Rune angled his jaw out and rubbed his eyes. Yeah, that went well.

Carling flipped down the toilet seat lid and sat down. She leaned over to put her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands. She didn’t try to think. She didn’t want to think. There was too much to think about, too much to feel, and the cacophony in her head was making her demented. She just wanted a little damn privacy.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Slow and even.

Breathing for her might be good for nothing else, but it was a good meditation exercise. It could help one achieve a Zenlike calm. Which Carling needed very much, instead of rampaging around her head and seething about what a jackass somebody was, and what the hell was the matter with Rhoswen, anyway? You would think she was a consumptive eighteen-year-old diva again, treading the boards again in that deplorable, shabby Shakespearean acting company during the California Gold Rush, instead of being a hundred-seventyyear-old woman....

How had she gone so wrong with Rhoswen? What had she done, or not done? What could she have done differently? Had she become so reliant on sensing emotions from living creatures that she never bothered to try to see what lay behind Rhoswen’s smooth facade? She dug the heels of her hands into her eyes.

Stop. Breathe in.

Rhoswen was not a problem Carling had to fix right now. Later—if Carling had a later—she would decide if something needed to be done about the younger Vampyre. Indulging in pettiness and vengeful behavior because her feelings were hurt did not necessarily mean Rhoswen had gone off some kind of deep end. But if it came to it and Rhoswen had, as Rhoswen’s maker, it was Carling’s responsibility to put her down.

And by the way, here was the great big pile of hair Carling had left on the bathroom floor. She nudged the silken pile with a bare toe. Normally she would never walk away for so long from such an abundance of personal matter available that anyone might steal and use to cast a spell on her. Her usual meticulous care was slipping, and that was yet one more vulnerability. She could ill afford acquiring any more of those....

Breathe out, damn it.

“Oh, f**k Zen,” she muttered. “I’ll get enlightened when I die.”

She shoved off the toilet, wrapped the huge pile of hair into a towel, unlocked the bathroom door and strode out.

In the meantime, Rufio personally hand delivered two large Gucci suitcases to the suite. Rune took the luggage from the other man without inviting him in. He kicked the door shut, put the suitcases in the bedroom Carling had chosen and moved on to his next task. While Carling took some alone time, he sat on the couch, dug out his iPod and set it on the coffee table nearby for easy access. Then he turned on his iPhone to go through his messages.

Email? Uh-uh. He didn’t even try to go there. He was just checking his voicemail messages. There were sixty-three. Fifty-four of those messages were from females. He hit delete without listening to those. Eight of the messages were from the other sentinels. They went like this:

Bayne: “So, how’s it going out there working on Team Whack-Job? She got you doing crazy shit yet?”

Crazy shit. Rune snorted. The likes of which you could never have seen coming.

Graydon: “Where are those files you wanted me to look at? I can never figure out the new system on the shared drive, and you promised you’d show me. Call me back when you can.”

No, son. You can figure it out on your own. I have faith in you.

Constantine: “Dude, it’s Friday night, and all the chicks are starting to pile up flowers and teddy bears and candles and shit in front of your door. They’re talking all hushed and tragic, like you might have died, or something. So I’m gonna take a few of them out, you know, just to console them. That set of twins. Thought you’d like to know.”

Rune knew the twins Con was talking about. Take ’em, horn dog.

Graydon: “Just calling back to tell you never mind. I gave up and went to IT, and they showed me how to get the files. Hope you’re having a good weekend.”

And there it is. You figured it out. I knew you could.

Aryal: “You suck.”

Apparently Aryal had just discovered the pile of work he had left on her desk. His grin turned evil. Yeah, I know I do.

Grym: “FYI, I closed the investigation on the incident in Prague. It was an accident, pure and simple, not industrial sabotage. No need to call me back. Just thought you’d like to know.”

Good job, buddy.

Aryal: “You SUCK ASS.”

Rune’s grin turned into a chuckle.

Bayne: “Duuuuuude. You’re listening to these messages and avoiding us, aren’t you? Because with Tiago quitting and now you out of commission, you gotta know how much this hurts.”

Quit your bitching. You’ll live.

The final voicemail message was from Dragos. It was, as Dragos’s messages tended to be, simple and to the point, and devoid of any pleasantries. The dragon growled, “Call me as soon as you can.”

Rune’s smile died away and he sighed. Dragos rarely bothered to pick up the phone, let alone leave a message. It almost never meant anything good. He checked the time stamp on the message, which read Saturday 11:03 A.M. Whatever the issue was, it’d had the chance to ferment for a few days already. At least Dragos hadn’t left a second message, so Rune could hope they hadn’t yet reached Defcon One.

He shook his head and pinched his nose. He just realized he hadn’t heard the news in three days. He located the TV remote and turned the channel with the mute on to CNN. No scenes of a cataclysm sprang immediately to view.