Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(2)

Yeah, staying far away from that project had been a good thing. He had been quite content to travel across the world to hunt down, depose and kill a dusty little sorcerer in South Africa who had acquired his own army and a penchant for the Power he could gain through human and Wyr sacrificial rites. When Tiago returned to New York—and he had been sure to take his own sweet time in doing so—Cuelebre Tower had erupted onto the landscape and forever changed the skyline of the city.

The outer surface of the Tower was sleek and gleaming, reflecting the changeable sky, while the interior had been decorated with an extravagance of gold-veined Turkish marble flooring, gleaming frosted glass lights and polished brass fixtures, along with strategically displayed, priceless works of art and sculpture. The entire skyscraper was a proclamation of the Wyr Lord Dragos Cuelebre’s wealth and power.

The achievement had more than architectural or economic significance. It made more than a political statement to the other Elder Races. The year of the Tower’s construction went down in recent Wyr folklore as a miracle of collective cooperation, personal dominance and merciless rule. Just as Dragos had dragged the recalcitrant, volatile Wyrkind under his reign so many centuries before, he bludgeoned them into modernity and forced them into compliance.

Although some of the Wyr bloodied each other during the highest-stress points of the Tower’s construction and the subsequent move of corporate and administrative offices, nobody actually dared to commit murder. They had been in the final stages of settling in when an amused Tiago had taken a tour of the skyscraper. All Wyr had been sent to their respective corners to settle ruffled fur or feathers, lick literal and metaphorical wounds, furnish their offices and unpack files. Now, without exception, anyone who had been involved in the creation of the Tower spoke of that time with pride and without the slightest comprehension of irony.

Tiago reached the conference room. It was a large executive boardroom with all the perks: black leather seats, a large polished oak table, state-of-the-art teleconferencing equipment and mysterious black metal contraptions that Tiago had been told were designer cappuccino and espresso machines. He couldn’t remember the instructions for how to operate them. As soon as he had realized they weren’t some kind of newfangled weapon the sentinels would be trained to use, he had lost interest in the conversation.

Dragos and all the other Wyr sentinels were already in the boardroom. Tiago almost twitched when he saw that Dragos’s new mate, Pia, was also present. She had come out of nowhere and now all of a sudden she played a major role in Dragos’s decision making.

When Wyr mated, they did so for life. It was a rare occurrence, especially in their exceptionally long lives, and it was an irrevocable one, so the change was here to stay. Dragos’s mating had sent shock waves through the Wyr demesne, and no doubt through all the other demesnes as well. It wasn’t a change Tiago liked, but he, along with the rest of the world, had to suck it up and start getting used to it. Dragos, a massive dark man with gold dragon’s eyes, paced at one end of the room.

“About time,” the Wyr Lord snapped.

Tiago stalked to his customary corner where he held up the wall during their sentinel meetings. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Tiago’s sharp hearing caught Dragos’s mate, Pia, as she whispered to the gryphon Graydon at her side, “Are you sure he’s housebroken?”

Tiago chose to ignore her. Instead he took his first good look around at those in the room. All the usual suspects were present, minus one. The four gryphons, Bayne, Constantine, Graydon and Dragos’s First sentinel, Rune, were all tawny, suntanned and muscled. They kept the peace in the Wyr demesne. The harpy Aryal, who was in charge of investigations, sat with her arms and legs folded, jiggling a foot. That chick didn’t do well with the concept of sitting still. Cuelebre Enterprises’ head of security, the gargoyle Grym, sat by Aryal as usual, half of his attention on the harpy. More often than not, when Aryal’s impetuous temper got her into trouble, Grym was there to haul her ass out of it.

Tiago scowled as he acknowledged the one person who had not joined them, and who would never join them again. Tricks, the faerie who used to head the PR department for Cuelebre Enterprises, had been an integral part of their group for a long time. Odd, how the absence of one cute little faerie could cause such a big hole in the room.

Then there was yours truly. While his Wyr form was known to the American Indian nations as the gigantic thunderbird, most just saw his human form, a six-foot-four, two-hundredfifty pound male with barbed wire tattoos circling thick muscled biceps and swirls shaven into his short black hair. His face looked like it had been hewn with a hatchet, and he didn’t often remember to smile. When he did, he seemed to cause alarm more often than not.

Here was the central dynamic of his life: while he went about the business of war, the usual tenor of his days was surprisingly peaceful. The reason why was simple. People tended not to argue with him.

Several hundred years ago he had become head of Dragos’s private army, most of which was currently traveling back from a canceled engagement in South America. He should be traveling with his troops and preparing for their next assignment instead of sitting in New York with his thumb up his ass. Fuck.

The upset in the room finally registered. Tiago’s eyes narrowed. Everybody had some kind of unhappy vibe going on. He said, “What’s up?”

Dragos spun at the end of the room and paced another lap. “Tricks is missing. She’s not answering her cell either.”