Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(50)

The outlandish rambling faerie-to-harpy heart-to-hearts she had shared with Aryal over the years.

The times when the gryphons had teased and flirted with her as they patiently put up with “babysitting duty,” when they had been pulled from their regular responsibilities to act as her bodyguard.

The gargoyle Grym’s quiet, undemanding companionship as he provided guard duty on her walks through neighborhoods during the holiday season, and the Christmas presents of handcarved wooden puzzles he had created just for her.

Dragos’s loyal support of her sometimes controversial choices on how to handle knotty PR issues, and his smiles of fierce satisfaction when she was proven right.

Tiago’s protectiveness, the gentleness with which he handled her, the way he had removed the stitches from her side and then pressed his lips to the scar.

She pushed upright as a rock-solid certainty settled back into its rightful place. The people who had attacked her and Tiago might have been Wyr, but Dragos and his sentinels had nothing to do with it. Of course they hadn’t.

Oh, Tiago.

She started to look around for her cell phone before she remembered it was still in her evening bag in the suite two floors down. Using the phone by the bed, she asked the hotel switchboard to dial the suite. She listened to it ring. Disappointment bowed her shoulders as no one picked up. When the voicemail system clicked on, she said, “Tiago, it’s me. I’m sorry I sent you away like that. It—the whole thing—just came as such a shock, that’s all. Please call me back if you get this, okay?”

She hung up slowly. He might have already gone back to the suite to collect his things and leave. It certainly wouldn’t have taken him long to get his things. He traveled light. She picked up the phone again and dialed the front desk. When a pleasantvoiced woman answered, she said, “Hello, this is Niniane Lorelle.”

“Your highness! Good afternoon, what can I do for you?”

“I’m trying to get a hold of sentinel Black Eagle and he isn’t picking up in the downstairs suite,” she said. “Have you, by any chance, seen him recently?”

“Yes, he left about fifteen minutes ago,” said the woman.

This time the disappointment was crushing. She covered her eyes. “I see.”

“Would you like to leave him a message?”

Would he even come back to the hotel or was he already on his way back to New York? “Yes,” she said, her voice leaden. “If you see him, please tell him I need to speak with him. It’s very important.”

After the woman promised to do so, Niniane hung up. And why wouldn’t he return to New York? He had seen her to safety, just as he had promised. After everything he had done for her, she had pretty much kicked him in the teeth.

She couldn’t think and didn’t want to feel, so she curled up on the bed again and closed her eyes instead. She must have slept because the next thing she heard was a soft knock. Rhoswen’s pure voice asked if Niniane would like a supper tray brought to her.

“No,” she said.

She closed her eyes again. She heard quiet, grotesque footsteps echoing in the shadowed, silent palace halls. She stumbled in the pools of blood from her brothers’ small bodies. Blood had a raw-meaty smell and a consistency that was impossible to mistake, a slippery stickiness that coated her hands and knees as she fell. She scrambled to her feet and ran from a chill Power that hunted for her. It tightened the air like an invisible boa constrictor as she hid in the dark and smothered in her own panic.

The bedroom was fully dark when she next awakened. Disoriented, she fumbled to turn on a light and dig for her wristwatch. She hadn’t worn her watch to dinner because it hadn’t gone with her pretty red halter dress.

9:30 P.M. Gah. Sleeping through the day was a stupid thing to do. Now she would be up all night. She sat up and stared at the floor, feeling thick and slow, like molasses moved in her veins or she was only half alive because a vital artery had been cut and she had been bleeding out while she slept.

She looked at the silent bedside phone, and her eyes filled with tears.

Oh no. No, she didn’t. She swore under her breath and pushed off the bed, grabbed a bottle of water from the small fridge and left the bedroom. There had to be something in that damn library that she could lose herself in. If she could not find a book, then she could by god find something to drink. Or maybe both.

When she opened the door, two Vampyres stood in the shadowed hall, the male that Tiago had thrown into the stairwell and Rhoswen. With her sensitive Fae hearing, she could hear people moving quietly about in other rooms in the penthouse. It sounded for the most part like people were spending the evening in their rooms. She imagined a quiet night was a welcome respite to everyone after the drama of the last couple of days.

“Do you require anything?” Rhoswen asked. “Perhaps some sustenance?”

Niniane shook her head. “I’m going to the library.”

The blonde Vampyre inclined her head. Niniane walked to the library, which was dimly lit by a small table lamp and the jeweled glow of moonlight shining through the stained-glass window.

At first she thought she was alone in the room. Then she saw the still, silent figure in the armchair. She paused and almost left again, because she wasn’t sure she could handle more of Carling that day. But something about that entirely still figure drew her forward.

Carling still wore the Egyptian-cotton caftan from earlier. She had removed the stilettos from her hair. The slender knives lay on the side table by the armchair.