Storm's Heart (Elder Races #2)(54)

Ah, there it was. He pulled out an iPhone, dropped it to the pavement and ground it under one booted heel, which prompted more teakettle whistling. He picked up Clarence and reacquainted him with the wall.

“Now I’d have to stop doing this if some witness chose to call 911,” Tiago said. “What do you think, Clarence? You see any dots that connect from, oh, say the attack you watched and filmed the other night without doing any goddamn thing about it to your current state of discomfort?”

The teakettle whistle dissolved into a soggy snivel. Tiago reached down to pick the guy up again.

A strong, lean tanned hand came down to grip one of his wrists.

Rune said in his ear, “You got the chance to discipline him, T-bird. That’s enough.”

Tiago turned toward the gryphon. Rune had lion’s eyes the color of sun shining through amber. Whatever Rune saw in Tiago’s expression made those golden eyes turn careful. “Hey, buddy, it’s time for a debriefing,” Rune said. “You need to catch me up on what’s happened since we last talked.”

“I f**ked up,” Tiago said. “It was a stupid f**king mistake and it hurt her. Bad. I don’t know how bad.”

Rune gripped him by the shoulder hard, his keen gaze steady. “All right. Whatever it is, we’ll fix it.”

“I had to walk away,” Tiago said. His voice had turned guttural, harsh. “Give her a little space. I don’t know how much space to give her. Couple hours? The rest of the night? I was just”—he looked down at Clarence, who had crumbled in a heap at his feet—“I was killing something. Killing time I guess.”

Rune looked down at the guy too. Clarence had stuffed his bleeding nose into the sleeve of his jacket. Rune said to him, “You know what a lucky little pissant you are that I came along when I did?”

“Yeah, I thick so,” said the kid. He swiped at his streaming eyes.

“Wyr don’t forgive easily,” Rune said. “And we never forget. You need to become a model citizen now.”

“Cross by heart,” Clarence said into his sleeve. “I bean it. I thick I saw Jesus in the wall just now. I’b gonna start going to church with by bob again. Baybe I’ll join the arby.”

No matter how sumptuous and inviting her penthouse bedroom was, Niniane had no desire to go back to it after her conversation with Carling. She wandered with aimless restlessness throughout the penthouse’s common areas.

She paused by the grand piano and opened the lid to finger the cool, smooth keys. It was a Steinway, the black surface polished to a high shine, and she suspected it was in perfect tune. She loved music, loved to sing and adored dancing, but her piano playing skills were desultory at best. Besides, the time had to be well past ten o’clock by now. That wasn’t terribly late and the Vampyres would be wide awake, of course, but some of their human companions and the Dark Fae might be readying for bed. She eased the lid back down with a sigh.

She looked up at the Vampyre who had become her soundless shadow. It was the stairwell Vampyre again. He was beautiful as Vampyres tended to be, with cool dark looks and a slim frame that hid what she knew would be a tensile inhuman strength. Rhoswen had disappeared, perhaps to attend to her mistress.

She couldn’t keep thinking of him as the Stairwell Vampyre any more than she should keep thinking of Carling as the Stepford Vampyre. She asked, “What’s your name?”

“Duncan,” he said.

“It’s nice to meet you, Duncan.”

“Thank you, highness.” He watched her with an attentive dark gaze and a calm neutral expression. “It is a pleasure to meet you as well.”

“When you came back out of the stairwell this afternoon, I was glad that the first thing you did was look toward Carling and that you didn’t go after Tiago again,” she said. “But I’m curious. What made you do that?”

Duncan said, “We could all feel when she stopped us. At least the Vampyres could. I’m not sure about our humans. Their senses are so much less than ours. When she released us and I returned to the hall, it was important to find out what had changed, preferably as quickly as possible.”

Niniane’s eyebrows rose. No wonder Rhoswen had no sympathy for Cowan. He’d gotten two warnings to stop before he lost his head.

Duncan spoke with a slight pleasant accent. Normally she loved to talk to people and to find out about their lives—or spooky undead existence, as it were—and the impulse to ask him more questions drifted through the back of her mind. The impulse faded almost at once. She wasn’t able to muster up a social mood.

She asked, “So what’s a girl got to do to get a drink around here?”

“She has merely to state what she would like,” said Duncan. He smiled at her. “It would be my pleasure to get her whatever she desires.”

He had an attractive smile and a pleasing manner. Niniane knew better than to believe those were the only qualities that won him a place in Carling’s entourage. “I’d like a bottle of red wine, please,” she asked.

“Anything in particular? Merlot, Beaujolais, Syrah?”

She said, “Alcoholic will do just fine.”

She went onto the slate-tiled patio where potted trees and plants were arranged attractively around a couple of wrought iron tables and chairs. She sat and looked out at the city lights while a warm breeze played with her hair. A few minutes later Duncan brought a tray out. He placed a glass of wine in front of her. He murmured, “I thought perhaps a Malbec.”