Pia Does Hollywood (Elder Races, #8.6)(20)

When the dragon took to flight, he could eat away miles like chomping through popcorn, but it had been over half an hour since he had last texted her. Shouldn’t he have arrived by now?

She resisted fiddling with her phone. It hadn’t pinged with a new message, and obsessing over a phone while in someone else’s company was rude. Older members of the Elder Races, for whom new technology was intrusive anyway, were especially offended by such things.

While she wasn’t sure how old Tatiana was, she knew the other woman had to be quite old. The Sebille had been an exploratory voyage sent out by Tatiana to find new lands for her people to settle in, and that ship had wrecked off the coast of Bermuda in the fifteenth century.

When Pia saw that Eva’s plate was clear, she murmured to her, “Please go update Quentin and Aryal, and let them know Dragos will be here any minute.”

“Sure thing. I’ll be right back.” Eva stood, gave Tatiana a slight bow and left.

One moment trickled after the other, excruciatingly slow. Tatiana sipped coffee and remarked how well the daffodils bordering the verandah were doing, while Pia wanted to do nothing more than jump to her feet and pace. Bailey, clearly not immune to the slow-building tension either, rubbed her face with both hands.

Eva returned, and this time, she took a position behind Pia’s chair, while she said telepathically, They’re coming down ASAP.

Good, Pia said.

New footsteps sounded at the doorway, and a tense-looking Light Fae guard appeared. “Ma’am,” he said to Tatiana, while he flicked a nervous gaze to Pia. “Lord Cuelebre has arrived and is outside.”

“Don’t make him wait,” Tatiana said impatiently. “For the gods’ sake, let him in.”

The guard grew more nervous. “My apologies, ma’am, but we can’t.”

“What do you mean?” the Light Fae Queen snapped.

As Pia pushed to her feet, she reached out telepathically, Dragos? What’s going on?

There was no response.

No response, yet Dragos was here.

The wrongness of that pounded in her head. Abruptly, she abandoned civility. Quickly she strode into the house, leaving the others to exclaim and scramble after her.

As she moved toward the front of the house, she picked up her pace until she was running. The double front doors stood open, framing a sunlit lawn. Two guards stood in the doorway, facing outward.

There was just enough space between the two guards. As Pia wriggled between them, she realized they both had their weapons drawn.

Had the world gone crazy?

She almost made it through to outside. Exclaiming, both of the guards grabbed for her, and one of them managed to catch hold of her by the arm.

“Are you insane?” she hissed furiously. “Put up your weapons. We’re invited guests!”

“Lady, you don’t understand,” the guard said. “You can’t go out there.”

“Like hell I can’t,” she said between her teeth.

She caught what happened next in snatches.

Dragos stood on the lawn, his clothing torn and bloody. He had his hands on his hips, his hard expression grim. One of his forearms had cloth tied around it.

Then Pia was knocked sidelong, as Eva tackled the guard who held on to her arm. Stumbling, she fell to the ground, scraping her elbows on the concrete pavement while Eva and the guard grappled with each other.

Bailey ordered, “Stand down! Everybody stand down!”

Then Quentin and Aryal shot onto the scene like dark, deadly arrows. Pia didn’t catch what happened next, but as she rolled to her feet, suddenly weapons were drawn everywhere, Light Fae guards and Wyr pointing guns at each other.

Dragos roared, “Wyr—lower your goddamn weapons NOW!”

Immediately, Quentin and Aryal stepped back, guns lowered. As Quentin edged around the group to approach Pia, Eva jerked out of the grasp of the Light Fae guard she was grappling with and threw a roundhouse punch at him that made him stagger.

“Don’t you ever put your hands on her again, *,” Eva snarled at the guard. Then she skipped back a couple of steps, hands raised.

Quentin threaded between people to reach Pia, his blue eyes hard. He asked telepathically, You okay?

Yes. She turned and started toward Dragos again.

This time Bailey lunged forward to grab her by the arms.

“What the hell?” Pia snapped. “Will you people stop grabbing me?!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Bailey said. “Pia, you can’t.”

Quentin rounded on Bailey and slammed a flattened hand against her chest, physically knocking her back from Pia, while Eva growled, and the whole fiasco might have escalated again, except that this time, Dragos said sharply, “Stop. Everybody stop. Pia, do what they say and stay back.”

Exasperated now, and still badly unsettled, she wheeled around to stare at him. “I don’t understand. Why can’t I come close? How the hell did you get hurt?”

“I got curious and started poking around.” When he met her gaze, she saw that his gold eyes had darkened. Compared to their normal brilliance, they looked almost dull.

Immaculate and as coolly poised as if she were still drinking coffee on the verandah, Tatiana stepped around the clump of angry, unsettled people on her doorstep.

The Light Fae Queen and the Lord of the Wyr regarded each other for a moment.