Storm's Heart

FIFTEEN

Later that evening, Niniane climbed the staircase behind Naida, her movements slow with exhaustion. She had toured the gardens and the rest of the main areas of the house. She had made a cursory inspection of the accounts that maintained the property. Everything appeared to be in order. She and Aubrey had had a preliminary discussion of Dark Fae finances, which were not as robust as she would have liked, but after her talk with Carling she wasn’t surprised.

He also gave her an overview on the status of her inheritance of Urien’s personal fortune. The sum Urien had managed to amass was staggering. She reminded herself that her family’s fortune would have been subsumed into his. She also met separately with Kellen and Arethusa to inform them that Tiago would be coming to Adriyel as her chief of security. Kellen had been outraged, Arethusa noncommittal.

Dinner had been rife with undercurrents and tensions. Carling had come to join the party at the table. The Vampyre had sipped red wine, listened to the conversation and said little. The meal itself had been exquisite, or at least the three bites Niniane managed to choke down had been. She made sure to step into the kitchens to praise the chef and her staff personally. The kitchen staff had been transported with surprise and delight.

Now Tiago climbed the staircase beside her, his powerful body moving with relaxed fluidity, his hands clasped behind his back and his expression impassive as it had been for most of the day. He looked like the aloof Wyr sentinel she had met in Cuelebre Tower. After consuming the huge plate of pastries, he had proceeded to eat a mountainous dinner. He appeared to be impervious to glares, dislike, snubs and innuendoes. She had felt quite an irrational desire to smack him several times over the head with her napkin.

Naida said over her shoulder, “Earlier your bags had been taken to the master suite, but Aubrey and I wondered if you might enjoy a more feminine touch in your rooms. There’s a suite that has a lovely view of the back gardens. I hope you don’t mind that I took the liberty of requesting that your things be moved back there?”

She sighed. She was too tired to tell if there were undercurrents in Naida’s voice. No doubt Aubrey had thought to make the change after her reaction to Urien’s study. She was just relieved she didn’t have to step into Urien’s bedroom. She’d had it up to her eyeballs with confronting all things Urien, his handwriting, his decor decisions, his approach to foreign policy and his outrageous expense accounts. Apparently he’d had a fondness for Elven wine and Vieux Cognac aged from the French Revolution, which everyone at dinner had been all too pleased to sample. It was probably the only thing they had agreed upon. If she had to look at his bed right now she might gak up all three bites of her dinner on what was no doubt a tasteful and very expensive carpet.

So she chose to be grateful and stuck to a simple reply. “That’s great, thanks.”

Naida looked back to smile at her. “Everyone has been clamoring for your attention today. I cannot imagine how tired you are.”

“I’m pretty tired,” Niniane admitted.

They walked down a second-floor hall. The hardwood floor was carpeted with a woolen wine-colored hallway runner and furnished with heavy dark antique tables and cabinets. Urien apparently had liked the English manor look to go with the Georgian-style architecture. Toward the end of the hall Naida opened a door then stood back to let Tiago enter first. He did so, turned and indicated that Niniane could step inside. She walked into a large bedroom that was a blur of green and cream. A delicate floral pattern flecked with pink decorated the bedspread and pillow shams.

She turned to Naida, who was studying Tiago with an inscrutable expression. Naida said to Tiago, “Your bag has been put in the room next door.”

Tiago nodded, and remained silent. He stood relaxed, his hands on his hips, clearly not intending to go anywhere. His massive black-clad physique and visible weaponry were a barbaric contrast to the room’s light feminine decor.

Naida’s sleek eyebrows rose a delicate fraction of an inch. She said to Niniane, “If no one has yet shown you, all the rooms are connected with an intercom system. You can request anything you want or need by contacting household staff through the unit on the bedside table. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

Niniane said, “No, thank you.”

“I’ll say goodnight then. Rest well.” The Dark Fae woman stepped out, closing the door behind her.

Tiago said, “I think she likes me.”

She burst out laughing and clapped her hands over her mouth.

He gave her that sexy, subtle not-quite smile of his. “Don’t you? I’m pretty sure she’s crushing on me right now.”

Shh, remember how sensitive Dark Fae hearing is. She can still hear you! she said telepathically as she tried to stifle her giggles.

“I’m not at all concerned about that,” Tiago said.

Her body couldn’t stay upright any longer. She kicked off her shoes, staggered forward and pitched onto the bed facefirst. She was so exhausted her muscles ached all over and she trembled on the edge of something, she didn’t know what, as all the reactions that she had suppressed from the day threatened to come crashing down on her head at once.

She fisted her hands into the bedspread. She’d had that flash of conviction in Urien’s study that Rune had been right, she and Tiago were making a monumental mistake, and it had been so strong and felt so real, it had frightened her so that she had stuffed it down and refused to look at it for the rest of the day. Now that the outside stresses had eased up, the memory of that conviction came roaring back.

She heard Tiago moving about the bedroom. He opened and closed the closet and bathroom doors. Then the bed dipped as he knelt beside her. His large hands ghosted over her. He found the back zipper in her dress and unzipped it. Cool air kissed her skin.

“I know I’m a high-maintenance girlfriend,” she said into the bedspread.

“Fuck, yeah,” he agreed. “The highest. You need a whole staff of full-time employees.” He paused. “I just realized I’m not kidding.”

“I panicked earlier in the study.” He nudged her. She rolled to one side and he eased her arm out of the dress. Then she rolled to the other side, and he eased out that arm too.

“I got that.” He tapped her at the base of her spine. “Lift up your hips.”

She lifted and he pulled the dress down so that it slid off her legs. At least he didn’t rip this one to shreds. Maybe he only ripped up dresses that had sequins on them. They knew so little about each other, but that still hadn’t stopped them from plunging together. In retrospect the impetuousness of their actions made her shake. “I panicked about us,” she said.

Silence. He laid a hand on her back. It felt huge, warm and heavy. “Why?”

She lifted her shoulder.

“That is not an adequate response, faerie,” he growled. His Power lay in the room, a heavy brooding presence. “I require a series of words strung together that make coherent sentences.”

“I looked at you and something happened in my head,” she said. “All I could see was everything that you had left behind just to follow me throughout my day. I couldn’t see how you could thrive doing that, and then what Rune said came back to me. Tiago, are you sure about this?”

He was silent a moment. Then he said, “Stay put.”

“Okay.” She snuffled into the bedspread as he walked away.

Tiago strode into the bathroom and inspected it. It was a large, luxurious bathroom, color-coordinated to complement the bedroom and dotted with the silver gleam of polished fixtures. He noted with approval that there were a lot of expensivelooking bottles of froufrou set out on the counter surfaces. She would like that. He uncapped one bottle on the tub and sniffed the contents. It smelled pink. He started a hot bath running and squirted some of the pink-smelling stuff under the gush of water. It foamed into bubbles. He swished his hand through the bubbles and water. The temperature felt fine to him, but his hand was so calloused he would have to be careful with her delicate skin.

He walked back into the bedroom and regarded his doubtful faerie’s nearly nude backside as he stripped. That sweet little curvy body of hers embodied the definition of sexy with those two cute toothpick-sized knives strapped in sheaths to her slender thighs. The realization that those knives were poisoned and she knew how to use them made him hotter than hell. How could he ever think that big strapping women were his type? He promised himself a treat one day. He would watch her ride him while she wore those thigh sheaths and nothing else. He cocked his head. No wait. Maybe that pearl necklace too.

When he was nude, he unbuckled her thigh sheaths, unsnapped the back fastening of her bra and slipped her panties off. Then he scooped her up, took her into the bathroom and tipped her over the water. “Check that,” he said.

She wiggled her fingers in the frothy mounds of froufrousmelling stuff, dipped them into the water underneath and sighed. “It’s perfect.”

He deposited her in the tub and climbed in behind her so that she sat sandwiched between his legs. He leaned back in the tub with a grunt and pulled her to him. She moaned and collapsed against his chest. His engorged cock had been on urgent duty call from the moment he had slipped off her dress, and he had to shift a bit to find a comfortable spot. Then he wrapped his arms around her warm, wet naked body and contemplated the concept of perfection.

“We have agreed that you panicked in the study,” he said.

Her head moved in a small nod.

“Do we also agree that you panicked over several things and not just about me?”

Another nod.

“Shall we consider the possibility that this was stress induced?”

“Yes,” she muttered. “But Tiago—”

“No ‘buts,’” he ordered. “And don’t wriggle.” She huffed but subsided, and he bit back a smile. It was a rare moment when she didn’t have a comeback of some sort. She truly must be exhausted. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Perhaps we should then conclude that what you panicked over may not necessarily be of any real concern.”

“Tiago—”

“I’m hearing a ‘but’ attached to that,” he said in warning. “It is implied, but it is still there.” She growled in frustration even as she wrapped her arms around his to hug him back. “You must trust me to look out for myself. I had fun today.”

“You had fun?” She tilted back her head to look at him in surprise.

He swooped in fast to kiss her pillowy mouth. “I did. Furthermore, I learned a lot. I learned things about you, and I learned things about the people around you. You might recall, I also figured out exactly what I need to be doing and how.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that.”

He pulled her up higher so that she was lying on him, their legs entwined.

“You keep picking me up and carting me around,” she muttered. “You know, when I’m not injured or drunk on my ass, I do have two perfectly functional feet.”

“You are just so magnificently portable,” he told her. She snorted out a laugh, her body relaxing against his, her head tucked under his chin. “I like carting you around.” He loved how she felt in his arms. He asked, “So what is the moral of this story?”

She yawned. “Stop panicking?”

“Well, that too.” He rubbed her back. “The moral of the story is you must learn to trust me. Don’t try to do your job and worry about me too. It’s too much and, more important, it’s not necessary. You have an immense undertaking ahead of you. I need to be able to trust you too, that you’re taking your best to your job. We both need you to succeed.”

She kissed his neck. “We both need you to succeed too.”

“I think that works out well,” Tiago said. “Don’t you?”

“Yes. Okay.” The bubble bath was warm and lustrous, and Tiago’s body made the most comforting bed imaginable. She slit her eyes open. His dark muscled chest looked intensely masculine against the mounds of bubbles that surrounded them. She looked at the massive bulge of his bicep as she traced the barbed wire tattoo with a finger. “What did you learn?”

“About you?” His deep, lazy voice reverberated in her ear.

“No, silly, about other people.”

He shifted and kissed her forehead. He said telepathically, From his scent and mannerisms, the bug is most likely an addict of some sort. Unless he can convince me he’s ill and on some kind of medication that produces a chemical tinge to his scent, he has got to go. The guard captain has got to go too. My guess is he has a problem with females in authority, but it doesn’t really matter. I don’t like how he responds to you. I like most of the house staff. I don’t have an opinion one way or another about the grounds staff as long as they follow security protocol, and I don’t trust Naida as far as I could throw her.

You could actually manage to toss her quite a distance, she murmured.

He conceded the point. Okay, I trust her much less than as far as I could throw her. You get my point. I haven’t made up my mind about Aubrey. Sorry, but I haven’t. I think Arethusa is genuinely investigating the attacks, and she doesn’t seem to trust anybody else. That makes me cautious. And I think Kellen is likely to be trouble, politically if in no other way. And there’s one last thing.

What is it? Her mental voice was flat, tired.

He could imagine how difficult hearing all this was for her. These were her people, and some of them were people she remembered from a happy childhood. Her instincts must be warring inside as she wondered who she should trust. His arms tightened. He said in as gentle a voice as he could manage, Perhaps the attacks on you were engineered by someone other than the Dark Fae. But taking everything into consideration, including the timeline of events, I think it is most likely that the person behind the attacks is under this roof.

She was silent as she considered his words. What is your reasoning?

She didn’t just accept what he said, or react. Good girl.

I don’t have evidence, he said. And I could be wrong. But consider: who would have had the time to develop an alliance with Geril and entice him to commit a really bad fucking crime? Geril didn’t just attempt murder. He attempted a political assassination. There had to be a damn-strong motive there, and I’m not sure that money alone would have done it.

She stirred. What do you mean?

He explained about the conversation he and Rune had had with Arethusa in the morgue, and the payout Geril had received from the bogus Illinois company that was supposedly owned by Cuelebre Enterprises. Remember, I’m just making suppositions , he said. But given how Urien controlled traffic to and from Adriyel, it seems less likely that an outside agent from another demesne could have had the time to persuade Geril to act. And why would another demesne do that?

They wouldn’t, she whispered. They would have no reason to.

Exactly, he said. There’s no motive. Look at it as a risk/ benefit analysis. You’re already known to all the demesnes, and every last one of them is hoping to develop a good relationship with you. They may not like your connection to Dragos, but at worst they would watch and wait to see what kind of monarch you would make. Assassination could come at a later point if they feel you present an active danger to them. To try to assassinate you now wouldn’t benefit any of them strongly enough to offset the risk of inciting war with the Dark Fae or of incurring Dragos’s wrath.

She was still, huddled against him, and silent.

Again, I have no proof, he said gently. But what makes the most sense from what we know is that our perp was someone who crossed over from Adriyel to Chicago with Geril. Maybe it’s someone with an allegiance to Uriel’s old cronies; I am very interested in pursuing that line of investigation when we reach Adriyel. Our perp would have had time to work on him by promising a big enough reward. At the same time Geril would have perceived our perp as a big enough threat, so that killing you became more important than leaving you alive and trying to curry favor with you.

She shook off suds from her fingers to rub at her forehead, which had begun to ache. Geril was a weathervane on risk and benefit, she said thoughtfully. It seems the benefit of a romantic attachment with me would have outweighed the risk from his coconspirator.

He might even have entertained giving up his partner, Tiago said. Until it became clear you had no interest in him. At that point his original agreement with his partner became more imperative. And his partner had to be in Chicago, not back in Adriyel, because they had the means and opportunity to act quickly to set up the second attack. That’s the best fitting profile we have right now. Everything points to it being someone in the Dark Fae delegation—or at least in their party.

She had already known there was a strong likelihood that whoever had tried to have her killed was Dark Fae, but somehow it was so much worse to hear it all laid out in Tiago’s cool, relentless logic.

She said aloud, “You sure know how to ruin a totally excellent bubble bath.”

When the bathwater cooled, he picked her up and stepped out of the tub. Since he enjoyed carting her around so much, she decided to let him. He set her on her feet and handed her a towel. She scrubbed herself dry, her eyelids half shut. Then he swung her up into his arms again. She was asleep before he stepped out of the bathroom.

The next thing she knew she was warm all over, and her neck, cheek and ear were burning hot.

Irritable, she rubbed her neck and tried to burrow under her hard pillow, but she couldn’t figure out how to get underneath it. Her pillow moved up and down, and her eyes opened. She was lying on Tiago who lay sprawled on his back, his head turned to one side. All of the feather pillows had ended up on the floor. She lifted her head to peer down the bed. All of the blankets had ended up on the floor too. They were both nude, and the sheet was their only covering. The window curtains had not been completely closed, and a brilliant yellow band of morning sunlight slashed across the bed. The heat from the strip of sunlight was what had awakened her.

She tilted her head as she studied Tiago. She had never seen him asleep before. This was only the second time she had shared a bed with him. Apparently he did not understand the concept of bed sharing that well. He owned every inch of the bed and made the queen-sized mattress seem as small as a twin.

He radiated heat. She could feel it when she held her hand an inch away from his sun-burnished skin. His face was turned away from the morning sun. The arc from his head down the long column of his neck to the heavy flare of his collarbones was strong and graceful. He had a large scar that sliced across the right side of his torso. It started at the base of his right ribs and slashed all the way to his back. His broad shoulders and deep chest, with those defined intercostal muscles that rippled down his rib cage, indicated the kind of leviathan strength that could catapult his huge Wyr form through the air fast enough to bring down a helicopter gunship.

She touched the scar. One of the persistent legends about Tiago that circulated the Tower was from a time in the late 1960s when he had troops pinned down by enemy gunfire from a gunship. His fighters were dying, so he changed into his Wyr form and slammed sidelong into the helicopter. He drove the helicopter toward the side of a cliff, and managed to pull up just before it exploded against the cliff face. He had sustained serious injuries, as one of the helicopter blades had sliced into him, and he had been forced to take a six-month hiatus. Remembering how he had leaped forward to stop her SUV dead in its skid, she could believe the story.

As she studied him, the extent of his handsomeness was revealed, with those proud high cheekbones, dark slashing eyebrows, lean cheeks, a bold forehead, nose and chin and that mobile expressive mouth. When he was awake, intelligence and aggression carved him into a natural biological weapon. He was such a battering ram of a male, his personality was the kind of force that could roll over a country and bring down a government. No wonder the Dark Fae reacted so strongly to the possibility of him moving into their lands and home.

He’d had fun yesterday. Fun. She thought of him sprawled in the armchair in the downstairs study, calmly demolishing pastry after pastry while Aubrey looked at him in shock. Or what about that god-awful dinner? A variety of people looked daggers at him and tried several times to deliver a direct verbal cut, while he plowed through alarming amounts of beautifully prepared food with evident enjoyment for the cuisine and a monumental indifference for anybody else’s opinion. It wasn’t that he didn’t get that people had been trying to insult him. He just didn’t care.

She pinched her nose hard and bit her lip to keep from laughing and waking him up. He needed so much less sleep than she did, and to the best of her knowledge he had not had a chance to rest since he had arrived in Chicago. She wanted to enjoy this rare treat of watching him while he slept.

She had to learn to trust him, he’d said. He was right. Yesterday he had gleaned a surprising amount of information just by observing people, and he had a clear, strong vision of what he needed to do. His ruthlessness, his aptitude for tactics and strategy, and his incisive logic and investigative skills were all natural fits for the position he had reached out and taken for himself.

She took a deep breath and sighed. For the first time in what seemed like forever, the tight, restricting band around her chest was gone. She felt lighter, full of hope and optimism.

Tiago’s compilation of facts was persuasive. She believed as he did, that a killer lay in quiet wait in the house. But she now believed that the killer would be caught, and that she and Tiago had a fighting chance in this new life they had begun to carve out for themselves.

Belief, hope, optimism. Passion and laughter. A sense of safety. Look at the wealth of gifts he had given her. Just days ago she had been drunk, injured, frightened and alone.

Overcome with emotion, she pressed a kiss to his warm pectoral. She watched his face as he stirred, his beautiful mouth pulling into a sleepy smile. He put a hand to her cheek and fingered the pointed tip of her ear. She felt his penis stiffen against her hip, felt her own responding clench of hunger, and she indulged in a luxurious full-body stretch that moved her body along the length of his.

“Faerie, you sure do know how to make a man glad he’s alive,” he said. His morning voice was gravelly, deeper, and it rumbled against her cheek. He yawned.

“I notice that you are taking up the whole damn bed,” she said. She kissed his nipple. It pebbled under her lips.

“It’s comfortable so why not?”

“Tiago, it’s my bed.” She licked his nipple and nibbled at it and listened to his breath catch. It was the sexiest sound she had ever heard. Her hunger sharpened and became liquid as she felt his erection pulse.

His smile widened. He cupped her cheek with those long, clever fingers of his. “You’re my faerie. Besides, I didn’t hear you complaining in the night.”

“I’m complaining now,” she informed him. She nipped gently at the pebbled flesh. He sucked air.

“Is that what you’re doing?” he said between his teeth. His legs shifted restlessly underneath her. “Take your time, tell me all about it. I’m a patient man for these kinds of complaints.”

“I demand recompense.” She slid farther down that long rippling torso, licking and kissing as she went.

He hissed, lifting his head to watch her with black glittering eyes. He cradled her head between his hands with tense care. “This is called recompense? I’m learning a whole new language here. Please, for pity’s sake, have as much recompense as you want.”

“I think I will.” His erection lay along his washboard stomach, the head almost touching his navel. It was as beautiful as the rest of him, large, hot and velvet-skinned, his testicles voluptuous, tight globes underneath. She gripped his penis under the head, lifted it to her mouth and sucked him in.

His head slammed back against the mattress and he opened his mouth in a silent shout. The sight of his extreme pleasure was so erotic she moistened further, her hunger settling between her legs as a deep, insistent ache. She scratched lightly at the side of his ribs as she suckled him, and his torso arched off the bed.

His hands and heavy, powerful thigh muscles were shaking. She did this. She caused this man to shake. She purred, opened up her throat and took all of him in.

“Holy gods, Niniane!”

This peaceful sunlit bedroom was their oasis, their time to let go of outside stresses and dangers and relish the nurturance of their sensuality. When they left they would have to arm themselves with weapons and watch the world with wary eyes, but for now they had this moment and she would take everything she could from it before she let it go. Under the lavish generosity of so many gifts, she dared to think and say what she felt. She whispered in his head, You’re mine.

He said between gritted teeth, “I couldn’t be more yours. Take all of me, faerie. Don’t leave one piece of me behind.”

She held her hands out to him. He laced his fingers through hers. They held on to each other as she took him until the warm vitality of his climax flooded her mouth.

He wasn’t done, of course. She had roused him to such an extent, he rose over her with his face desperate, stripped of all self-protection. He pinned her to the bed and drove into her. She turned her head at the gorgeousness of his entry, and the morning sun blinded her. The world around her was radiant, full of light. He stretched and filled her, and she clenched on him with all the strength she had. She caught the shadowed arc of his wide shoulders flexing over her. His head was flung back, eyes closed. People kill for this kind of beauty.

He took everything. It was unthinkable to keep one piece of her behind.

I love you. She heard the echo in the room and knew she had said it.

He framed her face and drove his mouth down on hers as he drove in her body. “So this is called love,” he gasped. “La petite mort.”

Drenched in gold, she lay transfixed by the surprise of him, the language of his body, the poetry of his mind.

La petite mort. The little death. More than a climax, a spiritual release.

Then they both took flight.

Late that afternoon, a hesitant knock sounded at the door. Niniane called out, “Yes?”

Vrayna, one of the household staff, said, “My apologies, your highness, I know you said you did not wish to be disturbed, but a Chicago policewoman is here to see you.”

“Oh good, that’s Cameron!” Niniane dropped the clothes she held to clap her hands. “Please show her up.”

A few minutes later a second, firmer knock sounded on the door. She flung it open. Cameron stood in the hall, dressed casually in jeans, black shoes and a red summer tank top. Her sandy hair was pulled back in a plain clip, and her cinnamon-sprinkled face was lit with pleasure. Niniane threw her arms around the taller woman. Cameron laughed in surprise and hugged her back.

Then Cameron looked over Niniane’s shoulder. “Okay,” said the policewoman. “And you still intend to leave tomorrow?”

Niniane turned to look too.

The lovely bedroom was a rainbow-colored disaster. There were two armchairs arranged by a small table near open windows. The table held the remains of a meal on a food tray. Tiago occupied one of the chairs. He lounged with his long legs stretched out. He was dressed in jeans, a plain black T-shirt, boots, and just one visible weapon, a handgun in an arm holster. Jewelry boxes and toiletry bags were piled on one end of the bed. The other end was piled with dresses and other outfits. The closet spewed dozens of shoes on the floor. The second armchair was stacked with paperbacks, magazines, folder files and a laptop.

Tiago’s lap was mounded with filmy garments in a variety of colors, pink, cream, royal blue, black, lacy red, and a few things that were patterned with flowers. He held in his hands a pair of pale pink high-heeled slip-on shoes with marabou trim. They looked absurdly tiny in his massive grip, the marabou feathers waving gently in a breeze that wafted in from the windows.

Cameron disguised her guffaw poorly as a cough. “Ah, looking a little frilly there, sentinel.”

“Fuck you,” Tiago said. His tone was amiable. He turned one shoe over and regarded it with a bemused expression. He blew on the marabou.

“Mr. Incredible has discovered he has opinions about women’s fashion,” Niniane said to Cameron, her eyes dancing.

“Has he, now?” Cameron shook her head. “I am speechless.”

“I have very strong opinions about lingerie fashion,” said Tiago. He looked at the pile of silken material in his lap. “All of this must come with us. I’ll find room for it somewhere if I have to carry it in my own saddlebags.” He held the bottom of the shoe up for Cameron’s inspection. “She balances her entire body weight, which admittedly is not much, on these minuscule surfaces.”

“It’s a skill I never acquired,” Cameron said. “Nor did I ever want to.”

Niniane said, “I can run in those shoes too.”

Tiago raised his head. His dark saturnine face turned intent. “I want to see. You have those pearls and knives somewhere.”

“Not now,” she told him, color darkening her cheeks. “We have company.” She smiled at Cameron. “I hope you did not have to quit your job so that you could come.”

“I did not,” said Cameron. “I got a leave of absence. Given the circumstances with the time difference between here and the Other land, and the honor of the invitation, my superintendent was inclined to be lenient. I’m packed and ready to go.” The policewoman raised her eyebrows. “You, clearly, are not.”

“Oh pfft!” Niniane waved a hand. “We’ll have pack animals, but most of this can’t come with us anyway. I was trying to choose what I wanted to take, then Tiago got involved and he started asking questions and, well.” Her tongue poked between her teeth as she turned in a circle. “We did make a bit of a mess.”

Tiago was studying Cameron, his eyes narrowed in thought. He pointed the toe of one shoe at her. “I want to have a word with you.”

“All right,” said Cameron, who hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans. “What’s up?”

“Have a seat in my office.” He indicated the other armchair, then noticed it was full. “Faerie, do you mind if we shift some of this stuff?”

“No, go right ahead.” Niniane rubbed the back of her neck, looking frustrated. “I still can’t find that ivory inlaid box, and I know I brought it with me. Do you need me for this conversation?”

Tiago smiled at her. “No, I do not. Go find your box.”

He helped Cameron clear off the second armchair as Niniane disappeared into the walk-in closet. Cameron took a seat, and he tapped the shoe against his lips as he regarded the policewoman. “I think I can make a pretty good guess at what you make in a year,” he said. He named a figure. “Is that close?”

Cameron snorted. “Close enough. I’ve got twenty years on the force, but a police detective only makes so much.”

“You may have heard that I am no longer one of Dragos’s sentinels,” Tiago said.

“Word’s gotten around,” said Cameron.

Tiago told her, “I am now Niniane’s chief of security, and I’m starting from scratch. Come work for me for a year, and I’ll triple your salary. If you want to leave at the end of the year, I’ll help you relocate back to Chicago and find a new job.”

Cameron stared. “You’re asking me to come live in Adriyel for a year?”

Tiago shrugged. He switched to telepathy. She likes you, and she’s relaxed in your company. She giggles around you. You get the same pop culture references, and you understand that all this froufrou is important to her. Niniane and I have got to build relationships with Dark Fae, and we will. But right now, you’re a trained detective, you’re kind to her, and I think you like her too. And I trust you. As I look at you, it occurs to me everything you embody is a rather rare commodity.

I do like her, Cameron replied. The human was frowning, not in negation, but in thought. I like her a lot.

Tiago paused. Police work and bodyguard work are two different things, of course, he said. You would have a lot to learn, and you would have to learn it fast. I remember your employee profile said you have taken some martial arts training, but I doubt you’ve picked up a sword.

Actually, I have done a bit of sword work, along with knife and crossbow work, said Cameron. There’s a course through the department for detectives like me who have a spark of Power and who might find themselves needing to cross over to an Other land in pursuit of a fugitive. It was just an introductory survey course. It wouldn’t be enough, but it’s a start. My God, I’m really thinking about doing this. Don’t you have enough bodyguards already? Powerful ones? Rune and Aryal, and assorted Vampyres?

Yes, but they all leave after Niniane’s coronation in a week or so, Tiago said. And I can’t stay with her twenty-four/seven. I’ll need to set up my own office when we get to Adriyel and lay the groundwork for developing my own intelligence network. And we have a killer in our group, someone who wants Niniane dead.

Something fell in the closet, and Niniane swore. Tiago raised his voice. “You okay in there, faerie?”

“Yeeeeessss,” Niniane said. She sounded aggravated. “The stupid box just found the top of my head.”

He smiled a little. He said to Cameron, “Don’t take your time. If you don’t do this, I need to find someone who will.”

“I’ll do it,” said Cameron.