Dragon Bound (24 page)

Dragos ignored them. He squatted in front of Pia and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with a gentle hand. Her pale skin was flushed, and her sparkling eyes couldn’t quite focus. “You’re going to be sick as a dog in the morning.”

“We just thought . . .” she said. The sentence trailed off. She stared at him in astonishment. “You are the handsomest man I’ve ever seen. I would tell you that if I were sober too.” Then she gave him a sloppy grin as she shook her head. Her ponytail slid farther. “No, I wouldn’t. I’d be too self-conscious.”

His fury and frustration from earlier slid into the past as if it had never existed, an alchemical transmutation brought on by this tipsy enchantress. Laughing out loud, he slid his hands under her elbows and lifted her with care to her feet. “What else are you drunk enough to tell me?”

She leaned forward and staggered, as she confided in a whisper, “You’re the sexiest guy I’ve ever seen too. You know, your long, scaly, reptilian tail really is bigger than anybody else’s. Not that I’ve been with very many guys. Or was comparison shopping or anything.” She hiccuped and watched him worriedly as he guffawed. “Have I just gone over a conversational cliff?”

“Pretty much,” he said. He put an arm around her and guided her around Rune and Tricks as they wrestled over the tablecloth. “That’s okay, lover. I’m here to catch you. So, how many guys have you been with?”

She held up two fingers and looked at them with one eye closed. “One of them doesn’t count anymore, ’cause he’s dead.” She poked herself in the cheek with both fingers. “I can’t feel my face. How was your day?”

“Fine,” he said. He captured her hand, folded down one finger and pressed a kiss against her remaining index finger as he led her out of the restaurant. “It was good.”

T
he next afternoon Pia changed into workout clothes along with her new shoes. She wound her hair up and bound it in a tight queue at the nape of her neck.

Her memory of the night before was fuzzy. She remembered talking and flirting, feeling brilliant and beautiful and witty, while Dragos teased her, his dark face creased with laughter. She remembered falling into bed, shrieking and kicking at him as he tickled her unmercifully. She remembered falling asleep, wrapped around him, his hands fisted in the waterfall of her hair.

She had been alone in the bed when a hangover had finally hammered her into consciousnesses late the next morning. She had rolled away from the windows with a moan to discover a vial resting on his pillow. It tinkled with magic. A note was tied to the neck. It said,
Drink me
.

That potion had saved her life. She hoped someone had been kind enough to get one for Tricks as well. Even with the potion’s help, it had been some time before she could face putting anything else into her stomach. Now after a light lunch, which she had eaten with caution, she, Rune and Graydon were finally going to the gym as originally planned.

She opened the door. The two gryphons in the hall broke off their conversation. Their expressions were entirely too bland. She frowned. “Did I do or say something yesterday that I should apologize for?”

“Not you, cupcake,” said Graydon. “But apparently a lot of other people in the Tower have. Rune thinks we should rename it Melrose Place. I think Peyton Place has a more classic feel to it, don’t you?”

“Oh no,” she said. “You got the tablecloth away from Tricks.”

Rune grinned. “Not before the little shit bit me.”

They took the stairs. Perhaps twenty people were in the gym. Some worked on equipment and others sparred with each other in the two large workout areas. One area had hard-used but well-kept hardwood floors and the other area was covered with tumbling mats.

Rune commandeered the space covered with tumbling mats while Graydon went into the locker room and changed. Then Rune went to change too. As he came back out he beckoned her and Graydon to the center of the mat. Both men wore tight tanks and black cotton pants. They seemed bigger than ever as she stood between them, totaling five hundred pounds of solid Wyr muscle.

Those that Rune had displaced loitered at the edge of the area, watching. Pia took deep breaths, trying to dispel the jitters that had taken over her stomach, all too aware of the curious, not entirely friendly stares directed their way. She balanced on the balls of her feet, shook out her arms and legs and stretched her neck.

Rune said, “Okay, we’re going to run through a few basic self-defense techniques. Pia, the main takeaway is we’re the bodyguards and we know best. You’ve got to do what we tell you, when we tell you to do it. If I tell you to duck, you damn well better duck. If Gray tells you to drop to the ground, you plant your face. The toughest thing is that an attack will most likely happen without warning so following orders without hesitation or argument is absolutely essential.”

“In other words,” Graydon said, “if we tell you to duck, don’t stick your head up and look around and say, ‘Huh?’ That’s what your instinct may tell you to do, but if you’re saying ‘huh,’ it probably means you’re getting your head shot off.”

“Right,” she said, looking from one to the other. “No ‘huhs.’ ”

Rune said, “Gray, get behind Pia. You’re going to be her attacker. Pia, Gray is going to come up behind you and grab you like he’s going to drag you off. I want you to pay attention to how he gets hold of you and the position of your bodies. We’re going to work on ways you can break out of his hold, okay?”

“Okay,” she said.

Graydon moved behind her. For such a big man he was silent on his feet. She focused on the floor in front of her and continued to breathe deep as she sank into her training.

Stay firm but flexible, rooted but yielding.

She reached behind with her awareness and—there he was. She got a lock on him, stronger than she ever had on anyone before. She could hear him breathe, feel his weight shift with his intent. Her hearing, eyesight, her sense of everything in her surroundings was . . . more than it had ever been before.

He came up on her, inhumanly fast.

Flow like water.

She slid sideways, bending at the waist, and felt his hand graze along her arm. A twist, and she balanced on one foot, felt him extend, and that was her leverage.

Graydon landed on his back in an impact that shook the floor. Silence filled the gym as exercise machines slowed and stopped. Both gryphons stared at her.

Graydon swore, letting his head drop to the mat. “The hell’d you do? That weren’t no Turbo Dance move.”

Rune put his hands on his hips and started to laugh. “She smacked you down, is what she did.”

“I’m sorry, did I do that wrong?” she said, growing anxious as they continued to stare at her. “I didn’t follow orders, did I? Was I supposed to let him grab me?”

“No. No, I think you did that just fine,” said Rune. He offered a hand to Graydon and hoisted the other gryphon to his feet.

Graydon glared at her. “Okay. I was sleepwalking through that. My bad. You said you had classes, and we should have listened. But we’re gonna do that again, cupcake, and you’re not gonna get me by surprise this time.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

They assumed their former positions, and she balanced on the balls of her feet again, head tilted as she focused on the floor. This time, intrigued with her heightened senses, she locked on both Graydon and Rune. Their Power and physical energy made their positions easy to hold in her mind.

Graydon moved to the attack, his lethal body honed by countless centuries of combat. She flowed and slid away from him. This time he shifted with her, snaking one powerful arm out to wrap around her waist.

But she wasn’t there. She moved, counter to his point, sensing the force of energy he put into his arm and how he threw his body forward, and that was her leverage. The floor thundered as he hit the mat.

He pounded the mat with his fist. “Fuck me!”

Rune shouted in laughter.

Graydon flipped to his feet. It was a startling show of strength, agility and speed for such a large man, and she flinched back. He snarled at Rune, “Laugh it up, asshole. It’s your turn to try.”

“Quit being such a crybaby,” said Rune. He shifted around to Pia, the predator in him roused and full of smiling menace. “You good to go?”

Mainlining adrenaline, she lifted her shoulder in a quick, jerky shrug. “Give me what you got, slick.”

He lunged, using both cunning and speed, and she could tell he was really giving it to her, no holding back. She fell back in a graceful curve as he reached her, and the power in his momentum was her leverage. She hit the mat, and as she went backward she used her feet and one hand to propel him over her head. For one brief moment he was airborne. Then he slammed into the mat even as she completed her somersault and came up light on her feet.

Rune coughed hard, his expression frozen. Somebody whistled and shouted. Distracted, she looked toward the noise. Their audience was clapping.

“That was goddamn balletic!” Graydon roared. He pounded her on the shoulder and knocked her sideways. She grunted and stumbled, and he grabbed her. “Oh shit, cupcake, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. Did I hurt you?”

He looked so concerned as he steadied her she didn’t have the heart to complain. She rubbed the spot where he had hit her, and he pushed her hand away to rotate her arm and probe her shoulder muscles with careful fingers.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “It’s good.”

Rune rolled to his feet. “Go get Bayne and Con,” he told one of their watchers, who took off running. He walked over to her, eyes narrowed. “What all have you studied?”

“Wing Chun, jujitsu, some weaponry,” she said. “Basic stuff, sword and knife work. I can load and shoot a gun or crossbow. I’m not so good with a longbow.”

He studied her like she was a Rubik’s Cube he hadn’t quite figured out. “Dragos said you weren’t a fighter.”

“I’m not.” Graydon refused to be shooed away. She gave up trying to push him away and let him massage her shoulder muscles. “Not like you guys are. I wouldn’t choose a fight if I can avoid it, I don’t have a killer instinct and I don’t like the weaponry stuff.”

“Could you kill if you had to?”

“If I had no other choice,” she answered without hesitation. “I think I could do it to survive. But otherwise, all of my focus and training is on getting away.”

“Excellent. We can work with that. Which of the disciplines you’ve worked with do you like the best?”

She considered. “I’d have to say the Wing Chun. I like the principles of efficiency, practicality and economy of movement, and sensing the energy in your opponent’s movements. It’s elegant. I had a teacher once who told me the best kind of fighter was like haiku, very spare and simple, and the fight very short. Wing Chun seems to have something of that philosophy.”

He nodded. “What would you say is your strength?”

“That’s got to be speed. Let’s face it, if you guys were really out for blood and got your hands on me, I’d be toast.”

“Very good. And your weakness?”

She bent her head, rubbed at the back of her neck and confessed, “Following orders. I haven’t done any of this before. I’ll try my best, but if one of you yells duck, I could end up being that idiot that sticks up her head and says, ‘Huh?’ ”

“Well, that might not matter if you were slow enough to pin down,” said Graydon. “We’ve got to yell duck ’cause you might get all startled and hop out from underneath us if we try to tackle you, even if it’s for your own good.”

She winced at him.

The other two gryphons, Bayne and Constantine, had joined them while they talked, until Pia was surrounded by an enormous wall of solid muscle and close male attention. Rune said to them, “You guys have got to see this. Pia, you up for more?”

“What do you mean, am I up for more?” She snorted and tossed her head. “I haven’t yet broken a sweat, slick.”

“Them’s fightin’ words, cupcake,” said Graydon with glee. He cracked his knuckles.

Bayne and Constantine took turns at trying to tackle her. Each gryphon hit the mat. They had better luck when they went after her in pairs. Pia’s tank top grew damp with sweat. Not only were they formidable warriors with centuries of experience, they were motivated, fast learners. Very soon she had to ratchet up her effort.

She shifted into high gear, knowing she needed to learn even more from them than they did from her. All her focus was on the four Wyr who were intent on bringing her down. While they laughed and did a lot of joking, she knew now that what they were all working on was no mere exercise class but could be a matter of life or death.

D
ragos had enjoyed a completely captivating evening with Pia. This morning he had held her soft sleeping form and watched the sun rise, and he had discovered another strange new experience, a feeling of absolute contentment and peace in the quiet, a certain knowledge that all was right with his world.

That was all in the past. His mood since had turned foul.

The Goblin stronghold had been abandoned. There had been no one to question. The enchanted shackles had vanished without a trace. Urien’s media blitz had been pretaped. He had been long gone by the time they got someone to investigate the interview site, and nobody could pinpoint the whereabouts of the bastard. Those investigating the trail from Pia’s ex-boyfriend and his bookie had come up against a dead end. And the stock value from the companies in Illinois continued to tumble.