Dragon Bound (32 page)

She covered her mouth, fighting hard to show no emotion. After a moment, she had enough control to say, “He couldn’t tell you anything. I made him take a binding oath.”

Urien snapped his fingers. “That explains it. One mystery solved. So tell me what the dragon’s hoard looked like. Was it as magnificent as legend says?” His expression had turned avaricious.

“To be honest, I was too scared to look around.” She closed her eyes, remembering the terror. How long ago that seemed. “For all I knew he was going to show up at any minute. I got in, found a coin jar by the entrance, took the penny and ran. I could have grabbed something else, but I was so damn mad at Keith I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of handing over something of real value. And I hoped that if I took only the penny, just maybe Cuelebre might not kill me if he ever caught up with me.”

“Which is a great segue into our next mystery,” said Urien. He cocked his head, studying her like she was a bug under a microscope. “Why hasn’t Cuelebre killed you yet?”

She laced her hands in front of her stomach. Hold on, peanut. If anyone has truthsense, he does. Here comes some tricky tap dancing.

“You’d have to ask him,” she said. She widened her eyes. “Because I’ve got to tell you, it has surprised the heck out of me.”

His eyes were narrowed, unblinking. She felt his cold Power drift across her skin and struggled not to shudder. “How did you escape the Goblins?”

She shook her head. “Again, you’d have to ask him. I was locked in my cell when he came for me. Taking the penny didn’t help a bit. He was in a hell of a rage when he caught me, and you have to know he’s not the forgiving type. He was determined to be the one to pass judgment on me, nobody else.” Then something occurred to her. “You know, I never thought of this before, but he also wouldn’t have wanted me to get away alive because I know where his lair is.”

The Fae King’s eyebrows lifted. “Very true.”

“Not that it matters anymore,” she added.

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “One of my guards said Cuelebre decided to move his hoard. I suppose now that the location has been compromised . . . ?” She let her voice trail away.

He shrugged as well. “I guess that’s to be expected. Too bad. He’s kept so much from me. I would have liked to have stolen more from him. Maybe I’ll have you take something from the new location.” He waved a long white hand. “But that’s a conversation for another time. What I want to know is how you did it.”

His Power enfolded her and squeezed tighter, an invisible boa constrictor coiling around her body. Goose bumps rose along her skin. She bit her lip to keep her teeth from chattering. Her mind raced, working to find and eradicate any loopholes in her story before she said them.

“You know how marmosets are little, weird and quick?” she asked.

“Marmosets,” he said.

“Didn’t Keith or someone tell you by now that I’m a half-breed Wyr?”

“Someone did mention it, yes,” he replied slowly.

“Well, I’m weird and quick. And I have a gift for getting through locks.” She raised her fingers and wiggled them. Infer, imply, don’t state. Careful now. “That’s how I was planning on getting away . . . today? Earlier, anyway. My guards don’t know I can do that. I was going to trick them into looking the other way, then slip out of the locked area where they’ve been keeping me.”

He gave her a charming smile and the chilling compression eased somewhat. “Impressive. So, my dear, you have not only humiliated Cuelebre by stealing from his hoard, but you have the ability to escape from his Tower too. I knew you would be worth tracking down.”

How lucky for us, peanut.

“This leads me to our last little mystery,” Urien said. “What happened between you and Cuelebre on that plain? You two seemed quite the team. Something happened, some kind of Power surge, and he was able to shift. We had been assured he wouldn’t be able to quite so soon.”

A chill trickle of sweat slid between her breasts. He had in so many words just confirmed an Elven accomplice. She closed her eyes and rubbed at her temples. She was beginning to feel depleted and her hands trembled.

“Did you know that the Goblins beat me quite badly?” Her voice shook too. “They were trying to get a rise out of Cuelebre, which didn’t fucking happen, of course, because he watched the whole thing with this stone-cold look on his face.”

Huh, didn’t know she was still upset about that, which was mighty irrational of her, wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if Dragos had had any choice. That game face of his might have saved her life.

The Fae King sipped wine and watched her.

“Well, we faced a whole damn plain of those stinking Goblins. I would have done anything to get away. In New York I at least had some hope of survival if I could find a chance to escape. There was this white place on his shoulder where the Elves had shot him with their magic crap.” She gestured on herself. “It was right about here. So I made a last-ditch gamble. I convinced him to let me lance the wound. And apparently you were there—you must have been on the bluff? As you said, you felt his Power surge.” She let the horror of the memory show in her eyes. “He killed everything on the plain except me.”

Silence filled the room. She searched Urien’s face, which was smooth and expressionless. You think he bought it, peanut? Can’t tell. Maybe, maybe not. Don’t ever play poker with this creep.

But wasn’t what happened even more outlandish? It had all happened to her and even she had trouble believing it.

She felt the same disorientation she always did after she and Dragos had separated for a while. She told herself fiercely, he
is
coming after me. He said he was. We’re mates, maybe. Probably. Or now, according to Graydon, I’m his hoard. Which makes no sense. Anyway I’m pregnant with his son. He may not love us, but that’s got to matter to him. Right?

“I see,” said the Fae King at last. He finished his wine and set the glass aside. “Well, you have been through quite an adventure these last several days, haven’t you?”

“Look,” she said. She felt so hollow it hurt, and the edges of the room were too far away. “Am I a guest or a prisoner? Are you going to torture me for some strange reason I don’t understand—because just in case you’re not, I want you to know I haven’t eaten since yesterday and I’m not doing so well right now.”

The Fae King made a moue and tsked. “Cuelebre didn’t take care of you at all, did he? My dear, why in the world would I have any reason to torture you?”

“I don’t know.” She threw up her hands and let them fall into her lap. “It’s been a hell of a day for a couple of weeks now,” she said. There was no reason to hide the exasperated exhaustion in her voice so she didn’t try. “And I don’t understand half the things that have happened to me, not least of all why you would have your goons drug me instead of walking up to me in the street and introducing themselves.”

“That,” said the Fae King, “is a very good point. Let’s just say we were unsure how you would react and we were unwilling to let you slip away again. Since, from all reports, you were surprisingly protective of the Wyrm when talking with the Elves in South Carolina.”

She froze. She hadn’t seen that one coming. What could he have been told? How should she respond?

She said through numb lips, “If that confrontation had escalated any further, two Elder demesnes could be at war right now. If that happened, a lot of people would have gotten killed. Sure, I stole from him, but I’m not a murderer. If you had a report of that confrontation, then you know I was going to see him to the Elven border and take off, but then we had some Goblins in trucks smash into us. And somehow that event leads back to you, doesn’t it.”

He gave her a heavy-lidded smile. “Well, you see, one of these days I’m going to finally succeed in killing Cuelebre. You just got in the way. Unfortunate, but all of that is in the past now.” He waved a hand. “I think we should consider you more as a conscripted employee, rather than a guest or prisoner. I can see a lot of uses for you. So many people have so many things I want.”

“I didn’t know this was a job interview, or I would have put on a suit,” she said, fury making her reckless. Whoa, throttle back there, filly. He’s not torturing. Remember, that’s a good thing.

He threw back his head and laughed. “I do like you, Pia. This is very simple: you will do as you’re told. If you do you will have, comparatively speaking, a very comfortable life. If you don’t? Oh, I don’t recommend that one. I really don’t.” He stood. “Conversation’s over. Piran, Elulas, see her to her room and make sure she stays put. Remember to pat her down for anything she could use to pick a lock. Oh, and find her something to eat. Poor thing has purple circles under her eyes. She looks like she’s ready to pass out.”

Her kidnappers approached. Her own personal Thing One and Thing Two. She stood and went with them. What else was there to do?

T
hey let her use the bathroom on the ground floor. She was relieved to find that the house wasn’t too medieval. At least it had running water and a flushing toilet. Then they took her up a flight of stairs and down a long hallway to a bare room with nothing in it but a narrow bed and two folded blankets and a barred window.

Then Thing One gave her an infuriatingly thorough search while Thing Two watched. The Fae felt along the seams of her clothes, ran his hands up the insides of her legs and squeezed her crotch, probed between and underneath her breasts and made her take off her shoes so he could inspect them.

She gritted her teeth and suffered through it. She was able to hold on to her rage only because it was obvious from the Fae’s flat, bored expression that the search had no sexual undertones. There was no way she could have sneaked a thin, flat lock pick in with her if she’d tried.

They locked her in the room. She shook out a blanket on the bare mattress and fell on it, listening as the two Fae spoke to each other in their Celtic-sounding language. One set of footsteps walked away, hopefully to bring her some kind of sustenance. She was going to have to choke down whatever they brought her so that she could stabilize and get ready for the next steps, whatever those were. She hoped it wasn’t meat.

It looked to be evening outside, gray and leaden with the promise of rain, which left the room shadowy. Her gaze tracked across the bare walls as she rested.
Dragos?
she tried.
Are you there?

Nothing but a deadened silence. What did that mean? Cautiously she expanded her awareness. She couldn’t feel anything, no land magic, no other Fae, nothing but the chill heavy blanket of Urien’s Power. Was he able to suppress magic in his vicinity? If so, that was a pretty handy self-defense mechanism.

Her eyebrows rose as she looked down at herself. She wasn’t glowing. He must be able to suppress magic but not undo those spells already in place. Whatever the specifics, she was guessing he could sense any nearby upsurge in Power.

She went over her story again. Hey, peanut, get me under pressure and I rock.

But the story wouldn’t hold up for long. For one thing, she didn’t know the extent of Adela’s knowledge about her or how deeply the witch was involved with the Dark Fae. If she knew anything of the truth, sooner or later Pia had to assume she would tell Urien.

And about that Elven connection. Ferion knew of her real heritage, had spoken to the Elven High Lord and Lady and had been present at the teleconference. Did she dare hope that Urien’s Elven contact was not Ferion? He had treated her with such warmth. Did that mean he would not have spoken of her to the Fae King?

She tried to remember what Ferion had said aloud at Folly Beach and what he had said during their private telepathic conversation. She couldn’t. That was worrisome. But at least it looked logical that Ferion was not Urien’s Elven connection.

There were too many unknown variables, and not least among them was the fact that
she
didn’t have truthsense. Urien could well have been playing her or lying for his own reasons. So the only thing she dared hope for was that she had bought herself a little time.

Footsteps approached. She sat up as a key grated in the lock. Thing Two took a step inside. He set a tray down on the floor. He stepped out and locked the door again. She checked the contents of the tray.

Half a loaf of plain dark bread, apples and more water. Score.

She fell on the food. The bread was maybe a day old as it was just beginning to go stale, but it was still chewy and grainy and delicious. The apples were wonderful. They had a quality that made her think they were from an Other land, perhaps even this place. She ate everything, drank half the water and felt an immediate energy surge. Way better.

Now what? There were two ways out of this room. She pushed the tray against the wall so she wouldn’t knock over the last of her water. She went to inspect her window.

She stared, hardly daring to believe her luck. The bars on the window were on the outside of the glass pane. They were two simple vertical metal grills with supporting crossbars at top and bottom. They were hinged on either side of the window and secured with a padlock and metal chain wound around the end bars. What they looked like were replacements for old-fashioned window shutters. Someone had prepared this room for her arrival.

She eased the window open as quietly as she could and then paused to listen. Her two Fae guards continued to talk, undisturbed.

Urien might be able to suppress magic, but her mother had always said that magic versus intrinsic natural ability was a tricky thing to define, and in her demonstration Dragos hadn’t been able to feel her do anything. She took hold of the padlock and pulled. It fell open.

She slipped the lock off and unwound the chain. She hefted it, considering. It was nice and solid, more than a good yard in length. She doubled it, wound one end around her hand and swung it to get the feel for its weight.

It wasn’t a bad weapon for someone low on options. She dropped the padlock on the bed, drank the rest of her water and eased the metal grill open a couple of inches as she tried to peer down at the ground surrounding the house.