“Don’t pull that guilt-making crap on me,” Aryal exclaimed. “Dead people are dead, and they don’t know shit. And what happens between me and your special friend is none of your business, jackass.”
“You think I don’t know how long and hard you’ve tried to investigate me?” Quentin growled. “You’ve been trying to pin something on me for over two years now. And what have you found? Exactly nothing. So quit taking your resentment of me out on Pia.”
Was that why Aryal didn’t like her? Pia and Eva looked at each other. Eva raised her eyebrows, asking her silently, What the fuck? You know anything about this?
Pia shook her head and shrugged. For all she knew, it could be true.
The harpy’s nose wrinkled as she stared at Quentin, and she coughed. “Oh gods,” she said, staring at him with repugnance. “Are you a cat? You stink like a cat. That’s just bloody fucking great. Not only is Quentin Caeravorn part Wyr, but he stinks like a cat.” She threw up her hands. “Makes my whole fucking night to know this. If yet another Wyr with feline tendencies ends up as a sentinel, I’m going to slit somebody’s wrists.”
Quentin looked more out-of-control furious than Pia had ever seen him, his skin flushed dark and features clenched tight as a fist. Violence pulsed in the air. That was when the pegasus and all the gryphons arrived, even Rune, every tall male using his body like a battering ram to break the other two apart.
Graydon actually shoved Aryal by slapping the flat of his hands against her shoulders and making her stagger back a few paces. Normally he was so mild mannered and easygoing, Pia found it shocking to see him get violent. He demanded, “You realize what a line you’ve been walking this week, dipshit?”
“What?” Aryal snapped. “I’m not the criminal here!”
“Hell, you haven’t even been trying to walk a line.” Graydon stared at her with angry incredulity. “You’ve been staggering all over it like a drunk at a single’s bar. Do you want to keep your job or not?”
Aryal snarled, “I will win my job back just like all you other sonsabitches—by hammering down any bastard that gets in my way.”
“Is that so, Smurfette?” Quentin sneered at her from across a barrier made up of two gryphons and a pegasus. “And here I thought you were an example of affirmative action in the workplace.”
Rage detonated in Aryal’s expression. She flicked out both stiffened hands, and talons sprang out on all her fingers and thumbs. Then she plowed forward, only to be brought up short when Graydon came at her from behind and pinned her in a headlock.
“Smurfette,” breathed Eva rapturously.
“Everybody has gone nuts,” Pia muttered.
She looked from Eva to her other bodyguards, who had all come to surround her. And she had thought they were the psychos. They looked positively sane in comparison to the crazy pants developing between Quentin and Aryal.
Her gaze lingered on Eva’s delighted face. Well, almost all of them looked sane.
She shoved her way through the bristling testosterone to reach Quentin, making sure he saw her before she put a hand on his bicep. The warm muscle beneath her fingertips felt rock hard with tension.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Come on. Come talk to me.”
At first he didn’t respond, his blue eyes two ice chips of fury. He watched the harpy with a killer’s face, a muscle leaping in his clenched jaw.
Once upon a time, that expression would have scared her spitless. Funny how things had changed. She tugged harder at his arm, injecting more authority into her voice. “Quentin, walk away with me right now.”
Finally his attention snapped to her. She smiled at him, and he jerked his head once in a nod. Still, she entwined one arm firmly with his as she led him to one side. When Eva made as if to join her, she sent the other woman a warning glance, and Eva responded by hanging back several steps.
At six-foot-two, Quentin stood half a head taller than she did. Even though she now knew that he had a strong enough Wyr side that he could change into his animal form, she still saw a strong resemblance to an Elven heritage in his graceful bone structure. Like Dragos, Quentin was broader in the shoulders than most Elves. His mixed race heritage had given him a spectacular combination of strength and beauty.
Before Dragos, she had enjoyed having a crush on her sexy boss. Now the crush had comfortably and quite irrevocably settled into friendship.
“Someday I’m going to fucking kill her,” Quentin said between his teeth. “Just so you’re warned. That harpy is unendurable.”
“Okay,” she said, soft and quiet. “You’re not going to get any argument from me.”
His gaze fully focused on her. “That looks like blood on your clothes. Are you all right? You weren’t hurt?”
“I wasn’t hurt,” she told him. “The blood isn’t mine.”
“Well, that’s something, at least.” He put his arms around her with a deep sigh.
She hugged him tight. “Did I see you fly in on the pegasus?”
“Yeah, that’s Alex,” he said. “Going through the Games together has given us a chance to do some bonding. He’s a really good guy. I hope he wins through to the end. I think the sentinels could use someone as even tempered as he is.”
She glanced over her shoulder, noting that Alex had separated himself from the sentinels once Quentin had walked away. The pegasus stood nearby as well, watching the events in the clearing unfold, his hands on his hips.
She turned back to Quentin. “Are you okay?” she asked gently. “You’ve lost some people tonight, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, I did,” he whispered. His eyes were bloodshot. “But I’m not the only one. A lot of folks lost people tonight.”
“Can I do anything for you?” She rubbed his back.
He shook his head and gave her a not-quite smile. “Other than keep yourself safe, no. Thanks.” He looked around at the devastation, his expression turning grim once more. “I’m just glad Dragos did the decent thing and mustered the Wyr to help.”
Quentin made no secret of the fact that he disliked Dragos, nor did Dragos hide the fact that he tolerated Quentin for Pia’s sake. When Pia had asked Quentin about his decision to enter the Sentinel Games, he had told her, “I don’t have to like Dragos in order to decide that I want to invest in my community. He may be Lord of the Wyr, but he’s just one man, after all. The Wyr demesne is a lot bigger than he is.”
Now her answering smile turned wry. “You sound surprised at the thought of Dragos doing something decent.”
He searched her mild expression. She could tell he was looking to see if he had offended her. When he saw that he hadn’t, he shrugged. “Yeah, what can I say,” he said. “You’re always going to be the best part of him.”
“I think that might be the only thing you both agree on,” she told him.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Thanks for the de-escalation. I’d better go see what I can do to help.”
“Okay.” She gave him another quick squeeze and let him go. “As long as you go in the opposite direction of Aryal. Just avoid her completely. Nobody needs any more strife right now, Quentin.”
He glanced at where Aryal and Graydon were still arguing, and his face hardened, but he said, “Fair enough.”
He kissed her cheek, then walked away to join Alex. She turned to find Eva, and as she did so, she looked around at everybody else in the clearing. Many people, both Elves and Wyr, were watching the sentinels.
Just as many Wyr, if not more, were watching her as well, their expressions closed and unfriendly. Jolted, she looked from one person to the next. Each Wyr turned away when her gaze fell on him or her.
They didn’t have to meet her eyes or say anything. She could see what they thought in their faces.