The next day the rounds started early, and nobody could predict how long they would take. Pia joined Dragos at the window for the first half hour.
After she had put in a public appearance, she fled to one of the other rooms where she signed cards and wrapped presents for Beluviel and Linwe, and she wrote a letter of condolence to Ferion, the new High Lord.
Eva remained out by the window, and Dragos and Kris didn’t even bother to pretend to work. They took turns calling out the name of the winner to Pia at the end of each fight.
Graydon.
Bayne.
Constantine.
Aryal.
Quentin.
At that, Pia had to sit down because her damn legs had turned shaky. She put her elbows on the table and her head in her hands. Quentin, who she knew disliked Dragos intensely. Aryal, who disliked her intensely.
And the gods knew, along with everybody else, how much they hated each other.
“What are we doing?” she whispered.
The last two names were almost an anticlimax. Almost, except compared to some of the others, they were a goddamn relief. Grym, quiet but always present, always reliable. And Alexander Elysias, the pegasus, who by all accounts was a peaceful man. She had a feeling they were going to need that peacefulness in the upcoming days.
She could hear the roar of the crowd through the sound system, and feel Dragos’s charged energy moments before he strode into the room. He looked at her. “It’s finally done. The Games are over. I’m going down to announce the new sentinels. Will you come?”
She stood immediately. “Of course.”
He held out his hand to her, and she walked over to take it.
Somehow they would all have to figure out how to get along.
What are we doing? she thought. Why, we are doing what we must.
Dragos inclined his head to her.
She mouthed at him, “And then we get a weekend off.”
He grinned, and together they strode out to their people.
NINETEEN
A couple of months later, a very large young man said to Pia, “Mom, you’re just gonna have to trust me. I promise everything’s going to be all right.”
She bit back a smile. Now, where had she heard those words before? Like father, like son. “I trust you, baby,” she told the young man as he lounged against the kitchen counter. “Of course everything’s going to be all right.”
She was in the middle of pouring birthday cake batter into a pan in a bright, airy kitchen with plenty of windows for natural light and a butcher-block island.
Then she stopped. Wait a minute. This wasn’t the kitchen at the penthouse. Where the hell was she this time?
And why was she baking a birthday cake?
She set the batter bowl down carefully and turned to her son, who was killer gorgeous. He had to be nearly as tall as Dragos, broad shouldered and slim hipped, with long, strong legs encased in torn, faded jeans.
Every single one of the gods had to have been in a good mood when this boy was made. His features were not as rough-hewn as Dragos’s, but the strong bone structure was still there, and he had her dark violet eyes. A thatch of white blond hair tumbled down his forehead.
Killer. Gorgeous.
She felt punch-drunk. All she could think of was the robot from the old TV show Lost in Space whenever it waved its arms in alarm and shouted, “Danger, Will Robinson, danger.”
She could see the future coming toward her, like the lights of an oncoming train. They couldn’t take away his car keys. He had wings. They were going to have to institute a citywide curfew, maybe throughout the entire state. Eleven P.M. Lock up all your daughters, folks. No, better make the curfew ten P.M.
In the meantime, who was going to protect this beautiful boy from all the predators that were going to think he was their next tasty morsel? Oh geez, she and Dragos had their jobs cut out for them.
“I guess you learned this dream stuff a couple of months ago,” she said. “Peanut, you are too precocious for your own good. You are a baby. You need to get back into my uterus and stay there for a while.”
“I think my name is Liam,” said the peanut. “At least I like it.” He looked at her uncertainly. “Is that okay with you?”
Liam Cuelebre. Her eyes moistened. “It’s more than okay. It’s beautiful, and I love it. I love you. But why am I baking a birthday cake?”
He hooked a long finger into the batter and licked it. “Because it’s my birthday, and I think I’m going to like cake. Don’t worry, Mom. Everything is going to be fine. I’ll make sure of it.”
She pointed the spatula at him. “You are not supposed to say that to your mommy. Your mommy is supposed to say that to you.”
The peanut gave her a sunny, innocent smile.
She plunged awake as the baby gave an especially robust kick, pow, right under her ribs, and as she put a hand over her swollen abdomen, she looked around at the deeply shadowed room, disoriented. She was pretty sure she was awake, but this wasn’t their bedroom in the penthouse either.
Dragos stretched out beside her on the bed, lying on his stomach, fast asleep. His long, powerful body was dark against the pale top sheet that had slipped to his waist, his broad shoulders relaxed. The king-sized bed—they couldn’t sleep in anything but a king-sized bed—took up most of the room. A couple of dressers were against the wall, cosmetics strewn on one and cufflinks and a plain, masculine hairbrush on another. The door to a bathroom was half open, from which a dim night-light shone.
She rolled onto her side and peered over the edge of the bed. A pair of high-heeled ivory pumps lay on the floor, along with a tangled heap of a knee-length, pale chiffon maternity dress. It was her wedding dress from Target, and it had cost all of eighty-nine dollars.
Reality settled into place around her, and it looked a lot like a fat, contented cat.
That’s right. They had gotten married that morning.
She held up her left hand to admire the simple, classic gold band that now nestled beside the outrageous, T. rex–sized diamond ring. Dragos had a gold band that matched hers. She grinned as she remembered how that particular conversation had gone.
It had been short and sweet, and to the point. They had been standing at a jewelry counter at Tiffany while an attendant showed them rings. Pia admired one particularly sleek, elegant set of his-and-hers wedding bands.
“But I collect jewelry,” said Dragos with a frown. “I don’t wear it.”
She glanced at him. His frown was more bemusement than anything else. He stood very close to her, still dressed in a white shirt and dark suit from his day’s work. He had removed his tie and unbuttoned the first couple of buttons on his shirt. His head was angled as he studied the rings in the black velvet tray, his gold eyes gleaming with acquisitive interest.
She recognized that look. She said telepathically to him, We do not need this whole tray of rings.
His gaze shifted to her. Are you sure?
I’m quite sure. Just beyond his shoulder, she caught sight of a woman standing some twenty feet away from them. The woman was model thin, sleek, intelligent-looking and immaculate. Her makeup, hair and polished nails were color coordinated, and her outfit and accessories hit around the ten-thousand mark. Thanks to Stanford, Pia was getting better at judging that sort of thing.
The woman stared fixedly at Dragos, not even bothering to disguise her naked hunger even though Pia stood right there with him, clearly pregnant, and together they were one of the world’s most recognizable mated Wyr couples.
But neither mating nor marriage had necessarily anything to do with fidelity, and there would always be some sexual predator hoping to get her claws, even for a brief time, into the multibillionaire head of Cuelebre Enterprises.
None of them fazed Dragos for a moment. They were so unimportant to him that they didn’t even register on his radar. Pia wished she could truly be that indifferent, but at best she could only fake it.