Lord's Fall by Thea Harrison Page A

hand from his and touched his lips. He had such a severe mouth. Like the rest of his hard, rough-edged features, it was stamped with temper and the force of his personality.
    Only she knew how tender and gentle that hard-looking mouth could be. It wasn’t fair, to love someone this much and to have it returned in such a fierce, undying tidal wave of passion and devotion. It was completely unfair, that fortune should lavish upon her such an extravagant, rare gift.
    “How was your day?” she whispered.
    “It went as expected,” he said. “Mostly. No one died. All of the sentinels went through to the next round, but then nobody believed anything different would occur. Graydon—” His gold eyes danced suddenly. “You know what a big motherfucker Graydon is. He turned into a gryphon, and then he just sat down and looked at his opponent, who forfeited. It was the fastest bout of the day.”
    She giggled. Mostly she was relieved to be away from the Games, and they had deliberately arranged for her trip to occur on the same week. She knew it would tie her into wretched knots to watch people she cared about going through the bouts of combat, even though they chose to go through it, and the fighting was in a good cause.
    But she didn’t think she could resist watching and fretting if she was in town. At least this way she occupied herself with something that really mattered, and Dragos would stay busy while she was gone.
    She said, “I would have liked to have seen that.”
    “I’m sure many, many people in the Tower are DVRing the Games. I’ll get somebody to edit that segment out for you.”
    “Thank you.” She tilted her head. “And how did Quentin do?”
    Dragos said simply, “He’s an elegant fighter. He put his opponent down quickly, and neither one got hurt. But it may not always go so neatly for him. The bouts will get messier and harder as the week progresses.”
    She asked, “Was that the unexpected bit of the day?”
    The laughter in his eyes died, and his face grew edged and dangerous. For a moment he looked like what he was, a natural-born killer, and she could see the dragon moving at the back of his gaze. Before she could say something the dragon eased back, and then there were other things in his expression, a frown of pain or regret, his mouth tightening in frustration or anger.
    He said, “Rune and Carling were in the stands.”
    She had wondered how Rune would feel about the week, and if he would watch the Games. She had never really bonded with Rune, other than to reach a place where they exchanged friendly banter and agreeable pleasantries. There hadn’t been time before he and Aryal left for Chicago to help investigate the assassination attempts against Niniane. Then they had traveled to Adriyel to witness Niniane’s coronation. After returning and only spending a week at home, Rune had left again to pay his debt to the Vampyre sorceress.
    He had never come back to New York until now.
    She asked gently, “Did you talk with him?”
    Dragos shook his head, his face hard.
    Such a stubborn, proud male. She stroked his inky, silken hair, the short strands flowing through her fingers like water. Even more gently, she asked, “Did you want to?”
    His jaw set. “No.”
    That was too complex an answer to be either a truth or a lie. It felt like neither, and both. She didn’t know how to help Dragos with this, other than to listen. She was just glad they were finally talking about it, at least a little. She had tried to broach the subject before a couple of times, only to run into a rare stone wall. “Were you angry when you saw them?”
    His eyes flashed again. “Yes.”
    She rubbed his chest soothingly. “Maybe somewhat hurt too, or regretful?”
    “Those are useless emotions,” he growled between his teeth.
    She nodded. Definitely hurt and regretful. “And I’m guessing jealous too.” She met those angry, dangerous gold eyes. “Carling took something of yours that you valued highly,