Kris shrugged, eyes on his screen. “This is my vacation.”
Quentin shook his head. Guess there was all kinds of crazy. He checked the contents of his envelope. Aside from documents he would need when he reached the Czech Republic, there was a printout of an electronic plane ticket. He noted the time of the flight and sighed. No wonder there was a car waiting downstairs. He had been so busy that day, sorting first through his sentinel duties and then seeing a healer and arranging matters at Elfie’s, that he hadn’t yet had time to stop at the penthouse to see Pia and the baby. He’d hoped to talk to her before they left, but now he couldn’t.
He gave Kris a nod and left, taking the elevator down to the lobby. As he went, he called Pia’s cell. It rolled over to voicemail without ringing, which meant her phone was turned off. Was that coincidence, or intentional?
After the automated prompt, he said, “I’m sure you know by now what happened this morning. I wanted to see you and Liam before I left, but now I can’t. Listen, Pia, I—I’m sorry.” Sorry for everything. Sorrier than you can know. He bit the words back, guilt sitting like a ten-pound weight in his chest. “I just wanted you to know, it’s never going to happen again. That’s a promise.”
After he disconnected, he tried Ferion’s number, but that phone call rolled over to voicemail right away too, as the new, overburdened High Lord never answered his cell phone anymore.
Instead of leaving a voice message this time, Quentin hung up then texted Ferion, his fingers moving quickly over the small screen. Going to Prague this pm. Will call when I get there.
For a moment he hesitated, teetering on the edge of adding more. But Numenlaur was too painful and charged a subject to put into a text message. He hit send, clicked off his iPhone, shoved it into his pocket and when the elevator doors opened, he strode through the crowded lobby to the main steps outside.
The day had started out bitter and was ending gray and bleak, but the bite of the cold wind felt good on his skin.
A black Cadillac Escalade idled at the curb. Winding through the heavy crowd of rush hour pedestrians on the sidewalk, he opened the passenger door. Vivaldi’s
Alexander Elysias lounged in the driver’s seat, his long body relaxed. As a pegasus, he had the distinction of being the only herbivore among the seven sentinels, all the rest being predators of some sort. The difference played out in his personality as well. He was easily the most even tempered and patient of them all.
Predator Wyr tended to be dismissive of herbivores, an unfortunate tendency that did not play out among the sentinels. All of them had watched Alex’s fighting in the Games arena. Not only had they seen Alex’s proficiency for combat for themselves, but they had also come to realize that his easygoing demeanor went hand in glove with a strong, steady personality, keen intelligence and a kind of innate dignity that tended to settle the most abrasive and volatile of them.
The expression on Alex’s handsome, dark mahogany face was pensive. It vanished into a welcoming smile as soon as he saw Quentin. The tension that had been knotted between Quentin’s shoulders eased as he returned the smile with a lopsided one of his own and slid into the passenger seat.
Going through the Sentinel Games together had been a bonding experience of sorts. Out of all the people who lived and worked in the Tower, Quentin had just two friends. One of them was Pia, and the other one was Alex.
“Hey there,” he said. “You’re the first thing that has gone right this whole gods’ cursed day.”
Alex said, “I can imagine. So far I’ve heard about fifty different versions of what happened this morning.” He craned his neck, looking beyond Quentin to the crowded sidewalk. “Where’s Aryal?”
“She decided to make her own way to the airport.” Quentin slammed the door, settled his pack between his feet, buckled his seat belt and slumped back. “No doubt she’s flying.”
“If it was any warmer out, I’d offer to shapeshift and fly you out too,” said Alex. “It can be a good way to beat rush hour traffic, but in this weather you’d freeze your balls off.”
A grin hooked the corner of Quentin’s mouth up. “Your concern for my balls is touching. Really.”
Alex laughed as he shifted gear and pulled away from the curb. “I just didn’t want you screaming like a girl in my ear the whole way.” He shot a glance at Quentin. His eyes were dark, intelligent and calm. “Want to talk about it?”
Quentin sighed and rubbed the back of his head, then admitted the truth. “Dragos banished us, and we deserved it. We’re supposed to work our shit out someplace else. He’s sending us to Numenlaur.”
Any vestige of humor in Alex’s face vanished. “Numenlaur. Man, that’s gonna be a hard trip.”
“Tell me about it.” He heard himself saying, “Still, I’m … glad he thought to send someone there to check on things.”
“Careful, buddy,” Alex said. “You might be getting close to admitting that Dragos isn’t as bad as you thought he was.”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said immediately.
A smile crept back over Alex’s dark features. “Of course you wouldn’t.”
Quentin glowered at the lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic. “I’m never going to like him. That’s all there is to it. He’s arrogant, demanding, he has an evil temper, and I’m pretty sure he invented the word ‘conniving.’ ”
“Go on, tell me how you really feel,” Alex said. “Don’t hold back.”
Quentin refused to smile. “As far as I’m concerned, he does only two things right. He makes Pia happy, and he loves Liam. Okay, maybe three things. I used to think the feudal system in the Wyr hierarchy was bullshit, but— it works.”
The other man drove quickly and competently, weaving through the slower vehicles. “And don’t forget, you were also glad he mustered the Wyr to go to Lirithriel.”
“Yeah, but I question his motives,” Quentin growled. “He may have done the right thing, but not for the right reasons.”
“There’s no way you can possibly know that,” Alex countered. “I’m more of a behaviorist. Dragos did the right thing. Period. That’s what counts. You can have all the right reasons in the world. They don’t mean shit, my friend, if what you do causes harm.”
Alex didn’t know anything about Quentin’s involvement in last year’s events. The other sentinel had spoken in his typical easygoing manner, but still his words punched Quentin in the gut. “There is that,” he said bleakly.
Despite rush hour, they made good time getting to JFK. Still, if Quentin had been a normal passenger, he would have been in trouble trying to make the flight. Because of his sentinel status, he would be able to expedite his trip through the security lines.
Alex pulled to a stop at the passenger drop-off curb and clapped him on the shoulder. “Have a safe trip, and as much as she makes you crazy, don’t kill each other. You’re both sentinels for a reason, you know, and we need you.”
Quentin grasped the other man’s shoulder briefly. “You and I have only known each other for a couple of months, but I already owe you many drinks for the times you’ve talked me down.”
Alex raised his eyebrows with that trademark smile of his that already charmed so many females and was fast becoming famous in the Wyr demesne. “Good thing you own a bar, huh?”
He laughed. “I guess it is. Catch you later.”
A flight attendant closed the door as he boarded the plane. Another one lit up when she saw him. She purred, “Let me show you to your seat.”
Oh please God, not another sex kitten. There was a time when he would have taken advantage of that purred invitation in her voice, but there were winsome, flirtatious sex kittens everywhere he looked, and they all had so many emotional needs.
“That’s all right, thanks,” he told her. “You’re busy.”
Her face fell as he turned away, but it was for the best. He had no interest and he didn’t have anything to give her. As he looked for his seat, he kept an eye out for Aryal. The flight from JFK to Prague was nine hours long. With any luck, they would be in opposite parts of the plane.
But his damnable luck had been running against him all day. He scented Aryal before he caught sight of her. She slouched in her window seat, chewing gum while she flipped through a magazine. She wore the evidence of her flight. Her hair was tangled as usual, and that high color burned again underneath her normally pale skin,
