Kinked (5 page)

He also held his sleeping son cradled against his shoulder. Quentin had thought that baby was small before—just six pounds when he had been born, Pia had told him. Held against the tremendous musculature of his father’s chest, he looked as tiny as a small child’s doll.

Quentin’s mind flatlined.

He had thought he didn’t hold any illusions about Dragos. He knew that the only thing that could possibly take the dragon down was a dedicated army with inspired leadership and experienced magic users. But if he had ever held a secret daydream of someone besting Dragos in his human form in single, unarmed combat, that daydream had just been shattered forever.

Not only had Dragos just taken down two of the best, nastiest Wyr fighters in the world, he had done it by moving faster than Quentin could comprehend.

And he did it all without ever jostling the baby enough to wake him.

Dragos glared around the hall at the spectators who had been drawn by the violence.

“Go away,” he whispered. People vanished. He kicked Aryal over so that she lay on her back, staring up at him. Still speaking so gently that the baby never stirred, he told her, “I have given you more free rein than I have given almost anybody else, and you have just used the last of that up.”

The dragon’s incandescent gold gaze turned to Quentin. “And you haven’t earned any free rein. I am going upstairs to tuck my son into his crib. You will both go to my office right now and wait for me there. You will not speak to anyone else. You will not speak to or fight each other.” He glanced at Grym. “If either one of them disobeys me by so much as uttering a single word, shoot them.”

Grym drew his gun and said, “Yes, my lord.”

THREE

Q
uentin held his side as he limped down the hall, cataloguing the damage from the fight and that monstrously powerful kick. He guessed he had three broken ribs, maybe more. Whatever the damage was, it was the size of Dragos’s boot. His left knee was wrenched badly and he couldn’t bend it. The kneecap felt wrong, like it had been dislocated.

He had also done something exceedingly rare for him. When he had landed against the wall, he had been ass over teakettle, completely out of control of his fall. Usually his fast reflexes saved him from that kind of damage, but not this time.

When he added his bruised, throbbing groin and the claw marks on his back to the list, he was actually more hurt now than he had been throughout all of the Sentinel Games, but for a Wyr of his robust health the injuries were minor. He would want to get his ribs wrapped after Dragos yelled at and maybe fired them, but he’d heal just fine.

His gaze slid sideways. Grym walked between him and Aryal, his Glock pointed casually at the floor.

Aryal walked stiffly, her expression grim and mouth tight. One side of her face had already purpled from his punch. As Quentin watched, her gaze slid sideways toward
him. The narrow-eyed glance she gave him was filled with pure evil. Then she looked down at Grym’s Glock, and her expression turned unhappy.

“You’re doing a really good job,” Grym told her, his voice mild and encouraging. “I know what you want to ask, so I’ll answer right now and save you the temptation. Dragos told me to shoot you if you said a word, so yes, I would do as he ordered. He didn’t say where to shoot you though.”

Aryal threw up her hands in a silent question.

Grym told her, “I’d probably tag you on your foot.”

Her mouth turned down at the corners. She shook her head and pointed to her forearm, while Quentin scratched the back of his head and stared at them. They were discussing in all seriousness which body part Grym was going to shoot?

“Okay, not your foot,” Grym amended. “I’d tag your arm. Satisfied? And the point is that you would deserve it. You both would. He really lost it with you. You’re lucky he didn’t shatter your spines and put you in traction for a month.”

Quentin took a deep breath. Both Aryal and Grym turned to him. Aryal looked hopeful while Grym just waited. He let the breath out again silently and Aryal’s face fell.

Grym said, “If that was meant as a question—yes, Dragos has put people in traction before.”

This was the most Quentin had ever heard Grym talk before. They made their way through the outer offices into Dragos’s massive corner office.

Quentin had only been in Dragos’s office once before. His lip curled as he looked around.

Compared to the ostentatious luxury throughout the rest of the Tower, the office was almost Spartan. Mostly the room was empty floor space. There was a huge desk and chair, with two more chairs positioned in front of it, a plain mahogany table pushed against one wall, and original multimedia artwork hung on the two interior walls. The two corner walls were floor to ceiling windows, framing one of the most expensive skyline views in the world. French doors led out onto a balcony patio.

Quentin moved to put his back to the one of the interior
walls, crossing his arms and leaning against it for support. He watched as Grym shut the door and Aryal limped over to ease back against Dragos’s desk.

Grym registered Quentin’s position with a quirk of his black, straight eyebrows then walked over to Aryal. He still hadn’t holstered his gun.

The harpy was scowling at the floor, her head bent. Grym flattened one hand on the desk by her hip and leaned on it, angling his head to look into Aryal’s face.

Grym said to her in gentle voice, “You make people crazy. You do realize that, don’t you?”

Aryal made a face then winced and fingered her swollen bruise.

“Your wildness is actually one of the reasons why so many people love you in spite of the headaches you cause. Why Dragos loves you, even though I know he’s never said it. Some Wyr are more tame than others, but we all recognize something of our own wildness in you. Did you know that too?”

Quentin’s gaze narrowed, frowning as he listened. Grym talked quietly, the pitch of his voice clearly intended to exclude Quentin. But the other sentinel could also have talked to her telepathically, so he intended for Quentin to witness but not participate.

Aryal looked up at Grym, questions shimmering in her eyes.

Gripped by a compulsion he couldn’t control, Quentin cheated.
Don’t worry,
he said to her telepathically,
you’re still quite rotten and plenty of other people dislike you intensely.

Renewed fury blazed in her face. She started to push away from the desk, but Grym slammed his hand down on her shoulder and held her in place. Then he glared at Quentin suspiciously and pointed his Glock at him.

Quentin didn’t want to laugh. His ribs sent a stabbing pain right through his chest. He couldn’t believe Aryal didn’t return fire telepathically. Perhaps she didn’t trust herself once she got going. He sure as hell didn’t trust her. She was crazypants at the best of times, let alone when she got angry.

He also hated the appearance of intimacy that Grym had created, and the obvious deep affection Grym and Aryal had for each other. Not only did it speak of long years of intimacy between them, but it highlighted qualities in Aryal that Quentin didn’t want to acknowledge might exist.

He wanted to block out Grym’s voice, but he couldn’t, as the other sentinel turned back to Aryal. “I have a point to make here. There’s a reason why Dragos has given you so much free rein. In a way, you’re kindred spirits. Like you, he has his own hellish temper to grapple with and he creates as many problems as he solves. He knows you love him too, and you’re committed to the Wyr demesne with every bit of that considerable passion you carry inside of you. So if Dragos says you’ve used up all the free rein he’s given you, Aryal, you’d better listen to him, because he meant every word he said out in the hall. I really think this could be it for you. Be careful how you act when he gets down here. Okay?”

The harpy’s angular features sobered as she listened. She nodded.

Grym straightened and turned to face Quentin, his expression growing colder. “Now for you,” he said. “Dragos meant every word he said to you too. You haven’t earned any free rein. A lot of people like you, and it’s probably a lot more than who like Aryal. Most of the sentinels like you. I like you. We also all know that she’s been investigating you for a long time. Dragos knows, because
she
hasn’t held any secrets back. So what the hell are you doing here, Quentin? Why is she getting under your skin so bad, and what are the rest of us supposed to think when you fly off the handle and continue to attack her?”

All vestige of Quentin’s sardonic humor vaporized as Grym’s words hit him like individual blows. Maybe they shouldn’t have hit him so hard. He had known that some people were suspicious of him just because there had been an investigation. In fact, he had been expecting it. But somehow by what Grym said, or in the way he said it, the other sentinel held up a mirror for him to look in and the reflection was pitilessly uncompromising.

What the hell are you doing here, Quentin?

That was the question. That was the heart of every question.

The office door slammed open. A volcano in the shape of the Lord of the Wyr poured into the room. The walls contracted, and suddenly the office was much smaller than it had been a few moments ago.

Clearly Dragos’s self-imposed, ten-minute time-out hadn’t improved his mood very much.

Dragos looked at Grym and jerked his head toward the door. Grym didn’t say another word. Inclining his head respectfully to Dragos, he holstered his gun, and shot one look at Aryal and another one at Quentin as he walked out, easing the door closed behind him as he went. Aryal straightened from the desk and opened her mouth.

“I have not given you leave to speak,” said Dragos before she could start. “You will both remain silent. I don’t care what he did.” Blazing gold eyes speared Quentin as Dragos said, “I don’t care what she did. I. Do. Not. Give a shit.”

Anger churned in Quentin on a fast boil, and he almost didn’t contain it. He had always bristled at Dragos Cuelebre’s particular brand of dominance. The two worst aspects of becoming a sentinel were facing him in this room, and he held himself clenched like a fist, shaking with the desire to spit in their faces and storm out.

What
was
he doing here?

Hands on his hips, the dragon studied him and waited.

Quentin returned Dragos’s gaze bitterly and shook his head. No you don’t, you arrogant son of a bitch, he thought. You will not drive me away that easily. I’ve won my way into your Tower by your own rules. If I leave, it will be because I choose to do so for my own reasons, and not because you manipulate me into it.

Something strange flickered across Dragos’s face. If Quentin were pressed to describe what he had seen, he would have said that the dragon almost smiled.

Whatever that subtle expression really was, it was gone almost immediately. Dragos strode behind his desk and turned to face them.

Dragos said, “Do you know what I was doing this morning? I was walking Liam so he would fall back asleep and let Pia stay in bed for a little longer. Then I came across you two jokers brawling all over the hall. I should add, brawling in one of the main hallways of the upper floors in the Tower. You had no idea I was there, did you? You were fucking oblivious to everything else outside of your own vendetta. What if I had been someone else babysitting Liam and taking him for a walk—say, Talia, for example?”

Talia Aguilar was a Wyr selkie and the new head of PR for Cuelebre Enterprises. Sleek and delicately rounded, with soulfully large eyes, Talia was gentle to the bone and didn’t have a single fighter reflex in her.

Sourness churned in Quentin’s stomach. As viciously as they had been fighting, they could easily have plowed into someone like Talia and caused major injury, if not death. A quick glance at Aryal’s tight expression told him that she realized it too.

“I’m banishing the two of you from New York,” Dragos said.

Quentin moved sharply while shock bolted over Aryal’s expression.

Dragos was still speaking in a rapid-fire staccato. It took a few moments for the words to sink in. “… and you are going to work your shit out somewhere else way the fuck away from here. I don’t want to have anything to do with you until then, and let me tell you, nobody else does either. I’m going to give you an assignment. You have to work together on it, or you both lose your sentinel positions. You cannot return before two weeks are up. You cannot stay away longer than a month. That’s your time frame. When you return to New York, you will somehow have made peace with each other, or you both lose your sentinel positions. After the Games, we now have a detailed list of current runners up. It won’t be hard if we have to make that transition.”