“How did you know . . .” Realization dawned. “Oh, the note I left you. I wrote it on the back of a receipt.” She smacked her forehead. “That’s how you tracked me.”
“We got the security footage from the date of the receipt. Between that and your human name you told me in the dream, we had you.”
She sighed, finished her yogurt and opened the package of almonds. “So much for my life of crime.” She offered him the opened package and he shook his head. Headlights came up behind them and stayed a steady distance away. She noticed him looking in the rearview mirror and twisted in her seat. “What is it?”
“We have an escort to the Elven border.” His profile looked hard in the dim reflected light. “How polite of them. What do you want to bet they would offer roadside assistance if we got a flat?”
“Well, you can hardly blame them,” she pointed out. “You did trespass.”
“Yes, and you stole from me,” he said. “And look at how well we’re getting along.”
She was taken aback. She thought back on the overloaded day. They were getting along extraordinarily well. She suspected she ought to be freaked-out by it. Come to think of it, some part of her was.
“Now that you mention it,” she murmured, “you do seem to be running against type a bit. Aren’t you?”
“Of course,” he told her in a silken voice. “Do you think I go from possibly rending to kissing in a day with just anyone who’s stolen from me?”
“I . . . I haven’t had much time to think about it.” She hadn’t had time to think of much of anything.
He held up a finger. “First, you’re the only one who’s ever successfully stolen from me.” He held up another finger. “Second, I am not a forgiving creature. In fact, you’re the only one I’ve ever forgiven before.” He put up a third finger. “And third, I like vengeance. I’m looking forward to ripping apart the person who gave you that charm and who ended up with my penny.”
“Put like that, I should still be running away screaming,” she said. She swallowed and looked out her window at the dark night scenes passing by. “Why is this so different?”
“Remember when I said I wasn’t bored?”
She nodded as she folded the corner of her long-sleeved shirt between her fingers.
“Looking back, I think I’ve been bored for centuries now. That’s a pretty big rut. People rush to give me anything I could want. And if for some reason that doesn’t happen, I can always buy what I want.”
“I can’t imagine,” she murmured.
“Well, I live that way every day. But you’re different. You have been a series of surprises from the first,” said Dragos. “I have never been so angry. Then your note made me laugh out loud. The dream? Big surprise. The ridiculous things you say, the way you smell, the color of your hair in the sunlight, in the moonlight.” He shot her a sidelong glance with that blade-sharp smile of his. “I am very much not bored. I find that’s worth a lot to me, including figuring out how to do new things.”
She turned to look out her window again. Oh great, so she could relax as long as he was entertained? What happened when he got bored with her? Would he forget how he “forgave” her? She bit her lip.
Good thing there were still three caches in New York, with three new identities and more money. Guess she was going back to the city with him after all. She would just have to play along until she found some way to get away.
His hand landed on her knee. She jumped and turned her attention back to him. “Pia,” he said. The smile was gone from his voice. “I want you to listen to me. I’m serious. Do not try to run away when we get back to the city.”
Her eyes went wide. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh come on, it’s not a big leap,” he retorted. His hand tightened, as hard on her as an iron manacle. “Remember I said I called New York? I talked to my First sentinel, a gryphon named Rune. We think we know who might have been responsible for orchestrating what happened, manipulating and killing Keith and his bookie, making sure the charm got to you and who ended up with the penny.”
“Oh,” she said, her voice very small. “I have a feeling I don’t want to hear this.” The almond she had just swallowed seemed to stick in her throat. She folded the package, put the remaining nuts in the shopping bag at her feet and drank part of a bottle of water before capping it and throwing it back in the bag.
“I have a feeling you’re right. But you have to hear it. If Keith said anything about you, anything at all, you’re not safe. Can you guarantee he didn’t before you made him take the binding oath?”
She squirmed, leaden with the return of fear. “He said he had mentioned me but hadn’t said much. It makes sense if he hadn’t. He would have wanted to try to control how things went down.”