The harpy laughed. “What did you do?” Aryal said to Pia. “Flick your perky cheerleader ponytail at her too? You’re like some kind of insidious virus, but I thought you only infected people with the Y chromosome.”
“Hey, look at me,” Eva snapped. Fascinated, Pia did just that, her gaze bouncing back to Eva, whose hard, black eyes glittered in the torchlight. “I’m talking to you. She isn’t.”
Aryal smiled and said between her teeth, “Yeah, I think you may regret that.”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” said Eva. “I hear Tinker Bell here can kick your ass, and she’s a nice person. I’m more like you. I’m not nice. Just think what she and I together could do to you.”
Aryal’s smile vanished. Oh-kay, that might not be a good sign.
“For God’s sake, both of you,” Pia hissed at both of them. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Pia saw both Johnny and Hugh circling closer. The two males were watching Eva alertly. When Pia looked around, Andrea, James and Miguel were not far behind.
Then the world changed again, as Quentin moved in, seemingly from nowhere. He shoved between Eva and Aryal, his body moving with liquid, lethal grace, and he didn’t stop moving until he came nose to nose with the harpy, who shifted to face him. They were within a couple of inches of each other in height and glared at each other, their tall, lean bodies combat tense.
Quentin said in a low, bitter voice, “Pia’s right, you demented bitch—this is not the time or the place for your made-up vendettas. Decent, innocent people have died here tonight, and their bodies aren’t even cold in the ground.”
“Don’t pull that guilt-making crap on me,” Aryal exclaimed. “Dead people are dead, and they don’t know shit. And what happens between me and your special friend is none of your business, jackass.”
“You think I don’t know how long and hard you’ve tried to investigate me?” Quentin growled. “You’ve been trying to pin something on me for over two years now. And what have you found? Exactly nothing. So quit taking your resentment of me out on Pia.”
Was that why Aryal didn’t like her? Pia and Eva looked at each other. Eva raised her eyebrows, asking her silently, What the fuck? You know anything about this?
Pia shook her head and shrugged. For all she knew, it could be true.
The harpy’s nose wrinkled as she stared at Quentin, and she coughed. “Oh gods,” she said, staring at him with repugnance. “Are you a cat? You stink like a cat. That’s just bloody fucking great. Not only is Quentin Caeravorn part Wyr, but he stinks like a cat.” She threw up her hands. “Makes my whole fucking night to know this. If yet another Wyr with feline tendencies ends up as a sentinel, I’m going to slit somebody’s wrists.”
Quentin looked more out-of-control furious than Pia had ever seen him, his skin flushed dark and features clenched tight as a fist. Violence pulsed in the air. That was when the pegasus and all the gryphons arrived, even Rune, every tall male using his body like a battering ram to break the other two apart.
Graydon actually shoved Aryal by slapping the flat of his hands against her shoulders and making her stagger back a few paces. Normally he was so mild mannered and easygoing, Pia found it shocking to see him get violent. He demanded, “You realize what a line you’ve been walking this week, dipshit?”
“What?” Aryal snapped. “I’m not the criminal here!”
“Hell, you haven’t even been trying to walk a line.” Graydon stared at her with angry incredulity. “You’ve been staggering all over it like a drunk at a single’s bar. Do you want to keep your job or not?”
Aryal snarled, “I will win my job back just like all you other sonsabitches—by hammering down any bastard that gets in my way.”
“Is that so, Smurfette?” Quentin sneered at her from across a barrier made up of two gryphons and a pegasus. “And here I thought you were an example of affirmative action in the workplace.”
Rage detonated in Aryal’s expression. She flicked out both stiffened hands, and talons sprang out on all her fingers and thumbs. Then she plowed forward, only to be brought up short when Graydon came at her from behind and pinned her in a headlock.
“Smurfette,” breathed Eva rapturously.
“Everybody has gone nuts,” Pia muttered.
She looked from Eva to her other bodyguards, who had all come to surround her. And she had thought they were the psychos. They looked positively sane in comparison to the crazy pants developing between Quentin and Aryal.
Her gaze lingered on Eva’s delighted face. Well, almost all of them looked sane.
She shoved her way through the bristling testosterone to reach Quentin, making sure he saw her before she put a hand on his bicep. The warm muscle beneath her fingertips felt rock hard with tension.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Come on. Come talk to me.”