She covered her eyes. No, he was not friendly at all. She whispered, “You could have let it roll over to voice mail.”
He scowled at her and mouthed, “Didn’t think of it.”
She laughed as he listened. His eyebrows rose. “Hello, Cuelebre. No, you can’t talk to her. She’s busy. What do you want?”
Grace’s eyes widened. So much for her moratorium on unpredictable events. She reached for the phone, but Khalil held it away from her. She leaned over his body and made another grab for the phone. Khalil captured her hand, kissed it and held it against his chest.
That brought Grace close enough to hear the strong, deep voice on the other end. The Lord of the Wyr said, “My mate and I are planning another trip to Louisville,” Cuelebre said. “We would like to consult with the Oracle.”
Khalil pulled the receiver away to look at it in surprise. Then he held it back to his ear. “I thought you don’t consult with Oracles.”
“Pia convinced me to make an exception,” he said. “We need to find out more about that vision Grace had.”
“You might have heard that somebody tried to kill Grace and the kids a few days ago, and blew up their house,” Khalil told the dragon. “Call back in two weeks. Right now Grace is on vacation.”
Cuelebre’s voice was edged. “I heard about the assassination attempt, and that she had an abundance of help. I also expect to talk to her directly, not through you.”
“Well, dude,” said Khalil, “sometimes you just have to get over shit.”
He clicked the cell phone shut, threw it across the room and eased Grace onto her back so he could make love to her again.
Turn the page for a special preview of
the next Novel of the Elder Races
by Thea Harrison
LORD’S FALL
Coming soon from Berkley Sensation!
Even though feeling like a drama queen sucked donkey’s balls, it was still true—leaving Dragos and New York behind was one of the hardest things Pia had ever done.
What sucked worse than that? Leaving was her idea. She had even argued for it, loud, long and vociferously.
And what sucked the absolute worst of all? She couldn’t even pretend she was leaving all her troubles behind, because she wasn’t. All her troubles came along with her in a nicely matched portable set, because of course she had to travel with a bunch of psychos.
She had just gotten used to one set of psychos, the Wyr sentinels. Not all of them liked her but most of them had, more or less, accepted her. Now she had to break in a whole new set. All these were fresh and energetic, while she was just goddamn tired and feeling bitchy enough to start tearing off heads for no reason.
That’d win her some brownie points.
Three psychos traveled with her in one black Cadillac Escalade. Three more traveled in another Escalade behind them, also black. In fact, both SUVs quite illegally had the same license plate numbers and were identical in virtually every way, in case the group had to split up and one SUV had to act as a decoy for the other—which would be whichever one Pia was traveling in at the time.
In the Escalade following them were Miguel, Hugh and Andrea. Miguel was nut brown and dark-haired, with a tight body coiled with lean muscles and dark sharp eyes that never stopped roaming. Hugh was rawboned and rather plain. He had big hands, a slight Scottish burr, and a sleepy demeanor that Pia didn’t believe for a moment, because if he was really that sleepy and slow moving, he wouldn’t be traveling with her.
Andrea looked just like Pia from a distance, which had been intentional. She had the same leggy five-foot-ten body type, and the same thick blonde hair that fell past the shoulders and could be pulled back in a ponytail. Andrea’s hair had been carefully lightened so that it matched Pia’s blonde shades.
They couldn’t pass for each other close up. Andrea looked to be possibly five years older than Pia’s twenty-five, although with Wyr, guessing someone’s age could sometimes be difficult, and Andrea could be as much as thirty years older. Pia’s face was more triangular. Andrea’s eyes were green, not midnight blue.
The three psychos traveling in Pia’s Cadillac were James, Daniel and Eva. James was the tallest of the crew and actually handsome, with dark hair that fell into blue eyes, and a strong nose and jaw that looked great in profile. With his fine features and light brown hair, Daniel appeared so boyish that he looked downright innocent—another impression that Pia knew had to be false.
Then there was Eva, who was the alpha and captain of this particular pack of lethal whack-jobs. Eva had the whole Venus Williams–Amazonian-splendor thing nailed, with her honed, six-foot-tall body, rich ebony skin that rippled over strong muscles and a black, bitter gaze that had dissected Pia so thoroughly the first time they met, Pia was not exactly sure she’d found all the pieces and got herself put back together quite right afterward.