Dragos coughed. “Oh-kay. Hold on.”
Tiago’s sharp ears caught Pia in the background, saying, “You’re all Neanderthals, what else did you expect? What, me talk to him? Oh no—” The phone must have exchanged hands. Pia sighed, “Hello, Tiago. I’m so glad you found her. What’s going on?”
Another female. He nodded. Smart. Speaking in rapid sentences, he filled her in. “You’ve got to help me get her to stop crying,” he demanded.
“You just told me she’s drunk,” Pia said. “Don’t you think she’ll stop as she sobers up?”
“That’s not soon enough,” he growled.
“Have you tried talking to her?” Pia asked.
He pulled the phone away from his ear to give it a quick glare. Was that sarcasm in her voice? He said, “Of course I have. I came all this way to help her, and she keeps insisting I go away. She didn’t even want me to look at her wound. What the fuck is that about?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. Pia said, “You want me to deal with this in a five-minute conversation.”
He told her in a grim voice, “Does it have to take that long? I’m just looking for a way to survive the night.”
He glanced at the door to their motel room, which he had left cracked open a few inches. He could still hear her crying. The worst of it was how quiet she tried to be, sneaking sobs into her pillow. She probably thought she was hiding it from him. Argh. He wanted to stab something in his ears.
“Alrighty,” Pia said. “Gray and I have been discussing Niniane today since she’s been on all our minds. Did you know she barely escaped with her life when Urien led the coup that slaughtered her family?”
Tiago stopped pacing. His hand tightened on the cell phone. “I knew Urien had killed her family and she had escaped, but I don’t know the details.”
“She was seventeen years old,” Pia said. “Seventeen. Did you know she saw the bodies of her twin brothers, and she watched Urien’s men as they gutted her mother?”
His stomach clenched. Her mother, gutted before her eyes. He wondered how old her brothers had been. How they had been killed. He had to clear the gravel out of his throat before he could reply. “No,” he said. “I didn’t.”
“So, here’s my five minute fix,” Pia said, her voice soft. “Niniane is under a lot of stress. When she was just a child, a family member, maybe even someone she had cared about and trusted once, slaughtered everyone she loved. Now she’s survived an assassination attempt from yet another family member, and somehow she’s got to find the courage to go back into that palace where she lost everything in the world that mattered to her. So if you tried talking to her in the tone of voice you just used with me, Tiago, I suggest you come back to New York. Any one of the other sentinels would be glad to come take your place. They love her.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. Way to stick a knife in when he wasn’t looking. He stopped pacing and stood rigid. He listened to the roar of denial that had erupted inside when Pia mentioned him being replaced. Fuck if he was going to let that happen.
“Are you still there?”
“I’m here. Hold on,” he growled. He fought his temper, won the struggle for self-control and kept his voice as soft and even as hers. “Nobody else is coming out. I’ve got her, and I will look after her.”
“The right way,” Pia said.
“The right way,” he replied. He sent a grim smile into the halogen-lamp-lit night. “Pia, you’re a bitch. Thank you.”
In the background, Dragos said, “Hey.”
“Ease off, big guy,” Pia said, half muffled. “It was a compliment. At least I think it was.” Her voice came back fully. “Anything else, Tiago?”
He turned to look at the motel door again. “No.”
“Please call if there’s anything we can do.”
“You know I will.” He hung up and pocketed the cell.
Moments later he eased into the room, and shut and locked the door. It was silent inside. Too silent. Was she holding her breath? He stretched his neck to ease tense muscles. Way to screw things up, Dr. Death.
His predator Wyr eyes adjusted quickly to the more intense darkness inside. The room had a king-sized bed, a bland beige decor echoed in motel rooms across the country and no smoking. He had requested that specifically. Niniane was curled under the covers of the bed, her small form scooted to the side closest to the wall, as near to the edge of the bed as she could be without falling off. It was almost like she was wishing she could get as far away from him as possible.
He shook his head and indulged in a little mental ass-kicking. Then he walked over to the bed. He removed his most obtrusive weapons, put them on the bedside table and made sure his Glock was close at hand. All the while he listened.
Yeah, shit. She was definitely holding her breath.
He sighed and eased onto the bed on top of the covers. She was lying on her good side, favoring her left with the knife wound.