“Okay.” She left him to jog up the stairs to their suite.
Last night, the outfit she wore was classic chic. Tonight, should she go romantic and wear the midnight blue dress? Or perhaps sophisticated with the silk taupe pantsuit?
Upstairs, the bedroom had been cleaned and straightened, and the packages of antihistamines had been stacked on the bedside table. Seeing them reminded her.
She kicked off her jeans to inspect her thigh. It hadn’t itched for several hours, but the patch of skin was still red and angry looking. So, the hives had gone down some, but the irritation wasn’t gone. She was masking a symptom, not eradicating the problem.
Sighing, she grabbed at the open package. After double-checking the instructions, she swallowed another dose.
There was no way she was going to try to take off the pendant at this point. Later tonight, she could take it off and see how she was really doing then.
Because nothing short of a full-scale natural disaster was going to keep her from getting through the dinner party this evening.
Chapter Seven
Downstairs, Dragos ran over security plans for the evening with Bayne. Every Wyr would be on duty that night to make sure the perimeter of the property was guarded tightly. All the nearby streets were cordoned off for three blocks in every direction, and guards were mounted on the tops of nearby buildings.
Inside, while the house was too old to have a modern-day security system running through the walls, Bayne had installed tiny hidden wireless cameras in every room, which were monitored in the security room in the basement, behind the wine cellar. The house’s Wi-Fi network was a closed system, and it was backed up with an electric generator and a second server. They were as secure as modern technology could make them.
None of it calmed the dragon’s uneasiness at staying in an unfriendly city. All the security in the world wouldn’t protect the building from a long-range missile strike.
That was an extreme, highly unlikely scenario, but extreme shit happened. While he knew that the other demesnes, along with the different human police agencies, would also be on high alert throughout the city, he didn’t like to trust his safety or that of his mate to other people’s efforts.
Compulsively, he went below to make sure the openings to every tunnel had not been accidentally blocked off by all the trunks, boxes and furniture accrued over the last hundred and twenty years.
Yes, he was paranoid, but he had also been hunted before, several times throughout the ages. Being paranoid and untrusting had kept him alive, and he was vitally interested in maintaining that status quo.
Finally, he went upstairs to find the bedroom in chaos.
Pia had thrown different outfits along with matching jewelry sets on the bed. Small cardboard boxes littered one of the tables. As he raised his eyebrows and looked around, he found her crouched in front of the closet. She was wearing her dressing gown, her hair was rolled up in the hot curlers again, and she was busy pulling out shoes.
All her shoes. As far as he could tell, when she stood up, she carried in her arms every pair that she had brought on the trip.
As she caught sight of him, she muttered, “I’m so behind. I thought I was going to wear either the midnight blue dress or the silk pantsuit, but now neither one seems right, and I can’t make up my mind!”
She threw her armful of shoes on the floor beside the bed.
He walked up behind her and put his arms around her. Her body vibrated with tension. He tightened his grip on her. The hot curlers hampered his desire to put his mouth in her hair, so instead, he put his mouth to the hollow where her neck met her shoulder.
“You’re wound a little tight there, lover,” he murmured.
“Yeah, sorry. I’ve downed a bucket of coffee today.” She leaned back against him. “All of them are going to be here, Dragos—all of them under our roof.”
“I know.” He pressed a kiss against her warm skin.