A noise caught her attention. She glanced over to the massive cradle that sat next to her in the shade of the patio, the cool breeze from the sea making its draperies flutter.
Her eyes went again to the two little girls, sadness filling her at the thought of what should be a happy time—the first birthday of her son. Their friends and family were coming in later in the day to help them celebrate . . . all but Theo.
“Still at it?”
She made a face as Dmitri moved a chair next to her. She pulled off the earphones, turning off the MP3 player. “Trying. Do I have any earthly use for knowing how to say in Greek ‘his feet are too big’? Because honestly, Dmitri, that’s all I seem to be able to remember.”
“I’m sure it’s not that bad. How about something simple? Why don’t you ask me who I’ve been talking to?”
“Um . . .” Her face screwed up as she tried to sort out the appropriate words. “Uh . . . what case is that in? Cases confuse me. So do declensions.”
He laughed. “Never mind, then.”
“Where’s your cousin?”
“On the mainland meeting with the mayor about some repairs he’s funding.” Dmitri fell silent, and Harry had a feeling that he wanted to say more.
“Who were you just talking with?” she asked. “Iakovos?”
“No.” He slid her a quick glance.
She sat up straight, her hand on his arm. “Have you heard from him?”
“Yes.”
“Is he—”
“He says he hasn’t touched a drop since that night Jake smashed all the alcohol.”
Harry sat back, her heart heavy. “I’ve tried and tried to tell Iakovos that Theo hadn’t been drinking that day the girls were born, but you know how he gets—he just won’t listen.”
“I know you’ve tried. I told him as well.”
“You did?” She studied his face. “What did he say?”
“Told me that if I wanted to keep my job, I wouldn’t mention it again.” Dmitri shrugged. “I let it drop. I figured that in time Theo would prove himself innocent or Jake would figure out the truth for himself, but . . .”
“But he hasn’t.” She knew that immediately following the accident, Iakovos had coldly severed all ties with Theo, that he had finally reached his limit of tolerance, and didn’t seem to care where his brother went, or what happened to him. It was the one subject on which they did not agree, a guaranteed argument starter, but as it had its roots in his father’s history of alcoholism, Harry had learned to simply let it be over the three years of their marriage.
“After that night when the twins were born, I was sure I’d have to stop Jake from murdering Theo, but Jake never did go after him.”
“No,” Harry agreed sadly. “I think Iakovos knew that what we said was true—Theo hadn’t caused the accident, hadn’t been drinking—but it was just the last straw. So instead he told him to leave. But enough is enough.” Her eyes rested on her daughters as they played with Elena. “If I don’t do something, my children will grow up never knowing their uncle. What’s Theo been doing?”
“What he knows—working in real estate. Sounds like he went to New York first, then somewhere in Asia, and ended up in New Zealand. Now he’s back.”
“Here?” Her hopes rose. “He’s in Greece?”
Dmitri nodded.
“I’ve never been one to believe in signs, but if that isn’t one, then I don’t know what is.” She was about to say more when her attention was caught elsewhere.
“Eglantine!” The voice roaring her name came from behind her, in the house. She turned, smiling as the tall, dark-haired Greek god—and former world’s most eligible bachelor—stomped out onto the patio, lowering his voice only when he saw the sleeping child next to her.
“Yacky?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
He slapped down a piece of paper in front of her. “What is this?” he asked with furious intensity, his eyes sparkling with an unholy light.
She looked at the paper. It was a signed receipt, the kind you get when you pay for a meal with a credit card.
“That’s from the lunch that Elena and I had in town yesterday.”
“I know what it is. It was handed to me because the taverna owner thought someone might be impersonating you. What, if you don’t mind explaining it, is this?” He pointed to the bottom line.
“My name, you mean?” It was almost impossible to keep her lips from twitching, but she made a huge effort to meet her husband’s ire with innocence.
“That,” he said with disgust, “is not your name.”
“Harry Papamiaowmiaow isn’t right? Was I close?”
“Not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s not that difficult, Harry. It’s P-A-P-A—”
The twins descended upon them, shrieking and laughing, throwing their wet arms around his legs, clinging to him and chanting with him in their high, sweet tones. “IO-A-N—”
Elena joined them, her eyes sparkling as she added her voice to the others. “—N-O-U.”
“I just don’t know,” Harry said, looking again at the receipt. “Honestly, Yacky, I think we should give serious consideration to changing our last name to something easier, like Smith, or Brown. Oh, I know—how does Jones grab you? Jones is a lovely name.”
“Melina,” he said, picking up one little girl and giving her a kiss before doing the same to the other. “Thea. I hate to break this to you, my darlings, but your mother is deranged.”
“Deranged, deranged!” they shouted in glee.
“Don’t like Jones?” Harry asked, watching the telltale sign of that quirky corner of his mouth.
He set the wet, squirming girls back on their feet, bent to give Harry a quick, hard kiss, kissed his sister’s cheek, punched his cousin on the shoulder, and finally leaned over the cradle to deposit a kiss on his son’s head.
Elena laughed at them both, giving her brother a wink before she herded the girls inside to change out of their swimsuits. Dmitri, with a significant glance at Harry, followed.
Iakovos towered over her, this tall, so-handsome-it-hurt man of hers. He said, with stern resignation, “You simply need to put your mind to it, Harry. It’s really not that many letters.”
“I love you,” she told him in Greek.
He looked startled for a second. “What . . . what did you say?”
She repeated it, standing up so she could fling herself on him, wrapping her legs around his waist.
“That’s what I thought you said.” Passion kindled in his eyes as she licked first the spot at the base of his neck—the spot that still made her legs go weak if she looked at it too long—and then the lovely place between his lip and nose. “Sweetheart, what do you think you just said to me?”
She stopped kissing his face and frowned. “I love you. I said ‘I love you.’”
“No, you didn’t. You said, and I quote, ‘The potato hangs below.’”
“I did not!”
“You did.”
“What earthly reason would I have to say something like that? I couldn’t possibly say that even if I wanted to. Thus, you’re making it up. You may now apologize to me, and if I accept your apology, I will allow you to make hot, steamy love to me, and I will even let you be on top.”
He hoisted her higher, laughing as he did. “We’re getting you a tutor, so you can learn the language properly. I apologize for doubting your ability to speak Greek. And I will happily make hot, steamy love to you tonight, just as soon as Nicky’s party is over. Happy now?”
She bit the end of his nose, the love shining in her face. “I will be completely and wholly happy if you do one thing for me.”
“What’s that?” he asked, sitting down with her on his lap, his fingers moving to the buttons on her shirt.
“Theo.”
His fingers stilled.
She took his face in her hands, her mouth on his as she said, “He’s back in Greece, Iakovos. Dmitri says he’s been sober since that night the two of you fought. And he h
asn’t even seen his nieces and nephew.”
His eyes, always so warm and filled with love, closed for a moment.
“It’s time to start forgiving him, my most wonderful husband. He’s your brother, and I want him back in our lives.”
His hands were tight on her waist, but still he said nothing.
“He deserves another chance, my love. He deserves to have a family again. Especially since”—she pulled one of his hands around so that it rested on her stomach—“that family is going to be growing.”
His eyelids snapped open at that. “You’re not—”
“Oh, yes, I am. We are.” She grinned at him. “I really am lucky you only have one testicle, because we’d end up with twelve kids otherwise.”
“You are aware that it is the mother who decides the number of babies—”
“A mere triviality,” she said, waving away such mundane things. “Please, Iakovos. For me?”
He sighed heavily, shifting her on his lap so that she rested back against him, his hands on her belly. “You’re going to make my life hell until I give you what you want, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am. It’s what I do best.”
“If I do this for you, will you learn how to spell our name?”
“Perhaps. Maybe.”
“Harry . . .” He growled into her ear.
She laughed and turned around to kiss him again, this man she couldn’t get enough of, content that he would do as she asked, and so much more.
Turn the page for an excerpt from Katie MacAlister’s next Novel of the Light Dragons,
Sparks Fly
Coming from Signet in May 2012
“The lady is here to see you.”
Baltic turned at the voice, obviously startled to hear it, since he had been alone in the upstairs corridor. “What foolishness is this?”
The heavily varnished paneling that ran the length of the upper floor of the three-hundred-year-old pub melted into a dirt yard dotted with odd wooden figures.
Baltic glared first at the figures, then at the man who approached him. “Ysolde! Why have you drawn me into one of your visions of the past? And why must you include that murderous bastard in it?”
“Don’t blame me; blame my inner dragon.” I sighed to myself and folded my arms over the couple of shirts I had been about to hang in the wardrobe, which, like the corridor outside our bedroom, had faded into the scene before us. “Although I have to say, if it’s going to make me watch episodes from your past, you might as well be here, too. Who is that? . . . Oh, Constantine. And look—it’s Baltic version one-point-oh, all sexy and shirtless and hacking away at something with a sword.”
“I have better things to do than relive unimportant events,” my Baltic, the Baltic of the present day, growled, transferring his glare from Constantine, the former silver wyvern—and once his friend, later his most hated enemy—to me. “Make the vision stop.”
“I would if I could, but they never do until they’re good and ready. . . . Hey, where are you going?”
Baltic, with a rude word, turned on his heel and marched away. “I have spent the past twelve days chasing Thala across all of Europe and half of Asia. I have work to do, mate. You may indulge yourself with this vanity, but I will not.”
“Vanity! I like that! It’s not vanity. And you can’t just leave my vision like that!” I yelled after him, watching with a growing sense of injustice as he disappeared around the side of a building. “They’re valuable sources of information! Kaawa says we’re supposed to learn from them, to glean facts about what is important to us now. Baltic? Well, dammit! He left! That rotter.”
I slapped my hands on my legs and spun around as the vision of Constantine approached the other man, who stood in a cluster of quintains and man-sized targets.
“Well, I’m not going to be so obstinate that I don’t learn whatever it is that my inner dragon is trying to tell me. Let’s see—what do we have here . . . ? Obviously we’re in some sort of training yard, and since Baltic isn’t frothing at the mouth at the sight of Constantine, evidently this vision is from a time when they were still friends. Hello, my love. I don’t suppose you can hear me, let alone see me?”
The vision Baltic didn’t react, not that I expected him to. The people in the visions that my inner dragon self— long dormant and only recently starting to wake up—provided were just that: visions of events in the past that I could watch and listen to, but not interact with.
Constantine, clad in wool leggings and a tunic bearing a gold-embroidered dragon on a field of black, strode past the empty sword-fighting targets to the occupied one, his attitude cocky, while his face was arranged in an expression implying sympathy. “Did you hear me?” he asked as he stopped at the side of the man who was diligently hacking away with an extremely big sword at a straw and wood target.
“I heard. It is of no matter to me.”
I spent a few moments in admiration at the interplay of his muscles as Baltic continued to swing and thrust his sword into the target, his bare back shining with sweat.
“It always did make my knees weak to see you wield a sword,” I told the vision Baltic, moving around to see the front of him. His face was different yet familiar to me, his hair dark ebony then, his chin more blunted. “I like your hair the dark chocolate color it is now. And your chin, as well, although you were certainly incredibly sexy before Thala resurrected you. And your chest . . . Oh my.” I fanned myself with a bit of one of the shirts I was holding.
“Alexei says you have no choice. He says it is the command of your father.” Constantine cocked one eyebrow at Baltic, moving swiftly to the side when Baltic swung wide.
“You look the same,” I informed Constantine. “Evidently being brought back as a shade didn’t affect your appearance, whereas resurrection does. Interesting. I’ll have to talk to Kaawa about that the next time I see her. Still, you were handsome then, Constantine. But you didn’t hold a candle to Baltic.”
“My father does not control my life,” Baltic snapped, his breath ragged now as he continued to swing at the vaguely human-shaped target. “Nor does Alexei.”
I settled back against one of the targets, prepared to watch and learn what I could from the vision.
“He is our wyvern. You owe him your fealty,” Constantine said, stiffening. “You must do as he says. You must meet the lady.”
“Do not lecture me, Constantine,” Baltic snarled, turning on him. Sweat beaded on his brow and matted the dark hair on his chest. Constantine took a step back when Baltic gestured toward him with the sword. “You are Alexei’s heir, not the wyvern himself, and I do not take well to being ordered about.”
“Pax!” Constantine said, throwing his hands up in the air in a gesture of defeat. “I did not come to argue with you, old friend. I wanted simply to warn you that the lady had arrived, and Alexei is expecting you to do your duty and claim her as mate.”
I had been idly wondering to myself when exactly this moment had taken place—judging by the comments, it predated not only my birth, but even the time when Baltic had been wyvern of the black dragon sept. But as the two men argued, I had a sudden insight.
“This is about the First Dragon’s demand that I redeem you, isn’t it?” I asked the past Baltic. “This has something to do with whatever it is I’m supposed to accomplish to erase the stain on your soul. But that was due to the death of the innocent, and this . . . a mate?”
It took a minute before Constantine’s words sank into my brain, but when they did, the hairs on the back of my neck rose. I stalked forward to the two men, glaring at the former image of the love of my life, uncaring that this was only a vision. “You were supposed to take someone else as a mate? Who?”
“I’ve told Alexei of my decision,” Baltic said, snatching up his discarded tunic and wiping his face with it before sheathing his sword. “I have not changed my mind.”
He turned and started up the hill of what was obviously the outer bailey of an early stone castle,
stopping when Constantine called after him, “And what of the First Dragon? Will you defy him as well as Alexei? You are his only living son, Baltic.”
“I know what I am,” Baltic snarled, and continued walking.
“The lady wants you. The First Dragon is reported to desire you to take her as mate. Alexei has commanded it in order to avoid a war. Do you really think you have a choice in the matter?”
The word that Baltic uttered was archaic but quite, quite rude and, ironically, one his present-day self had spoken just a few minutes before. I watched his tall, handsome figure as he disappeared into crowds of dragons going about their daily business, my eyes narrowing as Constantine suddenly smiled.
“Why do I have the feeling that you know something?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer, of course. He just continued to smile for a few seconds, and then he, too, strolled off toward the upper bailey, leaving me alone in the practice yard.
“Who was she?” I bellowed after them, achieving nothing but the venting of my spleen. “Who the hell was she?”
“Who was what?” a voice asked from behind me. I spun around, staggering slightly when the world spun with me for a few moments, finally resolving itself into a familiar, if uninspiring, bedroom atop the old pub. “Are you all right? You look funny, like you smell cabbage cooking.”
“I’m fine, lovey.” I smiled at the brown-haired boy watching me with eyes that always seemed to be far too old for their nine years. “And there’s nothing wrong with cabbage, despite your stepfather’s insistence that it was put on this earth only to try his patience. That stir-fried cabbage with peanut sauce that Pavel made last night was to die for, which you’d know if you had tried it.”
Brom wrinkled up his nose. Always a placid child, if a tad bit eccentric, in the month that had passed since our house had been destroyed, he seemed to have adopted Baltic as a hero figure. I’d caught him more than once watching Baltic closely, as if fascinated with the way a wyvern acted, but I think it went deeper than mere curiosity about the dragons with whom we now found ourselves living. He’d started parroting Baltic’s likes and dislikes, even going as far as to spurn food I knew he didn’t really mind.