A memory of the pain he suffered when I was killed shimmered in his eyes and effectively squashed my ire. “You’re going to have to lift the curse, you know.”
His expression darkened. “I do not have to do anything, mate.”
“You cursed the silver dragons because their wyvern killed me. But I’m not dead any longer.”
“You are also not the same Ysolde you were.”
“I do not have strange sexual kinks!” I yelled, slamming the phone down on the table. I poked him in the chest because I knew it would irritate him. “Things just conspire to make it look that way! By the rood, Baltic! Just because a little guy-on-guy action isn’t objectionable to me, you think every little peccadillo is some majorly perverted desire on my part! Oh, hell.” I looked down at the phone, picking it up carefully. “You heard that, didn’t you, Aisling?”
A muffled laugh followed. “I’m afraid we all did, thanks to the invention of the speakerphone.”
“Oh, god.” I closed my eyes for a moment, overcome with embarrassment. “I will give you directions to the house.”
“You will not tell them where we live!” Baltic ranted behind me.
“I trust you will continue to honor the agreement regarding Jim. Once the sárkány is over, I will turn it over to you.”
“Your turn to hold,” Aisling said, but she had an actual hold on her phone. A slight humming noise filled the earpiece.
“Mate! I forbid you to do this!” Baltic said, grabbing my arm.
I set the phone down, turning to face him, sliding my hands into his hair, gently removing the leather thong. “I love you, Baltic.”
“I will not allow—er . . .” His tense jaw relaxed as I nibbled along it, gently biting his lower lip. His hands, which had been gripping my arms, moved around to cup my behind, pulling me tight against him.
“I love you more than anything in the world, but I would like us to live in peace with the weyr. Please do this for me. For us.” I sucked his lower lip into my mouth and tried to summon his fire, but it seemed to be banked. “Fire?”
It roared through me as he claimed my mouth properly, his tongue being every bit as demanding as he was. Just as I was seriously contemplating wrestling him to the floor and indulging in a few acts I’d seen my past self perform, the door opened.
“Fires of Abaddon, they’re still at it? Brom, my man, you don’t want to see this.”
“Don’t want to see what? Oh. Sullivan is kissing Baltic.”
“Father,” Baltic said, breaking off the kiss to inform Brom.
“Huh?” my son asked, eyeing me as if I were one of his experiments. “How come your hands are on her butt?”
“I like her butt,” Baltic said, giving the object in question a little squeeze. I bit his chin. “You will refer to me as ‘Father’ henceforth.”
“But your name is Baltic,” Brom pointed out.
“Hey, is that Aisling I hear squawking on the phone?” Jim asked as it wandered over to where I’d set down the receiver. “Ash, babe, you there?”
“Oh, damn, I forgot her again.” I turned in Baltic’s arms, but he didn’t release me.
“It is not fitting that you refer to your parents by their names. It does not show respect. You will therefore refer to me as ‘Father.’ I will leave it to your mother to decide if she wishes to tolerate you referring to her by her surname.”
“No, it’s cool,” Jim said, plopping down next to the table, its head lying next to the phone so it could talk and hear. “Pavel made sage- roasted game hens for lunch, and I had a whole one to myself. He needs to give the recipe to Suzanne because it was seriously yummy. And Ysolde said she was going to brush me later. No, they stopped kissing, although Baltic’s hands are almost on her boobs. Right in front of the kid, too.”
Baltic’s hands, which had indeed been moving up from my stomach, froze.
“I don’t like ‘Father,’ ” Brom said, his brown eyes serious as they considered Baltic.
“Papa?” I suggested, placing my hands over Baltic’s and leaning back into his chest. Despite the worry of the upcoming sárkány, I felt aglow with happiness. That Baltic cared so much about how Brom referred to him was a good sign. Brom would have a real father at last, one who cared about him.
“Yeah, yeah, but you’re overreacting, Aisling. I’m fine—no one’s hurting me. Ysolde keeps giving me scary mom looks, but I don’t think she can help it. Besides, it’s wild seeing Baltic being all lovey-dovey with her. How the mighty can fall.”
Brom wrinkled his nose. “I’m nine, Sullivan, not two. How about ‘Dad’? The others at the mage school call their fathers Dad. Most of them. There’s that weird kid who calls everyone Carrot, but no one pays much attention to him.”
Baltic’s fingers twined through mine. “You sent my son to a mage school?”
“Dr. Kostich thought he might have some talents in that direction, so I enrolled him in it. Unfortunately, he seems to have inherited my lack of abilities when it comes to things arcane.”
“Ixnay on the ecretsay ummonsay,” Jim said, casting a worried glance my way. “Oh, great, now she’s giving me another of those looks, the kind that says I’m going to be sent to my room without supper.”
“You will if you don’t give me the phone,” I told it.
“Gotta go. Pavel said he’s doing goulash for dinner, and he promises it’ll be almost orgasmic.”
“What’s—” Brom started to ask.
“Out!” I told the demon, taking the phone from it. “Brom, Baltic will be happy with ‘Dad.’ You go practice saying it somewhere else, please. And Jim, so help me god—”
“I know, you’ll skin me alive or some other heinous act if I explain to Brom what ‘orgasmic’ means. I didn’t actually mean to say that in front of him. Sometimes I forget he’s only a kid.”
“That’s all right,” Brom said, patting Jim on the head as the two of them exited the room. “Sometimes I forget you’re a demon. You want to play catch?”
“Naw. Let’s go play on Pavel’s Xbox. He’s got a road-racing game I love.”
“Aisling?”
“Still here. And you have my permission to yell at Jim. I can’t believe it’d say something so inappropriate in front of a child. Honest to Pete! It knows better than that! Drake, stop trying to take the phone away from me! I’m not done.”
“I take it we’re off speakerphone?”
“Yes, I thought after that last argument, it would be better. Drake wishes to speak with Baltic, but I did want to remind you that should anything happen to Jim, I will rain down destruction as you’ve never seen it. Not that I think you’d do anything to it, because you seem very maternal, and we moms have a sense about those things, but I feel obligated as its demon lord to say that. Fine! You can have the phone. Sheesh, pushy dragons . . .”
“Oh, Aisling?” I said, smiling to myself.
“Yes?”
“The next time you have Drake alone, ask him about a small inn in Paris called the Hangman’s Balls. Mention the year 1699.”
“All right,” she said slowly. “I will. Here’s Drake.”
“A moment, please,” I told Drake when he asked for Baltic. I held the phone to my chest. “You will be polite.”
“I am a wyvern,” he said airily.
“You will not say rude things to Drake no matter what he says to you.”
“You may leave. I will speak with the green wyvern by myself.”
“We are trying to establish a relationship with these people. Please remember that.”
He tried to take the phone. I hung on to it. “You may leave now, Ysolde.”
“Not until you promise to be good.”
“I’m always good. Give me the phone.”
“Just remember what I’ve said, that’s all.”
“I am not a child who needs to be schooled in matters of weyr etiquette,” he answered, trying to pry my fingers off the receiver.
“You’re also notoriously short-tempered, don’t gi
ve a damn what anyone else thinks, and have a chip on your shoulder approximately the size of Rhode Island.”
“Mate,” he said, a warning light in his eyes.
“Yes?”
“Do your many and varied sexual kinks run to spankings?”
“I don’t have sexual kinks, and no—you wouldn’t!” I gasped as he tried to pull me over to the chair. “All right, I’ll leave, but if you mess things up after I’ve worked so hard to straighten them out, I will make your life a living hell—just see if I don’t!”
As I closed the door I heard him say, “What? Yes, it worked. I recommend using the threat of it as a method of controlling an unruly mate—”
Chapter Sixteen
“By the rood, they can’t be early, can they?” I paused on my way through the French doors in the sitting room to peer out of the glass next to the front door. A car was pulling to a stop. “I’m not ready! We don’t have all the beverages out to the field yet, let alone the canapés!”
“I can help you with the canapés,” Jim said, licking its lips as it emerged from the kitchen hauling a large basket. “Oooh, visitors?”
“If your demon lord came early just to catch us by surprise—oh, no!”
“Who is it?” Jim asked, peering around me. Its eyebrows rose. “Heh. This ought to be fun.”
“What is Savian doing, telling everyone in the Otherworld where I am?” I muttered as I set down the tray of cut glass crystal goblets and opened the door. “Good afternoon, Dr. Kostich.”
“Tully,” he said, inclining his head toward me. “I trust you will excuse my unannounced arrival. I have matters of great import to discuss with you.”
“Actually, I’m a bit busy today. Could you come back another time? Say, next year?”
The look he gave me said much, and none of it was in my favor. He strolled past me into the house, casually tossing over his shoulder, “I assume you have the von Endres blade by now. I have come to collect it.”
“Oh, lord,” I swore, looking heavenward for a moment. “Why me?”
“What’s going on . . . oh man. Greetings, your eminence,” Jim said, almost groveling toward Dr. Kostich. I didn’t wonder that the demon, normally the most flip of beings, had adopted a respectful air. Clearly it had come into contact with Dr. Kostich before.
I turned slowly back to the foyer, trying to think of a diplomatic way to explain to the head of the Otherworld that I would not be stealing Baltic’s sword.
“What are you doing here?” Kostich asked, staring at Jim where it sat in the center of the narrow hall.
Jim dipped its head again in a doggy bow. “Ysolde’s making me be a pack mule. I didn’t know you were going to be here, though. Not that there’s anything wrong with you being here,” it added quickly as it backed up a few steps.
“I dislike demons,” Dr. Kostich told it, his eyes narrowing and his fingers twitching as if he might cast a spell.
“Ysolde!” Jim almost yelped, hurrying over to press into my leg. “You promised Ash to keep me safe! Don’t let him do anything to me.”
“You’re a demon,” I told it, patting it on its head nonetheless. “He can’t harm a demon. No one can but a demon lord. Not permanently, anyway.”
“Wanna bet?” Jim peeked out around my leg at my former employer.
My eyebrows rose. “You can harm a demon? Not just its form, but the demon itself?”
Dr. Kostich just smiled.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let anyone harm you,” I said meaningfully. “Jim is my guest, Dr. Kostich.”
The demon moved out a few steps. “Hostage is more like it. Ysolde demon- napped me. Not that I mind, because she’s cool and all.”
“I can’t imagine why she would want to do that—” The words dried up on his lips as Baltic emerged from a back room. He paused at the sight of Kostich. The two men stared at each other.
“Uh-oh,” Jim said, backing up again.
“You!” Kostich said, pointing dramatically at Baltic. “It is you!”
Baltic shot me an irritated glance.
“I didn’t tell him where we were,” I answered the look. “Savian did.”
“Now you will pay for your crimes against the L’audela!” Dr. Kostich announced, and began to cast what I knew was a morphing spell.
“I really should have killed you when I had the chance,” Baltic snarled, holding out his hand. The light blade materialized in a burst of blue-white light.
“No!” I yelled, running to stand between them. “I will not have this! Not now! Not today! Not when I haven’t made the lemon sorbet yet!”
Baltic, in the act of raising the sword over his head, presumably to strike down Dr. Kostich, paused and frowned at me. “Lemon sorbet?”
“For after the sárkány. I thought a little lemon sorbet and some ladyfingers would be refreshing.”
He lowered the sword, his lips tight as he turned to face me. “This is not a party, Ysolde!”
“Lemon sorbet does not constitute a party,” I pointed out.
“Regardless, I will not feed my enemies!”
“Might I interject a note of seriousness into this bizarre conversation—” Dr. Kostich started to say.
“Don’t think it will do any good,” Jim answered as I pushed my way past Dr. Kostich to face Baltic.
“They are our guests, and I will be damned if I have it said that people came to my house and I did not offer them common hospitality.”
“Sorbet is not common hospitality,” he argued. “It’s dessert.”
“I thought people would like something to cleanse their palates after the canapés!” I said, slapping my hands on my thighs. “Pardon me for being civilized.”
“Canapés? Now you have canapés?” His face was beginning to flush, always a sign his temper was slipping. “What next, champagne?”
Pavel emerged from the door leading to the basement, a cardboard box in his hands bearing the name of a famous brand of champagne. Baltic looked at him in disbelief before turning a scowl on me. “That’s my vintage Bollinger’s!”
“It won’t hurt you to share.”
“With people who want me dead!” he yelled.
“I completely understand their feelings,” Dr. Kostich said. “About the von Endres sword—”
“That’s it,” Baltic said, raising the sword again. “I’m killing him; then I will deal with you, mate.”
Dr. Kostich took a step back, his hands going through the intricate twists and turns of a morphing spell.
“You will not hurt him! I will never forgive you if you hurt him!” I told Baltic.
He glared at me, his eyes sparking onyx, his jaw tight with tension. “You are pushing me too far, woman!”
“I just want everyone to get along!” I yelled, so frustrated I could . . . well, yell. “Why can’t people stop trying to kill each other and steal things from each other and so help me god, Dr. Kostich, if you complete that morph spell, I’ll slap you with one myself!”
My former employer lifted his nose, his fingers dancing in the air as they drew near to completing a particularly detailed morph spell that would turn Baltic into some other form. “You are under an interdict. Your magic does not work.”
“Wanna bet?” I snarled, and pulled hard on the dragon fire within me, letting my own fingers do a little spell casting.
A banana materialized out of the air and fell to his feet.
He stopped his morph spell. Everyone stared at the banana.
“Um. That was supposed to be a slavering tiger,” I said, prodding the fruit with the toe of my shoe. “I guess the interdict is making my magic wonky.”
“Understatement time,” Jim said, sniffing it. “You want me to pretend I’m a tiger and stab the archimage with it?”
We all ignored Jim.
“You should not be able to even cast a spell,” Kostich said, giving me a long look. “It is not possible that you can do so with the interdict placed upon you.”
“My mate is not a norma
l woman,” Baltic said, hauling me into his side with his free arm. With the other, he waved the sword at Kostich. “She is a light dragon. She is beyond your understanding.”
“You!” Kostich snapped again, glaring at Baltic as he gathered up arcane energy into a bluish white ball.
“Here we go again,” Jim said, taking the banana to the bottom step of the staircase. “At least I have snacks for this show.”
“Don’t you dare!” I told Kostich just as he released the arcane ball. Baltic parried it with a flash of his light blade.
“Very Wonder Woman,” Jim said, its mouth full. “How are you with bullets?”
“Oh!” I yelled, glaring at the mage, rolling up my sleeves. Baltic hauled me back as I was about to pounce on my former employer. “Let go of me, Baltic! No one throws arcane magic at my man!”
“Dragon,” Jim corrected.
“Move out of the way,” Kostich warned, pulling on his power to form another arcane ball. “I shall smite the dragon where he stands!”
I twisted in Baltic’s grip, shoving him hard to the side. Kostich’s ball of power shot past us and hit a vase standing on a pedestal, exploding both into a bazillion tiny pieces.
“Steeeerike!” Jim said, tossing the now empty banana peel onto the floor in front of Kostich.
“What the hell are you doing?” Baltic asked as I continued to shove him toward the drawing room. “Leave me be, mate! I must attend to that deranged mage once and for all.”
“I am not deranged!” Dr. Kostich bellowed, turning as he pulled together yet more power, forming it between his hands into a sphere that glowed blue. “Now stand still, damn you, so I can smite you!”
“Oh, no, he’s not deranged,” Jim said, cocking an ironic eyebrow.
“Stop it!” I shouted as Baltic yanked me sideways, out of the path of the ball of power. It went through the window, shattering the glass along the way.
“You are so going to pay for that window!” I said, storming toward Kostich.
“Mate, will you get out of the way so I can kill the mage?” Baltic snarled, his blade flashing from side to side as Dr. Kostich, muttering imprecations under his breath, quickly threw tiny little sparks of light at him one right after another.