The First Dragon raised one eyebrow.
Constantine blushed even harder and began swearing softly to himself while alternately throttling the doll and beating it with the exercise ball.
A quick worried glance at the First Dragon sent my spirits plummeting, not that they were in any way buoyed by what he had said. “I’m sorry if I’ve failed you. I’m really not trying to, but I’ve had a horrible time trying to figure out just what it is you want me to do.”
At a choked noise from Constantine, I recalled to whom I was talking, and made an apologetic gesture. “That is to say, it’s difficult with my memory loss to understand what it is you want me to do. I’m happy to do it. I just needed a little guidance on what it is, exactly.” Mentally, I groaned. I sounded as lame as I felt.
His gaze roved over my face for a few seconds, his expression, as ever, unreadable. “If you fail me entirely, daughter, there will be the gravest of repercussions, ones that I will not be able to correct. For your own sake, and for that of all dragons, you must right the wrong done. The sacrifice of the innocent shall not be wasted.”
At his words, desperation swelled within me, desperation and fear, topped off with more worry than any one person should have. I wanted to tell him that I was trying, but that Baltic was being his usual dragon self and not giving me any help. I wanted to point out that I was starting at a disadvantage by not realizing what his relationship to Baltic was in the first place, and that if someone, anyone, had just taken pity on me and reminded me of things I had known in the past, I might have succeeded by now. Instead, I said the last thing in the world I expected to say to the ancestor of all dragons.
“Did you love Baltic’s mother?”
His eyes widened slightly. The air around us stilled, as if all life had ceased but for the three of us.
“It’s just…I’ve always wondered. You seem to care about him a lot, and I thought maybe that was because his mother was very dear to you….” My voice, fortunately, trailed off to nothing. The basket handle bit painfully into my hand as I waited for him to either smite me dead on the spot for being so bold, or to answer my question. I fervently hoped he’d do the latter.
“Hope for the future lies within you,” he said after half a minute of extremely painful silence. “For the sake of it, you must succeed.”
A chill swept over me as he turned away, but before he could disappear, he turned back to look at me, his eyes, so fathomless, not even remotely human. “If I did not, you would not be here.”
I blinked a couple of times in confusion, not sure what that meant.
“Why did you ask him about Lady Maerwyn?” Constantine clutched a now-deflated—although still vibrating—sheep in one hand, and the giant exercise ball in the other. “And what did he mean by his answer?”
“Lady Maerwyn?”
Constantine gestured with the ball. “Baltic’s mother.”
“Ah. I’m not entirely sure what he meant,” I said slowly, suddenly feeling the urge to cry. What a tragedy for the father of all dragons to lose his beloved mate. “And far be it from any dragon to just come out and answer a question when it’s put to him.” I shook the shadows from my head and glanced at Constantine, who still held the giant ball. “How on earth are you supposed to get two people on that at the same time?”
For a second or two he looked at me as if I were mad, then glanced down to the sex toy. “Why would you try to get two people on it?”
“Well, it has two…er…phalluses on it. That means it’s for a couple, doesn’t it?”
He coughed and shoved the deflated sheep into his basket, replacing the exercise ball on the shelf. “Not in this case.”
“Really? But then what is the second…” My eyes widened as I understood. “Oh. That has to be really…never mind.”
“Not quite your style, eh?” He didn’t make another risqué comment, which took me by surprise. Instead, he said in a voice filled with wonder, “The First Dragon visited you. I do not believe he has ever done such a thing without first being summoned.”
“And can I say just how much of the world I feel is on my shoulders right now? Don’t fail or I what, wipe out the entire weyr?” I slumped against a shelf full of strap-on devices in varying sizes, colors, and species. “I really am getting tired of his dumping everything on me. I’m half tempted to just do as Baltic tells me, and ignore him, but unfortunately…” I stopped, realizing I was babbling everything to a man who didn’t particularly care if I fulfilled the task with which the First Dragon burdened me. “Well, enough about that. My time is up, and I have an appointment elsewhere. I will talk to you soon, Constantine. Enjoy your spectral whip and sexy sheep.”
“Ysolde! I am not through discussing…blast and damnation!”
I glanced back to see him fading into nothing. I smiled and blew him a kiss before he disappeared completely. He followed me, unseen, to the register as I paid for my items, but after a few minutes, he ran completely out of power. With a few impotent snarls of rage, he disappeared entirely.
“And I am so grateful that he stayed in a corporeal state for as long as he did,” I said to myself as I got into the car.
“Who?” Ludovic asked.
“Constantine.”
“The silver wyvern? The former one, that is?” Ludovic looked startled.
“Yes. He’s a shade now. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”
He blinked at me a couple of times, then nodded. “Very well. To the green wyvern’s house, I assume?”
“Yes, please.” I sat back while Ludovic drove through the busy London traffic, my thoughts tangled and confused.
Sadly, I was beginning to get used to their being in that state.
“I’ll call if we’re done earlier than two o’clock,” I told Ludovic a short time later as he saw me to the door of Aisling and Drake’s London house.
“I will be nearby,” he said, bowing in that formal way of all dragons. His manners may have been smooth as silk, but the way his eyes watched everyone on the street belied a background in protection that was comprehensive enough to pass even Baltic’s stringent requirements.
I patted Ludovic on the arm before entering the house. “You don’t have to hide in the shadows and covertly watch everyone who walks down the street. In fact, I know you’d be welcome for lunch at Drake’s house.”
He shook his head, his gaze flickering hither and yon, watching for any potential threat. “This is my job, Ysolde. I will fulfill my duties in a manner worthy of the blue dragons.”
“He’s sooo serious,” I told Aisling and May some ten minutes later, after having spent a few minutes playing with Aisling’s twins before they went down for their naps. “I know that Baltic put the fear of god into him about keeping me safe, but he won’t even go sit in a pub when I’m shopping. He has to lurk in darkened doorways and skulk along alleys, waiting for Thala to pounce.”
“If I had to answer to Baltic, I’d be skulking in the shadows, as well,” May said with a little laugh, leaning down to scratch the hairy belly of the demon in large black Newfoundland dog form that was Jim.
“Aw, yeah, right there…” Jim’s voice trailed away in bliss as one of its back legs kicked wildly when May hit a particularly itchy spot. “You have the best fingernails of anyone, May.”
“I should—they’re long enough,” May said with a smile, holding up her hand and waggling her crimson-tipped dragon claws.
I considered them for a moment. “I’d just like to know why the shard, the very same one I carried, left you with the ability to shift into dragon form even though you’re a doppelganger, while I, who was born a dragon, can’t do so.”
“I thought you were resurrected as a human,” Aisling said, entering the library, followed immediately by a couple of green dragons laden with trays of food. “Er…the last time you were resurrected, that is. I wasn’t around for the first one. Lunch, anyone?”
“Hooyeah!” Jim cheered, leaping to its feet and sniffing the trays
. “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about.”
“You will eat only what you are given, and if I catch you mooching off May and Ysolde, it’ll be off to the Akasha with you,” Aisling warned as the table was laid out with tempting dishes.
“Yeah, yeah, heard it before. You da big bad demon lord, and I’m just the lowly demon. Hey, where’s my burger?”
“That is your burger,” Aisling said, nodding at the chopped-up contents of a plate in a raised dog bowl.
Jim sniffed and wrinkled its nose. “That’s not a burger! It smells like cereal and crap.”
“It’s a vegetarian burger. It’s healthy and low fat, and it’s just what you need if you’re going to lose that extra ten pounds the vet says you need to drop. If you don’t want it, you don’t have to eat it. Now, let’s see…Ysolde, our cook heard me talk so much about the wonderful food you had at the sárkány, she wanted to make sure you’d enjoy this lunch, so she went all out with the menu. Here we have panfried Tasmanian ocean trout with butternut squash gnocchi, and that is the orange-honey marinated beetroot, ricotta, and pine nuts tossed with a citrus dressing, and over there is a crisp flatbread, topped with Gruyère and ham.”
“Oh man! And all I got was a low-fat crap burger!” Jim whined, watching with pathetic eyes as Aisling pointed out each dish. “I love Tasmanian ocean trout!”
“Beetroot, ricotta, and pine nuts,” I repeated as we took our seats around the table laden with delicious food. “I’ll have to tell Pavel about that. I never thought of pairing up beetroot and pine nuts.”
“Bet Pavel wouldn’t starve my magnificent form with crap burgers.”
“It looks delicious, Aisling,” May said as she took a seat next to me.
“Bet Gabe wouldn’t, either.”
“I hope you like it. Suzanne felt we had some standards to live up to,” Aisling said with pride as she skirted Jim and pulled out a chair.
Jim sighed and slumped over so its head was resting in its bowl. “Can I have the leftovers?”
“No,” Aisling told it. “Eat your healthy burger.”
“You didn’t even have Suzanne make me proper fries. These are sweet potato fries.”
“You love sweet potato fries, and so help me god, Jim—”
“I’m eating, I’m eating. But if I waste away to nothing and you have to get me another form because this one is skin and bones, I’m going to pick an elephant or something. Then you’ll really be sorry when it’s time to take me for walkies.”
Luckily for Jim, the tempting dishes before us served as an ample distraction to keep Aisling from carrying through with her threat to banish it to the demon version of limbo. A short time later, when we were done moaning that we had all eaten too much of the wonderful lunch, Aisling called the meeting to order.
“On our agenda today—” Aisling stopped as the door to the library was thrown open with a flourish.
“Am I late?” asked the woman who stood there, her blue eyes lighting on the remaining food. “Oh goody, I’m not too late. Is that beetroot? I love beetroot!”
“Cyrene,” I said, blinking a couple of times in astonishment at the sight of May’s twin when she hurried over to the table and helped herself. “I didn’t know…that is, I wasn’t aware…er…” I cast a helpless glance at May and Aisling.
May gave a weak smile. “I meant to warn you that Cyrene was back in town, Aisling. She…uh…showed up last night to spend the night with us, and heard Gabriel mention the Mates’ Union meeting.”
“Butternut squash gnocchi!” Cyrene squealed as she hauled over a chair and sat down with her loaded plate. “How did you know I loved butternut squash? Oh, and the union? Totally fabulous idea, Aisling. I’m so in on it.”
“I wasn’t…eh…I didn’t think you would be interested in a mates’ union,” Aisling said, clearly floundering with the rest of us. “Drake never said anything about…and you’re not really…are you?”
“Am I what?” Cyrene asked around a mouthful of trout and gnocchi.
“What she means is, did the K-man lose his mind and take you back, or are you still boinking Neptune?” Jim said, spitting out a piece of parsley garnish. “You gonna eat that last bit of trout?”
“Lose his mind!” Cyrene sputtered, outraged. “As if Kostya would have to lose his mind to beg me on his knees to return to him, which is naturally what has happened since I’m here now, aren’t I?”
May, who had more insight into her twin than the rest of us, watched her with a wariness that was telling. “If you’re back with Kostya, then why did you spend last night with us?”
“Kostie-kins has been out of town,” Cyrene said, waving away the question with her fork. “You know how lonely I get, so I’m sure he’d want me to stay with you until he gets back.”
Aisling opened her mouth as if to speak but instead tipped her head on the side as she listened. A slow smile lit her eyes as she said simply, “Well, I’m glad to see you again, Cyrene, although I have a feeling you’re not going to be quite so happy in about thirty seconds.”
I caught the rumble of masculine voices at the same time May did, both of us turning to the door seconds before it opened and two men strolled in.
“I know you are having your meeting,” the man in the lead said, his green eyes glittering with some secret amusement as he strolled over toward Aisling. “But it would be a rudeness for us to not greet May and Ysolde—” He came to a halt at the sight of the fourth person at the table.
“Good afternoon, Drake,” I said, watching with interest as his older brother froze with a horrible expression of complete and utter disbelief on his otherwise handsome face. “Kostya, it’s nice to see you again. I’m glad you’re here, actually; I was planning on giving you a call while I was in town.”
“What is she doing here?” Kostya asked, pointing at Cyrene and sucking in approximately half of the oxygen left in the room.
“Kostie!” Cyrene squealed after looking disconcerted for a moment. “You’re back! Lambkins!”
Kostya, I noted absently, was looking much more like his old self. I remembered him well from my past as Baltic’s former heir, and the man who had stood by him for many centuries—until the day he decided to kill Baltic. He’d always been a darkly handsome man, with the black eyes and onyx hair so common in black dragons. But when I’d been reintroduced to him a few months before, he’d been thin to the point of gaunt, having suffered, so Aisling informed me, from imprisonment and starvation at the hands of lawless, septless dragons.
Now he was looking much healthier, breadth and depth returning him to an impressive figure of a man, and although I’d be the last person to ever apply the word “happy” to Kostya, his expression the last month had been much more relaxed.
Kostya sidestepped Cyrene as she leaped from the chair and tried to throw herself on him. “I am not your lambkins, and I will thank you to refrain from flinging your person at me.”
“Oh, Kostie,” Cyrene said with a simper, flashing glances around us. “Silly dragon, thinking you ever stopped being my one true love.”
May groaned as Aisling rubbed her hand over her face, shaking her head. Drake moved to her side, his hands on her shoulders as he watched his brother. I watched Kostya, too, interested to see what he’d do.
“Silly dragon?” Kostya roared, his expression as dark as his hair as he glared at Cyrene. “You left me! You made me name you as a mate—despite the fact that you aren’t a wyvern’s mate—in front of all the weyr, and then you left me six weeks later!”
“I didn’t really leave you. I just had to go do some…er…work….”
“You told me I was a beast and cruel and wasn’t worth the ground you walked on!” Kostya stormed. “You said you hated me, and that you were going away to live with some water god, and you never wanted to see me again.”
Cyrene, with another glance at the rest of us, tried to put her hand on his arm, but he snatched it back with a disbelieving glare. “Now, dumpling, I’m sure the others aren’t
interested in our silly little squabbles—”
“Squabbles!” Kostya bellowed, sucking in the remainder of the air in obvious preparation for continuing at that volume.
“Cyrene, I think now is not the time to have this discussion,” May said, taking her twin and pushing her toward the door. “You’re just upsetting everyone, and if Kostya continues to yell like that, he’ll wake Aisling’s babies.”
“But I’m a mate,” Cyrene protested as May forced her out of the room. “This is a mates’ meeting. I should be here.”
The door closed on May’s soft murmurs, leaving the room highly charged.
“Wow,” Jim said, snuffling Kostya’s legs until the dragon narrowed his eyes. “Never thought she’d have the balls to try to sweet-talk her way back into your good graces. You’re not going to take her back, are you? ’Cause if you are, I’m going to want to have a video camera handy to film it. It isn’t often you see a wyvern emasculate himself over a chick.”
“Aisling,” Kostya growled in warning.
“Jim, silence. Don’t you give me that look—you know better than to say things like that, especially to Kostya. Although…” She glanced up at Drake. “Although I do admit to wondering if you’re intending on taking her back, Kostya. Not that it’s any of our business, but…er…I wondered.”
“As did I,” I said, noting that Kostya looked as if he wanted to set fire to something. Or more likely, someone.
To my surprise, he shot an unreadable look at me. “Why do you care? You aren’t going to try to make me believe you have any fondness for me, too, are you?”
It took me a moment to find the words. “I have always been fond of you, Kostya, right up to the point where you killed Baltic, and then, obviously, I had a change of heart. But lately, I’ve been reminded that you weren’t entirely bad, although I could do without your breaking Baltic’s nose all over the place.”
“Twice. I’ve broken it twice in the last few months, and he broke mine as many times, so we’re even,” Kostya protested, rubbing his nose. He stopped and squinted at me. “You want something from me, don’t you? I can tell. I can always tell when a woman wants something.”