“The last time you tried to kill me, that is,” Baltic interrupted. “When you ran me through with a long sword, and tried to decapitate me with a battle-ax. I believe you also shot a few crossbow bolts into my legs in an attempt to break the bones.” Silence filled the hall again. Drake studiously picked a piece of nonexistent lint off his sleeve.
“And if I’m not mistaken, you had a dagger or two that you used on my spleen.” Aisling stared at her husband, who was now blithely examining a painting on the wall.
“Not to mention the grappling hook that you creatively used by sinking it deep into my—” “That’s your idea of a welcome, is it?” I asked, stopping Baltic before he could make me sick to my stomach.
He shrugged. “I didn’t mention the two morning stars he used to try to bash out my brains. I could have, but I knew you would prefer to keep things on a social level.” “I think that’s one for our team,” Jim said, nodding its approval.
Aisling transferred her gaze to it. “Hello! You’re my demon! You’re on our team, not theirs!” “Soldie kidnapped me. That means I’m on her team until she lets me go. Right, guys?” “Why do I suspect that the only reason you want to be on my team is because I have a kitchen full of canapés?” I asked it.
“A demon has to have priorities.”
“Jim, heel,” Aisling said wearily.
“Oh, fine!” I stopped the demon as it was about to obey. “Just go right ahead and ruin all of my plans! You aren’t supposed to be here yet. Jim is supposed to be hidden away! I try to have a nice sárkány, but no, everyone has to ruin it.” “Hello,” May said, popping up behind the two red-haired bodyguards who had taken up positions behind Drake. She slipped between them, looking around with interest. “Are we late?”
Chapter Seventeen
“Why does Dr. Kostich have his shirt off?” “I’m checking for broken ribs,” the mage answered May, looking up. “Is the healer here? I will need witnesses to the assault charges I will be laying against these dragons.” “Yes, he’s here. Gabriel?”
The two guards moved aside to allow Gabriel’s entrance.
“Good afternoon, Ysolde.” His eyes flickered to Baltic, narrowing on him.
The air positively bristled with electricity. I scooted in front of Baltic, so my back was against his chest. “No fighting. I’m tired of fighting. People who fight will not get any lemon sorbet. If you insist on ignoring me, I will turn you into a banana. Got that?” “Oh, man!” Jim complained behind us. “Way to ruin a good sárkány.” Gabriel looked startled. “A banana?” “Her magic is off. Dr. Kostich did something to her,” Aisling told him.
“Interdict,” Dr. Kostich snapped, still feeling his ribs. “The fat dragon and she will pay for this.” “He is not fat!” I yelled. “He’s just big-boned! Look!” I yanked the tail of Baltic’s shirt out of his pants, pulling it up to expose his belly. “See? Classic six-pack!” “Oooh, very nice,” Aisling said, admiring Baltic’s lovely ripple of muscles.
He rolled his eyes and tucked his shirt back into his pants.
Drake set fire to Aisling’s feet.
“I was just looking,” she told him. “I’m allowed to look.” Drake’s eyes were shiny emeralds. Pissed-off shiny emeralds. “No, you’re not.” “Look, you’re in enough trouble already, Mr. Having Foursome Orgies in Medieval France.” “It’s all that lemon sorbet you’re feeding him, no doubt,” Dr. Kostich said to me, pulling up his pant leg to look at his shin. “Very fattening. Well, you won’t have any of that while you’re suffering for eternity in the Akasha, so you might as well enjoy it one last time.” “Lemon sorbet? I love lemon sorbet,” a light, airy voice said, followed by the arrival of May’s twin, Cyrene. “Where’s the sorbet?” Kostya was on her heels, a fact Baltic didn’t realize until the black wyvern entered the house.
“Traitor!” Baltic suddenly roared, shoving me aside, shifting into dragon form again. I tripped over Jim and fell onto the bottom stair, my head hitting the chair leg where it lay.
“Baltic!” Kostya screamed in reply, and he too changed. Everyone scooted to the sides of the hall as the black and white dragons tumbled around, their claws slashing, dragon fire blasting everything.
“I have had enough!” I yelled at the top of my voice, and snatching up the chair leg, started beating the two dragons with it. “You boys are not going to fight in my house!” “Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble with Mom,” Jim said. “You better watch out, Balters, or she’ll bananate you.” “Mate!” Baltic protested as I whomped him on the butt with the chair leg.
Kostya snarled and lunged at Baltic, but I smacked him under the chops with the chair leg, causing him to stop and shake his head, a shocked look on his dragon face.
“You change back, both of you, or else it’s banana time!” I said, shaking the chair leg at them.
“This is intolerable,” Baltic said, shifting back as he stalked toward me, his hands on his hips. “You will not treat me in this manner! I am a wyvern!” “Of what sept?” Kostya asked, wiping a thin trickle of blood from his nose as he, too, shifted into human form.
“We’ll get to that at the sárkány,” I said, absorbing the fire that Baltic snorted on me. “Calm down, please, Baltic. I know you feel that Kostya betrayed you, but… but… oh, no, not again…” The world spun. I reached out blindly, desperate to find Baltic, his hand catching mine just as I swirled into nothing.
Nothing but white. It was all around me, biting cold and deep into my blood, roaring in my ears. The roaring resolved itself into the sound of the wind, an endless shriek that whirled around and through me.
The white ebbed and flowed in time with the wind, and I realized that I was standing in the middle of a blizzard.
“Snow,” a voice said behind me.
I turned. Baltic still held my hand, looking around us with interest.
“What are you doing here? This is a vision. You’re not supposed to be in my visions.” “I participated in the last one you had,” he pointed out.
“That wasn’t really a vision. It was just more a reliving of a moment in time, triggered by the love token.” I touched the chain I wore around my neck, the token lying between my breasts, my fingers trailing down the front of the fur-lined cloak that was clasped about my neck. “This is different. This is the same sort of vision or dream that I’ve had before.” “Perhaps the shaman is right, and your dragon self is urging you to wake up,” he suggested, turning around. “Dauva. We’re on the hill outside of Dauva.” “I don’t think it’s quite that simple.” “Ysolde!”
I whirled when my name was carried on the wind.
“Constantine!” Baltic snarled, reaching for the sword that he no longer carried.
A dark shape emerged from the whirling snow, his hair white with it as he stretched his hands out to me. “My love, you should not be out here. If one of my men had seen you cross before I did—” “You will die for that!” Baltic shouted, leaping forward to grab Constantine, but nothing met his grasping hands, his momentum sending him straight through Constantine to a deep snowdrift some feet behind.
“I had to come,” I heard myself say, evidently locked into the past enough to repeat what I’d said so many centuries before.
“Mate!” Baltic gasped, getting to his feet. The pain in his face was almost more than I could bear. I reached out for him, but it was Constantine who took my hand.