Not nearly so good now that she wasn’t hugging him. “Not bad,” he said. “Almost normal, actually. Where’s Bob?”
“He left half an hour ago,” Marci replied, glancing nervously over her shoulder at the door. “I really wish he’d stuck around, though. Things are getting tense out there.”
That put Julius on alert. “What’s going on?”
“I couldn’t explain it if I tried. You’d better come see for yourself. Can you stand?”
Between the two of them, they managed to get him to his feet. Once he was up, the remaining grogginess cleared quickly, and he started looking around for something to wear. Unfortunately, his shirt was now nothing but bloody scraps, and he wasn’t about to ask Jessica for a spare. Going out bare-chested felt crass, though, so he settled for draping one of Jessica’s decorative throw blankets over his shoulders like a shawl.
When he was decent enough to face company, he let Marci help him into the hall, breathing deep to try to get an early warning for whatever was waiting. He caught the scent just as they turned the corner into the living room, and swallowed his groan just in time.
The apartment was full of dragons. Ian and Svena were sitting on the couch, the former watching with carefully veiled interest while the latter glared ice-cold daggers at Katya, who was standing by the window like she wanted to jump out of it. Jessica was in the kitchen, making drinks and looking like she wanted to throw the lot of them out the window, or at least out of her apartment. Her head snapped up when she heard Julius coming, and she went straight for him like a charging shark, yanking him away from Marci and back into the hall.
“What were you thinking, bringing all these dragons to my doorstep?” she hissed. “That’s the White Witch in there! Are you trying to get me killed? And you’d better teach your human some manners before—”
“Don’t speak that way about Marci,” Julius said, calmly removing his arm from his sister’s grasp. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but I didn’t ask them to come. Bob brought me here, so if you have problems, take them to him. Now, I’m going to go try my best to get these dragons out of your living room.” His eyes darted past her to the tray of gin and tonics she’d been in the middle of preparing. “I’ll also take a drink. And one for Marci, too, please.”
With that, he patted his shocked sister on the shoulder and walked back into the living room to see what was going on.
Katya was waiting for him when he got there. “I’m so glad you’re up,” she said, pulling him over to stand before the dragons on the couch like he was a prisoner facing his parole board. “This is the one who saved me.”
Julius froze, eyes wide. Svena was staring at him like she was contemplating just how slowly she wanted to gut him while Ian’s face was perfectly blank and unhelpful. “Well,” he said, scrambling to pick words that might best encourage Svena not to do anything permanent. “Justin did most of the work. I—”
“Because you asked him to,” Katya said firmly, glaring at her sister. “You see? It’s just as the human reported. Julius Heartstriker rallied his human and his brother Justin, a Blade of Bethesda, to come to my aid. They fought valiantly to save my life, which Estella would have thrown away. This is why I vowed a life debt to him, and I will not revoke it.”
Julius almost choked as she finished, looking desperately between Katya, who was standing with her chin lifted defiantly, and Svena, who looked ready to murder them both. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” he said. “I didn’t—”
A flash of movement caught his eye, and he glanced at the kitchen to see Marci waving her hands in a frantic play along gesture.
“What I mean is, Katya is telling the truth,” he corrected. “I found her this afternoon and convinced her to come home, but then she was abducted by humans—”
“Who were working for Estella,” Katya cut in. “She was using me as a pawn to breed war between our clans. You know she will stop at nothing to—”
“Enough!” Svena yelled, shooting to her feet. “You will not speak so of our sister in front of outsiders!”
“I’ll speak however I like!” Katya yelled back. “I am a daughter of the Three Sisters same as you, and it was these outsiders who saved my life when our sister endangered it!”
Svena lifted her lips in a deadly snarl and began speaking rapidly in Russian. Katya responded in kind, getting into her sister’s face so aggressively, Julius worried it would come to blows. Apparently, the youngest daughter of the Three Sisters took being kidnapped by humans on the orders of the eldest very personally. The defeated, tired girl he’d seen at the diner had vanished completely, leaving behind a dragoness who was absolutely determined to get her way and more than ready to drag Julius into battle with her if necessary.
“I am through being thought of as the failure of the clan!” Katya cried, in English now. “And I am done being kept like a prisoner by my own family! My debt is mine to give, and if I choose to give it to the one who risked his life to save mine, you cannot stop me.”
Svena shot Julius a nasty look. Or she would have, but Katya got in the way, growling loud enough to rattle the coffee table’s glass top. This got Svena’s attention as nothing else had, and the dragoness flopped back down on the couch with an angry sigh. “Fine,” she snarled. “I acknowledge your stupid debt. But you are still coming home.”
“No,” Katya said, her face breaking into a wicked smile. “You just acknowledged my debt.”
“So?” Svena said. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has to do with everything,” Katya said proudly. “By your own words, I am now honor bound to answer the call of Heartstriker, and I can’t do that if I’m locked up in Siberia, can I?”
Svena’s ice blue eyes widened in surprise before narrowing to dangerous slits. “Very well,” she said slowly. “If you aren’t going home, then where would you live?”
“Here,” Katya said, standing tall. “I wish to remain in the DFZ.”
Julius’s breath caught. That’s what she was doing. This wasn’t actually about life debts or gratitude or any of that. Katya had just used the circumstances surrounding her kidnapping to modify their original plan to keep her in the DFZ. She’d also upped the ante enormously. Now that Svena had formally acknowledged the debt Katya owed to the Heartstrikers, not allowing her to stay and honor it was as good as refusing to pay. She was using her own capture to force Svena’s hand, turning her defeat into her means to victory, and the whole thing was such a beautiful twist on dragon politics that Julius couldn’t have stopped grinning if he’d tried.
Svena, however, was far less impressed. “You think I can’t see what you’re doing?” she said, her voice an icy threat. “You think to make a fool of me?”
“I don’t have to,” Katya said. “You’re making a fool of yourself if you let pride stand between you and such a good outcome for all involved. Come on, Svena. Do you really want to have to keep going back to Siberia every month to check on me? I’ve always thought that a sister who’s constantly running away is a much greater embarrassment than one who can’t use magic. This is a far superior arrangement for both of us, especially since I’ll be in a city where I shouldn’t cast anything flashy even if I could. And since I don’t want to run, you won’t have to worry about chasing me. Everybody wins.”
As Katya spoke, Svena’s expression had turned from furious to conflicted. Now, she was openly thinking it over, tapping her sharp nails on the arm of Jessica’s couch. “Estella will never permit you to live on the Lady’s lands.”
“She won’t,” Katya agreed. “But Estella isn’t here, is she?”