‘‘Which word is it that upsets you? Sweet?’’
I nodded, telling myself to stop being such a coward and face him. Slowly I turned back around, dreading the expression I knew would greet me.
To my surprise, he wasn’t even looking at me. Instead he frowned at the bottle of wine, wiping off dust with a hand towel from the bathroom. ‘‘Do you object to me calling you by your pet name?’’ he finally asked, glancing up at me with nothing in his face or eyes but interest in the question.
‘‘No, I don’t mind. Cyrene has called me Mayling for as long as I can remember.’’
He nodded. ‘‘Then I will do so as well. Will you sit and have some wine? I will move to the balcony if you do not wish for me to be near you.’’
Oh, gods, how had things come to this? I sagged down onto the edge of the bed and let myself slump into a ball of unhappiness. ‘‘I think we both know that I have no aversion to being near you. I nibbled all over you, if nothing else.’’
‘‘No,’’ he said, sitting beside me, close, but not so close that he touched me. I straightened up and looked at him. He was smiling a bit ruefully. ‘‘You did not nibble all over me, only my face. Which I enjoyed greatly, you understand. But as for all over?’’
He glanced downward. I followed the movement, swallowing hard at the sight of his delicious chest so close to me. He didn’t have a lot of chest hair, whether due to his mixed heritage or just by chance, but what there was looked as soft as silk. An intriguing little trail started below his belly button, leading down into the waistband of the pants, leaving me wanting to follow the trail with both my hands and mouth.
‘‘I have scared you. I apologize for that. I know that this must all seem overwhelming to you, and I will endeavor to move at a pace which will ensure your happiness.’’
My cheeks burned as I realized he had seen me ogling his belly and below. ‘‘Do you mean sex?’’ I asked with bluntness. ‘‘If so, you’re wrong. Oh, it’s true what Cyrene said, not that I am in any way pleased that she felt it necessary to share that fact with everyone. I haven’t had sex with a man before. But I’m not a shy, innocent virgin, either. I’ve seen movies. I’ve read books. I even attended a series of Our Bodies, Ourselves seminars during the 1970s. I’m not a prude or a stranger to sex; I’ve just never engaged in it with another person.’’
‘‘I see.’’ His eyes twinkled at me in a way that made me want to melt into a puddle of goo. He leaned over slightly and nudged me with his shoulder. ‘‘Do you like flavored massage oils? There is a passion fruit oil that I would very much like to try on you.’’
A vision rose in my head of Gabriel doing just that, which made it difficult to swallow. ‘‘The issue I have is not one of sex,’’ I repeated. ‘‘It’s sex with men.’’
‘‘You are not going to try to convince me that you prefer women, are you? Perhaps you enjoy both sexes? I do not share that ability, myself, but I will not condemn you for it. However, I will not share my mate with any other, woman or man…’’
‘‘No,’’ I interrupted, inadvertently putting my hand out. It touched his chest. Little flames broke out at the ends of my fingertips where they rested against his flesh.
He looked down. ‘‘You have already gained a control of my fire. That is very good. Aisling could not control Drake’s fire for months. It still gets away from her every now and again. It pleases me greatly that already you are so in tune to me that you can master my fire.’’
I jerked my hand back, jumping up from the bed, pacing to the door and back again before stopping in front of him. ‘‘Please just let me talk. I have something important to explain, and it’s not in any sense of the word going to be easy.’’
‘‘Very well,’’ he said, nodding. He leaned back on the bed, propping himself up on his arms. ‘‘Proceed.’’
I wanted to fling myself on him, rip that robe right off his body and lick every inch of him. I spun around, marching over to the window in order to get a grip on my libido.
‘‘I would be more than happy to acquiesce, not to mention reciprocate, but I doubt if you’d get much explaining done,’’ he said.
‘‘Will you stop reading my mind?’’ I asked, exasperated. ‘‘I didn’t know dragons could do that.’’
‘‘My sept can’t, not normally, but my mother was from Australia.’’
I blinked at him a couple of times, as if that would help me understand.
‘‘She was an Aborigine, her roots firmly in the Dreaming.’’
‘‘I don’t know what…’’ I frowned.
‘‘The indigenous peoples of the Australian region believe there are two realities… this one, and the Dreaming. Those people who can inhabit both equally often exhibit abilities that mortals consider supernatural.’’
‘‘The ability to read minds is one of them? That must be handy in a wyvern.’’
His lips quirked. ‘‘Thus far, you are the only person other than my parents whose mind I can read.’’
I wasn’t sure I bought that, but it wasn’t something pertinent. ‘‘I don’t want you to use the word ‘sweet’ because the demon lord who is bent on seducing me uses that,’’ I said in a rush, the words tumbling over themselves in my haste to get it all out.
That had him sitting upright. ‘‘A demon lord wishes to seduce you?’’
I nodded.
His eyes narrowed, the silver in them turning glacial. ‘‘Which one?’’
‘‘Magoth. I am bound to him, Gabriel.’’ My stomach balled itself up at the startled look that flitted across his face. ‘‘I am a servant of Magoth. Do you understand now why I can’t be anything to you but a mate in name only?’’
He stood up slowly. ‘‘Why did you bind yourself to him?’’
‘‘I didn’t.’’ I hesitated a moment, not wanting to bare my dirty laundry, but knowing he wouldn’t accept anything but the complete truth. ‘‘Last century Cyrene ran into Magoth. I don’t know where, she never told me, but it really doesn’t matter. He is a very handsome man, and she is prone to falling in love, and… well, despite the fact that she was quite happy with a troll from Austria named Hugo, he seduced her.’’
‘‘That is regrettable, but not unknown,’’ he said.
‘‘It wouldn’t be anything but a sign of Cyrene ’s weakness for handsome men if Magoth hadn’t decided that she was worth keeping for a bit. He enthralled her. Do you know what that is?’’
He pursed his lips slightly. ‘‘Is it a spell of some sort?’’
‘‘More or less, yes. He placed his thrall on her, and used his will to get her to kill off his competition, her lover, Hugo.’’ I looked down at my hands for a moment. They were balled into fists. I forced myself to relax my fingers. ‘‘Cyrene, in a drunken orgy that I really don’t want to know about, decided that it would be a good idea to have a doppelganger, and since you need to have a demon lord to create one, and she was considering becoming Magoth’s consort, she went ahead and started the ceremony.’’
‘‘It did not go as planned?’’ he asked.
I shook my head. ‘‘Magoth was growing tired of Cyrene. He lifted the thrall and agreed to the creation, on the condition that she bind her doppelganger to him. Since she’d sacrificed her common sense to my creation-why she couldn’t have picked a trait like ticklishness or even irritability is beyond my understanding-but since she sacrificed that, she said yes. Thus I was created, an instant servant of Magoth.’’
‘‘Who uses your ability to shadow walk to his own benefit?’’ Gabriel asked.
I nodded again. ‘‘He seeks to gain a hold on the mortal world, and sends me out to acquire for him those things which might give him power here.’’