“I’m sorry,” she said again, then with one last distraught look, turned on her heel and fled after Moe and Curly.
Two Baltics weaved before my face, the flickering fire casting a reddish orange glow to his skin, but even woozy as I was, I could see the concern in his darkly mysterious eyes. “You’re never going to let me hear the end of this, are you?” I asked him.
“Never,” he swore, and kissed me.
Chapter Eighteen
It took a good half hour for Baltic and me to put out the fire that, sadly, consumed a quarter of the woods. Luckily, the firemen who arrived to assist weren’t wild about entering a forest that had long been known to be cursed, so they and the curious bystanders remained on the fringes, soaking nearby buildings lest the fire jump to them.
My head ached by the time we got the last of the fire tamped down to nothing, and it was with great relief that I sank onto the rocky mound that marked the opening to Baltic’s lair. “I’ve never known your dragon fire to get out of control like that.”
“It doesn’t. It was your arcane power that fed the fire into an inferno,” Baltic told me, pulling out a flask from a small pack and handing it to me. I took a swig of it, relishing the fire of the dragon’s blood wine as it coursed down my throat.
“Oh. I guess that was the Grace of the Magi, because I’ve never seen a reaction like that before.” I glanced to the side, where Baltic had tossed the runed rock. “What are we going to do with Larry?”
“Who?”
“The rock. I call him Larry.”
Baltic shrugged, and pulled out his cell phone. “Leave it. It can do no harm here.”
“It doesn’t seem right, somehow. I mean, he was a man, even if he was trying to kill you.”
“He wasn’t trying to kill Baltic, my adorable one. He was trying to kill you.”
I looked over to where the faintest outline of Constantine was visible as he perched on a boulder. “Me? Why would he want to kill me? Baltic, I understand—everyone wants to kill Baltic.”
The love of my life shot me a look that made me bite back a giggle.
“That is because he is a reprehensible, callous beast with no morals and even less intelligence,” Constantine said coolly.
“Right,” I said, standing up and facing him. “That’s it—do you hear? That is it! No more calling Baltic names. I know you’re all pissed because I chose him over you, but I did so five hundred years ago! I loved him then, I love him now, and I will always love him. Get over it already!”
Constantine’s outline straightened itself up. “Never! You gave yourself to me before he took you, and you will be mine again!”
I narrowed my glare to razor sharpness. “You just don’t listen, do you? I love Baltic. You’re dead. Really, those two things should say it all!”
“I am not dead,” Constantine said with dignity.
I pursed my lips.
“I am simply temporarily without life. If the archimage’s daughter can resurrect that one”—he waved a hand at Baltic—“she can resurrect me as well.”
“Over my dead body,” I muttered.
“He’s already seen to that,” Baltic snapped as he closed his phone and moved closer to me, glaring at the outline of Constantine. “Begone, spirit! You bother my mate.”
Constantine sputtered with indignation.
“I really don’t want to have to fight with you, Constantine, but until you accept a few facts, we’re going to have some issues.”
“Do not attempt to reason with him, chérie,” Baltic interrupted. “It is useless. Constantine does not have the facility to do so.”
“Like hell I don’t,” the annoyed shade said, getting to his feet. “But Ysolde has a point. I am here now, alive if not quite alive, and clearly things are different than they were in the past. Therefore, I will adapt. A good wyvern is always willing to try new things when necessary.”
“You’re not a wyvern anymore,” I pointed out.
“Of course I am. I was a wyvern when I died, and now I am alive again. Thus I am still a wyvern.”
“Are you not listening? Maura told me you may be autonomous, and you can have a corporeal presence, but you’re not actually a living, breathing person.”
“I’m as good as alive,” he said with a haughty sniff.
“And two, you’re not the wyvern of the silver dragons anymore. A very nice man by the name of Gabriel Tauhou is.”
“Tauhou?” He frowned. “I do not know this name.”
“From what I understand, you knew his father, although I don’t know what his name is. Gabriel lives in Australia with his mate, May.”
“He has a mate?”
I looked at Baltic, who was punching a number into his phone and ignoring us. “Yes, he does. She’s a doppelganger.”
“Ah. Created, not born. Clever, but it doesn’t matter.” Constantine shook his head and his form solidified about halfway. “I was wyvern before this Gabriel Tauhou. Now that I am back, he must stand down in favor of me.”
“Yeah, good luck getting him to agree to that.” Distracted by a glint of anger in Baltic’s eyes, I watched him as he put away his phone. Despite my assumption, his anger didn’t seem to be directed at Constantine. “You weren’t calling Gabriel, were you? It would take him forever to get to Latvia, and I told you that my head has stopped hurting.”
“I was attempting to contact Thala,” Baltic said, his hands on his hips as he scanned the surrounding area. Thick wisps of heavy white smoke still tainted the air, making it a little difficult to breathe, but since we were located in the center of the forest, none of the charred trees were visible.
“Oh. I guess I must have forgotten about her. Where is she? You don’t think Maura and her Three Stooges got her, do you?”
Constantine snorted.
“No,” Baltic said slowly, his eyes narrowed in thought. “I begin to wonder if I haven’t been misled by her.”
“Misled how?”
“I will go find this wyvern and inform him of my return,” Constantine said, becoming solid long enough to suddenly whisk me into an embrace and press a kiss on my lips.
Baltic spun around and started toward him.
“Adieu, my lovely. I will return to deal with your obnoxious mate another day.”
A profanity shot out as Baltic lunged for Constantine, but the latter evaporated into nothing, leaving us alone.
“Dammit,” I said, realizing that in all the confusion I had neglected to pin Constantine down about what I needed to do to reclaim his honor. “He left! I needed to talk to him.”
“Be grateful for small mercies,” Baltic said, continuing to scan the surroundings. “I am.”
“Yes, but now I’ll have to track him down again to find out what the First Dragon wants me to do for him.”
“Bah. He is of no concern. I am more worried about why Thala has abandoned us.”
“He may not be of concern to you,” I said, my shoulders slumping as I made myself comfortable on my rock, “but you don’t go dissing the First Dragon’s son without some sort of repercussions, and I don’t want to think about what those might be. He’s angry enough with me already.”
Baltic, who had been looking out into the distance, turned to pin me back with a look. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Saying what? That the First Dragon is pissed enough at me, especially after he had to resurrect me a second time?”
“No, before that.”
I thought a moment. “That we shouldn’t go dissing Constantine? I know he irritates you, Baltic, but he’s dead, and is no threat to us anymore, so really, calling him petty names—”
“You said the First Dragon’s son. You think Constantine is his son?”
I looked into those fathomless eyes. “Yes. He is, isn’t he?”
“No.”
“But—” I shook my head. “He’s got to be.”
“He’s not.” Baltic continued to search the surrounding area for only he knew what.
&nb
sp; “I think you’re wrong. I saw the First Dragon with him myself.”
“Constantine is not the First Dragon’s son,” he repeated.
“And just why are you so sure of that?” I asked, exasperated by his flat statements of denial.
“Because I know who my brothers were.”
“Goody for—” I stopped, my skin crawling as realization dawned in the dusty recesses of my brain. “Your brothers?”
“Yes.” He leaped down off his rock and held out a hand for me. “Come. I see no signs she left, which means she must be in the tunnels. We will follow her trail.”
“Your brothers?” He pulled me to my feet, but I stopped him before he could help me down into the lair. “Baltic, are you trying to say . . . ? You can’t be. You can’t mean . . .”
“The First Dragon is my father, yes, mate.” He shook his head as he wrapped an arm around me and hefted me down into a dank opening into the earth. “My old Ysolde knew that. I don’t know how it is you have forgotten that fact, but you used to deal with it much better than you are now.”
“Your father,” I said, breathing heavily through my nose, ignoring the rich odor of the soil as Baltic switched on a powerful flashlight, “is the ancestor of all dragons? The most powerful being in all dragontime? On par with a god?”
“My old Ysolde used to call him an interfering arse,” he said, doubling over and leading me down a tunnel clogged with roots, debris, and dirt. “She was not intimidated by him. She once told him to mind his own business and let us get on with ours.”
“By the rood,” I said, suddenly dizzy with realization. “No wonder he was disappointed in me. I used to lip off to a god!”
“It was good for him. He left us alone after that,” Baltic said with satisfaction, pausing at an intersection to consider the ground. “You may do so again, if it will ease your distress.”
“Sainted Mary,” I gasped, my eyes glazed and unseeing as Baltic led onward, into the remainder of the tunnels that once lay beneath Dauva. “That means—that means it’s you I’m supposed to help. It’s your honor I’m supposed to reclaim. It’s you who caused the death of innocents!”
“You shouldn’t believe everything the First Dragon tells you,” he answered, flicking his light around. The tracks he was following seemed to end in a pile of smashed wood and stone.
“That’s why you don’t like him! That’s why he knew your name! It wasn’t because of you being kicked out of your sept. It was because you were his son! His youngest son!” I put my hands to my head, wanting to scream and shout and shake Baltic, all at the same time. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought you would eventually remember,” he said with a shrug. “The old Ysolde—”
“Was a twit, evidently!” I interrupted. “For the love of the saints, Baltic! You could have told me! You knew I was trying to do what the First Dragon—oh, dear god, he’s my father-in-law!—what he wanted me to do.”
“You told me you had to do something with Constantine, not with one of his sons.”
I ground my teeth. He had a point, dammit. “Are there any other family members I should know about? Your mother? Brothers?”
“They are all dead,” he said, examining the wood carefully. “Look at this—it is recent. Thala must have shut down this tunnel behind her as she escaped. The lair!”
He whirled and ran back the way he had come. I followed, my mind still reeling with all that I had just found out. “What exactly happened to get you kicked out of the sept?”
Baltic swore as he touched the silver-bound door that marked his lair. It swung open with a teeth-grating noise that left me clutching the wall. He plunged into the room; I followed more slowly, trying desperately to get my brain to function. The air inside was close and dusty, as if it had been closed for centuries, which until recently it had. His light flickered around the lair, catching first a broken iron trunk, then a heap of wood that had once been a chest. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dirt and dust, disuse and abandonment just as thick in the air.
A few cracked jars remained stacked in the corner, but the rest of the lair was picked clean, no doubt by Kostya. Baltic didn’t spare much of a glance for any of the remains, however; he went straight for the back corner of the room, kicking aside an elaborately carved chair that had been broken by a falling beam. He bent, pulling up a trapdoor, and jumping into the hole without a word.
“What’s that? Another lair?” As blackness surrounded me in a claustrophobic grip, I hurried forward, kneeling at the edge of what seemed to be a chasm to oblivion. The air seeping out of the hole was even more dusty and mildewed, making my nose wrinkle.
The light bobbled, then returned as Baltic heaved himself up, out of the sub-lair. “It’s gone.”
“What’s gone?” I brushed spiderwebs and dirt from his hair as he sat on the edge, his legs dangling into the hole. “What was in there?”
“My things.” His eyes caught and held mine. “Our things. Our private things. Not even Kostya knew about this vault. It’s where you put your love token before Dauva was destroyed.”
I touched the chain that hung around my neck, the oval silver pendant that Baltic had carved for me some four hundred years before nestled safely between my breasts. “What’s missing?”
“My talisman.”
“Is that something I gave to you?”
“No.” His expression was one of worry. I didn’t often see Baltic look worried, so I took heed, and followed him as he exited the lair.
“It’s important, this talisman?” I asked a few minutes later as we climbed out of the lair.
“Very.”
I grabbed at his belt as he started to stride off, making him turn around and raise an eyebrow.
“I know you don’t like to answer questions, but I’m going to keep at you until you tell me, so why don’t you save us both some verbal dancing and just spill now?”
He sighed heavily.
“And if you dare say the old Ysolde would never have pestered you this way, I’ll deck you,” I threatened.
He laughed and took the fist I was waving at him in his hand, pulling me forward to kiss me. “The old Ysolde would have done just as you are doing now, questioning me endlessly until she got what she wanted. The talisman was a gift from the First Dragon. It marks me as his child. My brothers and sister all had one when they formed their septs.”
“You have a sister, too?” I couldn’t help but ask, pausing long enough to grab the Larry rock before allowing him to escort me down the game trail, through the still-smoking scorched area, and out to where I had left the car.
“Had. She was killed a few years after she founded the black sept.”
“That must have been a long time ago.” I did some mental calculating. “Over a thousand years?”
“Yes.” He held the car door open for me, and it was a sign of just how bemused I was that I stuffed Larry into the backseat and didn’t notice that Baltic took the driver’s seat until we were already jetting down the road, coming close to plowing into a stone fence.
“Is it true that the First Dragon’s children founded the four original septs?”
“My three brothers and sister, yes. You are going to ask me why I was not given a sept, aren’t you?”
“Well, that and why you’re driving on the wrong side of the road,” I said, pointing to an oncoming car.
Baltic swore and jerked the car over to the proper side. “Mortals should standardize which side of the road they wish to drive on. I am the youngest son, Ysolde. You know when I was born—it was several centuries after my siblings.”
“So you were kind of an afterthought?” I grinned at him.
He looked outraged. “Hardly. My mother was the First Dragon’s descendant, a black dragon. He seduced her, and I was born. I was not given a sept because I was born into the black sept.”
I gawked at him. “Your father seduced his own descendant? That’s incest!”
“Every dragon is descend
ed from him. Technically, you and I are related.”
“Yes, but at a distance! Several generations and whatnot! By the rood, Baltic! That’s beyond creepy. Your mom wasn’t your sister, was she?”
“No.” He swore as several car horns blasted him. I refused to look, deciding it was just better that I not know what he was doing. “She was the daughter of his great-granddaughter.”
“Wait a minute—” I shook my head, trying to untangle his family tree. “You’re a wyvern. That means you have to have a human parent, and if your mother was also your . . . I don’t know, your great-grandniece? Whatever the relationship, how can she be human?”
“She wasn’t. She was a black dragon.”
“But wyverns have to have a human parent,” I argued.
“Other wyverns, yes. But not those who are sired by the First Dragon,” he pointed out with complacency.
I thought about that as he parked illegally and hustled me out of the car and into the train station, growling when I insisted that he go back to retrieve the rock.
“But how—” I started to say when he slammed it down next to me, causing a little piece of it to chip off. I winced, hoping it was nothing Larry would mind losing. Assuming, that is, that I could turn him back into a dragon.
“I am done answering questions, mate. Do not glare at me—we have more important things to do than discuss ancient history.”
“What important things? Track down that sneaky Maura and the two remaining Stooges?”
“More questions! My old Ysolde would have known when it was time to stop questioning me.”
“Did your old Ysolde ever pop you on the nose? Because the new one is sure thinking about it. . . .”
It took us three hours to get to England, and that was only after we used a portaling service to zap us to a dirty fish-and-chips shop located on the fringes of London, the local airline not wanting to give in to Baltic’s demands that it reroute airplanes to accommodate us.
“All right,” I told him as I breathed in the air of London and immediately choked on the grease fumes. “I haven’t asked you a single question for several hours, so you can answer a couple more without spontaneously combusting. Why do you think Thala has gone off in a huff after raiding your lair?”