You Slay Me

  Drake slipped into his shirt. "So do I—desire. It had nothing to do with Perdita and everything to do with our bond."

  I turned to look in the other direction, unable to face the knowing (read: smug male) look in his eyes. "Ow! What the devil?" I touched the side area on my collar­bone he had kissed. It was the same spot he had burned in my first dream. The skin was tender, very tender. I tried to look down at myself, but the sore spot was up too high to see. I glared at him as he tucked his shirt into his pants. "What did you do to me, bite me? Are you part vampire, too?"

  He buckled his belt, giving me a look that went a long way to cooling the still-burning fires deep within me. "We mated. I marked you. It wasn't a bite."

  "You marked me?" I said in disbelief, spinning around to see if the Venediger had a mirror anywhere. He did, I discovered after a few moments of searching in his top­most desk drawer. "You marked me like I was your laun­dry? Or a cow you'd brand? That sort of a mark? Oh, my God, you did mark me! Ow! It hurts!"

  He took the mirror from me, gently touching the burn that stood out on the right side of my collarbone. It was curved-edged triangle with a line twisted around the three sides, a symbol that bore an enormous resemblance to the curved dragon's tail on my aquamanile. "It will heal."

  I pushed away from him. "That's all you're going to say, it'll heal? I'm going to be left with a big ole herkin' burned hickey on my collarbone, and all you can say is it'll heal? Thanks a whole heck of a lot, Drake. If you don't mind, I think I'd like to return to the room across the hall where everyone is probably wondering what hap­pened to us."

  "They aren't wondering," Drake said with an arrogant look that my palm itched to remove from his handsome face. He grabbed me as I stormed through the door, keep­ing me from plowing into Istvan and one of Fiat's men, who were standing in the hall. Istvan started to grin, but looked away when I glared at him. Fiat's man outright smirked. Behind him, in the open doorway of Perdita's room, Ophelia stood clutching a box of tissues as Fiat and Renaldo lowered Perdita's body to a blanket on her desk. Drake's voice growled into my ear. "Aisling, much as it distresses me to say this, we must talk."

  I jerked my arm out of his grasp. "What we just did changes nothing, dragon. Nothing! There will be no talk­ing," I said loudly, turning to stomp into the other room. I went to Ophelia and put my arm around her. "You OK?"

  Her cheeks were still wet, and her chin quivered, but she managed a nod. She plucked at my sleeve, her eyes filled with pain. "Please, Aisling, don't let him get away with this. Don't let him kill anyone else."

  "Don't worry," I said, leveling a look at Drake that would give him something to chew over for a couple of days. "The person who killed Perdita will be punished. I swear that."

  'Thank you," she whispered, and went to pieces again. I led her back to her chair and let her sob out her agony.

  "We will not, of course, inform the police of this mat­ter," Fiat said as Renaldo covered Perdita's body. "This will be taken care of by those in the I'au-dela"

  "Agreed," Drake said.

  "Not agreed," I said, marching over to where the two of them were warily watching each other. "We can't keep a murder from the police—they'll have to know about it. I just want to wait a day, until I have the proof to convict the person who killed her and the Venediger and poor Mme. Deauxville. Then we'll contact the police and tell them everything." I fingered the burn mark on my collar­bone. "Well, almost everything."

  Fiat froze as his eyes followed my hand's movement. His eyes narrowed. "You mated with him just now?"

  I fisted my hands to keep from punching out his lights. I'm not normally a violent person, but the last few days were enough to make a sinner out of even the purest of saints. "I don't think everyone in the club heard you. Maybe if you used a microphone, then the whole of the Otherworld could know the intimate details of my sex life."

  Fiat's lips quirked. Drake looked bored.

  "You mistake me," Fiat said. "I am not surprised that you were in the other room mating with Drake—it is the way of dragons to seek their mate in times of strong emo­tions. I am merely surprised that you had not done so before this. If I had known that you had not yet mated with him when you were in my apartment, I would have been doubly careful that you not escape me."

  "You were in his apartment?" Drake asked in a velvety soft rumble. It sent shivers of apprehension down my spine. "When was this?"

  "None of your business. The question is, what are we going to do with Perdita until tomorrow?"

  Ophelia moaned softly. One of the blue dragons was patting her on the back as she clung to his shoulders and sobbed into his chest.

  "Sorry, Ophelia, I didn't mean that to sound callous, but it is summer, and... er ... without getting too gross, things are going to start going stinky really soon if we don't get some ice or something."

  Fiat said something I didn't understand to Drake. Drake answered in the same language. They both turned to look at me.

  "What?" I asked, looking from one to the other.

  "We agreed that you have a point," Drake said. He lifted his head, and Pal snapped to attention. "I own a butcher shop not too far from here, one that has ample cold storage. We can move the body there until such time as it can be turned over to the police."

  Pal nodded and slipped out of the room, pulling a cell phone from his pocket as he left.

  "You own a butcher shop?" I couldn't help but ask him. "Isn't that a long way away from gold and jewels?"

  Drake grinned. My knees tried to melt, but I locked them in place. "I like meat," he told me.

  "No wonder Jim loved your house." A sharp zing of pain went through me at the mention of my furry little demon. I pushed down the desire to pull an Ophelia and sob all over Drake's chest, instead concentrating on what I had to do next. "I'll take Ophelia home."

  "No," she wailed, wiping her nose on the blue dragon's shirt. "You can't! Not yet! Not until you..." She gave me a meaningful look before shifting her gaze to Drake.

  "Oh, right. Um. Ophelia and I need to have a few min­utes of quiet time. Girl talk," I said, taking her arm and steering her past the guys at the door.

  "Thank you, Aisling," Ophelia whispered as I escorted her down the hallway. "I knew you meant what you said when you swore you'd see Drake pay for killing Perdita."

  "I'll need you to help me with the wording of the chal­lenge. Are you sure you're up to that?"

  She dabbed at her nose with the handful of tissue clutched in her right hand. "Yes. To see justice done for poor Perdy, I can do anything."

  "Right." I paused by the women's room and made a little grimace. "I'm a bit... uh ... I need to freshen up a bit. I'll be out in a minute. You find a table and get started on the challenge."

  She nodded and I hurried into the bathroom, wonder­ing just how much stranger my time in Paris was going to get.

  Why do I even ask such silly questions?

  "Look what the cat dragged in," a familiar voice came from the vicinity of Ophelia's lap when I returned and ap­proached the table where she was sitting. "Hey! That's a dragon's mating mark on your chest. You didn't wait for me before you did the nasty with Drake?"

  "Jim!" I yelled, and threw myself at the big black shape that was leaning against Ophelia's leg having its ears rubbed. I hugged it, quickly running my hands over its legs and back to make sure it was whole. "Are you all right? What happened to you? Where have you been? Don't you know I've been out of ray mind with worry about you? Why do you smell like a compost heap?"

  "It's Eau du Dumpster, and I'm glad to see you, too. You think you could stop strangling me now?"

  I let go of the hold I had on its neck and hauled myself up to a chair. Ophelia gave us a watery smile. "I'm so happy your demon is back."

  I stared openmouthed as I realized just what she said. "You knew about Jim? Before it spoke?"

  "Yes, of course we knew. You don't think we wouldn't notice a demon in our house?" She shook her head and clicked her tongue against
her teeth, giving a damp sniff. "Perdita recognized it first. Since you seemed so fond of it, we did not want to make you give it up."

  "I'm sorry—I feel terrible having deceived you like that, but I'm kind of stuck with Jim. I didn't think it would hurt if I hid the fact that it was a demon."

  'That's the cover story," Jim said confidently to Ophe­lia. "The truth is she's gaga over me."

  "I might be delirious with joy to see you," I said as I ruffled its ears, "but that doesn't mean I can't command you to silence. Now, where have you been, and why were you in a Dumpster?"

  "The blue dragon's men spotted me when Drake threw me out into the street. I took off and they followed. They're trackers, you know, and it took me half the day lo shake them. I ended up in a Dumpster behind a restau­rant, and decided I might as well have some dinner, before coming home."

  "Next time, call me and let me know you're all right," I said, realizing just how stupid that sounded.

  Jim rolled its eyes, but gave my hand a quick snuffle.

  "Right, well, now that the prodigal demon is back,

  let's get to business." I filled Jim in quickly with the de­tails of the last couple of hours.

  "I made a rough draft of the challenge," Ophelia said, pushing a piece of note paper toward me. "I'm not sure of the wording...." Her lower lip quivered for a moment as her eyes swam with unshed tears. "Perdy would have known it for sure, but I don't."

  I gave her hand a squeeze and took the paper, reading it over.

  "Is that what you wanted?" she asked, a worried cast to her eyes.

  "It's perfect. I don't have to change a word. You said everything I wanted to say. Now, how do I do this?"

  She dabbed at her eyes, bravely blinking back the tears. "You must make an announcement to as many members of the Otherworld as is possible. I would sug­gest you use the microphone."

  I looked to the red-lit area where a band normally played. Tonight there was recorded music, but the sound equipment was still set up from the last gig. Drake and Fiat came into the room; Fiat in an elegant stroll, Drake with a sexy, coiled-power sort of glide that made various dark, secretive places in my body want to stand up and cheer.

  "Looks like everyone is here. I'll just go get their at­tention."

  "Let me, let me," Jim asked, almost dancing. I made a face, which it took for permission because it ran across the club, snaking in and out of people until it jumped onto a tall, high-backed chair in front of the mic.

  I excused myself through the crowd, offering apolo­gies to those people whose drinks Jim had spilled in its mad dash, finally making it over to the band area. Just as I arrived, Jim figured out how to turn on the cordless mic.

  "Ladies and gentlemen, dragons, wizards, Wiccans, faeries, fellow demons, and citizens of Abaddon and the Otherworld, welcome to the Goety and Theurgy Starlight Lounge. For my first number, that timeless classic by the Oak Ridge Boys—'Elvira'!"

  I snatched the microphone away from Jim just as. it was crooning the opening lines. The silence in the room was almost deafening as I looked out at a sea of aston­ished faces. "Uh... hi. Excuse my demon, it's a bit giddy after dining a la dumpster. Um. For those of you who don't know me—and that's most of you—my name is Aisling Grey."

  Several people gasped at my name. I sucked on my lower lip for a moment, unnerved by having the complete and total attention of so many people. "I... uh... have an announcement, so if you'll just bear with me a mo­ment." I smoothed out the wrinkled sheet of notepaper, glancing up to locate Drake. He leaned against the wall, a drink in his hand. "In accordance with the laws govern­ing the Otherworld, I, Aisling Grey, Guardian of the por­tals of Abaddon, do hereby issue a formal challenge of transcendence to the one who is mated to me, Drake Vireo, the wyvern of the green dragons."

  This time the whole room gasped. I didn't wait for the excited chatter to start; I plowed ahead, even though Drake's unconcerned expression was worrying me greatly. Why was he looking bored when I just an­nounced that I was going to battle him for control of his sept? Did he think I was that ineffectual? That clueless? Well, OK, I probably was, but it was still extremely in­sulting that he should let everyone else know he wasn't in the least bit stressed over our upcoming battle. "I charge you, Drake Vireo, to meet me here, tomorrow, at the time of the moon's zenith, when I will defend my challenge with my body. Should my power prove stronger, you will immediately turn yourself in to the police and confess to the acts of murdering Aurora Deauxville, Albert Camus, and Perdita Dawkins. How say you?"

  Drake didn't answer right away, which was good be­cause the people in front of me burst into startled conver­sation, some people claiming Drake's innocence, others making crude comments about how I was going to defend a challenge with my body, and still others already starting the wagering on the outcome. Finally Drake stepped for­ward, his eyes so dark, they looked black. "I, Drake Vireo, wyvern to the green dragon sept, will accept your challenge, body to body. I agree to your terms and offer my own: Should my power prove stronger, you will sur­render yourself for judgment by the will of the green dragons."

  I was more than a little surprised at his words, having assumed that he would ask for me to reveal the location of the Eye of Lucifer rather than agree to take whatever punishment the sept handed out for someone who chal­lenged their beloved wyvern. I didn't even want to mink about what that would consist of—as long as it couldn't be lethal, I would (probably) survive.

  "How say you?" Drake finished.

  "I agree to your terms," I said with an attempt at a quelling look at those people who swarmed forward around Drake to show him support.

  Which pretty much left me, Ophelia, and Jim alone.

  "Thank you," Ophelia said, her eyes shiny with tears again. "Let me just get my things and we can go home."

  She moved off through the crowd. Jim looked at me, its lips pursed. 'Think you're going to beat Drake?"

  "Are you kidding? Even with the Eye of Lucifer, I couldn't beat him at checkers."

  Jim thought about that for a minute as I continued to watch the crowd of people around Drake. "Kinda odd you challenging him, then, huh?"

  "Not really. The purpose of the challenge is to draw the murderer out into the public eye. I have high hopes it will do just that."

  Jim shook its furry black head. "He must have bonked the brains right out of your head, Aisling. In order to get Drake to turn himself in for the murders, you have to beat him."

  "That would be true if Drake were guilty of the mur­ders," I said with a pinch on its shoulder for the bonking comment. "But since he's innocent, the point is moot. Come on, demon mine, Ophelia is waiting. We have miles to go before we sleep."

  19

  Jim and I came in from doing his before-bed walk to find Ophelia sitting at the tiny blue-and-white-tile kitchen table, sobbing over a teapot.

  "Oh, Ophelia, don't," I said, feeling utterly helpless to stop her tears.

  Jim stood in the doorway, sniffing. "Demon was here. Bafamal?"

  "Yes, I summoned it to ask it questions about the mur­ders." I squatted down next to Ophelia. "Here, let me pour you a cup of this wonderful tea you made. Then we'll get you tucked into bed."

  "It's not fair," she said soggily, clutching a damp nap­kin. "Perdy had so much to live for! Everyone liked her ... everyone but Drake. He spurned her once he dis­covered she would not work magic for him. He threw her out. He's evil, Aisling, very evil. I know he's your mate, but you should know the truth about him before you com­mit yourself."

  "I do know the truth about him. Why else would I challenge him so publicly?" I asked, positively oozing innocence.

  Jim coughed a cough that started out a snicker. I stepped on one of its paws.

  "You're so good to me," Ophelia sniffled. "You don't know what a comfort it's been to have you take up the banner of justice for Perdita. I don't have even half the . power she had. I wouldn't stand a chance against Drake, but you—you are a powerful Guardian, his mate, the one person h
e cannot destroy. You can defeat him and force him to admit to the murders." She shivered, rubbing her arms as if she were chilled. "He's so frightening, his eyes so dark and cold. I don't know how you stood being around him."

  Drake? Cold? Dark? My steamy, sexy, bright-eyed bringer of flames? "Mmm. Well, you won't have him to worry about any longer. I suppose I really should start thinking of the future."

  "The future?" she asked, accepting the cup of tea I poured for her.

  "Yeah, well, I assume I'm going to have to stick around here once I take over as wyvern for the green dragons. Can a woman be a wyvern? Would I be a wyverness?"

  "Wyvernette?" Jim asked. "How about Wyvernina?"

  I turned a gimlet eye to my demon. "Go to bed, Jim."

  "Yeees," Ophelia said slowly as Jim left the room. "A woman can be a wyvern—the red dragons' wyvern is a woman—but I assumed you'd want to go home after it was all over."

  "Home?" I said, pinning a bright smile on my face. "Why would I want to go back to a mundane courier job when I have the opportunity to rule a dragon sept here? In fact, I'm thinking I might just take over as Venediger, too."

  "What?" Ophelia choked on her tea. I patted her back helpfully before taking a seat and pouring myself a cup of tea. "You want to be the Venediger? But—but—"

  "Yeah, well, I know you said that the wyverns are too bound up in their septs to be Venediger, but that's where I'm perfect for the job. I don't have any ties to the green dragons, so I'm sure I'll be able to do both jobs just fine." I blew on my tea before taking a sip. "Unless you know of a reason why I couldn't?"

  Her gaze dropped to the teapot. "No, I know of no rea­son. I just assumed—you sounded as if you didn't want to be wyvern, and now you are talking of taking on a role of great responsibility—"

  "The idea kind of grew on me," I said with another cheery smile that I felt far from feeling. "I have you to thank for that, too. If you hadn't mentioned something about Perdita taking over as Venediger, I never would have thought about it."