“Well, then, who did it? I didn’t fall, Drake. I know the difference between a fall and a push. Someone slammed into my back, knocking me down in front of the train. If it wasn’t Gabriel, then it had to be Fiat. But if that’s the case, why did he save me right after I fell? And why didn’t Gabriel say anything to me afterwards? He must have seen Fiat push me. You’d think he would have something to say about that.”
“It has been many decades since I have understood the way Fiat’s mind works,” Drake said slowly. “The blame does not necessarily fall on him, however. The red dragons take the status of war very seriously, and I have no doubt whatsoever that they will make several attempts to harm you in an attempt to make me yield. I suspect they are the ones behind the hit-and-run accident, as well.”
“Great, that’s all I need—the red dragons on my back.”
“You need not fear on that score, kincsem.” His eyes glittered at me with restrained heat. “I will allow no one to harm you. What else did you have to discuss with me?”
I shifted my mental gears from murder attempts to more intimate matters. “Something a bit more personal. I want to talk about what happened in Budapest and what it means to us now.”
“Ah.” He sat back, giving me a long look. “I take it you’re about to lambaste me again for your lack of foresight.”
I took a deep breath. No other man—no, no other person—in the entire world left me simultaneously frustrated, enraged, and so much in love it made me giddy with joy just to look at him. “No, I’m not going to lambaste you again for anything. I realize now that I went into this arrangement blind, and although it would have been nice to have someone tell me what exactly was going to be expected of me as a wyvern’s mate, I am willing to take my share of the blame for not asking enough questions.”
A light flared for a moment in Drake’s eyes, dying al most immediately. “If only you had been this reasonable in Budapest.”
I carefully set down the table knife I’d been gripping. “You’re not going to bait me into an argument, Drake. I want to talk to you about what’s going on, but if you have no desire to participate seriously in a discussion about the possible future of our relationship, then this is a waste of time.”
He was silent for a moment, his fingers drawing lazy circles on the tablecloth. I shivered a little, knowing the sort of fire those fingers could stir within me. “You wish to negotiate?”
“Yes.” I nodded. Negotiate was as good a term as any, and one to which Drake responded well. “Things got out of hand in Budapest. I’m the first one to admit that and to admit that I was as much to blame for it as you were.”
I waited to see whether he’d object to that, but he didn’t say anything, just inclined his head for me to continue.
“But I’ve had some time to think, and sort things out, and really work through what it is I want from life.”
“You wish to be a Guardian,” Drake said, his face impassive. I was instantly suspicious.
“I am a Guardian. There’s nothing anyone can do about that now. I may not be formally trained, and I may not ever be recognized officially as one, but I’ve made my peace with the fact that I was put on this earth to wrangle demons and watch over portals to Hell.”
“Is that so?” Drake asked in a deceptively soft voice. He was silent again for a moment, but there was a banked fire in his eyes.
I opened myself up to it for a moment, embracing that dragon fire that seemed so natural to me, watching with amazement as my fingernails burst into flame. One by one I doused the dragon fire by dipping my fingers in my water glass.
“I take it you believe there is another reason for my existence?” I smiled to myself as I sipped my iced tea. I knew exactly what he was going to say.
“Do you know how wyverns are born?” he asked, causing me to choke on a piece of chipped ice. That’ll teach me to be smug wherever Drake was concerned.
“You said that dragons are born in human form, not…er…hatched or anything, so I assume it’s the normal human way.”
He shook his head, sipping from his glass of dragon’s blood. “I did not mean literally. A wyvern is born, not created. He has one dragon parent and one human. Wyverns ascend to their positions by right of tanistry, so they are not necessarily the direct descendant of a wyvern.”
“You have a human parent?” I asked, stunned by that revelation. “You’re only half-dragon?”
“No, I am completely a dragon,” he answered, looking slightly annoyed. “Dragon blood is dominant, always.”
“No surprise there. So…a wyvern is the most important person in the sept. Why don’t the sept members want a full-blooded dragon at the helm?”
“Human blood is required for a wyvern because long ago it was proven that the mixture of dragon and human brought about the best attributes in both species, but most importantly, it heightened the dragon qualities so they stood out above others.”
“So…” I sat back and allowed the waiter to place before me a plate of sesame chicken salad, waiting until he’d placed Drake’s and Jim’s lunches down and left the room before finishing up my thought. “Basically, you’re saying that diversity strengthens the gene pool?”
“That is a gross oversimplification of a complicated genetic situation, but it is in effect true.”
“Gotcha. What has this to do with me?”
Drake speared a piece of chilled marinated steak. “I am a wyvern. I have a human parent. You are a human. It is against the rules of nature for a wyvern to take a human mate.”
“Why?” I asked, wondering if that was the rule Dmitri had referred to.
“Because too much human blood can dilute the dragon genes. Diversity is one thing—dilution to the extinction of dragonkin is another. Thus, for you to be my mate regardless of this fact indicates that we were intended to be together, no matter what the consequences.”
“You’re talking about children, aren’t you?” I asked, setting down my fork, annoyed that even Drake would bring up this silliness. “Look, I don’t know what Pál told you he overheard, but I’m not pregnant. I’ve never been set-your-calendar-by-it sort of reliable, so if everyone would lighten up about this, I’d be…” The words dried up on my lips at the sight of the emotions that passed over Drake’s face: incomprehension, surprise, followed quickly by a fierce expression of utter and complete possessiveness that made me realize that until I’d opened my big mouth he hadn’t the slightest inkling about that whole pregnancy business.
“You’re pregnant,” he finally said, a little wisp of smoke escaping from his nose.
I slapped my hands on the table on either side of my plate and stood up. “No, I’m not. I just said I’m not! Why does no one believe me?”
“We mated several weeks ago,” Drake said, his eyes narrowing on me, but I had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing me. I could almost hear his brain working as he cast his mind back over the last month. “We had unprotected sex. Frequently. If you were in the middle of your cycle…yes, it is possible.”
“Possible is not the same thing as probable. Anything is possible, as Amelie is always telling me. But this is not happening, Drake. So wipe that pushy, going-to-tick-Aisling-off look right off your face. Yes, we didn’t use birth control. But it was only for a few days, and since I was newly mated, my body probably hadn’t changed over to mate yet.”
Drake just looked at me, the only sound being Jim as it snored its way through its postlunch nap.
“It doesn’t work like that?” I asked.
He shook his head.
I sighed. “Great. Now I have to go get an at-home pregnancy kit before the breakdown gets a good grip on me.”
“That will not do you any good,” Drake cautioned as I pushed my plate aside and grabbed my purse. My appetite was gone, shriveled into nothing in the sudden, gripping worry that everyone was right and I was wrong.
“Why? Jim, wake up. We have to find a pharmacy right away.”
“Huh?” Jim asked, its voice s
leepy as it shook itself awake. “What’s up?”
“The chemicals that a human test uses to determine pregnancy are not relevant with a mate,” Drake answered, standing when I headed for the door.
Jim’s eyes opened wide as it whistled. “Oh, man. You told him, and you didn’t let me hear? I miss all the good stuff!”
“Fine. I’ll use a dragon one, then,” I told Drake from the doorway. “Just point me to someplace that sells one.”
Drake shook his head again. “That is not possible.”
“They don’t make them?”
“They do, in fact, but just as the chemicals in the human one wouldn’t be applicable in your case, nor would those in a dragon test. You are a mate, Aisling. You are neither fully human nor fully dragon. You are some thing unique.”
“Well…hell!” I swore, slamming my purse onto the table.
“Abaddon,” Jim corrected.
“Whatever. Was your mother or father human?”
Drake’s eyes burned with a bright light that I was familiar with. I’d seen it before, when he looked at anything that qualified in his dragon brain as treasure. “My mother, Doña Catalina de Elférez, was born in Seville, Spain, sometime around the year 1580.”
It took me a couple of beats to get past that date. “So, what did she do when she thought she might be pregnant?”
Drake smiled fondly. “She tried to kill my father.”
“I know just how she felt,” I muttered.
“She succeeded thirty-five years later, after I was born,” he added, handing me my purse. “If you are finished, I will drive you home.”
“Wait a minute—your mother killed your father?” I grabbed Drake’s arm before he could leave the room.
“She killed him?”
“Yes.” His eyes held mine for a moment, the emotions in them too mixed to read. “Like you, she did not take kindly to the idea of being a dragon’s mate. My father was less sympathetic than I am, however. He forced the oath out of her by threatening to kill her family unless she accepted her role. He slaughtered half her family before she finally gave in.”
He paused for a moment, ignoring my openmouthed, silent, bug-eyed gawk of horror. “She’s stubborn like you, too. An unfortunate trait that I hope is not passed along to our child.”
“I am not pregnant!” I ground through my teeth as I left the private room, forcing a smile on my face for István and Pál, who were in the middle of their meal. They immediately jumped up.
“No, please, sit down and finish your lunch. I’m just a little”—I shot a look at where Drake stood next to me, his hand possessively on the small of my back—“tired. It’s been a long day, what with Jim eating the imp king and everything.”
All three men looked at Jim with identical startled expressions.
“It’s a long story, one I’ll have to tell another time. Right now I’m going to go home. It was nice to see you both. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”
Without waiting for Drake to start tossing around orders and commands that would be sure to infuriate me, I hurried out of the restaurant. I half hoped Rene would magically be waiting for me out front, but the street was strangely empty of taxis.
“I will take you home,” Drake’s voice announced from behind me.
“My home?” I asked, braced for the worst. “My home with Nora? I don’t have anywhere else to go, but I’ll keep her safe from the imps.”
“Surely in view of this situation, you see that your place is with me?” he asked, doing the usual dragon trick of answering a question by asking one.
“There is no situation. I’d prove that to you if I could, but since I can’t, you’re just going to have to take my word for it until time proves me right,” I said firmly, holding up a hand to stop his objections. We stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by people. This was not the time to discuss something so tangled as our relationship.
“We will discuss this when we get home,” he said, acknowledging my thoughts. “I will take you to Nora’s flat so you may gather your things. You may also tell me about the imp situation.”
I got into the car that István pulled around a few minutes later, my heart heavy. This was the same old Drake, arrogant, stubborn, and seeing only his own way, with no sense of compromise. I couldn’t live like that. I just couldn’t. But could I live without him?
I gave him a brief summary of the imp events while I tried to sort out my conflicted emotions. He said nothing but looked a whole lot more worried than I was happy about.
Jim yacked nonstop all the way to Nora’s, ignoring the fact that no one was really responding to it. Drake sat silent, his eyes on me as his fingers rubbed his chin. The gesture melted the stone wall I’d tried so hard to build around my heart. I loved the man; that was the bottom line. And since that didn’t seem likely to change, it would be better for everyone if I stopped fighting that fact and focused on making it work.
I examined all the possibilities, decided that absolutes weren’t going to get me anywhere, and came to the final conclusion that I was willing to give Drake another chance if he could learn to compromise. I’d stay at Nora’s house until that time, dividing my day between Guardian training (or nontraining, given the order from the committee) and the dragons.
It was a sound plan. It was reasonable. It would allow Drake and me to explore our relationship without the usual stresses that happened when people moved in together. We would have time to get to know each other, to be comfortable with each other, and most important of all, to understand our respective roles. When the time was right, I’d move in with him, and we’d live happily ever after.
We arrived at Nora’s street to find the way blocked with police cars, fire engines, ambulances, and at least a hundred people watching a fully engulfed building.
Nora’s building.
“Do I get my own room?” Jim asked, turning to Drake. “One with a water bed? I’ve always wanted a water bed. And I hope you have satellite cable, because I get really cranky in the morning if I don’t get my dose of Montel.”
9
We found Nora ashen faced and shaken but safe as she stood behind the fire line giving information to a police-woman.
“Aisling!” she yelled as we pushed our way through the crowd toward her. “There she is. That’s my roommate. Oh, thank god you’re both all right. I didn’t think you would be sleeping at this time of the day, but I worried.”
“What happened?” I asked, embracing her in a swift hug. “You’re not hurt? Paco is safe?”
“Yes, he is safe. We aren’t hurt; we weren’t home when the fire started. I got here just as the firemen arrived. As for how the fire started…” Her voice fizzled out to nothing.
“I didn’t do it,” I said quickly, knowing what she hesitated to say aloud. “I wasn’t even here. I was with Drake all day.”
Nora turned to greet him quickly. “Hello, Drake. It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
“The pleasure is all mine,” he said, bowing over her hand in that Old World way the dragons had.
“Of course you didn’t set the fire,” Nora said, turning back to me. “I didn’t mean to imply that. All the fires you’ve started have been small and easily put out…oh, dear. That didn’t come out quite the way I meant it.”
“You are still having difficulty controlling my fire?” Drake asked, giving me an unreadable look.
“Yes. No. Sometimes. Just when I’m under stress or emotional or angry about something,” I answered.
“Which pretty much means all the time,” Jim added. “Fires of Abaddon! I just thought of something. Is everything burned up? Even my collection of Welsh Corgi Fancier magazines?”
We all turned to look down the street at the building. It was a dark, sodden shell, the firemen having been able to keep the fire from spreading to other buildings. The roof had collapsed inward, leaving black, partially destroyed walls that still glowed with occasional embers.
“Merde,” Jim said.
“W
as anyone in the building?” I asked Nora. She shook her head, then introduced me when the police-woman who had been talking to her strolled over with a clipboard. I answered questions about what I’d last done in the apartment, where I’d been, and whether I’d noticed anything that could cause a fire.
“So you don’t know how it started?” I asked the fire captain when he came over to join us.
“Not yet. We will be investigating,” he said, giving me a close look. “You have no idea as to the source of the fire? You were the last person in the flat.”
“I’ve no idea. Have you talked to the owner of the other apartment? Maybe something started there—”
The fire captain frowned. “No, the pattern of fire is consistent with the fire originating in Miss Charles’s flat. Our investigation team will be contacting you later.”
“Oh, Nora, I’m so sorry,” I said once he had left, giving her another hug. “All your things! All your lovely things!”
“They are just possessions, Aisling,” she answered, giving me a squeeze in return. “I am safe, as is Paco, and no one else was hurt. That’s all that really matters. Things can be replaced.”
“I know, but it’s still awful to lose everything. And…I know I’ve been having problems with Drake’s fire, but I swear to you this wasn’t due to me. When I left the apartment earlier, it was just fine.”
Drake interrupted both the conversation and my train of thought by putting an arm around me and pulling me up close. Nora’s eyebrows rose a smidgen above the frame of her glasses at his possessive move. “We will have to work on your control of my fire before it becomes dangerous.”
I edged my way out of his embrace, giving him a glare as I did so. “I am not dangerous! I do not burn down buildings!”
“I didn’t say you did,” he answered calmly. “But you yourself admit you can’t control my fire. Whether you acknowledge the fact or not, you are a powerful woman. When you join my dragon fire with your own power, you hold a potential tool for great destruction.”