Me and My Shadow

  Chapter Seventeen

  “So, are there going to be snacks for the dragon-heart thing? Because I missed lunch, being Cyrene’s decoy, and that gyro she bought me isn’t going to last until dinner. Hey, Fiat, long time no kidnap. Massacre anyone lately?”

  “Jim, so help me god, one more word out of you, and you’re going to be visiting Magoth,” Aisling snapped.

  I hurried over to where the demon sat, watching Drake’s two men bring Fiat into the room, filled with contrition. “I’m sorry, Aisling. I should have been watching it. Jim—”

  “There’s no need for you to yell at me, too,” it said with an injured sniff as it plopped itself down in front of the fireplace. “Ash already chewed my ass off. Man. Grumpy much?”

  “I’ve just had it with you,” Aisling said, moving uncomfortably in her chair. I was about to rejoin Gabriel, but I stopped next to her.

  “Are you all right? Did the sárkány tire you out?” I asked.

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  I examined her face. She looked tired, black smudges under her eyes.

  She waved a hand toward her belly. “It’s just the baby. I wish she would make up her mind to come. Drake actually told the midwife she has to move in with us tonight. He wants her to do a C-section, but she doesn’t think there’s a need for that yet.”

  I patted her on her shoulder. “I’m sorry that I’ve been so distracted I haven’t been watching Jim like I should.”

  A smile lit her tired eyes. “Don’t worry about it. To be honest, I missed the big galoot when it was at your house. It’s just that things are a bit tense with all the wyverns being prickly with one another, although, thank god, the issues with Kostya are now over. That stress, at least, is gone.”

  “I know Drake will probably have a fit at the idea, but would you like Gabriel to make sure everything is OK with you? Maybe the baby is moving or something.”

  “Oh, she’s moved. She’s always moving, usually kicking me right in the bladder,” Aisling answered, shifting again. She heaved a sigh that seemed to come all the way up from her toes. “I just hope she decides to come soon, because I’m awfully tired of feeling like a fully loaded Goodyear blimp.”

  I glared at Jim as it opened its mouth. “Don’t you dare!”

  “Sheesh!” was all it said, looking away.

  Aisling laughed, drawing Drake’s attention from Fiat, who was loudly demanding to be released. He hurried over to us just as Kaawa entered the room along with Nora.

  “Are you in pain, kincsem?” Drake asked.

  “No. Just need to use the expectant Goodyear blimp’s room. Help me up?”

  He lifted her up, watching with worried eyes as she toddled out the door.

  “Gabriel would be happy to check her over if you’re worried,” I told Drake, feeling a slight pang of betrayal toward Aisling, since I knew she hated to be fussed over.

  He actually thought about it for a moment before shaking his head. “Our midwife will be here in a few hours. If Aisling goes into labor before then, we will have Kaawa attend to her.”

  I’d forgotten that Gabriel’s mom was a midwife, as well. “I’m sure she’ll be happy to be of help. I’m afraid I’m utterly useless when it comes to this sort of thing, but I want you and Aisling to know that if I can do anything to make her more comfortable, I’ll be delighted to do it.”

  Drake thanked me, and moved toward the door, ostensibly to greet Fiat, but clearly waiting for Aisling to return. I wandered over to where Kaawa and Nora were chatting.

  “Do you mind if I watch the shard being re-formed?” Nora interrupted herself to ask me, her eyes bright with interest behind the red rims of her glasses. “From what Kaawa tells me, it’s truly a remarkable occasion, and I would dearly like to witness it, if I may.”

  “Of course. I don’t know that there’s going to be any fireworks, but you’re welcome to stay and watch. I just hope I don’t bungle the ceremony.” I hoped no one saw quite how nervous I was about the upcoming event. My stomach felt like it was filled with jumping beans, and I had an uncomfortable presentiment that something was going to go horribly wrong.

  “You’ll be fine, I’m sure,” Nora said, flashing a smile at me. “I have no doubt Kaawa prepared you well for it.”

  “My daughter could do no less,” Kaawa said with simple majesty, making me feel simultaneously unworthy of such trust and filled to overflowing with a determination to do both Gabriel and her proud.

  A persistent worry soon took care of any warm, fuzzy feeling I might have had at Kaawa’s praise.

  “Are you sure now is a good time to do this?” I asked Gabriel, pulling him aside for a moment. “Kostya is here, and Baltic is still out there doing god knows what, and now Fiat is here and is pissed as hell. Maybe we should do this later, when no other dragons are around.”

  He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me to him, speaking into my temple. “Do not fear, little bird. I won’t let anything happen to you or the dragon heart.”

  “I know you won’t, but . . .” I stopped, unable to put into words the heavy feeling that hung over my heart. The dragon shard had been oddly quiet inside me, much to my surprise. I had been grateful that it hadn’t tried to get me to throw myself on any of the other wyverns present, but now that I had a chance to think about it, it hadn’t been prompting me to do anything particularly dragonish. It was as if it was holding its breath in anticipation.

  That thought made me more nervous than anything else.

  “No, I will not sit down! I have had enough of this treatment ! You will release me now or pay the consequences!” Fiat yelled, jerking his arm out of István’s hold.

  Everyone stopped talking to eye him.

  “I have been unfairly detained by Drake and Gabriel,” Fiat yelled. “You are all witnesses to this fact! I demand that a sárkány be called to punish them!”

  Chuan Ren’s eyes narrowed on him. When Fiat had entered the room, both her son and her husband had been blocking her, obviously intending to prevent her from killing him dead on the spot. “You have no status in the weyr,” she said now, pushing aside her son to stride forward.

  I saw the glint of metal in her hand before I could speak, but she wasn’t fast enough.

  Drake had just unlocked the handcuffs that held Fiat, which was a lucky thing considering Fiat caught Chuan Ren’s wrist just as she was about to plunge the dagger into his heart.

  “Oh, please,” he said, scorn dripping from his voice as he twisted her wrist. “Do you think I have been wyvern as long as I have without anticipating assassination attempts?”

  She snarled something that was most likely obscene, but yielded when both Drake and Jian grabbed her arms. With an immense amount of control, she shook off both men and stood watching Fiat with hooded eyes. “I repeat: you are no longer recognized by any sept within the weyr.”

  “You are mistaken,” Fiat said just as calmly, rubbing his wrist where the handcuffs had bound him. “I am the wyvern of the red dragons.”

  “You lie,” Chuan Ren spat. “You have never challenged me for my sept. You were too cowardly to even face me when I was released from Abaddon.”

  “I don’t have need to challenge you,” he said, shaking his head as if saddened by her ignorance. “I challenged, and defeated, the previous wyvern, the one who took over when you were banished. Thus, by the laws that govern the weyr, I am the recognized wyvern, not you.”

  Chuan Ren seethed, positively seethed with fury.

  “I’m surprised she’s not exploding all over him,” I murmured in Gabriel’s ear.

  “She has been wyvern for more than a millennium,” he answered in an equally low tone. “You do not remain in power that long without having the ability to control your emotions.”

  “Drake will tell you that I am right,” Fiat said, nodding toward the green wyvern. His eyes flickered around the room, pausing for a moment on his uncle Bastian before moving on to us. “As will Gabriel. Tell her. Tell her that I am the wyvern.”


  Drake and Gabriel and Bastian all exchanged glances that were silent, but filled with meaning.

  “I do not have to challenge you. Bao was never wyvern, so you defeating her did nothing other than eliminate a troublesome sept member.”

  “And yet your own son acknowledged her as wyvern,” Fiat said smoothly.

  Everyone looked at Jian, who avoided meeting his mother’s eye.

  “Is this so?” she demanded.

  He hesitated a moment, then nodded.

  “You see? Everyone knew you were in Abaddon and would not be released anytime soon.” Fiat shot me an acid look before continuing. “Thus my challenge and victory over Bao was perfectly valid, and it is you, my dear, who is ouroboros, not me. I have been gracious in allowing you to live despite your attempts to usurp me, but should you continue to try my patience, I may regret such generosity.”

  Chuan Ren turned to stone, or at least that was what it looked like to me. She froze for about forty seconds, her body so tightly strung I was sure even her vaunted control would snap, but she was made of sterner stuff than I had imagined.

  Slowly, inch by inch, her muscles relaxed. Her husband and son watched her warily, though, as if she might go off at any second. “Your words are meaningless, as usual. It matters not whether my son recognized Bao—he is not my heir.”

  Jian shot her a startled look.

  “Perhaps not, but the rest of your sept accepted her, as well, as did the weyr,” Fiat said.

  “I think the time is right, mate, for you to tell just what you saw two months ago,” Gabriel interrupted, causing everyone to look in surprise at him, including me.

  We had agreed not to mention those events, since it would leave me open to a challenge by Fiat, but evidently Gabriel had changed his mind. Or perhaps given the current situation, he felt there was little to fear.

  “Approximately seven weeks ago my twin, Gabriel’s guard Maata, and I made a covert call on Fiat’s house in Italy.”

  Fiat spun around and focused his sapphire gaze on me, making me feel stripped and powerless. Gabriel’s hand brushed mine, restoring my balance.

  “We entered through a subterranean passage several meters beneath the surface of the lake. There we were witness to a scene between Fiat, Bao, and Baltic.”

  “This is news to me,” Bastian said, frowning as he turned to Drake. “Were you privy to this information?”

  “Yes.”

  Bastian didn’t like that, but was wise enough to hold his tongue.

  “It was clear to all of us that Fiat and Baltic had some plan under way, although what that was we didn’t know. When Baltic left, Fiat was left alone with Bao. The two of them were also working together, a relationship that ended when Fiat snatched up a sword and beheaded her when she was off her guard.”

  Silence held the room in its grip for a few seconds, long enough for the sound of a door closing in the back of the house to reach us.

  “There was no challenge,” I said, meeting Fiat’s furious gaze. “He simply grabbed a sword off the wall and hacked off her head, then told his men to clean up the mess—meaning, we supposed, her guards.”

  “Why did you not come forward with this information earlier?” Bastian demanded to know just as Chuan Ren spat out some extremely rude words toward me.

  Instantly Gabriel moved between her and me. “May was silent at my request. Drake and I discussed the issue, and decided that it would be better to keep Fiat in a position where he would be visible, and thus monitored.”

  “And look what a fine job you did of that,” Chuan Ren snarled, turning her back on us all. “How many dragons did you let be murdered by him?”

  Bastian’s face was pale, his expression anguished at Chuan Ren’s words, but that was nothing that came close to touching the pain I felt within Gabriel.

  “We did not anticipate Fiat going on a killing spree,” Drake said quickly when Gabriel faltered. “The blame lies on both of us for that. I should have guessed that Fiat would retaliate for Chuan Ren returning.”

  “This isn’t going to end easily,” I whispered to Gabriel.

  “No, it is not.”

  “He’s going to fight no matter what the outcome.”

  “I know. Drake will not be happy with Aisling present.”

  “I can take care of that.”

  Gabriel slid me a questioning glance. I leaned into his side and said almost silently, “Aisling gave me a Taser this morning, in case something like this happened.”

  A slight frown marred his brow. “I do not like it, little bird.”

  “I know. But it’s better than someone getting hurt.”

  “All this is unimportant except for one thing,” Chuan Ren said, interrupting Drake as he continued to explain why no one had thought to watch innocent dragons. She spun around, her long black hair whipping out behind her, and stalked forward until she was a few feet away from Fiat, her eyes snapping with pure, undiluted hatred. “As rightful wyvern of the red dragons, I demand that Fiat be turned over to us for punishment for his attempted challenge to my control of the sept.”

  “No!” Bastian took a deep, shaky breath, then stepped forward to stand next to Chuan Ren. “Fiat was my problem, my responsibility. He escaped from us, and it was blue dragons he so brutally slaughtered. He must face the penalties for the crimes he has committed against my sept.”

  Fiat shot his uncle a poisonous look. “You don’t even have the ability to keep your precious dragons safe. How do you expect to punish me, old man?”

  “He is ours, not yours,” Chuan Ren snapped at Bastian.

  “I beg to disagree with you. The most heinous of crimes were against blue dragons, not red,” he argued.

  “This is ridiculous. I will not stand for this,” Fiat said, and started to shift into dragon form.

  I was ready for him this time. Before he got so much as a toenail transformed, I shadowed, slipped behind him, and had the Taser planted at the back of his neck.

  “Not again,” he managed to get out before he fell to the floor, twitching and spasming as the electric charge coursed through his still-human body.

  “Consider it poetic justice,” I told him before turning off the device.

  “Brava,” Bastian breathed, giving me a profound look of appreciation. That look died when Chuan Ren gestured her menfolk forward.

  “Take him.”

  “No! He is mine!” Bastian straddled his nephew’s body.

  “I do not acknowledge your claim,” Chuan Ren said stubbornly.

  Bastian hesitated a second, then turned to Drake. “I will let the weyr decide who shall receive Fiat if Chuan Ren swears to abide by the decision.”

  She looked like murder for a moment; then her face became as implacable as ever. “Very well. The weyr shall decide.”

  “Kostya?”

  Kostya and Cyrene had been silent during the entire scene with Fiat, a fact I found interesting given suspicions about Kostya’s involvement with the rogue blue wyvern.

  His black eyes moved from Fiat to his brother. “The black dragons feel that Bastian’s claim is stronger than Chuan Ren’s.”

  She didn’t like that, but turned her gaze to Drake.

  He was silent for a few moments before saying slowly, “About this, I am in agreement with Kostya. Bastian’s claim is stronger.”

  “You pathetic little mewling bastard,” Chuan Ren said. “Ever afraid to go against popular opinion. What about you?” Her eyes went to Gabriel. “Think well before you vote, for I will not release the Song Phylactery should your vote cause me to lose confidence in you.”

  My jaw sagged for a moment at the audacity in her threat.

  “We had an agreement,” Gabriel said, his voice a little rough around the edges. Tension built inside him, but like Chuan Ren, he had masterful control over his emotions. “You were released from Abaddon as part of that agreement. You must honor that, or run afoul of the weyr.”

  Muscles in her jaw worked for a second. “The weyr does
not control me!”

  “My vote is also for Bastian to have Fiat,” Gabriel said in defiance of her fury. “It is his dragons who have suffered the most by Fiat’s actions, and the survivors must determine how justice will be meted out. The red dragons suffered little in comparison.”

  “You have just damned your mate to bear the shard forever,” Chuan Ren snorted, tossing her head.

  “No, he hasn’t.”

  The voice that spoke was low and soft, but firm in its intent. Chuan Ren looked first in shock, then unmasked rage as Jian walked over to Gabriel, bowed, and presented him with a golden box. “I made the agreement on behalf of my mother. I will honor it even if she is temporarily of another mind.”

  Gabriel didn’t wait for Chuan Ren to respond. He simply took the box, handing it to Maata before thanking Jian. “It will be returned shortly.”

  “I know,” Jian said simply, turning to face his mother’s wrath.

  “We are done here,” she snarled, her hands fists as she shoved him out of the way, pausing at Gabriel. “I expect the phylactery to be in my hands by the time the sun sets tonight, or I will destroy you and your little mate.”

  Gabriel said nothing, just arched a brow at her. She muttered under her breath as she charged out of the room, Li scattering muttered apologies as he followed in her wake.

  Jian inclined his head to everyone and left, as well.

  “I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes,” I said softly.

  Gabriel smiled a slow smile. “I think he will make a very fine wyvern one day.”

  “Wyvern? I didn’t think it was possible for the child of a wyvern to be one, as well. Don’t you have to have a human parent?”

  “Yes.” Gabriel leaned close and whispered in my ear, “I thought at first that he was her actual son, but have since learned that my first suspicion was correct—her children are all dead. The term ‘son’ in this instance implies an heir rather than a blood relationship.”

  “But she just said he wasn’t her heir, and he acknowledged Bao as wyvern.”