“The baby is only a few days overdue, I believe?” Gabriel asked.
Drake nodded. “The midwife has confirmed that all is well, but the strain of waiting is beginning to take its toll on Aisling.”
I kept the comment to myself that Aisling wasn’t the only one being affected.
“You will excuse me. I must see to soothing her ruffled feathers before she books another flight to the US.”
“Another one?” I couldn’t help but ask, trying not to smile.
Drake sighed again as he opened the door. “She threatens to return home daily now. It is becoming tiresome to explain to the airlines that the reservations must be canceled. If you wish to remain here for Kostya, you are welcome to do so. He is expected for dinner. I thought it would distract Aisling.”
I gave in at the expression of suffering on his face, although I waited for him to close the door before I laughed out loud. “Poor man,” I said.
Gabriel grinned. “It is unkind of me, I know, but I cannot help but think Drake has made his bed, and is finding it not quite so sweet to lie upon.”
I was about to agree with him when it struck me that perhaps he didn’t mean it in the way I thought. “Aisling is putting up with a lot from him, too, you know. That overprotective act can be wearing to the nerves, and I can only imagine how annoying it would be to be treated as if one was made of glass.”
“And just how would you like to be treated?” Gabriel asked, walking behind me. His voice was rich with innuendo, causing my back to stiffen with sudden arousal. The dragon shard in me knew exactly what he was doing—he was flirting, teasing me, fulfilling a dragon’s need to play with its prey. He walked in a circle, not touching me, but his eyes glittered with a quicksilver heat that left me short of breath.
“How do I want to be treated?” I asked, struggling to hold on to myself, the true part of me, not the dragon-tainted bits that were slowly, insidiously taking over my sense of self.
“Yes.” He pathed around behind me again, causing me to shiver with anticipation. The dragon shard stopped insisting I pay attention to it, and simply took over, allowing my body to shift and stretch and transform into a silver-scaled form that was so foreign to me, and yet so familiar.
“I want to be treated like this,” I said in a sultry voice I almost didn’t recognize, and whipped my tail around one of his legs, jerking it toward me so he fell backwards onto the floor. Before he could protest, I was on top of him, licking him with fire, tasting him, wanting him, needing him to complete the self that waited so impatiently.
He growled deep in his chest, a mating sound that skittered along my body like a static charge. He, too, started to shift, but a noise at the door was followed by a soft voice saying in French-inflected English, “I have returned, although I could not find the pickle-flavored crisps you . . .”
I struggled to my feet at the sight of the man in the doorway who held a shopping bag from a prestigious store. “Er . . . hello.”
“René, is it not?” Gabriel asked, completely composed despite the fact that a strange man walked in just as I was about to have my dragonly way with him. I fought the dragon shard for control, slowly, inch by inch returning my body to normal. The man named René greeted Gabriel pleasantly enough, but he watched me with a decidedly wary look as the last of the silver scales shimmered into my normal skin color.
“It is a pleasure to see you again,” René said, his eyes flickering to me again.
“This is my mate, May. Little bird, this is an old friend of Aisling’s, a daimon who has been of much assistance to her.”
Daimons were fates, I knew. I’d never actually met one before, although I thought it was interesting that they were occasionally assigned to individuals who they felt needed a little help.
“Including as a purveyor of hard-to-find delectables,” René answered, holding up his bag with a grin. “Drake, he refuses to leave her side, so it is up to me to bring the so-charming Aisling the food she craves most.”
“I thought pregnancy cravings were over by the time birth was imminent?”
He shrugged, a loose-shouldered gesture that made me think of smoky bars in Marseille filled with slinky women in loud-print dresses. “It depends on the woman, hein? I have seven little ones myself, and when the maman desires something, it is better to humor her, I have found. With my wife, it was macaroons. Always the macaroons. At all hours, she must have macaroons. Aisling, she has a passion for crisps of the most repulsive flavors, but it is not for me to deny her when she most desires them. I find the crisps just as I found the macaroons for my Brigitte. Did you say ‘mate’?”
Gabriel grinned as René gave me a thorough visual inspection. “Despite the curse, yes, she is.”
“But I thought . . . you are not a dragon, then?”
“To be honest, I don’t know quite what I am anymore,” I answered with more than a touch of despair.
Gabriel took my hand, his fingers warm and strong, offering comfort. “Do not fight the shard, May. Control it as we discussed, but do not fight it. I will not allow it to consume you.”
René’s eyebrows went up. “A shard? You do not mean . . .”
“I’m technically known as the Northcott Phylactery, yes,” I said, giving Gabriel’s hand a squeeze to let him know I appreciated the support. “I’m a doppelganger, really.”
“A shadow walker? How very interesting. I have only ever met one other of your kind.”
“Ophelia?”
“Oui. You know her?”
I shook my head. “Not really. I gather she’s having a rough time being on her own, but other than one or two conversations on the phone with her, I have no contact with any other doppelgangers. We tend to stay pretty much on our own.”
“Ah, you were not born,” René said, nodding his head as he figured out how we had gotten around the curse put on the silver dragons by the dread wyvern Baltic. “Very clever. And now you are here to help Aisling with the birth, Gabriel?”
“I would be happy to act as midwife, but Drake, I believe, would rather birth the child himself than let me near his mate.”
“Dragons,” René said, nodding, adding in an aside to me, “They can be very protective.”
“So I gather. Perhaps you can answer a question for me. Are daimons assigned to particular individuals, or can you be hired? I know Gabriel will feel otherwise, but I certainly feel as if we could use a helping hand—”
A racket exploded from the entrance of the house, a woman’s shouts carrying loud and clear over a more masculine rumbling.
“Cabrón! Do you think I will be kept from seeing my grandchild? Move aside before I have my son throw you into the gutter where you belong!”
“Who on earth—?” I started to ask, but I asked it to an empty room, Gabriel and René immediately racing from the room. I followed, pausing at the door to take in the sight of a tall, olive-skinned, dark-haired woman chewing up István, who was probably double her weight, not to mention built like a truck. To my intense surprise, István was backpedaling madly as the tall Spanish woman yelled, her hands gesticulating wildly.
“Where is my Drake? Where is my grandchild?” She punctuated her sentences with blows to István’s chest. “Stop running from me and fetch—”
The woman caught sight of us from the corner of her eye. She stopped hitting István and rounded on Gabriel, her black expression suddenly turning sly and sultry. “Gabriel!” she all but cooed.
Hackles I didn’t know I possessed went up at the sight of her as she sauntered toward Gabriel, brushing past René as if he didn’t exist, her hips swaying with an unmistakable message. My fingers lengthened into claws, but I curled them up, refusing to give in to the shard’s demand that I deal with the brazen hussy who was going to be one very sorry person if she so much as laid a finger on my mate.
“I did not know you were here,” she continued, her voice a blatant invitation.
I don’t remember moving, but somehow, I found myself standing in f
ront of Gabriel, my hands clenched as I thought for a few seconds of how nice she would look unconscious on the entryway floor. “Hello. I’m May.”
“This is my mate, Catalina,” Gabriel said, laughter obvious in his voice as he snaked his hand around my waist, gently pulling me over to his side. “Mayling, you have heard me mention Drake’s mother, yes? This is doña Catalina de Elférez.”
“Mate.” She said the word as if it were rancid, her dark eyes scrutinizing me for a moment.
I am no stranger to piercing looks, or the importance of presenting a placid expression even when my brain is screaming to run away, so it was not much of an effort to smile at her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Her expression changed from hostility to wariness. “You have a mate. Is she . . . ?” She hesitated for a moment, then gestured vaguely toward me. “Is she mentally damaged?”
I gaped at her in surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
She leaned close toward Gabriel, her gaze resting on me with obvious curiosity, as if I was some sort of a bizarre sight she’d never come across. “Resurrection, if not done properly, can often lead to damage of the brain.”
“Resurrection?” I gaped a little more before turning to look at Gabriel.
His dimples were fighting to show, but he merely tightened his arm around me, and reassured Catalina that I was not the equivalent of a mental squash. “I did not resurrect her in order to bypass the curse.”
“No, no, I would never suggest that you did such a thing, since we both know that resurrection without sanction is very much disallowed in the weyr.” Her gaze was still wary on me as I mustered up once again the same smile that had soothed many of Magoth’s temper tantrums. “But, my darling Gabriel, you must take some steps to cover up this horrible tragedy. Just look at her. Look at that grimace. That is not a grimace of a sane person.”
“It’s a smile,” I said through my teeth, holding on to the blasted thing for all I was worth. “I’m smiling, not grimacing.”
“Yes, of course you are smiling,” she said loudly, patting my arm as she gave Gabriel a sympathetic look. “You are very good to stand by her despite the failure of your experiment. I will, naturally, not breathe a word to anyone what I have noticed about her. Your secret is very safe with me.”
“I have not been resurrected!” I said rather louder than was probably necessary.
She waved a hand toward a mountain of black leather luggage that a driver was still bringing in. “I have some pretty toys I brought for my grandchild, but your poor, sweet mate shall have her pick of them. They will no doubt amuse her, and keep her happy for many days. Now, my darling Gabriel, you must promise me you will do everything in your power to rescue my innocent grandchild from that she-devil’s clutches. Do you know that my Drake refused to allow me to be here when the child was being born? It was her doing, naturally, but I am nothing if not an excellent mother, and I did as he bade me, no matter how cruel it was.”
She snaked her hand through Gabriel’s other arm and tugged him away from me, toward the room we’d just left.
I looked at René. He grinned at me.
“The baby is not yet born,” Gabriel said, casting me a look over his shoulder, part embarrassment, part reluctance, as she dragged him toward the sitting room.
“No? Well, there is time for us to save the poor little one before it is tainted by that demon lord my darling Drake insists on calling mate. Come, now, tell me all that has happened since I have last seen you, although naturally we will not discuss the tragic result of your attempt to find a mate.” She paused and glanced toward us, then inclined her head to him. “Will your mate be all right if she is left alone? She does not have suicidal tendencies? I knew a resurrected mage who seemed perfectly normal, but any sound of a bell would set him to rending his clothing and pulling out his hair. It was very tragic. Your mate will be fine left alone? Yes? Excellent. You must tell me everything while my rooms are being made ready.”
The door shut behind them, leaving René, István, and myself alone in the hallway, Catalina’s taxi driver having deposited the last few cases before he hurried out.
“Drake’s mother,” I said to them.
István made a face. “She was not supposed to come. Drake told her not to come. Aisling will not be happy.”
René gave another of those loose shrugs and said, “There is no use in trying to tell Catalina anything. She does as she pleases.”
“I don’t look deranged, do I?” I asked, touching my face and wishing for the millionth time I could see my reflection.
“You look worried, but not deranged,” René told me kindly.
“Thank you,” I said, not much buoyed, but willing to take what I could get. I cast a glance toward the closed door to the sitting room. “I think I’ll go fetch Jim from Aisling. I’m sure Drake has calmed her down by now, and Jim is probably making a pest of itself.”
The demon wasn’t, in fact, in the way, but only because it had evidently been kicked out of Aisling’s bedroom. I found it lying on the floor on its back.
“You can talk now,” I told it, averting my sight from its nether regions.
“Geez, hanging around Magoth really taught you how to torment demons, didn’t it? I thought you’d never come up here to get me!” Jim rolled over and got to its feet, shaking itself in a way that left a corona of black hair on the floor around it. “Gotta be dinnertime. Let’s go eat.”
“Is everything OK in there?” I asked, nodding toward the door.
“Yeah, yeah, Drake started in with Ash about how he can’t survive the ages without her, and all that crap, and she fell for it just like she always does.” The demon shook its head disgustedly as it marched past me toward the stairs. “Women. Can’t live with ’em, can’t live with ’em.”
“I’m sure I can see to it that you don’t live at all,” I said sweetly, which merited an annoyed look from Jim as it went down the stairs. “By the way, Drake’s mother has arrived.”
Jim did an about-face. “Fires of Abaddon! You almost let me get within blasting range! And me just getting my coat to maximum fabulousness. Sheesh, May. I expected better of you.”
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked as it headed back toward Aisling’s room.
“Gonna go warn Ash. She’s going to hit the roof, and I want to be there to see the fireworks.”
“Effrijim—” I started to say.
“Oh, man!” it whined, slumping to a halt. “Not you, too?”
“By the powers vested in me by your true overlord, I hereby charge, demand, and otherwise order you to leave Aisling alone unless she expressly desires your company, or if her life is in danger.”
Jim hesitated at the door.
“A visit from her mother-in-law does not constitute a threat to her life,” I warned, knowing exactly what it was thinking.
It raised an eyebrow. “You don’t know Catalina very well, do you?”
“Come on,” I said, gesturing toward the stairs. “Let’s go wait for Kostya to arrive. I’m sure, given his temper, there will be fireworks aplenty when he sees Gabriel and me.”
“There’d better be! That’s all I’m sayin’!”
In that belief, I was wrong, and evidently I had my twin to thank.
“Mayling!” Cyrene squealed when Jim and I arrived in the hall after spending an hour paddling around Drake’s basement pool. Since the silver dragons weren’t overly fond of water, it not being their element, they tended to view things such as showers as merely unpleasant experiences to be endured as quickly as possible. Although Gabriel’s house in Manukua had a pool, it was more or less for visitors, which made it difficult to find time for a pleasure swim. As Jim and I padded up the stairs from the pool, Cyrene spotted us and rushed across the hall, where Kostya was being greeted by his mother, with Gabriel and Drake in a wing formation behind her.
“You’ve been swimming?” Cyrene’s pupils dilated slightly, as was common whenever water was mentioned in her prese
nce. As a water elemental, she had an affinity for freshwater sources such as springs and lakes, but she loved any form of water, and was known to take hour-long baths. “Drake has a pool?”
“Yes, but it’s not polite to arrive at someone’s house and demand to go swimming,” I said, grabbing her as she started past me toward the stairs to the basement. “You should at least say hello to Aisling.”
“Drake said she’s resting and will be down later,” Cyrene said, pouting just a bit before turning a smile on me. “You look happy. Has Magoth stopped hitting on you?”
“Oh, like that could happen,” Jim said, snuffling Cyrene’s hand until she fondled its ears and scratched its neck. “The day he stops hitting on babes is the day I give up being a demon and go back to spriting. Oh yeah, baby, right there. Urng.”
Jim’s eyes rolled up a bit as Cyrene’s long fingernails found a particularly itchy spot.
“Have you ever known Magoth to not have sex on his mind?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” Cyrene surprised me, nodding. “But only when he’s torturing someone. And even then . . . well, we won’t go into that. At least he hasn’t been granted his powers.”
“No,” I said slowly. “And that actually worries me. I would have thought that as soon as Bael tossed him out of Abaddon, he would have given Magoth back his powers in order to unleash him on the mortal world. But he hasn’t done anything, yet. Magoth has petitioned him to be reinstated, but Bael hasn’t even responded to that except to say it’s under consideration.”
“Well, you have bigger things to worry about than that,” Cyrene said with blithe indifference to the idea of a demon lord being free to run amok among the mortals. “Kostya needs our help.”
My gaze moved from her to the man in question. Although Kostya was Drake’s older brother, a weird quirk of genetics had left the two men wyverns of different septs . . . or it would have, if Kostya was recognized by the weyr as such. “What does he need help with now? I thought he had the requisite number of black dragons to formally apply for recognition? Isn’t that what the meeting is all about?”