Love in the Time of Dragons

Chapter Eleven

“Good morning. Suzanne, isn’t it? I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Tully Sullivan. I’ve come to fetch my son, Brom.” “I could not easily forget you, Ysolde,” the green dragon said as she smiled and stood aside so I could enter Drake’s house.

I glanced down the street to where a sleek black BMW sat. It had been all I could do to keep Baltic in the car, having to swear to him that I wouldn’t go into the house by myself.

“My car is double-parked, so I think I’ll just stay out here in case the police come,” I said, waving a vague hand toward Baltic’s car. “If you could just tell Brom to get his things together, I’ll take him out of your hair.” “He’s been no problem,” she said. “I’m sorry, but I must shut the door. Drake would have my hide if I were to leave the door open. He’s a bit crazy over security just now. Are you sure you don’t want to come inside?” “No, it’s no problem. I’ll just wait out here for Brom,” I said, leaning against the white stone railing.

She gave me an odd look, but closed the door. Two minutes later, when I was trying to think how to broach a difficult subject with Baltic, the door opened. I straightened up, expecting to see my son, but instead a furry black demon in dog form marched out. “Heya, Solders! Oooh, sexy top, babe, very sexy top. I like how your boobies are kind of smooshed up over the neckline.” I looked down at the black stretch corset-style lace-up top I’d bought an hour earlier. My boobs did seem to be a bit more pronounced than was normal, but Baltic had expressed nothing but approval for my choice, going so far as snake his tongue down into the valley between my breasts. I put a stop to that, naturally… after an appropriate amount of time. “I just bought it at a small boutique this morning. It was on sale. Do you think it’s too risqué?” “No,” Jim said, eyeing my boobs with glee. “If you bend over, will you pop out?” I gave it a dirty look. “You are a demon. You aren’t supposed to even notice things like uplifted breasts.” It rolled its eyes. “I may be a demon, but I’m a boy demon, and I’d have to be stuck in the deepest, darkest, most heinous of all of Bael’s dungeon cells, suffering the worst torture imaginable, not to notice a fine pair of tatas when they passed by, and even then, I’d be thinking about them the whole time.” I mumbled something rude, turned to face the door, and did an experimental bow to make sure nothing untoward happened. “It’s fine; you can suck your tongue back in,” I told the demon when I turned around to face it.

“You take all the fun out of ogling. Hey, what’s that on your left boob?” I glanced down and edged the neckline over to better cover the sept mark. “None of your business. Where’s Brom?” “Packing his things. You’re taking him away? Aisling said he was going to stay a couple of days because your crazy boyfriend was going to blow up Gabriel again.” “My crazy boyfriend will do nothing of the—” I stopped myself, getting a grip on my temper. “I don’t have a crazy boyfriend, and no one that I know of is going to blow up Gabriel’s house. Thus, yes, I am here to get my son. I hope to heaven you haven’t been filling Brom’s head with all sorts of inappropriate breast and Baltic talk. He is only nine.” “Naw, he’s a good kid, and besides, Aisling told me if I showed him my collection of Breasticles Monthly, she’d have my noogies nailed to the wall. We’ve been good. Well, we did sit up until two in the morning watching old Hammer horror films because Ash and Drake took the spawns out to the country for a couple of days, but I promised to help watch Brom. And what’s sitting up until two in the morning if not watching, eh?” “I shall be sure to speak to him about staying up so late,” I said with a mom frown.

The demon grinned. “You gotta let him have some fun. That’s why I let him see pictures of my girlfriend, Cecile.” My jaw sagged just a smidgen. “You have a girlfriend?” “Yeah. Black Welsh corgi with a fluffy white belly, and ears that beg to be sucked on. She’s the cutest thing on four legs. She’s getting up there in years, but that’s OK; I’m over three thousand years old, myself. Who’s that in the car?” it asked, peering around me toward Baltic.

“Just a friend giving me a ride.” I moved to block its view. I was about to distract the demon with something, anything, when the door opened again, this time disgorging Brom and his backpack.

“Sullivan, can we go to the British Museum again?” “Good morning to you, too,” I said, hugging him.

“Morning. Can we? Maata said she’d take me again if Gabriel and you said it was OK.” “Er…” I glanced back toward the car. Baltic’s silhouette could be seen in it, moving in an impatient manner. I’d agreed to stay with him in his house, but I didn’t want to break that bit of news to Brom with Jim standing right there, ready to carry the information straight back to Drake.

Momentarily distracted, I gave a little mental chuckle, realizing why Drake had seemed vaguely familiar to me when I saw him at the sárkány. The memory of Drake with the three women draped around him at the tavern in Paris left me wondering if he’d really changed from the womanizing tomcat he had once been.

“Sullivan?” Brom nudged me.

“We’ll talk about it later, OK? Right now I want to get going. Nice to see you again, Jim.” “Kid’s got mummies on the brain,” Jim said to me, suddenly lunging to the side, hurrying past me toward the car. “Hey, is that who I think it is?” “By the rood!” I swore, dashing after him, Brom on my heels. “Jim! Come back here! Heel!” “That only works if you’re my demon lord or duly appointed representative thereof, neither of which you are,” it said as it came to a stop by the car. “Holy cheese and tiny little crackers! That’s—” I clamped my hand around its muzzle with one hand, glancing back to the house. The door opened, and Suzanne stepped out, obviously looking for Jim.

“Of all the…” I jerked open the car’s back door, telling Brom, “Get in the front!” “What are you doing to Jim?” he asked, standing there frowning at me as I heaved the demon halfway into the car.

“Why is it all I seem to do lately is shove people into cars? Just get in, Brom! Jim, so help me god, if you bite me, I’ll bite you back!” The demon’s eyes widened as I grasped it firmly around the rib cage and shoved the last bit of it into the car, more or less tumbling in after it. We fell in a tangle of arms and furry legs onto the floor of the car.

“Get going!” I yelled to Baltic, struggling to get free of dog legs.

“What is this?” Baltic said, glaring over the seat at us. “Why are you bringing a demon with you? We have no need of a demon, mate. Release it.” “Heeel!” Jim wailed, its teeth clenched shut due to my grip around its muzzle.

“Wow, you’re the guy who came after Sullivan,” Brom said, getting into the front seat. He and Baltic regarded each other for a moment.

“Som-un heeell ee!”

“You should have been my son,” Baltic told Brom.

Jim kicked with both its back legs, loosening my hold on its mouth.

“I’m being demon-napped!”

“OK,” Brom said to Baltic after a moment’s thought. The two nodded, just as if that settled the matter.

“Aisliiiing!”

“Be quiet, you pestilent little furball!” I yelled, wrestling it to the floor of the car as Baltic, finally noticing Suzanne, who now stood with her hands on her hips calling for Jim, put his foot on the gas and shot out into traffic, pulling a U-turn that narrowly missed sideswiping a Harrods van. “You brought this on yourself! If you hadn’t been so nosy, I wouldn’t have had to do this!” “Aisling is going to go nutso-cuckoo on your butt when she finds out what you’re doing!” Jim said, deliberately wiping its slobbery lips on me as I got onto the seat, leaving long, slimy tendrils of drool on my arm.

“You think so? Well, maybe your precious Aisling just needs to watch out, because I’m not some pushover, you know. I’m a mage, and mated to the baddest ass in the dragon world,” I said as I looked around for something to wipe off the slobber.

Brom looked speculatively at Baltic. “That’s you?” “Yes. If you were my son, as you should have been, you, too, would have a badass.” “Hmm,” Brom said, still thoughtful.

There was nothing in the back of the car, no tissue, no towel, no napkin. Nothing. I eyed the demon’s fur.

“You wouldn’t!” it gasped.

“If you give me any more grief, I’ll do a whole lot more than smear you with your own saliva!” I threatened, bending down to wipe my hand on the floor mat.

It sucked in its breath. “Geez, and I thought Ash was mean! You ever want a job as a demon lord, you’d fit right in. Hey, is that your nipple?” I eeped and jerked upright, tucking my breast back into my shirt. Evidently it did not pass the bending-over test after all.

“Keep your eyes to yourself, and — Baltic!” I screamed and pointed at the side of a building we were about to hit because he had turned to look back at Jim’s comment about my nipple. “Eyes on the road, mister!” “I specifically asked you not to bare your breasts to others,” he said gruffly, casting angry little glances at me in the rearview mirror.

“Jim isn’t a person, and I didn’t exactly bare myself — oh, it doesn’t matter. Just keep your eyes on the road.” “It is difficult. These people do not drive properly,” he said, transferring his glare to a young man on a scooter who flipped him off as he zoomed past us.

“City traffic is always bad… wait a minute. What do you mean they don’t know how to drive properly? You do know how to drive, don’t you?” “Of course I know how to drive. I am doing it now, am I not?” “Oh, man,” Jim said, covering its eyes with its paw. “We’re all gonna die.” “Yes, you are driving,” I said, “but since I’m the one who drove us into town this mor — red light!” Baltic slammed on the brakes, sending us fishtailing into the middle of the intersection. Luckily, the light had just changed, so the cross traffic had time to avoid hitting us.

“Will you stop distracting me with irrelevant things?” Baltic said, irritation dripping off each syllable.

“A red light is not irrelevant. Do you have a driver’s license?” I demanded.

“I am eleven hundred years old,” he snarled, jerking hard on the steering wheel as he sent us spinning out of the intersection. “I don’t need a mundane license to drive!” “We’re doomed, I tell you, doomed!” Jim wailed.

“That is a pedestrian crossing!” I yelped as Baltic came close to mowing down two elderly ladies and their little wheely baskets of shopping.

“I did not strike them,” Baltic said, his tone injured. “You make too much of a few near misses, Ysolde.” I looked back. One of the little old ladies was staggering to the zebra crossing barrier, her hand to her chest, while the other was making an extremely rude hand gesture at us. “Right, that’s it. Pull over.” “Why?”

“When my fabulous form is crushed and burned into an unrecognizable blob of goo, would you please tell Aisling so she can summon me back?” Jim asked.

“Oh, be quiet. We’re not going to d—Baltic!” “What now?” he snarled, his teeth gritted and his knuckles white on the steering wheel as he drove in a serpentine fashion down the road, ignoring the blaring horns, anatomically impossible suggestions, and shrieks of horror.

“This is a one-way street!” I bellowed, leaning forward over the seat to try and wrap my arms around Brom in a desperate attempt to protect him from imminent death.

“I’m only going one way!”

“Yes, the wrong waiiiiiiiiieee!”

“Wow.” Brom’s voice came from the depths of where I had him smashed against my chest. “That really is your nipple. What’s that mark near it?” “Stop looking at my boobs!” I roared as Baltic, in blatant disregard of the fact that he was driving against traffic, and indeed was now up on the sidewalk scattering pedestrians hither and yon, turned to see just how badly I was popping out of the corset top.

“You will not be purchasing garments from that shop again,” he said sternly. “I do not approve of this belief you cherish that exhibition games will arouse me. They do not.” “Pull over!” I screamed, pointing to a parking lot.

He pulled over, the sounds of horns, crumpling metal as cars avoided him but ran into parked vehicles, and breaking glass following us to the car park.

The second we stopped I was out of the car, marching around to the driver’s side. I yanked open the door and pointed at the backseat. “I will drive!” I said, daring Baltic to defy me.

He glared, his eyes narrow slits of obsidian. “You are impugning my ability to drive a vehicle, mate. You will cease doing so, and get back into the machine.” “Please,” Jim whimpered from the back. “Let her drive. I don’t know how many more magnificent forms I can find.” My glare turned into a thing of fulminating beauty.

“Very well,” Baltic said with haughty graciousness as he got out of the car. He stared pointedly at my chest. “But you must stop showing everyone your breasts. I realize that your rebirth has caused you to develop odd sexual preferences, but I will not tolerate my mate exposing herself to all and sundry. If you wish to display them, I and I alone will be your audience. You must resign yourself to this, mate.” “Oooh,” Jim said, sitting up straight. “What sorts of odd sexual kinks other than flashing nip do you have, Soldie?” “I am not exposing myself to anyone!” I said, then looked down and saw I was doing just that. I tucked my right breast back into the shirt, saying, “Well, dammit! I don’t normally do that! And I don’t have odd sexual preferences, so you can just stop whatever suggestive comment you were about to make, Jim.” “I was just going to ask if it involved sticks of butter or cloven-hooved animals,” it answered.

“You cannot deny the overriding desire you harbor to watch Pavel with—” “Gah!” I yelled, wanting to tear out my hair. I slapped my hand over Baltic’s mouth, instead.

“Who’s Pavel? And what does she want to watch him do?” Jim asked, leaning forward over the front seat.

I glared at it for a second as I slid behind the steering wheel. “Get in,” I told Baltic.

He crossed his arms. “I will not share a seat with a demon.” “Hey! I can hear you!”

“I’ll sit with Jim,” Brom said, giving me a considering look as he scrambled into the backseat.

“There, you see? My son is kindly allowing you to ride shotgun.” “My son,” Baltic said, giving me another of his patented annoyed looks.

“What?”

“He is my son. By rights he should be, and you said you wanted me to treat him as such, so I am doing that. I claim him as my son. You, Bram—” “Brom,” my child corrected him.

“You will cease being the offspring of the usurper who stole Ysolde from me. You are now my son.” “OK,” Brom said, not the least bit ruffled by that idea.

“There, you see? I have fixed things,” Baltic told me.

“Lovely. Great. Wonderful. I’ll get you a Dad of the Year T-shirt later. Can we get going now? I hear police sirens, and if we don’t get out of here now, we’re going to have a whole lot of explaining to do.” “Yeah. Demon-napping is a federal offense now, I hear,” Jim said as Baltic got into the passenger seat.

It was a very long ride back to Baltic’s house.

“What are we doing here?” Brom asked as I stopped an hour later. He peered out the window at the white house.

“We’re going to be staying here with Baltic.” “For how long?”

“Until I can rebuild Dauva,” Baltic replied as he got out of the car. The door to the house opened, and a man emerged. “Ah. Pavel is back. Good.” I looked over the roof of the car to the man I recognized from my dreams. He started down the steps toward us, stumbled when he saw me, and stared with huge eyes. “Is that… it cannot be… is it?” “Yes,” Baltic said, marching over to me in order to wrap his arm around my waist and pull me into his side. “My mate lives.” “So do I, no thanks to Baltic’s driving,” Jim said as it peed on the back tire. “Nice place. Can I go home now?” “No,” I said, digging my elbow into Baltic’s ribs. Brom was watching us with fascinated eyes.

“Aisling’s going to open a serious can of whoop-ass on you when she finds out what you did, you know,” Jim told me. “And bodacious boobies or not, I’m not going to stop her. I was supposed to go to Paris today to see my beauteous Cecile, and now I won’t be able to suck her ears or snuffle her butt or lick her belly or any of the things I wanted to do.” Brom transferred his gaze to Jim, equally fascinated.

“You bared your breasts to the demon, too?” Baltic asked with outraged eyebrows.

“No, of course I didn’t! I’ve told you several times now that I have no desire, fantasy, or other urge to bare anything to anyone, least of all my breasts. I have never, ever deliberately showed my breasts. So please stop insisting that’s all I can think of. It just doesn’t happen, OK?” Pavel, Jim, and Baltic all eyed my cleavage.

I looked down, swore, and hiked up the neckline yet again. “Gah!” “We are going to have a long discussion regarding these sexual fantasies of yours,” Baltic told me, tugging me toward the house.

“I do not have an exhibitionist fantasy!” I yelled.

“What’s an exhibitionist?” I heard Brom ask Jim.

I spun around and sent the demon a look that had it grinning. “It means someone who likes shopping at small boutiques,” it said.

“One step out of line, demon, and I’ll… I’ll…” “Or you’ll what?” it asked, tipping its head to the side.

Before I could answer, Baltic paused and shot laser beams from his eyeballs. Well, all right, not really, but the effect was the same. Fire blossomed in a circle around the demon, causing it to dance and yelp.

“Cool,” Brom said, looking with speculation at Baltic.

“All right, all right! Call off your wacko boyfriend! I’ll behave!” Jim tried to blow out flames that licked up its tail. “Not the package! Anything but the package!” “See that you do behave,” Baltic said, extinguishing the fire with a flick of his eyes. He turned to Pavel and spoke in a low tone of voice, the latter casting periodic glances my way.

I sighed to myself and pulled out my cell phone as we all entered the hall. “I suppose I should tell Aisling that you’re with me, Jim, and all right. It wouldn’t be fair to make her worry you’d been kidnapped by someone who meant to destroy you.” Jim made a face. “Yeah, well, about that…” “What?” I asked when its voice trailed to a stop.

“Normally I wouldn’t worry, because as soon as Ash realized I’d been demon-napped, she could summon me back to her, but she’s not going to realize I’m gone. Well, she is, but not. If you get my drift.” “Not in the least. What are you babbling about?” Jim sighed. “My ride to the airport was due when you showed up. Suzanne probably thought that’s where I went. I told you I was supposed to go to Paris.” “Ah, well,” I said, not too worried about Jim’s missed trip. “I’m sure you can go another time.” “I don’t want to stay here,” Brom suddenly said, giving the hall a good long look.

“Why not?” I asked, worried that he had gotten the wrong impression from Baltic’s possessive hold on me. Or rather, the right impression, but without an explanation that would help him understand the complex relationship that even I wasn’t sure I completely grasped.

“I want to go back to Gabriel’s house, where I have my lab set up.” Baltic whirled around. “What is this? My son does not prefer the house of the silver wyvern over mine.” “Gabriel told Brom he could use a room in the basement to perform his experiments. He likes to mummify things.” “I’m a mummologist,” Brom told Baltic.

“The silver wyvern gave you a room?” Baltic’s eyes narrowed. “You are my son. I will give you…” He thought for a moment. “I will give you an entire building. There is a barn to the north — you may use that.” “Cool,” Brom repeated; then his face fell. “But all my stuff is at Gabriel’s house. My natron, and my dehydrator, and my dead fox, and everything else.” “I will give you new things. Better foxes, better natron.” I raised my eyebrows. “Do you even know what natron is?” I asked him.

“No,” he said, blithely waving away the question. “But the natron I give to my son will be the best quality.” “If you want to dump Gareth for Baltic, I wouldn’t mind,” Brom whispered to me, clearly enjoying Baltic’s determination to outdo what he thought of as a rival.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” I told him with a little flick of my fingers to his ear.

Pavel made a little bow to me. “I am pleased to see you again, Ysolde. It has been a very long time. You have not changed at all.” Baltic said something in that language I didn’t understand.

Pavel looked a bit startled, shooting me a look that I had a hard time deciphering as I answered, “It certainly has. And thank you.” Pavel gave Baltic a little nod and took off into the depths of the house.

“Brom, why don’t you and Jim go outside and look around,” I said.

“OK. We can look at the barn. I wonder if there’s anything dead in it… ” “Weird kid you got yourself there,” Jim said over its shoulder as it followed Brom out the front door.

“Just see that you mind your manners,” I warned it. “And don’t try to escape, because you won’t like how Baltic deals with pests.” “There is some business I must attend to,” Baltic said, pulling out his phone.

“What sort of business?” I asked somewhat suspiciously. “Dragon business? Because if so, I want to talk to you about that.” “No, mundane business.”

“You mean human-type business? I had no idea dragons did that sort of thing.” He shrugged. “Most of my fortune was claimed by others when I died. It takes some time to rebuild that, and since I will need a good deal of funds to restore Dauva, I must deal with business affairs.” “Oh. I wish I could give you some money, but I don’t make very much as an apprentice, and Gareth funds us from the yearly manifestations. So I’m pretty much broke.” “I do not seek fortune from you, mate. Only your love.” I glanced down the hallway as Pavel crossed from one room to another. “Er… does Pavel live here with you?” “Of course. He is my oldest and most trusted friend. He survived when the others did not.” Baltic paused in checking his phone messages and slid me a glance. “Are you sure you do not lust after him?” “Dammit! How do you know what I’m thinking? Are you a mind reader, too?” He sucked in a huge breath, approximately a quarter of all the air in the house. “You do lust after him!” “No, I do not! For heaven’s sake, Baltic! I don’t give a hoot about him, not in that way. I was just a bit curious about whether or not… oh my god! You didn’t! Oh! You did! I can see by that expression, you did! You told him about me and my fantasy about guy-on-guy action, didn’t you!” Mollified, Baltic ceased seething at me and punched in a number on his phone. “Yes. He said you could watch the next time he has a male lover over.” “Oh! I can’t believe”—I whomped him on the arm—“I can’t believe you told him that! I am going to die of embarrassment! I will never be able to look him in the eye again! I’m never going to forgive you! How could you do that to me!” Baltic just looked at me, waiting.

“Do you think he’s going to have a guy over soon?” I couldn’t help but ask.

He frowned. “I don’t know. You shall have to satisfy your lustful ways upon me until he does, and even then, you may watch only, not participate. And you will not bare your breasts to Pavel or anyone else.” I gave him a look that should have shriveled his testicles. “I have no desire to have an orgy! All I said was that sometimes it was a bit interesting!” “So you say,” he muttered darkly, heading for a room I assumed was his study.

I swore under my breath at the obstinate, jealous, infuriating man, and wondered which of my male acquaintances I could hook up with Pavel.