Night Season

CHAPTER EIGHT

A breeze tickled the naked trees, making limbs and twigs rub together like sandpaper fingers. The same breeze plucked at Cynna's hair and chilled her cheeks. Overhead, the sky was a watercolor smear, black with charcoal streaks where the city bounced its lights off ribbons of cloud. A few stars poked through the haze.

It wasn't enough. She couldn't see Cullen's expression, only the place where darkness paled into the smudged oblong of his face. "You proposed," she said blankly. "You just proposed to me."

"Yes."

"Marriage."

"It's a reasonable solution."

"Lupi don't many Ever."

"Oh, that's right. Thanks for reminding me. I'd forgotten."

Cullen's sarcasm slid right past in the total strangeness of the moment. She didn't know how she felt… yes, she did. She was happy. She didn't know why, but his proposal—pointless and mysterious as it was—made her happy.

Which made her as foolish as him, but who cared? Cynna smiled at their mutual folly and patted his arm. "I'm not going to marry you."

He frowned at her hand as if he'd never seen it before. "Why not? It's a tidy solution. We're friends, we enjoy each other sexually, and we've made a child. Marriage gives us equal rights to that child, and if… well, Lady forbid it should happen, but if you were injured, I'd have rights there, too."

She hooted with laughter. "You mean, if I end up brain-dead you can tell them to keep me on life support until the baby's born? Now, there's an appealing notion!" She shook her head. "Wow. My first proposal. Likely my last, too, but I never thought I'd have even one. Thank you."

He tilted his head up and sighed loudly. "Why do I get the feeling you're not taking the idea seriously?"

"Because you're deranged, not stupid. Are you wanting to cleave only to me?" She chuckled. "C'mon. Let's go see a dragon."

He turned away without another word and swung himself along the path.

She followed. It was lighter out from under the trees, and the concrete path was pale, making it easy to see where her feet belonged. As she walked, she wondered if she'd pissed him off by laughing.

Probably not. Cullen's temper was not subtle. When he got mad, you didn't have to guess about it.

She'd confused him, maybe. She hadn't reacted the way he'd expected. But what had he expected? Some women dreamed of wedding dresses and tossed bouquets from the moment they held their first Barbie. Cynna's first Barbie had learned kung fu and either beat up or protected the other Barbies.

She could have sworn Cullen knew her well enough to understand that she was not marriage material. This whole baby business must have unseated his reason… a comforting notion. Nice to think she wasn't the only crazy one.

Not that she was so insane she'd consider marrying a lupus. Cynna might not know much about marriage—or any long-term relationship, really, since hers tended to fizzle out pretty fast. But surely fidelity was nonnegotiable, and Rule was the only faithful lupus on the planet.

She wasn't cruel enough to marry a lupus, either. She didn't know what the other lupi would do to one who violated one of their most deeply held beliefs, but it wouldn't be pretty.

Maybe Nokolai would kick Cullen out if he went nuts and got married. God! Pain pinched at her just thinking about that. She didn't know what it meant to a lupus to be clanless—not in her gut, anyway, not the way another lupus would. But she knew it was the worst fate they could imagine.

Cullen had lived clanless for most of his life. He'd been Nokolai only a few months… three, she thought, maybe four. He'd been adopted into the clan shortly before they met.

What was he thinking? How could he risk losing that?

Maybe he wasn't. What did she know? And dammit, she couldn't ask. He'd tell her what he wanted to—probably not lying outright, but he enjoyed stirring the truth into a shape that suited him.

Besides, she didn't want him to think she was considering his proposal. She could ask Rule what sins got a lupus booted from his clan. She'd need to keep it hypothetical. If she…

Some stupid piece of nature tripped her while she wasn't watching. Cynna barely kept herself from taking a header. "Dammit!"

Cullen stopped, turned. "Oh, for crying out loud! Here." He made a gesture as if he were tossing something in the air—and a ball of light bounced into being, then hung there between them, glowing like an enormous firefly.

She stared. "Mage light. You know how to make mage light."

"Mika showed me. It was embarrassing, really. Turns out it's pathetically easy. Doesn't take more than a smidge of power."

"And you let me stumble along in the dark all this time."

"You had your hand in my pants at first. I liked that."

"You—"

Tell your mate to open his mindspeech shield so I can speak to him.

Cynna jumped—and stared. A ribbon of darkness peeled itself off from the shadows up ahead and padded toward them along the path. A very large ribbon. With eyes. The eyes were silvery gray; the pupils, slitted. They were about ten feet off the ground.

The whiff of fear didn't surprise her. How could anyone see a dragon without tasting fear? "Ah—Cullen? Mika wants to talk to you."

Cullen put his hands on his hips and frowned at the approaching dragon. "What?"

Your female wishes to attack you, but believes an attack would be unfair. Explain this.

"Quit poking your nose in our brains," he snapped.

My nose is not… ah. You employed metaphor. I do not need to poke my nose anywhere. Her thoughts are loud. Muddy, but loud.

Cynna had seen a dragon up close and personal before. She'd even ridden one on their mad flight from hell. That didn't detract from her fear, or her fascination. As Mika drew closer, the two feelings melded into awe.

The ball of mage light wasn't as bright as a flashlight would have been. She caught hints and shadows of the long body with its sidewise sway; the great wings were folded into a dark hump riding his back. His neck was long and muscular and as flexible as a snake. He held his head roughly level with his shoulders.

That head was triangular, the snout almost delicate. Mobile frills like those depicted by Chinese artists decorated his eye ridges, ear holes, and jaw like black lace. In the soft glow of the mage light, the scales on his face shifted through a dozen shades of red.

When Mika stopped, his lipstick-colored head was about five feet away—and he was looking straight at her. It took effort to avoid looking directly in the large, moist eyes with their double lids. Fairness puzzles me. Humans think of it often, but they change the meaning of the word with nearly every thought. Sometimes "unfair" means wrong. Sometimes it mean unwelcome. Fair can mean receiving what is agreed upon, but fairness is at issue even when there are no agreements. Such as now. You had not agreed to avoid attacking your mate, had you ?

"Uh—no. But he's lacking a foot. It isn't fair to attack someone who's impaired."

One-footed or Wo, he is your superior, physically. He would win any fight between you.

"No, he wouldn't, because he wouldn't hit back. That makes it unfair to hit him in the first place."

The great eyes blinked slowly. Do humans consider it unfair to attack one who refuses to fight back? That is insane. In such a case, only those who refused to fight would win fights, which is clearly not true.

"I guess…" Moral questions were not her strong point. What would Father Michaels say? "I guess fairness is like justice, but more personal. People have different ideas about what's fair and what isn't, because it's personal."

Fairness is a subjective construction of justice?

"No," Cullen said suddenly. "Fairness is moral equity or balance. Unfairness is moral debt. That's why it seems subjective—morality's a slippery bugger. A child might think it's unfair that he has to do his homework when his friends are outside playing. He doesn't yet understand the morality of discipline. And, of course, some adults have no more moral understanding than a child. They'll cry 'unfair' when they don't get what they want."

Ah.

Silence fell, both mental and physical. The dragon neither moved nor blinked. Cynna could smell him faintly—a scent like cinnamon, hot sand, and musk. She fancied she could even feel the warmth of his breath. She thought of Dis and demons and a terrible, wondrous flight on dragonback. Her heart beat quickly.

At last Mika looked at Cullen. During one conversation, we agreed that morality is a being's mental construction of right behavior.

"We did."

Human morality is a morass of contradictions with teeth ever pointed inward, gnawing at itself. Debt, however, is a reasonable concept, one shared by most sentients. I shall consider fairness in that light. Your mate believed she would incur a debt if she knocked you to the ground, so she chose not to follow her wishes.

"That's pretty much it," Cullen agreed, slanting Cynna an amused glance.

Given the human preoccupation with and confusion over morality, fairness must be a complex construction, subjectively variable. It is susceptible to bargaining?

"To some extent."

What bargain do you wish to offer me ?

"Three persons from Edge have arrived here, and—"

Edge ? Where is

—ah, I see. You refer to Dsighliai.

"Perhaps I do," Cullen said dryly. "I think Edge is the English translation."

Your mate is thinking she will go to Edge. How would she do this?

"They want Cynna to return with them, and apparently know how to open a gate to do that. Are you familiar with Edge?"

Do you bargain for knowledge ?

"Maybe I will, later. Right now…" He glanced at Cynna. "The Edge people want to erect a shield before we discuss terms. One of them, a gnome, says he knows a shield spell that he can't perform himself, so I'm supposed to help. I'm gathering components tonight. You've shed some scales since you arrived."

Silence. It wasn't promising.

Cullen persevered. "Cynna is a strong Finder. She could locate any scales you've shed and we could gather them for you. In exchange for that service, you could give us a percentage—say half—of the scales she—"

In a flash, the great body lifted impossibly—fifteen feet, twenty, more—with the wings extended, the forelegs off the ground and that snake neck arched. Mika's mouth gaped in a hissing display of teeth. My scales are mine!

Cynna damned near peed herself.

Cullen looked up. "Yes, they are yours."

Mika didn't return to four legs, but he did stop hissing. They can't be not-mine. What you propose has no meaning.

"Humans—and lupi—barter what's ours in order to acquire something we want. I'm talking about an exchange."

What is mine is always mine.

The mental voice was utterly clear, utterly implacable. Mika wasn't interested in a philosophical discussion of the meaning of ownership. Cynna looked at Cullen. He frowned, gave a little shake of his head.

He didn't know how to get past dragon possessiveness, either. Was there a way to get the use of a scale without… "Copyright," she said suddenly.

"What?"

"Copyright law. That's the model that fits." She looked up and up at the dragon towering over them. "Humans don't feel the way you do about objects, Mika, but we do feel that way about some things. Things we create, especially. You, uh—do you know about books and plays?"

Of course

. Lots of disdain in that thought.

"Maybe you've heard of Shakespeare."

One of your story makers.

"Yes, well, we still talk about Shakespeare's plays. Even though the man's been dead for a few centuries, we speak of those plays as his because he made them—just like you made your scales. Yet people have the use of his plays. They can perform them, talk about them, quote from them. Books are like that, too. And paintings. Creators own what they create, and that can't be changed, but creators can grant rights to others in exchange for something they want."

Slowly Mika descended. When he had his feet back on the ground, he said, What do you mean by lights?

"We want you to allow us to use a scale in a spell. The scale is still yours, but we'd get the right to use it. In return, I'd Find all your missing scales and return them to you."

You can Find them? All of them?

"I can, if they're within a hundred miles of me. I guess we should make that one of the conditions. I can't Find objects farther away than that."

The long body settled further. Mika reclined, his forelegs tucked up, the enormous tail wrapping itself around him like a cat curling up for a nap. We will discuss this.

Two hours and forty minutes later, Cynna's eyes were teary from the wind. Her face felt frozen, her fingers were numb with cold, and her thighs ached from gripping tightly to the heated body between her legs.

The rest of her was toasty warm as Mika settled to the ground once more. Leather blocked wind, and both the dragon she'd ridden and the man who rode behind her were warm.

God, but she loved dragonflight.

Cullen slid down first, which turned out to be a good idea. When she followed, her legs buckled the second her feet touched the ground. He caught her easily and grinned, his eyes lit with exhilaration to match hers. "Not used to riding?"

"Not this kind." Cynna grinned back, punchy with exhaustion but still soaring. "You do know how to show a girl a good time."

She'd Found seven scales. They'd brought back only five because two of them, it seemed, were no longer Mika's. They were very small, the size of her pinky nail. Cullen said the magic had drained out of them.

The other five were larger, including one as big as her hand with the fingers spread. That's the one Cullen wanted—it still held plenty of magic. Of those five, two had come off there in the park—those had been easy to recover. The other three must have fallen off while Mika was in flight. They found one on a quiet street, another on the roof of an office building. The last one… well, that guy really should have given it to them when they told him the dragon wanted his scale back. It wasn't their fault he didn't know better than to look into a dragon's eyes, and one brief spot of ensorcellment wouldn't hurt him any.

You are sure we found them all?

This was the third time Mika had asked that. "All of them within a hundred miles."

Better than a hundred, actually, since she'd checked again every time they set down to pick up one of the strays. Which was undoubtedly why she was so fucking tired now. She'd done a full cast each time, which meant doing a fresh Find over and over and over. But Cynna figured that when you bargained with dragons, you'd better be extra sure you kept your end of the deal. "Don't forget that I'll need my bag back."

The denim bag dangled incongruously from Mika's mouth. Once Cynna had put the first scale in it, he'd insisted on holding onto it himself.

The dragon turned, shifting his bulk as fluidly as a cat. You will come with me and put my scales where I want them. Then you may have the bag.

Cullen had said Mika had been redecorating. That was one way to describe it. Wholesale destruction was another, though Cynna supposed the new design was more functional for a dragon than the old one had been.

Carter Barron Amphitheatre used to provide tiered seating for about four thousand concertgoers. Only the topmost row or two of seats remained. The rest had been ripped up and piled like makeshift dikes on two sides of the concrete slope, the lower portion of which was now buried in dirt.

That's where they'd landed, on hard-packed dirt. Mika had built himself a level spot in front of his lair for landings, takeoffs, sunbathing, whatever. The level area dropped off abruptly into the deep darkness of what used to be a large stage, walled on three sides and with a lofty roof.

Mika simply flowed down the dirt bank onto the stage. Cullen jumped, landing lightly. Cynna might have managed a dignified descent if her leg muscles hadn't been so overworked from her dragon ride. As it was, she slid the last few feet and landed in a dusty thump. "Shit."

"You okay?" Cullen crouched beside her, the mage light hovering over his shoulder.

"Yeah." She stood and brushed off some of the dirt, looking around. Mostly she saw dragon. Mika didn't occupy every inch of the space. Just most of them.

The quiet meow made Cynna jump—and stare. A small gray tabby had appeared out of nowhere and was rubbing itself against one of the dragon's thick forelegs. "What the hell—?"

"Mika's cat," Cullen said. "Though I believe the cat sees things the other way around, and Mika is her dragon."

Mika's jaw opened, revealing teeth a great white shark would envy. Cynna's bag fell to the floor. Mika's tongue flicked out and stroked the cat. Who purred. For a moment the two beasts regarded each other, then the cat turned away, flirting her tail before she shot up the dirt incline to vanish in the darkness.

"That's…" Cynna's voice trailed off. "Dragons don't have pets. Do they? That cat… some of Mika's scales are bigger than her whole body."

"I wouldn't call her a pet. They have an understanding."

Mika, too, had turned. I want my scales in this corner with my dust.

The dust Mika spoke of wasn't the same sort covering Cynna's jeans. It was gold dust. The dragons had never explained why they wanted it or what they did with it, but each of them received seven ounces of pure gold dust a month as part of their payment for living where humans needed them to live.

Cynna exchanged another glance with Cullen, then grabbed her bag. The two of them made their way past yards and yards of sleek, scaled dragon flesh. Mika was facing the corner he'd indicated, his head lowered almost to the floor to look at four small foam containers like dollhouse ice chests. Three of the containers were lidded; the fourth was open.

Wait, he told them.

A low, throbbing note filled the space. Her mind clicked off and her whole body strained as if trying to open itself to the sound. Ears alone weren't enough to absorb the unearthly beauty of dragonsong.

Almost as soon as he'd begun, Mika stopped.

Cynna sighed in disappointment. Rule had told her about how the dragons used to gather in Dis to sing together. In this realm they lived more scattered, but Lily and Rule both believed they still gathered and sang.

It is open now. Put them here, next to my dust.

Cynna shook herself out of her near-trance and knelt beside the little foam chests. Sometimes dragons sang for dragon reasons, which might or might not be the reasons humans made music. Sometimes they sang to work magic. "You've spell-locked your gold?"

A whiff of disdain drifted through her mind. Mika thought it was a stupid question.

She put four of the scales in a tidy pile next to the open container of gold dust and made sure Mika knew which one she was… well, not exactly keeping, since it was still Mika's. Reserving for Cullen to use tomorrow.

Now that he had his missing scales safely locked away, Mika apparently felt chatty. He settled his body into a cozy loop and looked at her. You are going to the realm you call Edge ?

"I think so," she said.

Do not tell anyone there your secret name.

"Uh—humans don't have secret names."

Of course you do. Most of you do not live long enough to learn them. I think you will receive yours soon, but perhaps you will not know it.

Mika may have said something privately to Cullen then, because Cullen chuckled. Cynna heard the question he asked about the Edge delegation but didn't really pay attention. She was too busy yawning. The last of her adrenaline rush was gone, and she could barely keep her eyes open. She was happy to let Cullen do the talking.

When she woke up, the air was pearly with early light, her head was in Cullen's lap, and his lips were skimming hers.

By the time she'd blinked herself awake, he'd straightened. Involuntarily she ran her tongue over her lips, tasting him. She sat up quickly, "Why did you let me sleep so long?"

"You were tired. I wasn't, and Mika was in a talkative mood."

"I like sleeping in a bed." She ran her hands through the short spikes of her hair. "What did you two talk about?"

"Edge, mostly. He wants us to remember that demons are composite beings."

They were, of course, since they retained something of everything and everyone they ate. But what did that have to do with anything? "Why?"

Cullen shrugged.

She frowned, not liking the way she felt. Pouty. Messy. With morning mouth, no doubt. His breath had smelled fresh. Did lupi even heal bad breath? That would be so not fair. "Where's Mika?" Cynna asked, noticing belatedly that they were alone.

"Breakfast. He moves quietly when he wants to. You should know that I haven't been with anyone since we did the dirty in that hotel room."

"You what?" Sex. He meant he hadn't had sex. What kind of subject was that to bring up when she had morning breath? "Why not? I mean—why did you tell me that?"

He shrugged and rose, unwinding himself as fluidly as Mika had moved last night. "That sort of thing matters to many women. I thought it might to you."

"It doesn't." And then, because she couldn't stop herself: "It's been five weeks."

One corner of his mouth crooked up. "I suspect you have a seriously inflated notion of my randiness. When I was younger, maybe… hell, definitely. But I'm nearly sixty now, and not interested in constantly dipping my wick for no other reason than to get it wet."

Sixty. She kept forgetting that. He looked her age. "Yeah, I've noticed what a mushy romantic you've become in your dotage."

"That's me. Mushy as hell. Come on." He held out a hand. "You can buy me breakfast."

Cynna bought him breakfast. She rolled her eyes when their waitress nearly killed herself getting to the table—Cullen had that effect on women. On some men, too. She asked him what Mika had told him about Edge, and they discussed the spell he'd perform soon.

And all the while she kept hearing, "I haven't been with anyone since you." The words had woken something sharp and hungry and silent in her, something she wanted no part of. But it refused to go back to sleep.