The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

Chapter Seven

“Then we are agreed, are we not?”

I rolled over to see who was talking in my bedroom, only to find I wasn’t in a bedroom.

“Another vision,” I sighed as the fog of sleep dissipated, leaving me standing next to a long, highly polished table around which five people sat. “I don’t suppose anyone can hear or see me?”

“Unless Drake Vireo has anything to add,” a female voice said with sultry smoothness. No one paid the slightest iota of attention to me, so I gathered I was seeing another vision of an event at which I wasn’t present.

“I know that voice.” I turned to consider Chuan Ren and a man at her side who I assumed was her mate. Going by her dress and elegant coiffure, I judged that this event took place around the turn of the twentieth century.

“Drake has, I believe, spoken on the subject, but perhaps he has something else he wishes to say?” The original speaker, a blond man with a lilting Italian accent, asked the question with a polite little nod down the table.

“I do not have anything more to say about the black dragons than I’ve already said.” Drake’s voice was just as urbane as it was now. I looked across the table to where he sat, his two guards behind him. “The sept is destroyed. No black dragons have been seen for almost a hundred years. Constantine Norka conducted the extermination most thoroughly.”

“We had every right to take action against those who would have destroyed us,” a man across the table snapped back. I looked at him, noting he was most definitely not Constantine. This man was dark-skinned, with close-cropped black hair and dark eyes, a tribal tattoo evident on his neck despite the high starched collar and black suit typical of an Edwardian gentleman. To my surprise, behind him stood someone else I knew: Gabriel, also clad in a black suit, but with an embroidered silver vest that almost matched his eyes. The dreadlocks were gone, and he was clean-shaven, but the look of wary caution in his eyes was all too familiar. “Which the green wyvern well knows, since he was at the sárkány that decreed we had the right to pursue our subjugators.”

Drake bowed his head in acknowledgment, but I noticed his jaw was tight. I smiled a little smile at that, wondering how much it had cost him to keep from lashing out at the silver wyvern. Then again, perhaps he knew that Kostya was at that moment alive and well, living in the hidden aerie. I’d have to ask Aisling if she knew.

“As the requisite amount of time has passed since a member of the black sept has been seen, the weyr officially declares the sept to be extinct and, as such, stricken off the rolls.”

The silver wyvern watched Drake closely, but although his eyes glittered with an emerald light, Drake’s face was impassive, as were those of István and Pál, his guards whom I had briefly met some months before.

“The second order of business is the recognition of Sial Fa’amasino as official rather than acting wyvern of the silver sept.” The Italian gave a pointed look at the silver dragons. “Do you have proof of the death of the wyvern Constantine Norka?”

“No. His body has not been discovered, despite our searches for it.” Sial’s voice was steady, but his dark eyes were watchful, as if he half expected trouble.

The Italian dragon hesitated for a moment before saying, “It is not for the weyr to interfere in sept business, but there is tradition to be considered. I don’t think there is precedence for a wyvern simply disappearing with no claim of his death. Is it your contention that Constantine Norka is not dead?”

“It is not,” Sial said firmly. “Were he alive, he would be here before you. We have sought him for a century, but we have come to the much-regretted conclusion that he met with harm, either from another sept or from an accident that was beyond our knowing.”

Silence filled the room for the count of seven. “As I said, it is not for the weyr to interfere; thus so long as you have the consent of your sept to be named as wyvern, we will so recognize you. How say you, wyverns?”

The other wyverns murmured their assent.

“Then Sial Fa’amasino is so named as wyvern of the silver sept. Our last business concerns the silver dragons as well, specifically the attacks made upon members of the sept by ouroboros dragons.”

“I thought they must be black dragons, but they are not,” the new silver wyvern told the others. “I sent one of my guards to track them after the last attack, and he said their former sept was not discernible without closer contact.”

“The weyr would recognize Gabriel Tauhou and question him about this,” the blue dragon said politely, obviously giving Sial the opportunity to grant his permission.

“I didn’t think you guys could be more formal than you are now, but I see I was wrong,” I told them as Sial graciously allowed Gabriel to speak before the weyr.

“Where did the attacks originate?” the blue wyvern asked him.

“Cape Town, in the Transvaal. With my father’s help.” Gabriel nodded toward the small collection of people who sat along one wall. One of the men, I noticed, was dark-skinned and similar in appearance to Gabriel. He sat with two other men, all of whom watched the proceedings with grim expressions. “We tracked them northward, to Vereeniging, but lost their trail.” Gabriel slid an unreadable glance toward Chuan Ren. “That’s where we found two red dragons, obviously following a similar track.”

Chuan Ren pursed her lips for a moment before answering with a languid wave of her hand, “The red dragons have also been attacked by these ouroboros ones, but we do not go running to the weyr to solve our problems.”

Sial stiffened, but said nothing, although ire flashed for a moment in his eyes.

“And did you find where the ouroboros were based?” the blue wyvern asked.

One shoulder lifted in a delicate shrug. “No. My men lost them in the bush as well. It matters not. We have taken steps to protect ourselves from attacks by any sept.”

Drake’s gaze flashed to her. She smiled at him, a cat-with-a-giant-bowl-of-cream sort of smile. What on earth did that mean? I added that to my mental notes to ask Aisling.

“If you are implying that we welcome a war with the red dragons, I will assure you yet again that such an assumption is false,” Drake said.

“Bah! You do everything you can to instigate a war with us!” The smile faded from Chuan Ren’s face. “We are not stupid, nor are we blind to your machinations!”

“What machinations?” Drake demanded. “State just one thing that the green dragons have done to harm your sept!”

“Oh, lord, this is going to take forever,” I muttered to myself, and turned to look for a chair since this vision was evidently going to take a bit.

Kaawa sat behind me, separated from Gabriel’s father, dressed in a flowing robe and matching turban, her hands clasped in her lap as she watched the sárkány. Another woman sat on her far side, similarly dressed, and just as obviously a member of the silver sept. Next to them was a little girl of about four who sat in a stiff blue dress with a ruffled white pinafore, her black hair twisted into two stubby little braids, her bright silver eyes marking her as another silver dragon.

“I hope you don’t mind if I sit next to you,” I told Kaawa, taking the chair on her free side.

“No, of course not,” she murmured, causing me to freeze for a moment before looking at her in astonishment.

“What’s that?” the other woman asked her, leaning toward us, speaking in a soft voice so as not to disturb the sárkány.

“You can hear me?” I asked Kaawa. “You can see me?”

“What was what?” Kaawa asked her friend in a whisper.

“You said ‘Of course not.’ ”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Why would I say that?”

My spirits fell. She couldn’t hear me after all. Perhaps it was just a coincidence. Or was it? I leaned close to her, my mouth just a few inches from her ear. “Gabriel looks much better with his goatee.”

“I told him not to shave it off. It gives him such character, but—” Kaawa froze, blinking wildly as she slowly looked around. I waved, but her gaze went right through me.

“What’s wrong?” her friend asked, poking her on the arm.

“I don’t quite know,” Kaawa answered.

The little girl slid off her seat and said something in a language I didn’t understand, tugging on the arm of the woman I assumed was her mother.

“Hush, Maata. Kaawa is not feeling well.”

“Maata?” I grinned at the little girl as she, looking incredibly bored, climbed back onto her seat and, with a defiant look at her mother, stuck her thumb in her mouth. I laughed, thinking that even then Gabriel’s guard showed signs of doing just as she pleased.

Kaawa shot a look to the side nearest me even as she assured her friend in whispers that she was fine.

I turned back to the dragons, momentarily distracted when Chuan Ren leaped to her feet, yelling something about Drake trying to take things that were not his. Drake, looking bored, crossed his arms and let her rant.

“Boy, that gets old fast,” I said.

“Who are you?” Kaawa’s voice was so soft, I almost didn’t hear it.

I waved a hand in front of her face, but she obviously didn’t see it, and I suspected she heard me only now and again. “It must have something to do with you being a shaman,” I told her. “I’m Ysolde.”

She heard that all right. She sat up very straight, her eyes wide and staring at nothing in particular. Her friend was busy trying to get Maata to remove her thumb from her mouth, and didn’t hear when Kaawa, speaking without moving her lips, said, “You are a shade?”

“I’m not dead, no. Well, I was, but then I was resurrected. It’s a long story.”

Her expression didn’t change, her gaze not moving one whit. Thinking she must not have heard that explanation, I leaned in close and added, “I know you, Kaawa. You’re my friend.”

“I will befriend no shade. That way lies madness,” she said simply, and turned to her friend, clearly dismissing me.

I felt bereft for a moment, separated by time and space from everything going on around me, from the noise and furor of Chuan Ren in full hissy fit as she stormed around the sárkány table, trying to get a rise out of Drake, to the blue wyvern trying to restore order, to Sial as he chimed in when some slurs were evidently cast his way.

Gabriel turned to share a smile with his mother, immediately looking concerned when she didn’t respond.

I was alone, separated from the dragons around me by centuries of time and understanding. I shivered, suddenly cold and filled with sadness. I knew I couldn’t change any of the events that would unfold, but that knowledge did little to comfort me. I covered my face with my hands, wishing the vision would end, wishing the noise would stop, needing Baltic to restore order to the world.

“Why do you weep?” a disembodied voice asked me.

“All those blue dragons who will die . . . if only I could warn them. If only I could make Kaawa understand me. She could stop it. She could stop it all.”

“Who is Kaawa?”

The words were whipped away on the wind almost before I could hear them. I turned toward the voice, the sting of spray making me squint. I was on a ship, strands of hair flying around me, partially obscuring my view as we plowed through the waves. “What?”

“I asked you whom you spoke of, and why you are weeping.”

Baltic’s large body blocked some of the wind and spray, allowing me to wipe my wet face with the edge of my damp cloak. “I wasn’t weeping. I was thinking about retching, but thankfully that seems to have passed.”

His arms surrounded me, pulling me into the safe haven of his chest. “Our babe is giving you grief again?”

“Not so much anymore. I thought I would have been horribly sick because of this awful sea, but it seems to make the illness better.”

“Good. I dislike you feeling unwell and blaming the babe. And me, for putting him in your belly.” His voice was a rumble that started deep in his chest. I turned my face into the soft linen of his tunic, smiling into his collarbone.

“I didn’t really mean what I said, you know. I’m not sorry that you ever came to my father’s castle, or that I didn’t set you on fire while you were sleeping after the first time you bedded me.”

Laughter was rich in his voice as he kissed the top of my head and pulled me tighter. “Or geld me with a blunt knife?”

“Especially not the gelding. In fact”—I wiggled against him, the scent and feel of him doing much to stir my passion—“just the opposite. I don’t suppose you have time for a little dalliance?”

He pulled back to give me a wicked look. “Are you attempting to seduce me, chérie?”

“Oh, yes.” I tipped my head back to nip his lower lip. “And to thank you for taking me to England so I may see my parents. My mother will be thrilled to know we are to have a child.”

His lips thinned for a moment. “Not as thrilled as my father.”

“Your father is an ass,” I told him, sliding out of his embrace and giving him a come-hither look as I moved toward steps that led down to the cabins.

“Do you have any idea what would happen if he heard you say that?” Baltic asked, following with a glint of appreciation in his dark eyes. “Heads would roll at the very least.”

“I prefer something else be rolled,” I said with a hint of a leer as I slipped down the stairs.

“I have heard that women who are breeding often have unnatural appetites for men. I am pleased that you are experiencing this, although I will remind you that you must not be too inventive with your ways to drive me insane with lust, lest you harm the babe. I insist that you allow me to decide what is safe for you to do, and not try to coerce me into performing intricate acts of lovemaking, as you did last night. Ysolde! Cease that! I just got through telling you that you are not to do that! Or that. For the love of the saints, what are you doing with . . . oh, very well, just this once, but this is the last time, do you hear me? After this, you will do as I say!”

I giggled at the arrogance in his voice, feeling warm and loved, and pleased with the world despite the many cares that burdened me.

“You are happy, my love?”

“Oh, yes,” I said on a breath, snuggling down deeper into the soft warmth of the mattress.

“As am I. I, too, missed you.”

Heat started to lick up my back, spreading outward in a slow glow of passion. Warmth nuzzled my neck in a way that left me simultaneously boneless and lit by a fire from within.

“I have to say, much as I love these visions, the real thing is so much better.”

“Mmm.” The heat suddenly pulled away from me, leaving me feeling bereft. “Ysolde.”

“Make love to me,” I pleaded, moving restlessly in the warm cocoon of the bed.

“Not until you wake up.”

I opened my eyes to see our bedroom, not the small, dark-paneled cabin of the ship upon which we’d sailed so many hundreds of years ago. “Baltic?”

“Yes. It is the real me, not the past version, which you seem to be obsessed with watching in moments of lovemaking. And now you demand that you participate in those past moments?” He rolled me over onto my back, all warm, and male, and infinitely desirable. The emotions of the vision lingered enough that I purred as I stroked my hand up his bare chest despite his frown and outrageous accusation.

“I did participate. We both did, so you can stop looking at me like I’m some sort of Peeping Tom pervert. And besides, I can’t help it. You were extremely sexy, you know.”

His frown deepened.

I licked his lower lip. “But now . . . mrowr.”

“I approve of your mrowr,” he said, letting me kiss him. I pushed him over onto his back, reaching under his pillow as I reveled in the taste and feel of him.

“Fire?” I murmured, twining my tongue around his. His fingers were busy pushing up the satin of my nightgown, stroking a path up my legs that left me squirming.

“You have your own—” he started to say, but I wouldn’t let him finish.

“Fire!”

He tried to flip me over onto my back, but I held him down. “You are becoming entirely too demanding, mate. And I have been too accommodating. You forget that I am the wyvern.”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten that,” I cooed, nibbling along his jaw. His hands caressed my hips, then moved around to my behind when I bit his earlobe. “Before we died, did I ever tie you up and have my wanton way with you?”

“I am a wyvern. I am the one who is dominant, not my mate.” He groaned when my hand swept down his chest to his belly at the same time I gently bit the tendons of his neck. “I would not have allowed you to restrain me.”

“Good. Then this should be a novel experience for you.” I slid back enough for him to see the object I’d pulled out from under the pillow.

“No,” he said, giving it and me a stern look.

“Oh, yes, Baltic.”

“No. Where did you get them?”

“Pavel’s room.” I looked at the leather-and-sheep’s-wool wrist restraints. “I was looking for . . . er . . . Did you get my text message about Thala?”

“Yes. I am pleased that you convinced the other mates to go against their wyverns and free her. She’s here?”

“Yes. She’s . . . uh . . . sleeping,” I answered, thinking about the sleeping aid I’d managed to slip into the beverage she had demanded once she came out of her shock-induced stupor.

“I will see her in the morning. But first, we have been parted, and I must claim you now.”

I laughed at the matter-of-fact way he said it. “That’s just exactly what I’m planning, only with a little twist.”

“What part of ‘I am the wyvern’ do you not understand?” he asked, pinching me on the behind. “I will use the cuffs on you. Perhaps someday I will allow you to reciprocate, but for now—”

“Oh, no. It’s my idea, so I get to go first.” I wrapped one cuff around his wrist and tried to pull his arm up toward the headboard. It didn’t budge. I looked from the rounded bulge of his bicep to his face. “Please, Baltic? You’re always telling me I’m obsessed with our past sex life. I just want to try something we haven’t done before. I promise you will get great pleasure from it.”

“I always have great pleasure making love to you,” he pointed out.

I leaned down and kissed him again, swirling my tongue along his lower lip. “I’ll rouse my dragon fire if you let me do this.”

He narrowed his lovely dark eyes at me. “Are you trying to bribe me?”

“Yes.”

He sighed, and reluctantly let me pull his arm upward, over his head. “I am growing too soft with you. I would say that you have no respect for me, but the truth is that you never did. This is the last time, though, mate. I will allow you to have your way in this because you wish to separate your memories of our past from the present, but this is the last time I will be so cooperative.”

I smiled and dipped my head to swirl my tongue around one pert little nipple that seemed to be begging for just such attention. He sucked in his breath, and quickly I put the other cuff on his wrist, securing that arm, too.

He looked from one arm to the other, then to me. “I do not like this. You will hurry and satisfy yourself upon me so that I may claim you as is right and proper.”

“Oh, I’m going to satisfy more than just me.” I moved off the bed and padded over to a discreet stereo system.

“First you demand to restrain me, and then you leave? What is this torment?” Outrage dripped off his words as I contemplated a small collection of CDs. I picked out one and popped it on the player, turning back to face him.

“This, my darling, is Shania Twain. She and I are going to make sure that you’re receptive to all the things I want to do to you.”

“Music? You desire music now?”

“We never had music while making love before,” I pointed out, tossing my head as my favorite song started. “It all goes along with things we haven’t done in the past. Did I ever do a striptease for you?”

“No. I am not aroused by such things, and my old Ysolde would never have lowered herself to attempting to distract me suchly.” His eyes widened as, moving to the bouncy music, I ran my hands down the slinky satin nightgown, mouthing “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” to him as I started to hike the material up my legs. I accompanied the move with a few hip shakes that had his eyebrows raising.

“Perhaps I was overly hasty in my assessment of your dance,” he finally said, watching with an avid light as I danced closer to him, leaning over his head so my breasts almost popped out of the thin material.

He tried to reach for me, but Pavel’s cuffs stopped him. He made a noise of unhappiness, and was about to yank himself free when I stopped him by stroking my hand down his chest, from his collarbone, all the way down to where his penis was saluting. “Oh, no, you don’t. You said I get to be in charge, and I say you have to lie there and take this.”

“Take wha—” His eyes rolled back in his head when I bent down and took him in my mouth, letting my tongue dance along the length of him, making him moan nonstop.

“We will purchase a new pair of these restraints for Pavel,” he said when I danced away, twitching the skirt of my nightgown even higher. “I wish to keep this set.”

“I thought you might like them once you gave them a chance,” I said, crawling onto the bed, sliding my hands along his legs until he parted them for me. I bent down and nipped at the muscle just above one knee. “You have such wonderful legs, Baltic. I love your calves. I love your knees. And your thighs make me melt.”

There was hope in his eyes as I kissed my way along the sensitive inner flesh of his thighs. “I remember that about you. You used to tell me that you would never have fallen in love with me if I hadn’t loved to ride.”

I laughed. “Well, I won’t go so far as to say that your horseman’s thighs are what made me love you, but I admit”—I spread my fingers along his thighs—“they are impressive even now that you don’t ride.”

“I ride, just not a horse,” he answered with a wicked glint to his eyes.

“I think, my adorable captive, that this time I will be the one doing the riding.” I leaned across him, allowing my hair to drape across his belly. His breath hissed in as I sucked the closest nipple, gently tugging on it at the same time I teased the other.

“Do so now,” he urged, his breath becoming ragged, his legs moving restlessly.

“Oh, no. Not so fast. I want to enjoy the experience of having you tied up.” I licked his belly, focused for a moment on stirring my dormant dragon’s fire, but gave up.

“That is my fire, not yours,” he said with a tiny frown as I bathed his torso in fire. It skimmed along him, dancing as exuberantly as my fingers when they stroked and teased and touched their way down toward his groin.

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t raise mine. I’ll try again another time. But now . . .” I flicked my hair so it slithered along the length of his arousal. He shivered in pleasure, his hips bucking when I whipped off my nightgown, and pressed my breasts around him.

“Mount me!” he commanded, his head thrown back, the tendons in his neck standing out with strain.

“I am the one in charge, if you remem—”

There was a snap of leather, and suddenly I was pulled upward until his penis was pressed against me. He shifted me slightly so that he rubbed against parts that suddenly became highly sensitized, causing me to moan with pleasure. I slid my knees along his hips as his hands busied themselves with my breasts, tweaking and tormenting and generally making me see stars.

“Mount me!” he commanded again, and this time I didn’t bother to object; I simply positioned him and gasped with the sensation of him entering me. His hands on my hips urged me into movement, the friction of our bodies sending me on a spiraling path that I knew would end in a moment of purest ecstasy.

“Fire,” I gasped, and he complied, his dragon fire sweeping down my flesh as he pulled me forward to catch his cry of completion, my muscles tightening around him in absolute pleasure.

What seemed like an aeon later, I pushed myself off his chest to give him an unhappy look.

“Why do you frown at me?” he asked, rolling us over, his leg heavy over mine as he pulled me tight against him. “I just gave you such intense pleasure I thought you might wrench off my cock.”

“I’m frowning because not only did you break Pavel’s nifty leather handcuffs, but you took over and wouldn’t let me do all the things I had planned to do.”

To my surprise he grinned as he kissed my forehead. “You were too much for me, mate. I would have spilled my seed if you hadn’t mounted me when you did.”

“It’s very hard to be disgruntled with someone when they tell you that you’ve given them pleasure,” I said, sighing with happiness as I snuggled into the warmth of his body. “But now we’re going to have to buy two sets of the leather cuffs, one for Pavel, one for us.”

“Three sets. I shall get a smaller set for you. And perhaps a few other things. I will ask Pavel for recommendations.”

I smiled, kissing his shoulder, content for the moment to leave the worries of life behind and just revel in the fact that Baltic was in my arms, safe and happy.