The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

Chapter Eight

“Heya, Solders. Whatcha doing?”

I set down my cup of coffee and gawked at Jim as it and Pavel came in from the area that contained the garage. “Gawking. What on earth are you wearing?”

“Kilt!” Jim did a little twirl so the material spun out. Sure enough, the demon was wearing a kilt and a muscle T-shirt.

“By the rood, man! Don’t do that before I’ve had my coffee!” I tried to expunge certain images from my brain. “Why are you wearing a kilt?”

“Pavel took me to buy it in town,” Jim answered, plopping itself down on a chair at the kitchen table and helping itself to a fresh-baked scone. “Ooh, orange cranberry—my favorite. Pavel, my man, got any marmalade to go with it?”

I looked over Jim’s head to where Pavel was pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Why did you buy Jim a kilt?”

He shrugged and gave me a half smile. Pavel was dark-haired and dark-eyed like Baltic, but slightly shorter and a bit stockier. He’d been one of Baltic’s elite guards for centuries before they had found me, and although I knew he had some interesting ideas of what constituted sexual fun, he was also profoundly devoted to Baltic and the best cook I knew. We spent many a long hour discussing the finer points of cuisine, much to Baltic’s amusement.

“The demon said its nuts were being squashed in Baltic’s jeans. It kept wanting to take off the trousers, and I figured its presence was going to go down easier if it didn’t have its dick hanging out.” Pavel gave me a long look. “Do I want to know why the demon is here in the first place? Baltic isn’t going to be happy about it.”

“Yes, but there’s something else he’s going to be a whole lot less happy about, so Jim’s presence won’t really matter. Besides, it’s just temporary. We can take Jim home when we pick up Brom.” I took a big sip of coffee, feeling it was better to face Baltic caffeinated than otherwise.

“Oh?” Pavel asked, looking suddenly wary.

“It’s . . . uh . . . kind of complicated.”

Jim snorted, its mouth full of scone. “You can say that again.”

“I was just sitting here waiting for the explosion, as a matter of fact.” I gave both of them a smile.

Pavel left off looking wary and went straight for worried. “What sort of a—”

Upstairs, a door slammed, followed immediately by a bellowed, “Ysolde!”

“That would be it,” I said, quickly draining my cup before getting to my feet. The thunder of footsteps stamping down the back stairs warned of Baltic’s imminent arrival.

“Enter the deranged wyvern Baltic,” Jim muttered, taking another scone.

Baltic appeared in the doorway, his eyes glittering with an obsidian light, his jaw set with a firmness that boded ill for anyone who crossed his path. He started toward me, pausing when he saw Jim.

“Hiya, Balters. Like my kilt? Pavel got it for me because the ol’ meat and two veg were gettin’ antsy being stuffed away in your jeans.”

Baltic turned his gaze to me, and I knew at that moment if he could have shot death rays from his eyes, he would have.

“I imagine you’ve seen Thala?” I asked, pretending for all I was worth that nothing whatsoever was the matter. “Is she awake?”

“Barely. It appears she has been drugged heavily. She is also handcuffed.” He breathed loudly through his nose for a few seconds. “She demanded I remove you from the house immediately. I refused. What is that demon doing here, why is it in human form, and what the hell have you done to Thala?”

“Jim came with me to help with Thala. I couldn’t carry her by myself. Would you like some breakfast? Pavel made scones earlier, but if you’d prefer something with more substance, I can whip up—”

“Mate!” Baltic bellowed again, effectively squashing my attempt at innocence.

I sighed and stood up, wrapping my arms around his waist before kissing his chin. “Jim is in human form because my magic is still wonky. Thala is drugged and handcuffed because she got nasty about us rescuing her once she found out she had to come with me—something I don’t quite understand—and I lost the key to the handcuffs, so I couldn’t undo them before you got up this morning. Pavel, we owe you for a pair of handcuffs, too.”

Baltic glared down at me for a few moments, then hoisted me upward, and kissed the breath right out of my body, filling me with his dragon fire. By the time he set me back on my feet, I was a bit dazed with both his action and the ferocity of the kiss. “You are jealous,” he said, looking very pleased. “It does not surprise me, since you were always so.”

“I’m not at all—”

“You need not fear that Thala holds my affection as you do. She is the one who resurrected me, and thus I owe her a debt of gratitude. That is all.”

“I didn’t drug her because of—”

“She helped me reacquaint myself with the world, and find Pavel, and for both I am grateful, but not to the extent that you must keep her drugged and handcuffed to satisfy your need to separate us.” Baltic gave my behind a little squeeze. “I am bound to you, mate, and no other female can change that.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that, but—”

“Excellent. You will cease being jealous of her now that you understand that my affections do not waver. Pavel, do you have an extra key? Good. Let us go release Thala, and then she can tell us what the wyverns questioned her about.”

Baltic marched off with Pavel in tow, the latter grinning at me as he passed.

“I am not jealous!” I yelled after the two men. “I never was! Oh, for the love of the saints, sometimes that man drives me bonkers.”

“Yeah, but the makeup sex is always good, huh?”

I shot Jim a quelling look. “It was bad enough when you said things like that while in dog form. Now it’s just creepy. We have to pick up Brom in three hours—that gives us a bit of time to work on changing you back. If you could call Aisling and tell her that we’ll leave you with May and Gabriel, I’ll go make sure that Baltic got Thala unlocked and then meet you out in the side garden.”

“Why the garden?” it asked as I headed for the stairs.

“I think best around plants. And . . . er . . . there’s nothing to break if my magic goes weird again.”

“Nothing except me,” Jim said forlornly, but it obediently rose and went to the phone.

“Hmm. I wonder . . .” I marched up the stairs puzzling over the thought that something other than the interdiction could be seriously wrong with my magic, which would explain why the summoning of the First Dragon didn’t work. “It worked before, though. What’s changed since the sárkány?”

The sight of Baltic and Pavel holding up a still muzzy-headed Thala between them drove that thought out of my brain. Despite Baltic’s smug look (which I decided was more tolerable than a pissed-off look), I helped them get her downstairs and into the kitchen, and when I left them, Baltic was trying to pour milky coffee down her gullet while Pavel was likewise shoving in bite-sized bits of scone.

“Thank god she’s not mortal and can’t choke to death,” I said to myself as Thala sputtered out bits of coffee-laden scone.

I found Jim contemplating a lovely yellow rosebush.

“Don’t even think about it!” I warned.

It sighed, its shoulders slumped. “I wouldn’t. There’s no fun in peeing on things with a human package. It’s just so ordinary.”

“Moving past that, let’s get this over with before Baltic gets Thala awake enough that she can talk without spewing out scone crumbs. I want to hear what she has to say about her captivity.”

“Yeah, should be good, especially if Drake had her tortured.” It must have seen the look on my face because it hurriedly added, “I’m sure Ash wouldn’t let him do that. For a badass demon lord, she’s totally wimpy when it comes to hurting people.”

“I’m reassured to hear that. All right, sit down, and let me concentrate on what I need to do.” I calmed my somewhat frazzled mind and tried once again to access that magical spot in my brain that gave me access to arcane powers. It remained elusive, just on the fringes of my consciousness, so close I could almost see it. Dragon fire was there, banked as usual when I wasn’t physically near Baltic, but it glowed hot in my mind, and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was that which had upset the balance of my magic. “I’ll just have to try it regardless.”

“Oh, man, that doesn’t fill me to the brim with confidence,” Jim said, its eyes filled with foreboding. “You’d make a horrible motivational speaker, babe. Aren’t you supposed to be in charge and professional, like Aisling?”

I stared at it. “Good lord, no. Magic isn’t at all orderly.”

“I’m gonna die!” it wailed.

“Be quiet, I’m intoning.” I turned to the east. “Air surrounds thee.” I faced south. “Fire fills thee.”

Jim stopped whimpering, watching me with curious eyes. “Calling the quarters, eh? Aisling does that, but she says different stuff.”

“Hush.” I turned north. “Earth nourishes thee.” Finally, I faced west. “Water gives life to thee. Demon in birth, demon in being, by the grace within me, I release thee from thy form.”

Jim’s body shimmered for a moment, twisted in upon itself, and then re-formed.

“Oh, great!” it said, looking down. “Now I’m going to have to buy another kilt!”

I spun around to face the house. “Why are you naked again?”

“The question is more why aren’t I standing here in my magnificent form? What’s wrong with your magic? Why can’t you change me back? Are you even trying? I don’t think you’re trying!”

“I am trying, and I don’t know what’s going on. That spell should have done the trick.” I chewed on my lower lip as I thought. “It has to be Baltic’s fire that’s messing things up. I’ll try it again without it.”

Jim heaved a martyred sigh as it sat down on the grass. “Whatever. Just change me back. This grass tickles, and I don’t think you want me scratching where it itches.”

I cleared my mind and tried the spell again, attempting to pull energy from the living things around me, but nothing happened. “It’s the dragon fire. It’s interfering with my concentration,” I told the demon as I mentally shooed the dragon fire away. “We’ll give it another shot.”

“I think something just bit my ass,” Jim said, rising up on one cheek as it tried to look around at its behind. “Do bees live in the grass? Maybe it was a snake! Do they have poisonous snakes in England? Fires of Abaddon, you gotta suck the poison from my ass!”

“I am not sucking anything, and calm down. You’re distracting me.”

“I’m gonna die! At least it wasn’t my fabulous form that has been poisoned. Things are going a bit dark, Ysolde. I see spots and stuff. I think I may ralph. Does snake poison make you want to puke?”

I ignored the demon’s hysterics as I gently but persistently dampened every last bit of Baltic’s dragon fire that resided within me. “Now, let’s try it,” I said, rolling up my sleeves as I sketched a clarity spell in the air. I spoke the words, waiting for the familiar tingle of magic to surround me.

“Farewell, cruel world. Tell Cecile I loved her!” A loud thump followed that declaration. Jim lay flat on its back, its arms stretched out dramatically.

“You’re still naked. And human. And for the love of all that is good and glorious, grab some fig leaves or something! I don’t want to see that.”

“I had clothes on, until you stripped them off me,” Jim grumbled, sitting upright. “Hey, the spots are gone. I guess the snake poison was no match for a demon.”

“Snake poison?”

“Yeah, from the snake that bit me.” It stood up and turned around. “Right here on my ass.”

“That’s a rock, not a snake, you idiot,” I said, pulling off my T-shirt and smacking Jim on the butt with it before handing it to the demon. “Loincloth that, and don’t even think of trying to give it back to me.”

Jim eyed my chest as it wrapped the T-shirt around its waist. “I see you still have your sept tat on your left boobie.”

I tugged up the lacy top of my camisole and glared at the demon before marching toward the house.

“Hey!” Jim called from where it stood. “You’re not going to leave me in human form, are you? I thought you were going to change me back.”

“I tried. There’s something going on with Baltic’s fire that’s messing me up, so until I get it figured out, you’re just going to have to stay that way.”

“What?” Jim shrieked, its voice startling the morning birds that were chattering and singing to each other from the safety of the shrubberies. “No way! I can’t stay like this! I had to be human for a week, and it was a nightmare! I’ll be good, I promise. I won’t make you look at my snakebite. Just change me back, pretty please with dog hair on top.”

I stopped at the door to the kitchen. “I would if I could, Jim, but right now, there’s so much going on in my life, I think it’s all affecting my magic. If I can get a few things taken care of, then I can concentrate on figuring out what’s going wrong. Until then, I’m sorry, but human form won’t kill you.”

“That’s what you think,” it muttered darkly, following after me as I entered the house. “I think you can change me, but you just don’t want to. Man, I’m so going to tell Baltic that you have the hots for my naked human form.”

“You do and the kilt won’t be the only thing missing,” I warned before trotting upstairs to get a new shirt.

An hour later, after having been forced to run into town to buy Jim a replacement kilt and shirt, along with a pair of shoes and some underwear, I left the demon with a big bowl of popcorn and a stack of Pavel’s DVDs. I stood outside Baltic’s study for a few moments, straining my ears to hear what was going on, but there was nothing audible but a faint rumble of male voices. I tapped on the door and entered, not surprised to see Thala up and about.

She whirled around at the noise, her eyes narrowing on me. “Pavel says you are human now, and not a dragon.”

I blinked at the unexpected statement. I half thought she might lambaste me for drugging and restraining her, but evidently she either didn’t realize what had happened—which, given the muddled state the sleeping drugs had left her in, wasn’t out of the question—or she chose to ignore it. “Yes, I am.”

“No, you are not. You are my mate, and thus are a light dragon,” Baltic corrected, looking up from an architect’s plan.

I let that go and eyed Thala curiously. She was about my height, built a bit broader than me, with coppercolored hair and dark reddish brown eyes. There was a blackish blue aura around her that warned she had control of some sort of dark power. Baltic had told me she was a necromancer, and that her mother was his former girlfriend, the famed archimage Antonia von Endres. What was more unsettling was the fact that she was also the sister to the woman I had recently learned was the true wife of the man I had married. “Did Ruth not tell you about me?”

“Ruth?” Her lip curled in scorn. “That pretender. I haven’t spoken to her since Baltic was slain.”

I raised my eyebrows. “I had no idea you were present at Dauva when that happened.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Odd, then, that you would date something to that event.”

She turned her back on me, clearly dismissing my existence, addressing herself to Baltic instead. “If Kostich holds the light sword, then he must be keeping it at the vault at Suffrage House. That’s the best security he can hope for in France. We will simply have to get it from there. We should go to Paris immediately and see how much protection he has added.”

“That would probably be best,” Baltic answered, a strange hesitancy in his manner. “Later. Now that Ysolde is here, however, we can discuss your experience at the hands of the weyr.”

Thala’s hands tightened around the edge of the desk. “Surely that can wait for another time? Your woman can have no concern with what was said to me.”

“My mate is concerned in every aspect of my life,” Baltic corrected, giving Thala a no-nonsense look. Love warmed my heart. I wanted to simultaneously cheer and kiss him, but that would no doubt enrage the woman who I was beginning to believe was more than a little jealous of my presence.

“Oh, to hell with it,” I said, and walked over to Baltic, pulling his head down so I could kiss him. I heard a swift hiss of breath behind me as Baltic, never one to brush off a kiss, put both hands on my behind and wrapped me in dragon fire.

“What was that for?” he asked when he had retrieved his lip from where I was sucking on it.

“Nothing in particular. I just felt like kissing you.”

“I approve of the sentiment,” he said, a hint of laughter in his ebony eyes. “Although I suspect that situation we discussed earlier is not as resolved as you claim it is.”

“I’m not the jealous one here,” I whispered into his ear as I nipped on his earlobe before turning in his arms to smile at Thala.

If looks could kill, the entire area within a ten-mile radius would have been a radioactive wasteland.

My smile grew, more to annoy her than to appear friendly. “Much as I would love to hear what the dragons did to you, I’m afraid Baltic and I have an appointment. It’s time for us to pick up Brom.”

“Brom?” Her fiery gaze narrowed on me again. “Who is Brom?”

“My son. He’s been staying with Gabriel and May for the weekend.”

“You have a son.” She was silent for a few beats before a slow smile stole over her face. “How excellent. You may go retrieve your son. We have no need of your assistance in making plans.”

Pavel, who had been standing behind Thala, pursed his lips and shook his head.

Behind me, Baltic stiffened, his hands under mine holding me back when I would have marched forward.

“Oh, you did not just say that,” I said, my ire thoroughly roused.

“Am I missing something good? Who didn’t say what? Hey, that chick you cuffed is up. Hiya. We met earlier, but you probably don’t remember me. I’m Jim. Effrijim, really, but no one calls me that except Aisling when she’s pissed about something. Don’t let this human form throw you—I’m normally much more handsome. So you’re Balter’s old girlfriend, huh? Did I interrupt a catfight about to happen? I did, didn’t I? Pavel, can I borrow your phone? It does have a camera, right? Does it do video? Man, why didn’t I think to bring my digital camera?” Jim wandered into the room with the bowl of popcorn. “This might almost make being stuck in human form worthwhile.”

Thala looked at Jim like it had a miniature herd of rhinoceroses dancing a ballet on its head.

“You didn’t miss anything, Jim, because Thala didn’t say anything. Did you?” I said in a calm, even tone.

Pavel backed away several feet.

Jim sucked in its breath and did likewise. “Uh . . . right. I can see that. Don’t turn me into a banana, please. Human form is better than that.”

“I haven’t banana-ed anything since the sárkány,” I said with a significant look at Thala that she totally ignored.

“Do you have any idea who I am?” She answered my threat by stepping forward, her eyes glittering with an unholy red light.

“Yes. You’re the woman who is clearly bent out of shape over the fact that I’m back in Baltic’s life. Get over it, Thala. I may be human, but I’m also immortal, and Baltic and I are very much together. Nothing you can do will change that, so if you don’t want to force me to rain down death and destruction on your head, you’ll move on.”

Baltic sighed heavily. “Mate, do not threaten Thala.”

“If there is any death and destruction to be done, I will be the one performing it,” she snarled at me, her hands fisted as she took another step forward. Menace and fury rolled off her in palpable waves, but I knew a stand had to be made.

I tried to move forward again to accept her obvious challenge; Baltic, however, held me firmly against his body. “Thala, do not threaten my mate.”

Jim moved over to where Pavel was watching the scene. “It’s gonna be a catfight, and me with no camera! Lend me your phone, buddy. We could make a killing off the video, especially if they both go into dragon form. I’ll go fifty-fifty in the profits with you.”

“There will be no fight,” Baltic said, glaring at Jim for a few seconds before transferring his attention to Thala. “Will there?”

Her jaw worked angrily before she managed another one of those bloodcurdling smiles. “I only ever have your best wishes at heart, Baltic. If you desire that I ignore your woman’s insults, then I shall do so.”

I tapped my fingers on Baltic’s hand, where it lay over one of mine.

His sigh ruffled my hair. “There was a time when I believed that all would be peaceful once Ysolde was at my side again. I see that I was wrong.”

I turned in his arms to give him a share of my scowl. “I am not the one who started this—”

“Enough.” He gave me a quick, hard kiss, then turned me and gave me a gentle push toward the door. “You will no doubt wish to drive us to London, since you claim my piloting the vehicle takes years off your life. We will go to fetch our son—”

I noticed the emphasis he put on the last words, and smiled at them.

“—and Thala can fly to Paris to determine what new measures of security Kostich has put into place to guard the light sword.”

Thala blinked a couple of times. “You’re not coming with me?”

“No. I have business to attend to at Dauva, and Ysolde has extracted from me a promise to meet with the weyr, which she no doubt intends for me to fulfill soon. Once you have assessed the security, return here and we will make our plans.”

I was about to ask Baltic why he needed to go back to Latvia when he had just returned from there, but something about the set of his jaw had me clamping down on the question. “I’ll bring the car around. Jim, get your things. Pavel, are you coming with us?”

He shook his head, flickering a quick glance at Baltic that set off a number of warning bells in my head. “I have some things to attend to. You may exchange polite greetings with the silver guards on my behalf, if you like. Nothing too friendly, and I would prefer that the greetings are offered only after they have acknowledged my absence, since we are the older dragons and it is our due to be greeted before offering the same.”

“You guys are downright archaic sometimes,” I said, shaking my head as I herded a protesting Jim and its bowl of popcorn out the door.

Baltic claims he knows how to drive perfectly well, but experience has shown me that while he has a firm grasp on the mechanics of driving a car, he disregards all other aspects of the driving experience and thus has only a vague idea of rules of the road, laws, and even what common courtesy is with regard to other drivers. He also doesn’t give a damn about any of that, which means that usually either Pavel or I drive when we go somewhere. Luckily, I enjoy driving, even on England’s sometimes confusing roadways.

“Jim,” I said once we had joined the throng of folks streaming toward London, “can I give you direct orders that you can’t refuse?”

“Uh-oh. I don’t like the sound of that,” it said, looking up from one of Pavel’s risqué magazines it had filched before leaving the house. “What kind of an order?”

“I don’t want you to hear what I’m going to say.”

Baltic shot me a startled look.

Jim sighed. “Yeah, you can. But I’d like to point out that I can also keep my lips zipped if I have to, so you don’t really have to order me not to hear something.”

I thought for a moment, then shook my head, both at the driver in front of me who slammed on his brakes for no reason and at the thought of speaking my concerns in front of the demon. “Effrijim, I command you to not hear anything I say until I tell you it’s OK.”

Jim sighed again, and buried itself in the magazine.

“Oh, look, a hamburger place. Let’s go there and have food.”

It didn’t even look up at my bait.

“What is it that you don’t wish to say in front of the demon? Are you going to tell me some new way you wish for me to make love to you? Will it involve a phallic device such as Pavel has? I will warn you, mate, I do not approve of phallic devices for either of us. I do not care for such things to be used on me, and the only phallus I intend for you to entertain is—”

I lifted my hand to stop what showed every sign of being one of Baltic’s “the old Ysolde never was into the sorts of kinky things you are into” lectures. “I don’t want a vibrator, thank you. Although those little bullet jobbies look kind of . . . never mind. You’re phallic enough for me, thank you.”

An odd look crossed his face. “I’m not sure that is a compliment, but I assume you mean it as one.”

“Yes, I do. How about this: you more than amply take care of any and all sexual desires I have. Better?”

“Much.” He sat back with a smug look on his handsome face and waved a hand. “You may proceed telling me about the new fantasy you have.”

“It’s not a fantasy. What exactly were you doing in Dauva?”

His face went blank for a few minutes before he slid me a steamy look. “Do you have fantasies about making love in Dauva? Out in the open, perhaps? It is heavily forested now, and not visited by the locals because they believe it is haunted, so I would be willing to take you there if it would drive you to a new level of pleasure.”

“If that’s some sort of a crack about me having voyeuristic tendencies . . .”

He raised a hand and looked out the window. “I make no judgment, mate. I was simply offering to allow your strange new tastes some freedom; that is all. If you wish instead for me to make love to you in the lair, that is more reasonable, although we would need to bring in a blanket at the least, since the ground is quite rocky there after the centuries of disuse. Perhaps a mattress.” He paused for a few seconds and thought. “I suppose we could build a bedchamber in there if you really liked, although Kostya has stolen all of my treasures, so there would be no gold to rub all over your body.”

“An underground love nest doesn’t appeal to me in the leas—Rub gold all over me?” My eyes went a bit glazed as I considered that thought. Although the dragon that slumbered within me must have shown the same preference for gold over all other forms of treasure, heretofore it hadn’t triggered any response in me. Now, however, just the thought of draping Baltic’s naked form with chains of gold had me shivering with arousal. “Maybe that would be nice. How much gold do you have now?”

His smile was filled to the rim with smugness. “Not as much as I had, thanks to Kostya, but enough to satisfy your lustful demands. It is safe in my Paris lair.”

“Perhaps—” I shook myself, dissipating the erotic images that danced so tantalizingly in my head. “We got sidetracked somehow.” An abbreviated gesture had me shooting him quick little glances as all sorts of warning bells went off in my head. “You did that deliberately, didn’t you?”

“Brought up the subject of making love to you? I frequently discuss my desire to mate with you, Ysolde,” he said, but he couldn’t look me in the eye. He pretended to be interested in the passing scenery, which made a few more bells chime.

“Yes, you do, and I appreciate that fact, but I also know that you don’t like saying you won’t answer a question I asked you, which is why you try to distract me with thoughts of you all warm and naked with gold chains draped across your chest and belly and . . .” My voice trailed off into a little whimper as I swallowed back a sudden wave of desire and need. “What was I saying?”

He slid me another look, but sighed and slumped back into the seat, shaking his head. “You’d never let me hear the end of it,” he muttered. “It would be just like in Milan, when Antonia called me to her side, but I could not tell you because you would have instantly been jealous and likely lopped off my stones with the nearest sword. I had to tell you I was away on sept business just to keep you from following me.”

“I am not the sort of person who gelds other people without due cause,” I started, then realized what it was he hadn’t said. “Wait a minute—are you saying you went off to see your former girlfriend after we were together?”

“Not in the sense you are thinking,” he said blithely.

“How do you know what I’m thinking?”

He pointed to the steering wheel. “Your fingernails have dug into the leather a good half an inch.”

I loosened my death grip on the wheel, spun it when I was about to plow us into a guard rail, and got a grip on my emotions. “What did Antonia want to see you about?”

He was silent.

I glanced at him. His expression was stony.

“I see.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t had a vision about that episode,” he said after a few more minutes of silence, during which I lovingly reviewed various forms of torture dug out from the shattered remains of my memory. “You came as close to killing an archimage as anyone ever has. It would be a worthy vision to experience.”

An echo of a voice shouting in my head had me signaling and pulling over to a shoulder. Jim looked up inquiringly, but sighed and returned to its skin magazine when I turned to face Baltic.

“Mate?” Baltic asked, one eyebrow raised.

“Shush. It’s there, right on the edge of my mind. I can hear an echo of it. I want to know what happened. I want to see it. I want to be able to remember things again. I want . . .”

It danced with tantalizing nearness, just beyond the range of my consciousness, where I could see it, but not grasp it. I closed my eyes in order to draw it into focus, but the echoes stayed fragmented and incoherent.

“. . . shall not be! I will not . . .”

“You have no right, dragon . . .”

“Mate, you cannot . . .”

I shook my head as I tried to coax the memories forward. “I’ve lost them, Baltic. I can’t even remember my own past.”

I heard him sigh, and suddenly I was in his arms, his body warm and solid, holding me with infinite care, the scent of him seeping deep into my being. I opened my eyes to look into his, the dark, endless depths of them drawing me in and capturing me in his soul.

“Do not do this, Ysolde. You are my love, my life. You are the very breath in my lungs, and the beat of my heart. I could not exist without you.”

“She tried to steal you from me,” I heard myself say, and realized that he had done what I couldn’t do by myself—he’d pulled the vision from my hidden memories.

“No,” the past Baltic said, his face different, yet familiar nonetheless. “No one could do that. You do not need to kill her. Do not risk that which you cannot afford, my love. She isn’t worth it.”

I turned to look at the woman who was trapped against a stone wall, my fire surrounding her. On the edges of the shadows stood several forms, dragons and others, keeping a wary distance from the three of us. It was nighttime, the air warm and heavy with the scent of jasmine and orange blossoms, soft distant noises of the city telling me we stood some leagues from it.

The fire was silent the way dragon fire is, burning with a brightness that lit up the immediate area despite the thick darkness around us. But it was more than mere dragon fire surrounding her; a sense of power rushed through me, pouring outward to encircle Antonia. I wanted more than anything to just let the stream of power wash over her, for I knew it would end her existence, but Baltic’s love wrapped me in a web that prohibited me from doing so. I could snap it with just a thought, but to do that would be to break our love, as well, and there was nothing on this earth that would compel me to such a sacrifice.

“It pleases me that I have made no error in you,” a ponderous voice said from the side.

A man strolled forward through the crowd, which parted as if he were a plow on loamy soil. Soft, startled murmurs rippled around us, trailing in his wake as he stopped in front of me. His face and eyes were ageless, all-seeing, all-knowing, as if he saw all too clearly that I was on the verge of committing an act that would forever change the path of my life.

“Who are you?” I asked the man. He was a dragon, of that I was sure, but I didn’t recognize him or what sept he was from.

His dark eyes were amused—at least they were until his gaze slid past me to where Baltic stood. Then they narrowed, his lips tightening. Whoever he was, he wasn’t pleased.

“Baltic,” he said, his gaze returning to me, “your mate is the source of much trouble, it seems.”

Baltic’s arm went around me, pulling me tight to his side. “She is no trouble to me.”

The dragon’s lips twitched, but he merely turned his head to consider Antonia von Endres as she was plastered to the stone wall of the villa’s tower. His eyebrows rose. “You seek to destroy the mage, daughter of night?”

I hadn’t intended on answering him, since my temper was riled by Antonia, but something about him compelled me to say simply, “She tried to steal my mate. I tolerate that from no one, not even an archimage.”

“She is not worth your ire.” His gaze rested on me a third time, the amusement back in it as he leaned toward me and said softly, “Do not fail me, little one. All my hopes rest with you.”

“Hopes?” I asked stupidly, not understanding what he was saying. “What hopes?”

He said nothing, just turned and walked back the way he had come, into the deepest part of the shadows. It was at that moment that I realized that the crowd of dragons making a half circle around us had been completely and utterly silent, as if they were collectively holding their breath.

“Who was that?” I asked Baltic, touching his arm as he looked after the man, a strange expression on his face. “Why did he call me daughter? He’s not my father.”

“That, my love, was the father of us all,” Baltic said before turning to face Antonia. “Quench your fire, and let her go. She has news that I seek regarding Constantine. That is all I desire from her.”

Absently, I tamped down on the fire, allowing the strange stream of power that flowed around her to dissipate, just like water seeping into parched earth. “The father of us all? Not . . . by the rood, that was the First Dragon?”

The words echoed in my head as I watched Baltic confront a furious Antonia, my mind dazzled by the fact that the ancestor of all dragons who ever were and ever would be had spoken to me. Not just spoken to me . . .

“Told me his hopes rested with me,” I said, blinking as the velvet night brightened into a cloudy day. I looked up at my Baltic, who gently stroked my back, his breath ruffling my hair as cars whizzed past us. “Did you see that, too?”

“Your vision? No. But I remember it.” His lips twisted. “Antonia threatened to destroy you for almost a century. Only the fact that she would have had to deal with the First Dragon if she had done so stopped her. And now you will question me for weeks as to what the First Dragon meant, and I will tell you repeatedly that I do not know. It is the truth, mate; I did not know then, and I do not know now. Nor do I particularly care.”

I pulled back and gave him a long look. “You don’t like the First Dragon, do you?”

He made a face. “My feelings toward him do not matter.”

“Uh-huh. What about Antonia? What was all that business with her?”

“As you said, it was business. She had an interest in Constantine, and I sought to find out where he was.”

“Hmm. And that water?”

He looked surprised. “I do not remember water. You attempted to burn Antonia alive, not drown her—not that you could have done either, but you came close to succeeding with your dragon fire.”

“There was some other form of power I was tapping into. It felt like I was standing in a stream of it, flowing around and through me.”

He shrugged, and looked pointedly at his watch. “We will be late picking up Brom if you do not continue. Would you prefer for me to drive?”

“No,” I said, resuming my seat and snapping the seat belt over my chest. I gave him one last look before I pulled out into the stream of traffic. “But I do want you to tell me one thing.”

“What is that?”

I gripped the steering wheel with grim determination. “If you weren’t at Dauva overseeing the reconstruction for the last couple of days, just where the devil were you?”