Me and My Shadow

by Katie MacAlister

  Savian gave another half smile, half wince. “Most dragons don’t have the skills necessary to see through the layers of protection that were woven over the remains. To be honest, even I didn’t find it the first time I searched the location. But going by the records you gave me, I knew it had to be there, so I kept looking for signs, and two days ago, I found one.”

  “An entrance to the lair?” I asked, every hair on my body standing on end at the thought of gold. The dragon shard, never subtle in its attempt to turn me into a dragon, swamped me with a sudden, overwhelming physical need for Gabriel. I looked at him in mute appeal, my hands gripping the blankets on the bed to keep me from throwing myself on him.

  “Mate,” he responded, his eyes flashing with silver heat, his voice deepened by arousal. It swept along my sensitized skin like silk. I moaned.

  “Am I de trop?” Savian asked, amusement evident in his voice.

  “It’s the shard,” I ground out through clenched teeth, still fighting with my body and the dragon shard to regain control. “Don’t mention gold.”

  “I didn’t. Oh, the lair?” He shook his head. “I didn’t find it, let alone any go—er . . . that shiny substance that acts like an aphrodisiac to dragons. I think I was close to the lair, but before I could pursue a very intriguing scent, that she-devil with the red hair found me. After that, the only thing I was concerned with doing was keeping my skin where it belonged.”

  Savian’s calm, matter-of-fact voice dampened my ardor somewhat. Gabriel, with an effort, stopped stripping me with his eyes, and settled his gaze on Savian. His jaw was tense, however. I knew all I’d have to do was reach out with one silver-scaled, scarlet-tipped finger, and his control would snap.

  “Mayling,” he warned, keeping his eyes on Savian.

  “People who read other people’s minds can’t complain about what they find there,” I said, making a heroic effort to get control of my rampant emotions.

  Savian laughed. “Even I knew what you were thinking, May. And if I didn’t think a limb or two might drop off if I got out of bed, I’d leave you two alone, although I would like to point out again that I am currently available.”

  One of Gabriel’s fingers flicked. Savian’s hair caught on fire.

  “What the . . . I take it back! I’m not available. Ow. Could you . . . ?”

  I gave Gabriel a look of gratitude for the distraction before glancing back at Savian, who was slapping madly at his head. “You should know better than to bait a dragon.”

  “May!”

  I put out Gabriel’s fire. “I will, but only because I want to hear the end of your tale. So this woman beat you up in Latvia? How did you end up in London?”

  He gave his head a couple more exploratory pats before glaring at me. “I just got my hair cut, too.”

  “Latvia?” I prodded.

  “I wasn’t beat up there. What sort of a thief taker do you think I am that I’d allow someone to get the jump on me in an unfamiliar place? If I was that green, I’d have been dead decades ago. By the time I was done unraveling all the bind runes, I was well aware that the only one who could have woven such an intricate protection was a goetist, and a pretty powerful one at that.”

  I glanced at Gabriel. “Do dragons normally engage goetists to protect their lairs?”

  “No. Most dragons use banes, which can be drawn by anyone, although sometimes demons are used to break them.”

  “That’s right. I remember Aisling telling me she’d used some demons to break the bane on Fiat’s lair. But why bind runes for this lair?”

  Gabriel looked as confused as I felt. Practitioners of magic, as any member of the Otherworld will tell you, are divided into only two camps: goetists and theurgists. Goety refers to the dark magic used by those with connections to Abaddon, and individuals who draw power from the dead, such as Guardians, and vespillos, whereas theurgists—mages and diviners—draw their power from sources in the mortal world. Others, like necromancers, utilize both sources.

  “Dragons gain their power from theurgistic sources,” I mused, watching Gabriel. “So why would Baltic use a goetist to seal his lair?”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he answered, confusion giving way to a thoughtful look that he turned on Savian. “Dark power is less effective on dragons than it is on mortals.”

  “Everyone knows that,” Savian said, picking bits of ash from his hair.

  “It’s just one more confusing piece of a puzzle that I’m starting to think we’ll never solve,” I complained before gesturing to Savian. “What happened after you found the lair?”

  He grimaced. “Unfortunately, one of the bind runes was a trap, and it no doubt alerted the redhead to my presence. By the time I realized what had happened, she was close by. I thought it was more prudent to leave the area and try another time, but by the time I made it back to Riga, I realized two things.”

  We both waited.

  One side of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “The first was that she wasn’t going to be thrown off my trail by the simple methods I’d used. She was almost on me by the time I made it back to the hotel. It was only through the sheerest luck I happened to take a back entrance rather than the front, and saw her before she did me.”

  “And the second thing?”

  Savian gingerly touched the still-healing wound on his neck. “She wasn’t alone.”

  “Baltic?” Gabriel asked.

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. You said this wyvern was imbued with arcane power, and the dragon who helped the she-devil pursue me across the whole of Latvia, Germany, and parts of France didn’t have any scent of magic about him. I shook him off my trail in Paris. I thought I’d given both of them the slip, but the redhead jumped me just before I could reach you. I figured I was dead, but she stopped just short of killing me, dumping me in an alley nearby.”

  “How very odd,” I said. Gabriel said nothing, but I knew his expression of puzzlement matched mine.

  “No, no, it’s all in a day’s work. No need to thank me for almost dying while undertaking a commission for you. The most grievous and painful of injuries such as I have received are the merest nothing compared to your gratitude. A bonus hazard-pay reward isn’t at all necessary. Don’t even mention it.” Savian leaned back against the pillows, his eyes closed as he waved a wan hand vaguely toward me.

  “I’m sure you’re being well paid for the chances you take,” I said, getting off the bed. “And as for your grievous injuries, they are mostly healed, and will be completely so in a few hours. You’ll be just fine to go back to Latvia.”

  His eyes shot open at that. “Back to Latvia?”

  “Of course.” I smiled at Gabriel, who took my hand and curled his fingers through mine.

  “We must have the shard,” he told Savian. “And it’s obvious that we can’t wait for Kostya to get around to finding it. We will have to take action.”

  “Get the shard ourselves, you mean?”

  Gabriel nodded.

  “I suspect Kostya isn’t going to be happy at the idea of us poking around his lair,” I pointed out.

  “Then we will bring him with us.”

  “You don’t think he already has it?” I asked.

  Gabriel shook his head. “Not now. The question of the bind runes aside, for there to be so great an effort made at concealing Dauva itself tells me the lair must still be there, and intact. There would be no other reason to hide the ruins otherwise. And according to your experiences with Kostya’s lair, he uses a different type of protection altogether.”

  “Yes.” I remembered the bane drawn into the door to Kostya’s lair. It was exactly what I expected to find—theurgistic in origin. “That’s a very good point. So off to Latvia we go.”

  “I’m too weak to travel anywhere,” Savian protested as I smiled at him. “I was almost killed!”

  “Almost, but not quite. Get your rest,” I said, patting the blanket-clad foot nearest me before allowing Gabriel to draw me out the door. “We’ll leav
e for Latvia in the morning.”

  Chapter Three

  “Heya, István. Miss me? Has Ash popped yet? I don’t hear any screaming. She’s not gushing out baby juice and blood and guck, is she? ’Cause I’m going straight back to Gabriel’s pad if she’s in labor.”

  “Jim,” I said, feeling obligated to chastise the demon dog even if it was my charge only temporarily. “That’s not very supportive. I’ve heard that childbirth can be a very frightening time for a woman. I’m sure Aisling would appreciate your empathy rather than your burning desire to escape what is an exciting time for her and Drake.”

  “Lawdy, Miz Scarlett, I don’t know nuthin’ about birthin’ babies, and I don’t want to know, either,” Jim answered, marching past István, one of Drake’s personal guards, as he stood holding the door for us.

  “That’ll be enough out of you, prissy,” I said, frowning at the demon. “And no more Gone with the Wind DVD. I take it everything is all right?”

  The last question was addressed to István, who nodded as we entered the house. “Aisling threatened to go home to her uncle to have the baby. Drake swore he would tie her down to a couch if she kept insisting on doing things like walking and moving around. Nora and Pál had an argument over whether Aisling should be allowed to go to the bathroom by herself, and they aren’t speaking to each other. René has been teaching Aisling how to swear in French, which she does with frequency.”

  “So all is normal,” Gabriel said with a little flash of his dimples.

  “As normal as it gets around here,” István said with a wave toward doors that I knew led to a large sitting room. “Me, I’m staying out of Aisling’s way. She put a binding ward on Drake this morning that left him mad enough to burn down half the master bathroom before he escaped it.”

  “Oh, man, I missed seeing that? Sucksville.” Jim’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “What did he do to piss her off so much, and do you think I could get him to do it again?”

  I pulled out a small piece of paper from my pocket and showed it to Jim. “I have here the exact steps needed to banish a demon within my command to the Akasha. Would you like to go now, or later?”

  “Geez! I was just teasing! No one can take a little joke anymore! Man, Gabe, I don’t envy you a life spent with a doppelganger without a sense of humor.”

  “Now would be good,” István said from behind us.

  Jim cast the dragon a look over its shoulder as it opened the door to the sitting room. “Et tu, István? Hey, Ash! Lookin’ good there, babe. Wow, I didn’t think you could get any fatter, but you did. You’re not going to, like, pop, are you?”

  I sighed and wondered if Aisling would mind me banishing her demon less than twenty-four hours after it had been given into my care.

  “Aisling, what a pleasure it is to see you again,” Gabriel said, his hand on my back as we entered the room. He took both her hands in his as he pressed a kiss to her knuckles. I stifled the urge to smack him on the back of his head, chalking up the sudden spurt of jealousy to the dragon shard. “You are glowing, as you should be. You do not mind that May and I have dropped in to see you?”

  “No, not at all.” She was lying on the couch, a thick blanket over her legs and bulging midsection. “I’m delighted to have someone sane to talk to. Here, let me move so you can sit with me, May.”

  She struggled to sit upright. Gabriel, with one hand behind her, the other on her arm, gently assisted her. Or he started to. . . . A sudden roar from the doorway, followed immediately by a fireball that shot past me and hit Gabriel with enough force to fling him backwards a few feet, ended his attempt at help.

  “Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” Jim said with satisfaction as it plopped its big butt down next to Aisling. “Action at last!”

  “Hello, Drake. He wasn’t really touching her; he was just helping her sit up,” I said as the green wyvern, and Aisling’s very attentive, very jealous husband, stormed into the room, his emerald eyes spitting fury at Gabriel.

  Drake never took his eyes off Gabriel as he helped Aisling into a sitting position, carefully tucking the blanket around her before narrowing his gaze on the love of my life. I was a bit surprised to see Gabriel grinning in return. Although he had a much less volatile temper than Drake, he didn’t take kindly to being pushed around, especially by another wyvern.

  “Well, I can see I’m not going to have to break up a fight between you two, at least,” I said, moving nonetheless to stand between the two men.

  “Aisling is near her birthing time. It is natural that Drake should be intolerant of other males around her while she is vulnerable,” Gabriel said, his hand sliding around to my waist as he made a little bow to Drake. “Had I known he was right outside the room, I would have allowed you to assist Aisling.”

  Drake looked like he wanted to pick a fight with Gabriel, smoke issuing in little puffs from his nose, but Aisling put a hand on him and tugged him down onto the couch next to her. That seemed to do the trick, for his gaze left Gabriel for the first time, and he acknowledged my presence with a nod.

  “May, you are welcome here. Aisling will enjoy your company.”

  The exclusion of Gabriel in the welcome was pointed, but luckily amused him.

  “We are not here for a social visit, although of course it is always a delight to see Aisling,” Gabriel said, turning the power of his dimples on her.

  I nudged him with the tip of my toe, perhaps harder than was necessary, because he laughed and pulled a chair forward for me, taking another one just beyond my reach.

  “And I thought Ash was jealous. Whew. Glad my Cecile isn’t like you two,” Jim muttered.

  Both Aisling and I gave it a glare. It took the point and rolled over onto its back. “Belly rubbles, Ash? Pwetty pwease?”

  “You are here on weyr business?” Drake asked as Aisling, with a little roll of her eyes, scratched Jim’s hairy belly.

  “No. Our business involves Kostya. I could not reach him at his house, and thought you might be able to help us locate him.”

  “He’s been away,” Drake said slowly, his expression unreadable. “But I expect him back at any time.”

  “Assuming the sárkány he called is still scheduled for two days from now, I would expect that he would be in town making preparations for it. Where has he been?”

  Drake’s gaze shifted an infinitesimal amount. “St. Petersburg, I believe.”

  St. Petersburg . . . just a hop, skip, and a jump plane-wise from Riga, and Baltic’s ruined stronghold. I slid a glance toward Gabriel, but his face was as impassive as Drake’s. His emotions, however, weren’t quite so subdued. A sense of quickening excitement nudged at my awareness, prodding the dragon shard to wake up and take in the surroundings.

  “We will speak with him later today, then, when he arrives back in England.”

  “He should be back by now,” Aisling said, glancing at the clock.

  Drake shot her a warning look.

  “What?” she asked him.

  He made an aborted gesture.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake . . . Gabriel and May are our friends. They know Kostya called the sárkány in order to get the black dragons recognized as a sept. It’s not going to be any shock to them to know he’s been trying to find Baltic’s lair so he can properly take over as wyvern.”

  Drake sighed, the fingers of one hand stroking her knee. “This is a serious matter, kincsem. Circumspection should be uppermost in your mind at all times.”

  “Circumspection, my aunt Fanny,” she snorted. “I’m not going to play games with our friends.”

  “Mate, I insist—”

  “And that’s another thing,” she said, rounding on him as best she could considering her bulk. “You’ve turned into Mr. Bossy Pants these last few weeks, and I’m really getting tired of it. I’m pregnant, Drake. I’m not made of glass, I’m not going to burst into labor if I do things for myself, and my mind is just as strong as it ever was. Jim, so help me god, if you say just one thing, I’ll
have May banish you to the Akasha for the next two hundred years.”

  “Hey, all I was going to say is that I wouldn’t be bragging about the state of your mi—”

  “Silence,” I told Jim.

  It shot me a glare, huffed to itself, and plopped down with a disgusted air.

  Aisling and Drake were frowning at each other.

  “If I correct you, it is because you are outside the bounds of weyr etiquette,” Drake told her.

  “It’s just Gabriel and May!” she answered.

  “A wyvern, and a wyvern’s mate.”

  “They are our friends,” Aisling said, waving her hand toward us. “I feel perfectly within my right to say what I think in front of them, no matter what position they hold.”

  “They are also opposed to my brother receiving the recognition he seeks,” Drake countered, his eyes flashing with annoyance.

  “Your brother,” Aisling said, breathing heavily, “is almost as annoying as you are. Almost!”

  Gabriel’s lips twitched. I was having a similar problem keeping a straight face, but knew it would just make things worse if I laughed outright.

  “You are being emotional because of the impending birth. I would remind you again that such outbursts are not conducive to the calming environment you seek for the event itself,” Drake said with maddening serenity.

  Aisling gasped. “Are you calling me unhinged?”

  “No, of course not—”

  “You are!” She struggled to her feet, slapping off his helping hands, clutching the lap blanket to herself as she squared her shoulders and leveled him a look that should have dropped him dead on the spot. “That’s it! I’m de-mating you! I’m filing for a divorce! I’m going to go back to Uncle Damian and have the baby there, where people think I’m sane and competent and don’t tell me what to do every minute of the day. Jim, heel! You can come home with me.”

  She stormed out of the room without a look toward us, Jim, still bound by my command to silence, trailing behind her. Drake, a martyred expression on his face, paused in the act of following her, saying, “She’s a little emotional right now. You will no doubt forgive her.”