Up In Smoke (10 page)

He nodded. “Maata's birthday is in two weeks. I'll tell her she may have carte blanche in the store as her present.”

I glanced over to where his two guards stood leaning against a wall near the entrance, and nodded. “I'll be as quick as I can.”

“I'll tell Maata she has an hour, then,” he said with wink before wandering off.

Cyrene, who had continued with an lengthy line of reasoning why she was obviously the best person to be Kostya's mate, drew up short when I interrupted her. “We can talk about the situation with Kostya later. I assume the trouble you referred to earlier is something to do with him? Have the other dragon septs said anything to you?”

“Oh.” Her voice, which had been its usual light, burbling self, flattened to a whisper. “No, that's something else. May, it's . . . oh, it's horrible!”

“What?” I asked, my stomach tightening despite long decades of familiarity with the sort of trouble into which she could get herself. “Stop hemming and hawing, and just tell me. You know it's always worse if you try to prepare me for it ahead of time.”

“I know, but this time it's especially tricky. It's . . . it's Neptune.”

“Who?” I asked, startled.

“Neptune. You know, the head of all us water beings. He rules the sisterhood, not that we like to admit it, because, well, you know how some of the sisters are—they don't like men very much, and Neptune has always been rather condescending toward us naiads, like we're not valuable to the planet or something. As if! We do more work than any of the other elemental beings put together. Anyway.” She took a deep breath, her words having slowed down from their initial tumbling rush. “Neptune called me before him, and, May, it wasn't pretty at all.”

“I have no doubt of that. How bad is it?”

“Bad. He stripped me!”

“What?” I asked, shocked.

“You and your dirty mind. He stripped me of my title,” she wailed. “It was horrible!”

I closed my eyes for a moment. “For the love of all that's . . . what exactly happened?”

Ten seconds of silence followed my question. “It's my spring.”

“What about it?”

“I've been so busy with Kostya the last month, the spring . . . He was so very needy, you understand, I mean, seriously needy, and he took up vast amounts of my time and attention . . . and the spring . . . well, it just sort of . . . became tainted.”

“You let your spring go unattended?” I asked in stark disbelief. Naiads, as water beings, had charge of various freshwater resources. Some protected lakes, others rivers, and some, like Cyrene, personally watched over and preserved springs that fed a number of rivers and underground tributaries. I was familiar enough with the Sisterhood of Hydriades to know just how serious a matter it was to let your charge go without due attention. “Oh, Cy. How could you do that?”

“It was Kostya! He needed me, Mayling! No one has ever needed me the way he has. He . . .” Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper. “He's so incredibly sexy. I just couldn't resist him.”

I sighed softly to myself. If there's one thing I've learned in my life, it's that chastisement has little effect on my twin. “Sometimes I wish you'd given up some other trait than your common sense to create me.”

“I'm sorry,” came the very small reply.

“I know you are. So you were too busy being madly in love with Kostya to watch your spring, and it became tainted. Surely that's not irreversible. Why is Neptune involved?”

“Because Hahn the German sylph wants my position; that's why. Did I ever mention him?”

“No.
Him
? I thought sylphs were female.”

“Don't be so behind the times. At the last consortium of elemental beings, they dropped the gender requirements to be more in line with the political correctness of the mundane world. Normally I wouldn't have a problem with a man wanting to join the sisterhood, but Hahn is evil, Mayling, pure evil.” Cyrene's voice was filled with righteous indignation. “He wants to become the first male naiad, and duly applied to the sisterhood. When I told him that there wasn't a position open, he claimed we were refusing him based on his gender and threatened to report us to Neptune.”

“Wait a minute.” Cyrene's life always seemed to be something straight out of a soap opera, so I was used to the usual assortment of odd characters who were attracted to her. But this seemed a bit odd even for her. “Aren't sylphs air elemental beings? Why does he want a job connected with water?”

“I told you—he's evil! No sylph in her right mind would want to switch biases, but Hahn is after notoriety rather than really wanting to preserve the world's freshwater resources, as we naiads do.”

I bit back an obvious response.

She continued without the least twinge of guilt. “Well, naturally, we weren't going to let him in after he threw that big scene and threatened to go over our heads, and now it's very clear to me that he thinks that if I get in trouble with Neptune, he'll be a shoo-in for my job. Honestly, how was I to know that a couple of weeks tending to poor Kostya's mental wounds would cause half the crops in Italy to fail?”

“Half the . . .
agathos daimon,
Cy!”

“It's only half! It's not all the crops in Italy, like Hahn claims! But he had to go running to Neptune blabbing that I was abusing my position, and how the mortals were suffering because of it, and you know how Neptune is about mortals.”

“I don't, actually. I've never met him.”

“Oh, he's gaga about them. He spends all his time going to surfing competitions with them. It's all he thinks about. That and punishing innocent naiads. But that's neither here nor there—you have to help me, Mayling. You have to go to Neptune and explain to him that because of all the trouble with you being dragged off to Abaddon, I didn't have time to take care of the spring.”

“Oh, no. You're not going to use me as a scapegoat for the fact that you fell under the charms of a black-eyed dragon. You can just explain the circumstances yourself.”

“But he won't listen to me!” she wailed, her voice again thick with unshed tears. “Hahn has filled him with so many lies, Neptune won't believe anything I say.”

I rubbed my forehead. “And just why do you expect Neptune to listen to me?”

“He'll listen because you're
you,
Mayling! You're important now! You're a celebrity!”

“What on earth are you talking about?” I rubbed my forehead again. One of the side effects of speaking with Cyrene was a tendency to headaches. “I'm no celebrity.”

“Sure you are. You're all they talk about at the clubs—the dragon's mate who is also consort to a demon lord. It's almost as good as what happened to Aisling, although you don't have a demon like she has.”

“I have you,” I said with irony that I knew would completely bypass Cyrene.

“And obviously that's much more cool,” she agreed. “That's why I want you to talk to Neptune. Everyone is talking about you, and he'll listen to you because you don't have an interest at stake. You just want to see justice done.”

“Even if he did listen to me, I'm not going to lie, Cyrene. The situation with Magoth and me had nothing to do with the reason you neglected your spring.”

“Of course it does! I was so worried about you!” she protested, and I sighed as I heard the sincerity in her voice. I knew that in her mind, she had fully justified her actions by using me as a scapegoat. I thought about arguing the point with her, but long experience with Cyrene had taught me one thing: she was going to win. Somehow, no matter how firm my intentions, I always ended up caving in and helping her. “All right, I'll give him a call. What's his number?”

“You'll have to see him in person,” she said brightly, happiness brimming from her voice. “He doesn't believe in cell phones. And you're lucky—he's in Portugal for a big surfing competition, so you won't have far to go to see him.”

“
We
won't have far to go,” I corrected, a note of steel entering my voice as I spotted Gabriel waiting for me at the entrance of the shop.

“We?” Cyrene asked, her voice almost inaudible.

“Oh, yes. If I have to go see Neptune, you're coming with me.”

“But—”

“Where exactly is he?” I interrupted with ruthless determination. I might have to help Cyrene out of yet another sticky situation, but by the twelve gods, I wasn't going to lose any more time with Gabriel than I already had. I'd make a very fast visit to Portugal, convince Cyrene's boss that she was as innocent as she possibly could be, and return to Gabriel's arms.

“The surfing competition is in Faro,” Cy answered slowly. “But really, May, I think it would be better—”

“I'll meet you there . . . Let me think . . . I have a dragon meeting today, and although I don't think there's anything pressing on the calendar immediately following it, I would like a little time alone to reacquaint myself with Gabriel. How about we do this in four days?”

“I suppose that would be all right,” Cyrene said in a voice tinged with disappointment. “It's so very kind of you to take time out of your busy life for me.”

I gave the phone a wry smile. “You don't do catty well, Cy; you never have.”

“I know,” she said, sighing. “Four days is all right. I have a few things to do, myself.”

“What sort of things?” I asked, suddenly suspicious.

“Oh . . . you'll see.”

“Cyrene Northcott, if you are up to anything—”

“I would hate to have a mind as suspicious as yours; I really would,” she answered with annoying and completely unreasonable self-righteousness. “I'm not up to anything, as you insist on putting it. But I do have work of my own to do, you know.”

“Uh-huh. If you'd been attending to that a little more closely, and fawning over Kostya a little less, I wouldn't have to make time for a trip out to see your surfer dude.”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Much as I would love to bandy wits, I've got to run. Gabriel is standing all by himself looking utterly delicious, and I have six weeks' worth of kissing to catch up on.”

“Mayling—”

“I'll see you on Wednesday. And, Cy, please try to stay out of trouble until then.”

“You never used to be this mean to me,” she answered sullenly as I got up and headed for Gabriel. “I don't think the time you spent in Abaddon did your character much good. I just hope you don't think you can talk to me like that all the time and get away with it! I am your twin, you know! You wouldn't be anywhere without me! You should really be thanking me for your existence rather than bullying me.”

I gently closed the phone as I stopped in front of Gabriel, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, the molten silver gaze so hot it all but singed. “Finished?” he asked.

“Cyrene isn't, but I am. Take me home?”

He didn't touch me, but he didn't need to. The look in his eyes was all it took to start a fire at my feet. “I'll take you, little bird, but it won't be home.”

I smiled. I could get used to being a wyvern's mate.

Chapter Seven

“
S
o this is a
sárkány
. Would it offend you if I said it looks like any other business meeting?” I whispered to Gabriel as we entered a large ballroom of one of the most prestigious hotels in Paris. The room was filled with people, the vast expanse of chairs that stretched across most of the golden ballroom already occupied. At the far end stood a large conference table, at which were placed only four chairs.

“That's what a
sárkány
is: a gathering of the wyverns to discuss weyr business.” Gabriel's hand was reassuring on my back as we stepped off the elevator and entered the large room. “One moment, Mayling. I have something for you.”

He tugged me aside into a corner, Maata and Tipene using their bodies to block the view.

“What's all this about?” I asked, confused.

Gabriel pulled a chain over his head. On the end of it was a large silverish oval locket, very thick, but finely worked. He put the chain over my head, tucking the locket into my shirt, nudging it down until it was nestled between my breasts.

“Keep it safe,” he said, adjusting my shirt slightly to show a little less cleavage.

“What is it?” I asked, touching the silver chain.

“It is the phylactery. I dared not leave it behind, and I hesitate to keep it on my person when Kostya may well show up. He has a tendency to attack first and ask questions later, and I would hate for him to see the phylactery while we were struggling.”

“But that's priceless. I don't want to be responsible for something priceless,” I said softly, not wanting to attract any attention. I tugged at his sleeve as he scanned the room. “Besides, it's made of gold. Drake smelled it on me before, when I had it in my bodice—he'll smell it on me again.”

“Not this time. He didn't smell it this morning, and I wore it all through breakfast. The phylactery is contained in a very special housing made of platinum. He will not notice it.”

“But,” I protested, following when he started forward. “But platinum is more valuable than gold. He'll just smell that and then everyone will know I've got something priceless on me.”

“Nothing is more valuable to a dragon than gold,” he answered, nodding as a couple of people greeted him. “Platinum dilutes the scent of gold. No one will know you are wearing it so long as you keep it hidden.”