Up In Smoke (19 page)

“No, it doesn't.” Gabriel looked thoughtful for a few minutes. I was about to broach the most important bit of news when he said, “Tell me about the female who was with him.”

“The redhead?” I frowned, trying to pull together my memories. “I don't know what there is to tell about her. She looked perfectly normal, a little on the tall side, with coppery red hair and a slightly German accent. And she was a dragon.”

“No,” Maata said, looking up from her laptop.

“No what?” Gabriel asked her.

“No, she was not a dragon.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Are you sure? She felt to me like a dragon.”

“She was not a dragon. She had dragon blood, yes, but she was not a dragon,” Maata insisted.

“Mixed heritage, you mean?” I asked, looking back at Gabriel. “But isn't that the definition of a wyvern?”

“Not necessarily,” he answered. “A wyvern must have one human parent and one dragon parent.”

“I don't see the difference.”

“The woman with the dark-haired one was not human,” Maata said, looking rather cryptically at Gabriel.

“Oh, I understand now. You mean she might have a dragon father and a nonhuman mother, say like a sylph or something?”

Maata nodded.

“You seem really interested in her,” I said, eyeing the man at my side. “Should I work up a jealous fit or just go invest in a case of copper hair dye?”

His dimples flashed for a moment. “Neither. If I am interested, it is simply because of what the woman is not.”

“Meaning she wasn't a wyvern's mate named Ysolde?” I asked, wondering whether he'd been thinking about that, as I had.

He nodded. “This female, whoever she is, was not Ysolde. Which I admit makes your case for the dragon not being Baltic a bit stronger.”

“Because Ysolde was his mate, and if she died, then he'd be dead, too? I agree.” I twined my fingers through his, momentarily comforted by the contact before the dragon shard decided I needed more.

I stood up and went to the window to look out on a rainy Paris.

“Ysolde was believed to have been Constantine Norka's mate, not Baltic's,” Gabriel said in a neutral tone.

I leaned against the window and cocked an eyebrow at him. “That sounds like you're not sure she was.”

“I do not know for certain either way—I am simply stating the facts as they are known. Regardless of the female's identity, your description of the conversation increases my desire to meet this mysterious dragon.”

I glanced at Maata. She watched me with close attention, clearly leaving it to me to tell Gabriel of the important happening.

“There's more,” I said. “Right after whoever-he-is left, Fiat and Bao had a few words.”

“That doesn't surprise me,” Gabriel said. “Fiat has always been subject to volatile emotions, and he seems especially unstable now.”

I took a deep breath. “More than you imagine. He beheaded Bao.”

To my complete and utter surprise, he didn't leap up or exclaim in shock. Instead he nodded. “I expected something of that sort.”

“You expected it?” I asked. “Why?”

“It relates to my news,” he said, rising to take my hands in his. “Two hours before you landed in Paris, Fiat sent a message to the weyr announcing that he had challenged and defeated Bao for control of the red sept.”

“He did no such thing. He murdered her, pure and simple,” I said, outraged. “There was no challenge language whatsoever—he just snatched a sword from the wall and lopped off her head. Or at least we assume that's what he did; fortunately, his men covered up the two separate parts of her that they hauled off.”

“He has clearly overstepped the bounds of weyr laws and must be dealt with immediately.” Gabriel looked past me, sightlessly gazing out of the window. “The problem is—”

“May! You're back! Oh, I'm so happy to see you again!”

Gabriel froze at the bright, sickeningly chirpy voice, followed by the person of Sally.

She hurried into the room, clad in some sort of frilly pink and lavender capri pant set, her face beaming with joy as she stopped in front of me, kissing the air millimeters away from my cheeks.

“Hello, Sally,” I said slowly. “I see you're still here.”

“She says she can't leave,” Gabriel said in a voice completely lacking in expression. I assumed it was his way of being polite.

She giggled, shooting him a flirtatious look. “May, there's so much we have to talk about! That silly Magoth needed some me time—you know how men are, always thinking the world revolves around them when it's clearly we women who run things—anyway, he sent me here to learn all the ins and outs of consorting, not that I really need to do so because as you well know, I'm destined for greater things than a lowly position like the one you have. Hello again, Gabriel. You are looking especially handsome.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose at the way she positively purred his name.

“More handsome than half an hour ago, when you told him the same thing?” Tipene asked with studied nonchalance as he continued to tap away at his laptop.

Sally ignored him.

“Sally,” I said, smiling as pleasantly as I could. “Do you remember what I told you on the phone?”

Her seductive little smile at Gabriel faded as she eyed me instead. “I do, and sugar, we need to have a little talk about that. While I applaud the style of your threat—the gluing hair on backwards part was particularly inventive, and bows made of entrails are always suitable at a torture session—I do have to withdraw a few points for lack of follow-through. Everyone knows a threat is really only intimidating if the threatener has the ability to actually conduct the action upon the threatenee, and you are so clearly not the sort of person who carries a disemboweling knife upon herself . . . oh.”

Sally made a little expression of unhappiness as I pulled the dagger out of its sheath at my ankle.

“I see I was mistaken,” she said, taking a step away from Gabriel.

“Have I mentioned how adorable you are when you're jealous?” the latter asked me, his eyes dancing with laughter.

“It's a mistake I would urge you to not make again,” I told Sally pleasantly. “Forgive me for being blunt, but it's been a long twenty-four hours. What exactly would it take to get you to leave?”

“Well!” she said, her nostrils flaring in offense. She slid a glance along to Gabriel. “You see? This is what I was speaking of. She's clearly much more suitable as dear Magoth's consort, not that he has any idea of May's true character, the poor, misguided fool.”

I blinked in surprise. While Sally might be an unconventional candidate for demon lord, she had thus far maintained an attitude of respect for Magoth. “Did you just call Magoth a fool?”

“Did I? I wouldn't know; I'm too busy being hurt by your extreme lack of any and all social graces. But it does not take a leviathan to hit me over the head.” She lifted her chin and tried for a quelling glare down her nose at me. “It is clear to me that you do not wish for my company at this time. Naturally, I will not stay where I am not wanted, even though my removal will clearly put you in violation of your role as consort, and thus will mean your imminent demise. But that concerns me not. I will go pack my things and leave as soon as I can.”

Gabriel stopped her, not that she was trying very hard to leave. “What do you mean it will mean May's imminent demise?”

“And how, exactly, would asking you to leave be violating my consorthood?” I asked.

She issued an injured sniff. “If you had taken the time to read the pertinent section of the Doctrine of Unending Conscious, you'd know that consorts to demon lords are bound to follow the laws set down in the doctrine exactly, and that any violations would leave you in contempt of the very legal and binding contract you agreed to when you became Magoth's consort.”

“I've read the Doctrine, and I don't remember seeing anything about contempt,” I said slowly, poking through the memories of all the important points of the set of laws that govern Abaddon.

“Then either you have an extremely poor memory, or you simply didn't take in the full meaning of the Doctrine, because it's all there: the laws that you agreed to, and the punishments that will be meted out should you be found in violation, which, in the matter of consorts, means immediate and unconditional loss of status.” She smiled, a ghastly smile, one that reaffirmed my belief that she would be well suited to the role of demon lord. “Loss of status is bound to mean your utter and complete destruction, in this and all other plains of existence.”

Gabriel frowned at me. “May, you did not tell me about this.”

“That's because there's nothing at all about a consort being destroyed in the Doctrine,” I objected, horror growing inside me. “I swear I read the Doctrine the whole way through, Gabriel, and there was nothing there about a consort risking the loss of her existence.”

“It's not in the Doctrine per se,” Sally said as she examined a pale pink fingernail.

“It's not? Then why—”

“It's in one of the codicils,” she said, interrupting me. Although her expression was still one of haughty disdain, there was a marked sense of enjoyment that even I could feel. “Surely you read the volume of codicils?”

I looked at Gabriel. He looked back at me, his face passive. I was about to explain to him that I didn't know there was such a thing as codicils to the Doctrine when the dragon shard decided that if I was going to be this near Gabriel, I should stop wasting time and get on with the business of mating.

Desire crashed over me in a tidal wave that left me breathless, and filled only with a deep, desperate need for Gabriel. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from flinging them around him, struggling to calm my suddenly wildly beating heart. I closed my eyes, focused on the inner war that raged between the dragon shard and myself, determined to beat it once and for all. I was not going to give in to it. I would have Gabriel on my terms, and no other.

“May?” I heard him ask. “Are you ill?”

His voice rubbed along my skin like silk, causing me to shiver with arousal. I opened my eyes, fully intending to tell him that I was just suffering from exhaustion, but Gabriel, drat his sensitive dragon self, instantly read the emotions that roiled around inside me.

“Little bird,” he said softly, his nearness leaving me trembling with a desperate, overwhelming, unending wanting that consumed everything I was. He took a step toward me, his eyes flashing with silver fire as he answered the silent call my body made.

The wall behind me started smoking. I squelched the fire before it could burn it, still fighting to control the emotions that swamped me. Gabriel took another step forward, his head lowered so he could look deep into my eyes.

“Hello? Excuse me, it's very rude to just suddenly ignore someone like this. May, if you really don't care about whether or not you exist, that's fine by me. I'll just go get a room at the nearest Sheraton. But I really don't think you've thought the whole situation through, not that I particularly mind, although it is a shame that Gabriel will have to die, too. That's right, isn't it? If a dragon's mate dies, he dies as well? I read that somewhere, although it sounds incredibly inconvenient to me.”

“Mate,” Gabriel said, the word as much a caress as his breath touching my cheek.

I closed my eyes for a second, digging my fingers into the cloth of my shirt in order to keep from touching him. I would not give in to the shard. I would not lose any more of myself.

His breath was warm on my neck. I opened my eyes and turned my head slightly, my fingers aching as I refused to give in to my untoward desires. He breathed in deeply, and I knew he was inhaling my scent, refreshing the memory of it in his mind, pulling it deeply into his body.

“Go,” he said, his lips bruising my jaw as he spoke.

I stood trembling, fighting with myself, my body racked with a terrible need that blotted everything else from my mind but him. His eyes were molten, pure silver, the pupils having elongated until they were the merest slivers of black. “Fly, little bird.”

And suddenly, I was running, racing out of the room, my blood pounding as I tore down the stairs to the lower levels of the hotel. The chase was all that filled my mind, that and the images that Gabriel shared with me of a dragon mating dance as old as time.

I was possessed with a yearning to touch him, to run my hands along the warm lines of his body. My body continued to flee, but my mind was busy with the thought of stroking him, of the feel of the warm skin covering steely muscles. I imagined my fingers tracing out the lines of his chest, and heard the answering moan of pleasure from his mind. I remembered what it was like to taste him, how silky his skin was as I slid my hands lower, along his flanks.

He growled in my mind, a warning that I was pushing his arousal hard and fast, and that he would not hold back when he found me. I ran down the stairs, the mental seduction almost too much for me to bear.

His voice spoke in my mind, words that held no meaning for me, but I knew that it was a mating chant, binding one dragon to another, part of the intricate dance we were even now conducting.

I flung myself down a final set of stairs, bursting out into the hotel lobby, seeing nothing, feeling only Gabriel as he set off in pursuit of me. His emotions were mine, a shared whirlpool fueled by the most primitive part of dragons—the need to chase, to conquer, and most of all, to possess.

But I was not a dragon.

Chapter Ten