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  “Mayling!”

  I slid off him, collapsing onto my stomach, the blanket beneath me cool on my fevered flesh.

  “Little bird, did I hurt you?”

  The hand that grasped my shoulder was human again, the fingers long and sensitive. I laid my cheek on the bed, clutching the blanket as my body shook with the aftereffects of both Gabriel’s attentions and my own realization.

  I was me, May, created wholly formed, and independent of all, even those to whom I was bound. Even when I had accepted my role as Gabriel’s mate, when I had agreed that we were fated to be together, it never occurred to me that he would become necessary to the very act of living.

  I had just survived a six-week separation from him. And yet I knew at that moment, knew without a shred of doubt, that quite simply I could not exist without him. It was a terrifying realization, one that left me feeling powerless and angry.

  The hand on my shoulder slid away. “Did I frighten you?” Gabriel asked, his voice quieter, filled with emotion.

  I turned my head to look at him. “Yes,” I answered.

  Pain was visible in his eyes. “I’m sorry. I would not frighten you for the world, but I cannot control the shifting—”

  “No,” I interrupted, sitting up. “It wasn’t that. You meant it, didn’t you?”

  He was silent for a moment, no doubt reading my thoughts. “Yes, I meant it. You are life to me, May.”

  “But you told me you were born in the seventeen hundreds. How could you live for three hundred years without me?”

  He examined my face for a moment before leaning forward, his kiss so sweet it made me want to melt. “Before you, I merely existed. Now I will truly begin to live.”

  Chapter Five

  “Weh-hell, look what the cat dragged in.”

  I entered the dining room, determined to keep my face placid despite the fact that everyone in the house had probably heard Gabriel and me the night before. “Good morning.”

  Jim, demon in Newfoundland dog form, looked up from where it lay on the floor with a copy of a Paris newspaper, cocking one furry eyebrow at me as it examined me from toes to nose. “Wow. I would have thought you’d at least be walking funny or something after all that boink—”

  “Jim!” Aisling snapped, grabbing up a magazine and leaning over to whap the demon. She gasped instead, dropping the magazine and grabbing at her belly. Instantly, Drake, who was seated at the other end of the table, was at her side, kneeling next to her.

  “Kincsem, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine; it’s just a muscle twinge.”

  Gabriel, who had been standing behind me, his hand warm on my back, moved around me to Aisling’s other side. He put a hand on her belly. “What did it feel like? Have you had any other pain this morning?”

  A completely irrational desire to yank him away from her washed over me, a desire I stomped upon as firmly as possible. I may still be struggling with the depth of feelings I felt for Gabriel, but I was not going to let jealousy get the better of me.

  “Stop touching my mate!” Drake demanded, scowling at Gabriel’s hand on Aisling’s very pregnant stomach.

  I wholly approved of Drake’s demand.

  “I am a healer,” Gabriel answered, squatting next to Aisling. He pressed gently on different parts of her belly. “If she is in labor, I can help her with the pain.”

  I moved over to stand directly behind him, nudging him with my knee.

  “Guys, I’m not in labor. I just moved too quickly, OK?” Aisling said.

  “Take your hands off her,” Drake said in a low voice that sounded very much like a growl.

  Jim sucked in its breath, sitting up to watch.

  “I’m not hurting her,” Gabriel answered, bending over her belly as he continued to gently prod her. “I’m simply trying to ascertain if she’s in labor or not. Aisling, is the pain sharp or dull?”

  The door opened, and Gabriel’s two bodyguards, Tipene and Maata, entered. Behind them came one of Drake’s men, a thick-necked, redheaded man named István. The latter picked up on Gabriel’s question.

  “Aisling is in pain? She is having the baby?”

  “I should examine you more fully,” Gabriel said, smiling at Aisling as he took her hand. “Do not worry, Aisling. I have delivered many dragons over the centuries. My mother is a very good midwife and has taught me well.”

  Drake snatched up her other hand. “You will not examine my mate any further! We have an excellent green-dragon midwife who is attending her. Now, get away from her before I have you removed!”

  Aisling looked perfectly fine to me. She rolled her eyes, casting a pleading look skyward. I might not have experience in this area, but it was clear to me that she was not in labor. I shot a glare at Gabriel, grinding my teeth just a little at the stupidity of what was normally such a bright man, my fingers itching to pry his hand from Aisling’s.

  “I will tell you once more—remove your hands from her!” Drake’s voice got even more menacing.

  “Gabriel, I think she would know if she was in labor,” I said, nudging the dragon of my dreams a bit more forcefully.

  “A voice of reason at last,” Aisling said, giving me a smile. “Guys, I’m not—”

  István turned in the doorway and bellowed out of it. “Pál! Call the midwife! Aisling is in labor! I will call Nora and Rene. They wish to be here, yes? Should I boil water?”

  He evidently asked the last bit of Maata, who, as the female member of Gabriel’s attendants, was obviously expected to know the answer. Maata looked surprised. “Would it make you feel better to boil water?” she asked.

  István nodded his head vigorously. “It is done, is it not? The boiling of water? It is important. I saw it in a movie.”

  “Then, by all means, boil water,” she answered.

  István nodded again, announced to the room in general, “I boil water!” and rushed out to suit action to word.

  Pál, the second of Drake’s two redheaded bodyguards, slammed into István as he was leaving, scattering apologies as he dashed into the room, a cell phone in his hand. “The midwife’s phone is busy!” he said, offering the phone to Drake as proof.

  “Oh, man, if there’s going to be baby juice and blood and guck, I’m getting out of here,” Jim said, sidling around the clutch of people that surrounded Aisling. “I’m going to Amelie’s to be with Cecile. Someone tell me when it’s all over.”

  “Hello, can anyone hear me? I’m not in labor!” Aisling said.

  “What should I do?” Pál asked Drake, shaking the phone at him. “It is busy! Busy! How can it be busy?”

  A little wisp of smoke escaped Drake’s nose as he glared at the phone. “It should not be busy. Go fetch her. There is no business she can have as important as this.”

  Pál didn’t stop to answer; he just bolted from the room.

  “Oh, for the love of Pete! I’m not in pain! And unless dragons have some sort of painless labor, a notion your mother vehemently says is false, then I’m not having the baby,” Aisling said, but was drowned out by Maata asking if Gabriel needed help at the same time Tipene offered to take over midwife phone duty.

  Gabriel stood, putting one arm behind Aisling, obviously about to lift her out of the chair.

  “I will take you upstairs to your room and examine you. You could be further along than you think.”

  “Gabriel,” Drake said in a low, mean voice, his eyes narrow slits of emerald. I had the feeling he was a cat about to pounce.

  Aisling looked at me. “How do you feel about violence against your loved ones?”

  I eyed a nearby silver coffee carafe. It looked heavy enough to dent even the densest of dragon skulls. “I’m starting to see the appeal of it.”

  “I completely under—oh!” Aisling hunched forward again as Gabriel slid his arm under her legs.

  Drake exploded, slamming Gabriel up against the wall, snarling something that sounded vicious, his arm against Gabriel’s windpipe.

 
Maata and Tipene were instantly at his side but at a gesture from Gabriel backed away.

  “Drake, let him down. It’s just a twinge, nothing more!” Aisling said, waving me toward them. “Stop him, May. Although don’t hurt him; I’m rather fond of him as he is, overprotective tendencies and all.”

  I tapped Drake politely on the shoulder. “Would you mind letting Gabriel down? I promise I won’t let him hold Aisling’s hand anymore. Or touch her stomach.”

  Drake eyed Gabriel for a moment. I have to admit that Gabriel surprised me by not fighting back. Having seen him go at it with Drake’s black-dragon brother, Kostya, I knew he was not one to remain passive when attacked. But he stayed still, not struggling at all despite the fact that his face was gaining a dull red tint due to lack of oxygen.

  “All right,” Drake said at last, removing his hold on Gabriel. “But I will hold you responsible for his actions.”

  Gabriel’s eyes flashed in warning, but Aisling bursting into laughter defused the situation enough that he could see the ridiculousness of such a comment.

  I touched a faintly swollen spot on Gabriel’s neck. “Would you like me to kiss what hurts and make it better?” I asked softly.

  He’d been looking at Aisling, obviously about to make some observation about her health, but at my words a new look of interest filled his eyes. “Only if I get to pick what needs kissing.”

  “I am so glad Jim is not present to hear that, because it would no doubt make all sorts of inappropriate comments that would force me to smack it with a rolled-up magazine, and then we’d be back to Gabriel groping my stomach and Drake having a hissy fit,” Aisling said, helping herself to a glass of orange juice. “Please do have some breakfast, you two. Without any ribald intent to the following comment, you both look like you could use a little food. Did you tell May about the sárkány yet?”

  “The what?” I asked, distracted when Gabriel, in the act of seating me next to Aisling, trailed his fingers across the back of my bare neck.

  “Sárkány. It’s Hungarian, isn’t it, sweetie?” she asked Drake.

  “Sárkányok is the term for Hungarian dragons. A sárkány is traditionally a dragon in the form of a multiheaded giant,” he answered.

  Gabriel took a seat across the table. “The term has been adopted to represent a weyr meeting called to discuss issues pertaining to a specific wyvern or sept.”

  “Ah. Something about the troublesome Kostya? Is he still petitioning to take over your sept?” I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Kostya had continued his unauthorized war against the silver dragons. His sept had been wiped out by their own wyvern in a tragic attempt to bring the silver dragons—at one time black dragons, but long since autonomous—back into the fold. “Don’t tell me he’s been trying to steal the phylactery again.”

  “No, the phylactery is safe,” Drake answered. He frowned and looked over to Gabriel. “It is safe?”

  “Very,” Gabriel answered, his voice once again rich and velvety smooth.

  Drake continued to study him. “You don’t have it with you?”

  “I don’t believe I said that,” Gabriel said, making a gesture of nonchalance as he buttered a piece of cold toast.

  “Where is it?” Drake asked.

  “It’s safe. Does it matter where it is kept so long as Kostya will not find it?”

  Drake’s slight frown turned even blacker as he narrowed his eyes at Gabriel. “It matters because it is the Lindorm Phylactery. It is a priceless piece of the dragon heart. To treat it in a cavalier manner—”

  “You do not need to lecture me as if I was a young dragon learning his history,” Gabriel interrupted, a slight frown of his own pulling his brows together. “I may not have been wyvern as long as you have, but I am not untried, nor am I a fool. I would never treat the phylactery in any manner other than what is it due . . . unlike some dragons.”

  Drake rose slowly from his chair, a nasty light in his eyes. “Are you implying that I would—”

  Aisling’s voice cut through the suddenly tense atmosphere. “Don’t make me fake a labor pain in order to get you two guys out of what is shaping up to be a really world-class pissing contest.”

  Drake shot her a glare. She blew him a kiss and motioned him back to his seat. I eyed Gabriel. A muscle that I was coming to view as a barometer of his feelings twitched in his jaw, but he made an effort to relax the grip he held on his knife, and managed to continue buttering his toast.

  “I thought you two were friends,” I said to him, nodding at Drake. “Don’t you go back centuries?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said, and applied himself to a thick slab of ham.

  Drake said nothing, but sipped an espresso. “Despite what you’re seeing here, they actually are friends,” Aisling told me. “It’s just that things were a little dicey for a while when Gabriel . . . err . . .”

  “When he tried to poison you?” I asked, having heard something of Gabriel’s recent experiences with the Guardian.

  “I didn’t poison her. I saved her life,” Gabriel said without meeting my eye. I had a horrible feeling he could sense the unreasonable swell of jealousy that seemed to burst into being whenever I thought about Aisling and him having some sort of relationship that went beyond what was appropriate.

  Gabriel’s eyes flashed silver at me for a moment before he returned his gaze to his plate, but I could see him fighting to keep his dimples from showing.

  The rat.

  “You saved her after you betrayed us,” Drake said in a deceptively mild voice.

  “What matters is that it’s all over and done with, and everything is forgiven and forgotten,” Aisling said in a loud voice, shooting a meaningful glance at her wyvern. “We’re all friends here, no matter how prickly the boys may get now and again.”

  “Prickly!” Gabriel objected.

  “Boys!” Drake added, an outraged look on his face.

  Aisling giggled.

  “Why did you betray them?” I asked Gabriel.

  Silence, heavy and pregnant, fell upon the room. Gabriel studied me for a moment before answering. “Fiat Blu, the wyvern of the blue dragons, used Aisling to strike at Drake. I tried to reason with him, but Fiat has always been . . .”

  “Insane,” Aisling offered.

  “Unreasonable,” Drake said.

  “. . . difficult,” Gabriel finished. “He would not listen to my attempts to defuse the situation, leaving me in an awkward position. I did the best I could to rein him back from the destruction I knew he would inflict, but he was more unbalanced than I thought, and he succeeded in poisoning Aisling before I could stop him.”

  I sipped my coffee as I mulled over what he was saying. “What happened to the unbalanced Fiat? Didn’t you tell me there were two blue wyverns?”

  “There can only be one true wyvern at any time,” he answered.

  “You’ve been taking answer-avoidance lessons from Drake,” Aisling told Gabriel. “I’ll tell you what I know, May, although I have to pry every little bit of information from these guys.”

  “I’ve noticed that particular trait myself,” I murmured.

  Aisling gave her husband a long look that he ignored. “I gather that Fiat’s uncle Bastian—who, I have to admit, kind of wigs me out because even though he’s Fiat’s uncle and a hundred years older, he looks the same age as Fiat. Anyway, Bastian was born to be wyvern, but Fiat somehow convinced everyone in his sept that Bastian was insane, and he took over as wyvern instead.”

  “Bastian tried to usurp Fiat several times, but failed,” Gabriel said as he gutted an apple. “There. I have been forthcoming with information not asked of me. Now will you stop shooting annoyed glances at me, little bird?”

  I smiled. I couldn’t help myself; he was just so completely charming when he dimpled at me.

  “A couple of months ago my uncle, my friend Rene, Jim, and I went to free Bastian, and he immediately took over control of the sept as the rightful wyvern. Only he let Fiat escape, and now the blu
e sept is divided, with some of the dragons following Fiat, and others swearing to support Bastian.”

  “A civil war? That doesn’t sound good,” I said, wondering whether that was going to affect the silver dragons. The gods knew Gabriel had enough on his plate without heaping blue-dragon issues on it as well.

  “It serves to keep Fiat busy, and away from us,” Drake grunted. He stood up, going around to help Aisling out of her chair.

  She made a wry face. “Fiat isn’t happy with me for what he views as a betrayal, which coming from him is pretty laughable. My money is on Bastian, though. He’s been biding his time, and I think he’s going to make a great wyvern. But you can judge him for yourself when you see him at the sárkány, May. Thanks, sweetie. I need to visit the mothers-to-be room quickly, so don’t talk about anything good until I get back.”

  Gabriel waited until Aisling had left the room before cocking an eyebrow at Drake. “Still haven’t told her she’s not going to the sárkány?”

  “No.” Drake grimaced. “She’s not going to be pleased, but it is too dangerous. She will just have to understand.”

  Gabriel cast a considering glance my way. “May-ling, if you were in Aisling’s shoes, and I forbade you to attend a weyr meeting to which you wished to go, what would you do?”

  “I’m a shadow walker. I would simply slip into the shadow world and go anyway. But if I was Aisling herself, I’d probably grab the nearest blunt instrument and smack you upside the head, then go to the meeting.”

  Drake snorted. “Aisling is not so crass. She would not behave in such a manner.” He paused as he walked past me, eyeing for a moment a small stone bust of a woman that sat on an isolated pedestal. He picked up the bust and stuffed it into one of the sideboard cupboards, a set look to his face as Gabriel laughed out loud.