My entire body quivered as a result of his heated words. I had to lick my lips in order to get them to work, and I noticed with dismay that my voice cracked when I spoke. "I bet if we tried we could work that into our schedules."
Drake chuckled, his eyes leaving me in no doubt that although his wyvernly code of honor might forbid him from pursuing those activities that my body ached to pursue, he would satisfy both our desires later.
I glanced at him as we went downstairs. "I love the dress, not that you were in any doubt of it, I'm sure, but I thought you said to wear something washable?"
"I changed my mind. I like you in this better."
"So do I. Where is this party being held?" I asked once we had settled into the Hmo. Istvan and Pal were up front again, leaving Drake and me in sole possession of the back. "And is it far enough away that I can molest you before we get there?"
"I thought you had something important to tell me," he said, his arm solid where it rested next to me,
"I do, but I think if I put my mind to it I can fit in both telling you about the important stuff and kissing you until your dragon eyes cross."
He didn't laugh, as I thought he would. He didn't even give me the patented Drake sexy look. He just stroked my arm and remained silent.
"Drake?" I touched his leg. ''I've been selfish, haven't I? I'm sorry I haven't asked you about your day. How did the negotiations go?"
'They are at an impasse for the moment, but I hope things will move forward again tomorrow."
"Ah. I hope so, too." I fell silent, waiting to see if he would say more, but Drake at his most relaxed was never a chatty soul, and now, with the weighty concerns of dragon politics, he was even less verbose. But things had changed. He had me now. While I might be no great shakes at being a mate, at least I could listen, giving him an opportunity to vent if he needed it. "We've had kind of a rocky beginning, Drake, but I want you to know that I'm here for you if you want to talk about things. Is there something that's bothering you?"
He looked downright nervous, his eyes shuttered, his jaw as tense as the fingers that gripped my arm. "I suppose it would be best if you were prepared."
"Prepared for what?" Why was I suddenly suspicious? Why did I have a feeling that something was coming up that Drake didn't want to tell me about, something to do with me? Something unpleasant. "Just what exactly is this party we're going to?"
"I wouldn't particularly call the gathering a party," Drake said, evading the question just as he always did, but I haven't tangled with demons and doppelgangers and assorted other strange beings without learning a thing or two, especially about a certain dragon and the way he liked to dodge giving answers.
I plopped myself onto his lap (carefully, so as to avoid unduly wrinkling the gorgeous dress) and pushed him back so he couldn't escape looking at me. "Right, let's have it. What's going on? You said we were going to a green dragon function. You said it was to introduce me to the sept."
"I said you would be introduced to the members of the sept in residence in this area. And so you will be." His eyes didn't blink once as I peered into them. With Drake, the usual signs that someone was lying were useless. What was, however, a dead giveaway was the way his pupils reacted. Whenever he was at his most dragonish, his most evasive, his pupils got very, very narrow. At that moment, his eyes looked like they were set with clear emeralds. They had almost no visible pupil.
"And?" I poked him in the shoulder to let him know I wasn't going to be satisfied with half an answer.
He sighed, his fingers digging into my hips as if to hold me down. "Do you recall last month when you challenged me for control of the sept?"
'That's not something I'm likely to forget."
"Nor I. According to the terms of the challenge, if I lost, I had to turn myself in to the police for murders I did not commit."
"Right. But you didn't lose, because I knew you didn't murder the Venediger and Mme Deauxville."
"Which means you did lose the challenge."
I frowned. His pupils were still thin vertical lines. Why wasn't he relaxing? "I planned it that way, if you remember."
His breath ruffled little tendrils of hair that escaped the couple of jeweled combs with which I'd pinned it. "Aisling, part of the terms of the challenge was that if you lost, you would be subject to punishment meted out by the sept."
Oh, crap. I'd forgotten all about that.
"Punishment?" I asked for the second time that night. Only this time I was much, much more worried. The dragons took their oaths very seriously. "I remember. But I kind of thought that since I'm now officially your mate, that whole punishment thing would be forgotten."
"It isn't," he said dryly.
"I guess not. So that's what's going on tonight? You're taking me to be punished by your sept? The people who obey every single command you give them?"
"I seldom issue commands, mate."
I scooted off his lap, sure not only that whatever it was that was planned for the evening was not going to be fun but that Drake would do nothing to stop it.
"You know, just when I think things are just about as horrible as they can get, something like a dragon gang punishment happens. OK. I'm resigned. I made the challenge, I accepted the terms, even though I'd like to remind you that I set the whole thing up so you would be cleared and the real murderer revealed. How am I going to be punished?"
He shrugged, taking my hand.
I tried to pull it back. "I don't want you holding my hand."
"I know you don't." He didn't release my hand, tfiough. He just stroked my fingers until they uncurled against his.
"I don't want to be punished, Drake. Punishment is never fun, and right now I have an awful lot of non-fun stuff on my plate. Is there any way you can order your dragons to not punish me?"
"Yes."
I looked at him, hope burgeoning within me.
"But I won't"
Hope fled. I wished I could go with it.
He turned to face me, my hand caught between his. "Understand me, Aisling—I could command my sept to disregard the punishment due you, but to do so would undermine my leadership. It would leave me open to another challenge, a serious challenge from a dragon who wished to take control of the sept. Such a challenge would divide the green dragons and result in much suffering for everyone before it was resolved. As much as I dislike the thought of you receiving punishment, I will not sacrifice the welfare of my clan for this."
"I understand," I said, more than a little bit surprised because I really did understand. Although I doubted Drake about many things, I never once questioned that he put himself second to the welfare of his sept. He was a born leader, and even in human form, he wore the mantle of responsibility well. I accepted that when I accepted him—but that didn't make it rankle any less. "You didn't answer my question about how I'm to be punished."
"I cannot. No, don't look daggers at me. I am not being evasive. It is not me who decides your punishment—that is left up to a convocation drawn for that purpose. Members of my sept have flown in from many countries to consider the type and extent of your punishment."
"Convocation? They've flown in?" I had a horrible feeling my mouth was hanging open. "People have flown here to discuss me? Good god, Drake! This doesn't sound like a simple failed-a-challenge punishment. This sounds serious."
His thumb stroked a circle on my bare arm. "It is serious. I told you that last month, when you challenged me."
"You didn't say I was likely to die over it!"
"You will not die. At least... no. You will not. For all intents and purposes, you are immortal now, Aisling. Your body can withstand much more abuse than when it was mortal."
Abuse? Good lord!
"Your reassurance technique totally sucks," I said, jerking away from him, scooting over to sit in the corner, my arms crossed over my chest. "Just don't tell me any more. You're not making me feel any better."
Drake didn't try to follow me, or soothe me, or tell me that whatever
inventive punishment his sept had come up with wouldn't actually kill me. He just sat there and looked out the window, as if it didn't matter to him in the least that he was taking me to a group of people whose sole purpose was figuring out ways to punish my newly immortal self. What if the immortal thing hadn't had time to take effect yet? What if they went to whip me, or use red-hot pokers, or any of the other Savaronella-esque Inquisition tortures that suddenly popped into my mind with startlingly clear detail? What if I hadn't been an official mate long enough for my body to convert wholly to one that could withstand dragon punishment?
Might serve him right if I did die. Jim had told me once that dragons mate for life, which meant that if for some reason I died, Drake would end up grieving himself into the grave, too. I peeked at him from under my eyelashes. He might irritate me with his arrogance and unbending nature, and he might drive me nuts with all the rules and laws of the dragons, but I didn't want him to die. I wasn't willing to admit to being head over heels in love with him—that seemed like such an uncomfortable thing—but I certainly wasn't uncaring. There was a lot of emotion tied up with Drake—I just didn't want to look at it too closely, lest something happen.
Something like I get tortured to death. Gah!
Fortunately for my sanity, I didn't have long to wait before we arrived at our destination. glanced at the bright blue-and-purple neon sign above the door and turned to Drake. "You must have paid Flavia for her floor."
He gestured toward the door. A doorman held it open, P£l and Istvan flanking either side. I licked my lips, nerves making my stomach turn somersaults. "Do we have to do this in public? It can't be good for the negotiations if Gabriel and Fiat and Chuan Ren see me being humiliated in front of everyone."
"This is a matter for the green dragons, not the other septs. No one is present but members of this clan."
"Oh. Good. I think. Although come to think of it, maybe we should call them all up and see how they feel about me being destroyed—"
Drake didn't lay a finger on me, he just gave me another slitty-irised look.
I stopped stalling and marched past him, pausing long enough to say, "I am not going to forget this, Drake Vireo. Assuming I survive, I'm going to remember this for a very ... long ... time."
I swept into the club with my head held high, clutching the ragged talters of my pride, telling myself that although I wanted lo be furious with Drake, I really had put myself in this situation, That didn't mean I couldn't glare at him a lot, though, which I did. At every possible moment. He didn't try to avoid my glares, either. He just stood watching me, impassive as the group of fifty or so people, all dressed to the nines, held a court. I was offered a chair. I refused it, figuring the pain of my feet stuffed into unaccustomed stilettos might possibly distract me from the red-hot pokers.
As if.
Other than Istvan and P3I, I didn't recognize a single person there. They looked just as human as Drake and his bodyguards, but I wasn't fooled, not when I found out who was leading the team to pick a punishment.
Istvan smiled for the first time since I had left Paris.
18
What's he saying now?" I leaned to the side and asked Drake, who was sitting in a huge thronelike chair, lstvan had been pontificating for ten minutes, periodically gesturing toward me, the dragons in the audience nodding their heads at whatever he said. My one last wild hope that the members of the sept—those whose noogies hadn't almost been pierced by my lack of skill in throwing a dart—might take pity on their leader's new mate by ensuring she wouldn't die a cruel death.
"You don't want to know."
"Why? Does it involve some horrible torture?" Of course it did. This was lstvan we were talking about.
"No. He's telling them how uncontrolled you are and how you left last month swearing to have nothing to do with me or the green dragons."
I shifted my glare to Istvan. "Do I get to a chance to speak before they decide on the punishment?"
"You may speak, but the punishment has already been decided"
"Well, that's hardly fair!" I glared even harder at the back of Istvan's head. He was really going to town now, emoting like a soap opera actor.
'This is not about being fair, mate. It is a punishment."
"A few more minutes of Istvan soliloquizing up there, and they'll lynch me before I can be punished," I muttered. I thought I heard Drake laugh, but when I looked, he was as stone-faced as ever, the fingers tapping restlessly on the arm of his chair the only sign that he wasn't as unconcerned as he wanted me to believe.
Istvan wrapped up whatever it was he was saying, sweeping his arm toward me in a grand gesture. The audience looked stunned for a moment, then erupted into cheers. T locked my knees and fought like mad to keep from screaming and running from the room. I would not shame myself that way.
As my gaze moved along the front row of dragons cheering Istvan, I made a vow that no matter what they did to me, no matter how horribly they tortured me, I would not scream. I would not beg, or plead, or grovel. I was a Guardian, dammit. I was a demon lord. I was a frig-gin' wyvern's mate. I would face their punishment with dignity. I would not give them the satisfaction of seeing that I was terrified.
"I've changed my mind," I yelled a scant half hour later, clutching myself against the cold wind as I looked below at the tiny winking lights of cars passing beneath me. My dress whipped around my legs, snapping audibly. Although the summer evening was warm, the wind coming off the river definitely wasn't. "I'm fully prepared to scream my fool head off if that's what it takes to get me off of here!"
"I'm sorry, mate. It was the decision of the sept." Drake looked at me from the safe confines of the three-man bucket held aloft by the hydraulic crane arm of the aerial lift truck parked below. "I am sure you will have no difficulty finding a way down."
"Damn right I won't. My way down is you rescuing me!"
He shook his head, his hair ruffling in the same wind that snatched his words away almost before they reached me. "It is forbidden, kincsem. This is your punishment. It is for you alone to bear."
"Goddamn it, Drake!" I yelled as he flipped a lever in the big white metal bucket. "You can't leave me here! There's no way down!"
The bucket hummed to life, slowly pulling back from the edge of the stone platform upon which I was perched. "Be careful of the dress, Aisling. The emeralds sewn onto it are worth more than two hundred thousand dollars."
"Be careful of the dress?" I screamed, unable to believe what I was hearing. "Be careful of the dress? You dirty, rotten—" I stopped, looking down at the beautiful beaded embroidery of the gown, gently touching one of the faceted beads. "These are real emeralds?"
"Of course," he shouted back, the bucket starting to lower. His eyes glittered brighter than the emeralds. "You are my mate. I would not put you in costume jewelry."
I braced myself into the wind and leaned as far forward as I could without falling off the arch standing over the Buda side of the famous Chain Bridge. "If you don't get me off this damned bridge, you're not going to have a mate!"
He just blew me a kiss, the long hydraulic arm slowly folding down onto the body of the aerial lift truck below.
"Goddamn it, Drake, I take the point! I won't challenge you again! I've been punished enough... oh, hell."
He was gone. I watched as a tiny little itty-bitty speck that I knew was Drake climbed out of the bucket and got into the truck along with an Istvan-shaped speck. Then the truck left, driving across the bridge, leaving me completely alone.
"On the top of a frigging bridge!" I yelled to the night sky. I thought seriously about crying but decided that wouldn't do anything other than leave me with a stuffy nose. I walked the length of the tall, flat-topped arch, one of two that marked either end of the bridge that crossed the Danube connecting Buda to Pest, careful not to get too close to the edge. The way the wind was gusting, I stood a chance of being blown right off the top.
"All right, Aisling, get a grip. You're a professional.
You have powers. So let's think about how to use them to get you off this bridge." I paced back and forth the length of the arch, scanning every word of conversation I'd had since arriving in Paris and finding out about the whole other world that had existed alongside the one I'd known my entire life. Had anyone mentioned anything to do with flying? Even levitation skills would be helpful at this point. I peered carefully over the edge of the arch, wondering if I had enough belief in my own powers to just step off the edge.
Cars rushed by beneath me, tiny as little toys.
"That's a big no," I said, whimpering just a little as I collapsed in a miserable ball of Aisling, still clutching my evening bag and my black silk scarf. I looked at the latter closely for a moment, then swiveled around to look at the long cables that arced downward from the arch to the Buda shore. Maybe I could James Bond my way down the cable if I draped the scarf over it, clinging to the ends as my body careened down it to safety —
Careened. What an ugly word that was.
"That's it. I've clearly gone insane," I announced aloud. No one disputed that, which only made me feel worse. I searched my bag to see if there was anything there to help me, maybe a magic wishing ring, or a genie or two, or even a cell phone so I could call a helicopter, but there was nothing other than my lipstick, a tiny vial of perfume, and the pitiful remains of my mad money. I didn't even have my passport, so when the officials finally recovered my vulture-pecked, bleached bones from the top of this bridge, they wouldn't know who I was.
I spent some time railing against Drake, Istvan, dragons in general, and pretty much everyone who had ever given me grief, but once I was finished running down the list, I was left to contemplate the situation with a less heated mind.
A pigeon fluttered to the edge of the arch, strutting toward me with a jerky little head bob. Damn that Paolo and his predictions!
Fire Me Up Page 18