Me and My Shadow

by Katie MacAlister

“Agathos daimon,” I swore under my breath. I had always assumed that the dragon heart was a benign thing, a relic of the first dragon that represented everything dragonkin were and would be, something that encompassed the best parts of all the dragons. But what if it was a harbinger of the power dragons tapped into rather than a celebration of their abilities? What if it was, in fact, a curse, not a boon?

  Now I understood why Kaawa had warned me repeatedly of its power.

  “Do not look so grim, child. Ysolde de Bouchier’s path is not yours,” Kaawa said quietly.

  “I don’t know what’s going to stop me from ending up like her,” I said, giving in to a moment of despair.

  She came back into the room and kissed the top of my head before returning to the door. “Ysolde did not have what you have.”

  “You?” I asked, grateful for her wisdom and insight, even if it did give me moments of terror.

  “My son.” Her eyes glittered with humor for a moment. “His father trained him to be a warrior, a strong wyvern and protector of all silver dragons, but he learned much from me, too. Gabriel will not allow anything to happen to his miracle.”

  I smiled at the word, a warm, comfortable feeling washing over me at her words. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps Gabriel and I together could get the better of the dragon heart. Ysolde had been alone, torn between two warring wyverns, but I had Gabriel’s strength to see me through anything.

  I was about to say just that when Kaawa suddenly held up her hand, her expression abstracted. “Listen. Do you hear it?”

  I stilled for a moment, then sighed. “It’s my twin. But I have no idea why she’s yelling, unless . . . oh, merciful spirits, tell me he didn’t show up, too.”

  Chapter Nine

  Kaawa stepped aside with nimble awareness as I dashed past her and down the stairs. I stopped just short of plowing into Kostya as he stood, legs braced apart, arms crossed over his chest, his face tight with anger as Cyrene harangued him.

  “. . . and I don’t care if he is your brother—I was here first, and that means you have to find somewhere else to stay.”

  I stepped aside to admire her form for a moment. Her eyes were lit with fury, her hands waving wildly as she threw accusations at Kostya.

  “You followed me here! Admit it—you followed me here so you could be with me without apologizing.”

  Kostya’s voice came out a growl. “I didn’t follow you here. I came to my brother’s house—my brother’s house—because I had no choice, you insane naiad, not because I was following you!”

  “Well, you can just think twice about that, Konstantin Fekete,” Cyrene said, clearly on a roll and not about to stop for anything like a breath or conversational give-and-take, “because I said I was through with you, and so I am! It’s over, got that? Over!”

  “I’m not here because I want to see you again!” Kostya’s grip on his temper, never very strong, snapped. He leaned forward and bellowed into Cyrene’s face, “In fact, if I never saw you again, I’d die a happy dragon!”

  “You can’t die, you odious, fire-breathing beast,” Cyrene yelled back. “More’s the pity! If I had my way, I’d drown you in a—”

  “I think that’s about enough, Cy,” I interrupted, taking her arm and pulling her back a few feet. “Whatever your relationship issues are, Kostya is right in that this is Drake’s house.”

  “But—but—” she sputtered.

  “And Drake has very kindly allowed us all to stay here, a fact I’d appreciate you to remember.”

  She sputtered a bit more, but contented herself with looking daggers at Kostya when I asked, “What did you mean you didn’t have a choice? I thought you had a house in London?”

  “He does,” Cyrene said, looking down her nose at him. “It’s not very nice, though.”

  “Cy,” I said, giving her a warning look.

  She sniffed and feigned interest in a picture on the wall.

  “My house, my perfectly nice house with an expensive security system that was installed after my lair was repeatedly burgled—” Kostya shot me a meaningful look, pausing with dramatic grace for a few seconds. “My charming and well-furnished house was destroyed sometime during the night. When I returned to it from the airport, I found nothing but the scorched remains of what was once a desirable residence, miles of crime-scene tape, and several extremely thorough arson investigators who interviewed me extensively for the last five hours. That, my annoying little water sprite, is why I am here rather than where I would much rather be.”

  Cyrene stiffened at the water sprite comment, but a warning pressure on her arm reminded her of her party manners and she harrumphed her way over to a chair in the corner, all the while giving her ex-boyfriend a look that would probably have killed a mortal.

  “Your house burned down? What—oh, I’m sorry. Kostya, do you know Kaawa, Gabriel’s mother?”

  Kostya stiffened for a moment, then swung around to flash an overly bright smile at Kaawa. He bowed, saying, “I have not had that pleasure, although I have met her mate on more than one occasion.”

  Kaawa had been standing at the stairs watching the scene, joined by Jim, who evidently had been woken by the noise. She came into the room now, acknowledging Kostya’s bow, her eyes bright on him for a few moments before she said, “Yes, I remember. You almost killed him twice.”

  “Awkward,” Jim said, snuffling Kostya’s shoes before plopping its big butt down on my left foot. “Heya, Kostya. You have fun in Paris?”

  “He wasn’t in Paris, nosy demon,” I said, shoving Jim off my foot. My toes had gone to sleep. “He was in Latvia with us, remember?”

  “Yuh-huh. But you can’t tell me that he hasn’t been in Paris in the last twelve hours, because there’s no place other than the City of Lights that leaves such a pungent scent on shoes.”

  Kaawa and I both looked at Kostya, who was suddenly intently interested in picking a piece of fluff from his sleeve.

  “Did you take a flight that went through Paris?” I asked, not sure why it mattered.

  “You don’t get it, May,” Jim said before Kostya could answer. “He’s been in Paris. In the city, not in the airport. Out walkin’ in the . . .” He snuffled Kostya’s nearest shoe again. “Smells like the Fourteenth Arrondissement.”

  “I don’t believe there’s a law against going into Paris,” Kostya said dryly.

  “No, of course not,” I agreed. “Although you gave the impression that you’d returned to England straight from Latvia. Speaking of which, how is your lair?”

  His eyes narrowed on me. “Why do you ask?”

  “If your house burned, I expect your lair was endangered. Unless it was deep underground, and heavily protected from everything short of planetwide destruction, like Gabriel’s is.”

  His nostrils flared. “Gabriel has a lair in London? I thought that was in New Zealand.”

  Dammit. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to let it be known that Gabriel had a new lair. Still, there was nothing Kostya could do about it; the lair was well protected, even with the remains of a destroyed house on top of it. “He had a new one built to house the shards while we were assembling them.”

  “Interesting,” he said, turning away as Drake emerged from belowstairs.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out.

  “I’m aware of that.” He strolled over to greet his brother, dismissing us.

  “Just as if we were unimportant gnats,” Cyrene called from her corner exile, her eyes shooting evil looks at his back. “How in the name of Neptune am I supposed to stay in the same house with him?”

  “What’s so important about Paris?” I mused aloud, wondering if Kostya avoided my question about the state of his lair simply because dragons hated to answer questions asked of them, or if he had an ulterior motive to not address the issue. “Cy, does Kostya have a house there?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she said, sniffing irritatedly as she continued to glare at Kostya. Her voice rose noticeably. “I have washed out
of my brain any and all facts about such a detestable, loathsome, two-faced, hypocritical, self-serving, traitorous—”

  “I think you made your point,” I said.

  “You forgot slimy, disreputable, and untrustworthy,” Jim told Cyrene.

  “—slimy, disreputable, and untrustworthy dragon!” she finished in a yell.

  Kostya’s back stiffened.

  “I’m going swimming!” she added, stomping on the floor as she leaped to her feet and stormed toward the stairs to the basement.

  “Don’t drown,” Kostya said in a voice so sweet it could choke a moose.

  She stopped long enough to blast him with a glare. “Oh, blow it out your . . . your . . . your fire hole, dragon!”

  “Gotta give her five out of five for style,” Jim said, watching as she raced downstairs.

  “She’s very interesting, your twin,” Kaawa said in a somewhat thoughtful voice. “Not at all like you.”

  “She gave up her common sense to create me. That explains a lot about her. And she’s really a very lovely person once you get to know her,” I said, driven by loyalty to defend my sometimes annoying twin. “She’s just a bit emotional right now, but once she settles down again, you’ll see that we’re not too horribly dissimilar.”

  Kaawa didn’t reply to that statement. She simply murmured something about calling some acquaintances, and disappeared up the stairs toward her room.

  “Jim, does Kostya have a house in Paris?” I asked, figuring perhaps the demon would know.

  “Not that I’ve ever heard of,” Jim said, snuffling the floor where Kostya had stood. “He stays at Drake’s house when he’s there.”

  “So then what did Kostya find so irresistible in Paris that he’s had to hide his visit there?” I was really thinking out loud, not expecting an answer, but to my surprise, Jim gave me one. Of a sort.

  “You’re not asking the right question,” it said.

  I glanced over to where Drake and Kostya stood in quiet conversation. Drake nodded at something his brother said; then the two of them parted, Drake going downstairs while Kostya headed upstairs. I waited until they were out of sight before I turned back to the demon. “You don’t strike me as the sort of demon who sticks too tightly to the rules.”

  Jim shrugged, an amused glint in its eyes. “I’m sixth-class, remember?”

  “Fallen angel, I know. You weren’t born to Abaddon, and thus, you are the weakest of all the demonic beings.”

  “We prefer ‘benign’ rather than ‘weak,’ ” it said with a sniff.

  “Sorry, benign. All right, then, since you want to stick to the rules that say a demon can’t offer information unless directly asked, let’s play a game of twenty questions.”

  It waggled its eyebrows. “How about the strip version? If you ask the wrong question, you have to take off a piece of clothing.”

  My knife slid out of the ankle holster with the faintest of honed-steel whispers.

  “Regular version is fine with me,” it said quickly, backing away.

  I smiled and tucked the knife away. “Let’s start with, what dragons live in Paris?”

  “You’re kidding, right? ’Cause there has to be at least a hundred of them.”

  “All right, let’s narrow it down.” I thought a moment. “What dragons do you know who live in Paris?”

  “Who do I know personally?” it asked, scrunching up its face.

  “Who you know who have a home in Paris.”

  “Well, there’s Drake.”

  “Other than Drake.”

  Jim looked thoughtful. “Green dragons or other septs?”

  “Any dragons.”

  “Full-blooded dragons, or halvesies, too?”

  I closed my eyes for a moment, gripping my patience. “Any dragon.”

  “That’s a lot of dragons,” it pointed out.

  “All right. Let’s go with dragons who Kostya would know.”

  “Hmm.” Jim looked thoughtful. “Living or dead?”

  “Jim!” I growled, the dragon shard begging to take control.

  “I’m just trying to pinpoint what it is you want to know,” it said with an injured sniff.

  I took several deep breaths. “I want to know what dragons live in Paris who Kostya might know. Living dragons, of any sept, any heritage, who are not Drake.”

  “You know, you’re turning kinda red. Maybe you should have your blood pressure checked—”

  Its words were choked off when I let loose the shard, shifted into dragon form, and wrapped my tail around the demon’s middle, hoisting it high.

  “Fiat lives there!” The words tumbled out of the demon’s mouth. “He has a house there.”

  “Where?”

  “How am I supposed—”

  I hung it upside down.

  “Left Bank, Left Bank! Ack! All the blood is rushing to my head! I’m gonna black out!”

  “Where exactly on the Left Bank?”

  “Rue Delambre, near the Rosebud Bar, where Orson Welles used to hang out. Can you let me down now? I’m seeing spots.”

  “Which arrondissement?”

  “Fourteen! Everything is going black. . . .”

  I shifted out of dragon form, which meant I had no tail to hold Jim. The demon fell a few feet to the marble floor with a loud whump.

  It lifted its head up and glared at me. “You could have put me down first!”

  I smiled and dusted it off as it got to its feet. “And you could have answered my question five minutes ago. So Kostya was visiting Fiat, hmm?”

  “Not necessarily.” Jim sat and licked a few spots of fur that had been rumpled. “I just said Fiat had a house there.”

  “You think Bastian has taken it over?”

  It shrugged. “Dunno. I think I bit my tongue when you dropped me. Is it bleeding?” It stuck its tongue out at me.

  “No,” I said, still trying to figure out why Kostya would want to keep a visit to Fiat secret. “I wonder if it has anything to do with the sárkány tomorrow?”

  “You got me, sister,” Jim said.

  “Stop calling me that. I am not your sister.” I glanced at the clock.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were miffed about something,” Jim said, its head tipped to the side as it watched me. “You’ve got that pissy look that Aisling gets sometimes, and fabulous as I am, I know it can’t have anything to do with me. What’s up?”

  “Gabriel,” I said absently. The demon started to leer, but I quelled it with a slight twitch of my fingers toward my knife. “And you can just refrain from making the obscene comment I know you were about to make. I was referring to the fact that Gabriel is uppermost on my mind at the moment. He should have called by now.”

  “You jealous?” Jim asked, still watching me closely. “You think he’s gettin’ it on with some other dragon? You think he and Tipene are out cruisin’ for babes while you’re stuck here learning how to make an attractive and nutritional meat loaf out of a bit of hamburger and a couple of dragon shards?”

  “Of course I’m not jealous,” I said quickly, hoping the demon would take warning from my frown. “I trust Gabriel implicitly.”

  The corner of Jim’s furry mouth twitched upward.

  “There is nothing to be jealous of,” I insisted. “He trusts me just as I trust him. There’s no way he would go out cruising for anyone other than Fiat. And no, I don’t mean he’s bisexual.”

  Jim, who had been about to comment, snapped its teeth shut with a grumble.

  “Gabriel is an honorable man,” I pointed out. “He would never betray me in that fashion.”

  “He probably can’t help it. Babe magnets like him usually have to beat the chicks off them with big sticks. I know—I’ve seen it with Drake. Aisling is always scorching the hair of some woman or other who goggles a bit too much at Drake.”

  “Oh, stop it. Gabriel is handsome, but women don’t fling themselves at him. And I am not Aisling.”

  It shrugged. “Denial is a river in Eg
ypt.”

  “And just what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, my fingers twitching slightly.

  Jim whistled a tuneless little whistle for a few seconds. “Just that I’ve seen the way mortal women look at him—Gabe’s definitely a babe magnet. If he was my dragon, I’d sure as shooting never let him go off on his own where he could be swarmed by great big herds of lust-crazed women.”

  “Great big herds of women,” I snorted, seeing through the demon’s feeble attempts to rile me. That is, I saw through them until the dragon shard reminded me of just how handsome Gabriel was. No, handsome wasn’t the word—his mercurial eyes set against the warm, latte-colored skin were enough to make my breath catch in my throat. Add in dimples that could melt knees at fifty paces, an infectious laugh, and a body that positively screamed controlled power and grace. But even that wasn’t what bound me to him—it was his essence, his sense of self, that indescribable dragon being that lit up his gorgeous body, and ensnared my heart. If it could do that to me, what chance did mortal women have against it?

  My mate, the dragon shard snarled, and for a moment, I seriously contemplated flying out to Gabriel in order to set fire to every woman who was near him.

  “May? You OK? Your eyes just went all funny, like Drake’s when he gets what Aisling calls dragonny.”

  At the sound of Jim’s voice, sanity managed to bully its way through the intense jealousy. I blinked a couple of times and realized the pain in my palms was due to scarlet claws digging into the tender flesh. I de-dragoned my hands, and rubbed the red marks. “I’m fine. Just . . . thinking. You haven’t actually seen any women throw themselves at Gabriel, have you?”

  “Oh, no, you’re not jealous at all,” it answered, grinning.

  “You have?” Fury roared through me. “Who?”

  “Who what?” Cyrene asked as she came up the stairs.

  “Nothing.” I glared at the demon for a moment before turning to her. “I thought you were going swimming.”

  “I was, but Aisling wanted to use the pool. The midwife is here, and thought that if she were to float around in the water a bit, it might help things along.” She sighed. “And that beast is down there with her and Drake. Who were you talking about?”