“Old news,” I muttered, stuffing the two messages in my pocket. The third was not dated, but I figured it had to be recent.

Help! The message read. Connie’s stomping around muttering to himself and swearing a lot. In Latin. Also, he refuses to feed me, saying he’s too upset to eat, although he did get me a new home. It’s very fancy. Hugs and kisses, Gary. P.S. We’re staying at the Hôtel du Monde au Balcon—some sort of house of prostitution. Connie has depths to him. Dark depths. Rescue me?

“Hôtel du Monde au Balcon… Hotel of people on a balcony?” I translated aloud.

Luc shook his magazine, but didn’t look at me when he spoke. “It means large breasts. It is the street talk, no?”

“Ah, gotcha.” I crumpled up the message and tossed it on top of the other two in the metal trash bin next to the reception desk. “Trust Constantine to park himself at a brothel.”

Luc pursed his lips. “Why is it I am taking the messages of much importance if you are throwing them away? It is trouble for me, you know? First, I must answer the phone. Then I must find the paper so that I may record the message. After I have done that, I must find a pencil. And then I must arrange the message in the correct hole of pigeons.” His nose ring twitched. “This service, it is not one every hotel offers, you know. You would not get such at the Hôtel du Monde au Balcon.”

I bit back the observation that all hotels did, in fact, take messages for their patrons, and instead smiled. “Sorry. Thank you for taking the message, but it’s not one I care about.”

“I will remember that the next time you get a call,” Luc said with a righteous sniff.

“Sorry,” I repeated.

Luc retreated behind his magazine and did not answer other than rustling it in a meaningful way. I started for the elevator, made a face at the sign that announced it was “not marching” (and noting to myself that it had never been working in all the years I had stayed there), and made a beeline for the stairs. I had one foot on the bottom one, when I spun around, walked quickly to the desk, snatched the topmost message from the trash, and quickly retreated to my room on the second floor before Luc could do more than snort a triumphant “Ha!”

“Fine, so I do care. But only because he risked his own welfare to get me out of a bad situation. So sue me.” I ran up the stairs to my second-floor room, wondering what Constantine was doing at that moment, which just made me angry with myself, because the man clearly didn’t give a damn about what I was going through.

“I can’t believe that he just walked away after making all that fuss about being the one to get the talisman,” I said out loud, pacing the length of my hotel room. I glanced out of the windows as if I expected to see the man himself standing on the street. “He’s just a big phony, that’s all he is. One who really knows how to kiss. Hoo. Say what you will about dragons, they do that very well.”

Guilt pricked me when I thought of his chest, that lovely warm chest with the two adorable nipples, and the soft, golden hair scattered across it. That beautiful chest was now scarred thanks to my ineptitude. Oh, sure, Aoife and her dragon were partly to blame for not keeping me up to date about the source of the curse, but I should have listened to my inner voice when it said something was wrong.

I snatched up the phone next to the bed, pulled out Gary’s note, and had dialed the number written before I realized what I was doing.

“Yes?”

“It’s me, Bee. How’s your chest?” The minute the words left my mouth I felt like an idiot. He was a dragon! Immortal! And he hadn’t seemed bothered by the curse searing itself into his drool-worthy chest.

“What chest? I have a rolling suitcase that I liberated from Baltic, but I did not bring my chest of toys with me to Paris.”

“No, not that chest—”

“To go to all that trouble and expense would be folly,” he said dismissively. “There is a very accommodating shop here that sells many items to denizens of the Otherworld. They have a particularly fine display of nipple devices.”

I stared at the wall in blank confusion. “They do?”

“Yes. I particularly enjoy their nipple suction tortoises. They are not real tortoises, you understand—they simply are shaped like them. But they have quite pleasing amount of power to them.”

“Just how many women do you use them on?” I couldn’t help but ask. “Sorry, that was rude. I just… for a man who says you are in love with another dragon’s mate, you sure seem to talk about sex toys a lot. Are you… are they for you? Or someone else?”

“I am pleased that you are interested in them,” he said by way of a non-answer. I ground my teeth together a little over the fact that dragons seldom answered questions in a straightforward manner, especially when you really wanted to know the answer. “Would you like a set? I would be happy to accompany you to the shop so that you might pick out a set of your own.”

I opened my mouth to correct his false impression, to tell him I wasn’t interested in kinky sex toys (even if I couldn’t help but wonder at the fact that he had an entire trunk full of them), or point out that he hadn’t answered my question, nor even to ask him if he was feeling any after-effects of the curse. What came out of my mouth, of course, was, “Sure.”

“I will pick you up in an hour. Where are you staying?”

“At the Hôtel de la Femme sans Tête, but Constantine, I don’t really want—”

“Do you have sunglasses? Wear them. How big is your head?”

“I… I… I don’t know—”

“Never mind; I’ll make a guess. I will meet you on the street outside your hotel in an hour.”

“But—”

The phone went silent. I banged my forehead softly on the wall, swearing at my stupid libido for being unable to resist a sexy dragon even though I knew better. “Cripes, Bee, you’d think you’d never met an attractive man before. Get a grip, girl!”

It took a concerted effort, but I managed to avoid thinking about Constantine while I took a shower, checked with Aisling that there was no word yet from her demon, and then tackled some overdue paperwork regarding the last case of Charming I’d done a few weeks before.

It wasn’t until I was trotting down the stairs at the appointed time that I paused and asked aloud, “How big is my head? The man is deranged,” much to the amusement of the couple slowly proceeding ahead of me.