“Maybe it’s someone else’s turn to protect you,” she said, combing his wet hair with her fingers.

“I was born and raised a warrior. It’s in my nature to protect.” He looked down at the top of her head and said something he never expected. “I would take you under my protection if you would allow it.”

“Is that a proposal?” she asked, touching the tip of his nose, a little half smile curling her lips. Those delicious, tempting lips. “And if so, is it a proposal for illicit activities, or are you desiring my hand in marriage?”

“Marriage is a mortal convention.” He tried for a light tone, but regretted the words when she slid off him and got to her feet, taking a towel with her when she returned to the bedroom. He watched her walk away—admiring her legs and ass as she did so—frowning to himself over the unpleasant emotion that was filling him.

Regret. It burned with a dull ache. He disliked it intensely. He also didn’t care for this sense of insecurity that gripped him when he watched Bee climb into his bed. Had she been serious about him binding himself to her via mortal conventions? Was she simply testing him? Or was she teasing? Dammit, he didn’t know the answer to any of those questions, and that annoyed him most of all.

“What are you doing?” he asked after he toweled off and went to stand next to the bed.

She was on her side, the sheets tucked around her, watching him. “I’m going to sleep. Unless you’re going to kick me out of your room, but I assume you won’t do that because you enjoyed yourself a lot a few minutes ago, and also because you’re a gentleman. And you don’t strike me as someone who gets into a wham, bam, thank you ma’am mindset. Do you want me to stay, Constantine?”

He hesitated, unsure of whether she meant permanently or just for the night. Wyverns, he decided as he strode to the other side of the bed, did not do unsure any better than they did insecure and regret. “Forever, or for tonight?” he asked.

She gave him a long, unreadable look before answering, “Either I’m more tired than I thought I was, or you’re being deliberately enigmatic. No, that’s not the word I mean. Inscrutable? My brain is too frazzled right now—let’s leave the talk for the future of our relationship aside for the rest of the night. Or morning, rather, since it’s almost dawn now.”

He thought about that for a few minutes, decided that she had a point, and slid into bed beside her. “Very well. You’d tell me if you hurt.” It was a statement, not a question, and Bee took it as such without animosity.

“Yes, I’d tell you. And yes, I’m human and vulnerable to things like buildings being blown apart around us, but not many of us have magic rings that protect us, so you don’t have to worry that I’m about to collapse. To be honest, the scene in the shower did more to wear me out than any of the other activities of the night, including Charming the curse.” She smiled, rolling over so that she was tucked against his side, one arm draped across his belly. “Be honest, now—you enjoyed the water, didn’t you?”

“I enjoyed you,” he qualified. “The water was a necessary evil.”

“Hrmph. Obstinate dragon.” She snuggled in even closer, and he gave a heartfelt sigh of contentment as he wrapped an arm over her and breathed in her clean, sunshine scent.

Fifteen

“I don’t know why you think we need to meet with everyone. I mean, we know Bael is in Paris, or at least he was last night, and I can’t think why he’d leave unless something called him away. So why aren’t we tracking him down instead of talking with your dragon friends?”

“A sarkany has been called by Drake. I am a wyvern, thus I must attend.”

I got out of the cab that stopped at Aisling and Drake’s house, and gave Constantine a side-eye as he paid off the driver before he hefted the box that had sat next to us on the seat. “If I pointed out the obvious, would you find it obnoxious?”

“What obviousness do you mean?” he asked, throwing grammar to the wind.

I followed him to the front door. “That you’re not a wyvern anymore, and therefore, you don’t have to be a part of this dragon meeting thing. Why don’t you just admit you want to be a part of the meeting? I can go make a few contacts and see if anyone knows exactly where Bael went after he blew up G&T.”

“You will not face Bael alone.”

The look he turned on me was stark and filled with pain so deep, I instinctively took a step forward and wrapped both arms around him, kissing along his jaw.

The door opened, the demon dog eyeing us critically. “Heya, Connie. Heya, Bee. ’Sup, Gare.”

“So many exciting things!” came the answer from the cardboard box, now sitting at Constantine’s feet while I kissed him. “I spent the night with a poltergeist, and Connie bought me a new remote-control truck, and Bee insisted I get a helmet because I kept falling out of the truck, and oh, so much more.”

“Dude,” Jim said in a general acknowledgment. He eyed us, then turned and yelled over his shoulder. “Connie and Bee and Gary are here. They’re snogging in the doorway. Not Gary—for some reason he’s been put in a box.”

“It’s so the mortals don’t see me.” Gary’s voice was muffled, but the box bulged in a way that indicated he was getting restless.

“Uh huh. That’s how it starts, man, and then the next thing you know, they have you locked into a closet with the vacuum cleaner.”

“Bee—” Constantine said, his eyes shiny and hard.

“I won’t go without you, okay?” I don’t know why I felt so compelled to reassure him other than perhaps witnessing the depths of Bael’s depravity frightened me. “If you want to talk to the dragons before we tackle Bael, then we can do that.”

The look of fear faded from his eyes, replaced with an emotion that left me feeling hot and extremely pleased. “Do not believe that I have lost my interest in dealing with Bael now that you have broken the curse.”

“Ash is coming,” Jim announced, and nudged Gary’s box inside. “Istvan, the box has Gary in it. Don’t know why they couldn’t use a head carrier like a normal person. Gary’s a head. No, just a head. Don’t ask me, he never said. I mean, there’s all sorts of reasons why someone could lose their body, but I’m not the sort to pry. ”