Istvan smiled for the first time since I had left Paris.

Chapter 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. I 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 friggin' 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.