“A backhanded insult if ever there was one,” he replied, releasing my shoulder to walk over to her. She was a tall woman, both taller and bigger than me, but not as tall as Drake. He loomed over her in a menacing fashion. “Are you finished, or is there a bit more bile you wish to work out?”

“You are as abominable as your father,” she snarled, her face tight with fury. “The day I was cursed with you both I fell to my knees and begged the Virgin to take me! I would have rather had my heart ripped out from my chest than know that my son, flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone, would shame me in this way!”

Drake had evidently had enough. His face was almost as dark as his eyes. “For Christ’s sake, Mother! I have mated with a mortal woman, not a goat! There is no disgrace in Aisling being human.”

“Tradition—”

“Can go to hell as far as I’m concerned,” Drake bellowed, startling everyone in the room.

It had an interesting effect on his mother. She stood still for a moment, then suddenly smiled, satisfaction positively dripping off her. “There is more of me in you than of your accursed father.”

I watched in utter surprise as she leaned forward and kissed Drake on the cheek. She gave me a narrow-eyed look that was downright frightening, then turned on her heel and left the room without another word.

The silence that filled her absence was almost deafening.

Drake looked at me. “You are no doubt expecting an explanation.”

“Oh, yes. About a whole lot of things, but foremost why your mother took such an instant and all-encompassing dislike to me. What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing. She has a volatile temper and is happiest when raging about something or other. She evidently decided to pick a minor point in dragon dogma to use as an outlet for her latest tantrum.”

I allowed him to pull me to my feet. My legs were still a bit boneless after our romp in bed, the fire inside me banked but not quenched. I leaned up against him, inhaling the wonderfully Drake scent that never failed to make me shiver with delight. “You’re talking about that thing where wyverns have one human parent, right? So she’s upset that rather than take a dragon mate so one of your kids will be a wyvern, you picked me?”

“I didn’t exactly pick you,” he said, escorting me through the hall to a side passage. “It just turned out that way.”

“Well, you know—” I started to say but stopped when my name was called. I hurried back into the main hall. Nora raced down the stairs from the upper floor, her bag of Guardian things in her hand.

“Pal, would you watch Paco for me? Normally I take him with me, but this time he might be considered a snack. Aisling—oh, there you are. Come quickly; there are blight hounds in the tube station.”

“Blight hounds? Oh. Sure. Gotcha.” I grabbed my purse and started after her. “Jim, heel!”

“I really hate it when you do that,” my demon grambled, shambling after me. “I may look like a fabulously handsome and intelligent dog, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to act like one!”

“Pal will accompany you,” Drake said in a bossy voice, standing in the middle of the hall with his hands on his hips.

Nora paused and sent me a curious look. I stopped at the door and looked back at Drake. Here we were just settled back together, and already the terms of our relationship were being tested. “Thank you, but we’ll be fine.”

“I would be happier if Pal—”

I interrupted him before he could continue. “This is our business, remember?”

“Yes, it is. However, you just agreed to allow me to protect you in situations where you might be in danger.”

I took a deep breath and tried to phrase carefully what I needed to say. “Just as I trust you to not let me screw up dragon things, I trust Nora to keep me from a situation with beings I can’t handle. I’ve read about blight hounds, and I’m prepared to help her with them. They aren’t that dangerous, and I’ll have Jim and Nora with me. So thank you for offering Pal’s assistance, thank you for caring enough to want to shield me, but we’ll be fine on our own.”

An interesting parade of expressions passed across Drake’s face.

I ran across the floor to him, putting my hands on his chest as I leaned into him. “Trust goes both ways, Drake. You have to learn to trust that I know what I’m doing.”

“It’s not your abilities I doubt,” he said slowly, his eyes dark. “It is not easy to let you go in this manner.”

“I know it’s not. But it’ll get easier. OK?”

The anger on his face faded into annoyance, which did a brief tango with stubbornness, and finally morphed into resignation.

I gave him a swift kiss. “That was a hell of a battle you fought, but I appreciate your faith in me.”

“I have always had faith in you, kincsem. It is all others I distrust.” His eyes were like molten emeralds.

I smiled. “We’ll work on that, too. Don’t worry; Nora and I will be back soon.”

“You had better be,” he grumbled, giving Nora a significant look.

“I never thought you’d be able to pull that off, but you know, you just may end up getting what you want with him,” Jim said a few minutes later as we hurried down the cement steps into the belly of the Underground station located two blocks from Drake’s house. It was commuter hour, which meant the station was swarming with people entering and leaving. The distant rumble of trains echoed down the long tile corridors, dimmed by the sounds of commuters.

Before I could answer Jim, in the distance a high-pitched howl rose above the din, making every hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

“That doesn’t sound good,” I muttered to myself, keeping a firm grip on both my purse and Jim’s leash.

‘Tell me what you know of blight hounds,” Nora said in between apologies scattered left and right as she pushed her way through the crowd.

I rustled around in my memory for the snippets I’d read about them a few nights past. “They’re small beasts resembling hyenas, often used as a familiar to cast a curse on a location or structure. They generally serve demons but can... ow! Pardon me, sir; would you mind moving your paddle? Thank you.” I limped past a man who held a kayak paddle, rubbing my abused shin.

Nora sped around a corner, leaped a barrier intended to keep the public out of a transit employees-only area, and disappeared down a long, unlit hallway. I hurdled the barrier after her.