“I told you to stay put,” I said, frowning at Magoth, who was mouthing what looked to be obscene suggestions to Cyrene.

His attention immediately switched back to me. “An amusing attempt to be dominant, but as you know, sweet May, I prefer to be the one on top.” He looked around the room with obvious delight. “And just look what I would have missed! A trip to the Baltics. How—you will excuse the expression—divine. I have many fond memories of the area—death and famine and disease so thick it seeped into the land like blood dripping from a dismembered corpse. Now, that was a time to remember. There’s much to be said for the old ways, you know. This trip will be just what I need! When do we leave?”

Chapter Four

“I just hope you know what you’re doing.” Cyrene released the tree branch before I could grab it. It smacked me wetly dead center in the face. I rubbed my stinging cheek and glared at the back of the head of my twin, not an easy feat given the thick fog that lay sluggishly over the forest. The faint patter of water sliding off damp leaves to the thick, springy ground below was muffled but constant.

“Bringing a demon lord out to a dragon’s lair—it’s not the brightest idea you’ve ever had, Mayling.”

I caught the branch she released that time, mentally uttering retorts to her comments as I plodded after her, my gaze alternating between watching for more face-slapping branches and examining the terrain in an attempt to figure out where we were in relationship to the nearest town.

“Kostya is not at all happy that he’s here,” Cyrene added, turning to give me a stern look before hopping over a fallen tree. She slid down an embankment, her head disappearing from sight, but her voice still able to reach me. “Not happy at all.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Kostya is never happy,” I muttered as I made my way over the log, slipping on the soft earth. Tendrils of damp hair clung to my cheeks.

Ahead of us, Gabriel, Kostya, and Savian were deep in conversation. Magoth followed them, the four men plowing a path through a murky, forested area that would have been a perfect setting for an atmospheric gothic movie, vines snaking off the densely packed trees, and moist, springy moss clinging to every surface.

It was oddly quiet, as well, no sounds of civilization managing to penetrate the thick cotton-wool fog that wrapped around us. Only the occasional whine of a mosquito broke the pat-pat-pat of dripping water.

One of the little bugs landed on the back of Cyrene’s exposed neck. I shuffled forward through earthy-smelling leaf residue, and slapped the back of her neck.

She spun around, her mouth opened in surprise.

“Mosquito,” I explained.

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’d like me to think that, wouldn’t you? But I know the truth—you’re just peeved because Kostya is angry with you because you insist on bringing Magoth, and you’re taking it out on me.”

I gave her a little shove forward when Magoth, clad in expensive hiking garb that I suspected owed its orgins to my credit card, disappeared behind a clump of scrubby fir trees. “I don’t give a hoot if Kostya is angry. And if you don’t want to end up lost in the wilds of rustic Latvia, I’d advise you to get moving.”

Cyrene hrmphed and started forward. “I just wanted to point out that if Kostya is in a grumpy mood, you have no one but yourself to blame. He’s very unhappy about having you and Gabriel out here, but when you said Magoth had to come, too, I thought he’d never calm down.”

“Magoth being here wasn’t my choice,” I pointed out, smacking at a mosquito that landed on my arm. “He invited himself, as you know, and since I have no way of making him do what I want him to do, we figured it would be easier to just bring him along where we could keep an eye on him, rather than have him follow us and get up to who knew what sort of trouble.”

“Hrmph. Kostya doesn’t like Magoth.”

I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then said only, “I’d be surprised if Kostya liked anything.”

“He does, too, like things! He likes lots of things,” Cyrene said, deliberately releasing a tree frond early.

I glared at her again before saying, “Such as?”

She marched on for a moment in silence while she tried to find something that would satisfy me. “Well, I can’t think of anything at the moment, but there are any number of things. Oh . . . oral sex! He likes oral sex a lot!”

Jim, who had been off sniffing what it said was an imp trail, shambled up behind me, catching the last bit of the conversation. “There’s not a male alive who doesn’t,” it said, spitting out a tiny little boot. “If I couldn’t lick my own package—”

“Enough!” I said hastily, not wanting to hear more.

Jim cast me a hurt look. “I was just going to say I would have picked a human form if I couldn’t. Sheesh. Some people have dirty, dirty minds.”

“A dirty mind is the sign of a healthy libido, say I,” Magoth said, popping up from behind a large cluster of rocks. “What are you ladies doing back here? Are you engaging in wild lesbian urges? We could have a quick threesome if you like.”

He waggled his eyebrows at Cyrene, who just rolled her eyes and pushed past him.

“You could have a Magoth sandwich! One of you could start at the top, while the other started at the bottom, and you could meet in my center,” he suggested.

Something inside me stirred.

“That’s not even funny,” Cyrene told him.

“It is a bit self-centered having both of you pleasur ing me, I admit. How about this—you and your twin can make love, and I will watch and give pointers?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Cyrene spun around to give him a tight look. “I told you before—I’m Kostya’s mate.”

“I suppose he could join us, too, although it’s not so much fun with two males,” Magoth said thoughtfully. “Mind you, there are ways. I haven’t indulged in an all-out orgy in, oh, at least a week. No, ten days. But if you have your heart set on it, I suppose I could oblige.”

I gritted my teeth and scooted past Magoth, giving him a wide berth. “You are not a dragon’s mate, Cy.”

Magoth turned to leer at me as I passed. I realized at that moment that the dragon shard was responding not only to Magoth but to the location. It liked it here; it liked the primal feeling of the area, the earthy sense of power that seemed to flow around us in intangible streams between ground and living things and air. My feet stopped as the shard zapped me with a sudden, overwhelming wave of emotion.