Bastian looked a bit wild around the eyes. “I’ve never seen you before. I’ve never had a villa in Milan! My villa is in Santa Christina!”

“I know it was you,” Magoth insisted.

“It could have been Fiat,” I said thoughtfully. “You look almost identical, although it’s odd that Fiat didn’t remember you.”

Magoth grunted his agreement. “I am unforgettable as a lover.”

That was probably the understatement of the century. “I didn’t know that Fiat was of that persuasion, but I suppose anything is possible.”

Magoth shrugged and looked away, bored. “He had his cock buried in the wife of the local mayor at the time he propositioned me, so he probably does as I do—whatever pleases him at the moment.” He glanced back at Bastian, about to ask an obvious question.

“No,” Bastian said quickly, much to his bodyguards’ amusement. “I am not interested.”

“Your loss, as my sweet May can tell you,” Magoth said, blowing me a kiss.

Gabriel moved so fast I didn’t even see him. Magoth did, though. Or rather, he felt the result of Gabriel’s fist smashing into his nose. Magoth’s head snapped back, slamming into the wall.

“My apologies,” Gabriel said to the room at large, returning to my side. Maata snickered. Tipene grinned broadly. I sighed. “I had a muscle spasm, and my hand must have hit Magoth.”

“Muscle spasm,” I said, giving him a look.

His dimples flared to life, and I considered for a moment duplicating my twin’s action, and leaping on the man I loved.

“Later, little bird,” he said, the dratted man reading my mind again. He took my hand and tucked it into his arm. “Then you may have your way with me again.”

“Enough!” Chuan Ren said in a demanding tone. “Let us begin the sárkány so that I might seek my revenge against that worm Fiat.”

I eyed Gabriel, thinking all sorts of thoughts that weren’t at all appropriate to a sárkány, as the dragons gathered around the table.

“Kostya,” Drake said, standing next to his brother.

Neither Kostya nor Cyrene stopped their epic kiss.

“Konstantin Fekete,” Drake said in a louder voice, invoking Kostya’s full name to get his attention. When Kostya still didn’t respond, he gave him a hard shove, saying in a lower tone, “For god’s sake, Kostya, we’ve seen enough. Pull yourself together. The sárkány is ready to start.”

Kostya managed to pull back from Cyrene, a dazed look on his face. “Sárkány?” he asked, clearly not registering the word.

“Oh, Kostykins,” Cyrene cooed, sliding down his body until her feet were under her again. “I knew you cared. I just knew it. You admit it, don’t you? You love me more than some silly treasure.”

Kostya’s expression hardened as intelligence returned to his eyes. A faint dusky flush rode his cheeks as he glanced around the room. “Erm . . . I was momentarily distracted. I apologize for such behavior.”

“Oh no, you’re not getting away from me before you admit it,” Cyrene said, latching onto the front of his black tunic. “You have to say it before witnesses. I’m not going to repeat what I’ve gone through these last couple of days. You say it.”

“Now is not the time, woman,” Kostya said, prying Cyrene’s hands off his shirt.

“Of course it is. Say it!”

“The sárkány is about to begin. We will deal with our personal issues later,” Kostya insisted, taking Cy by the wrist and pulling her over to a chair next to the wall. He shoved her down into it before striding over to the table.

“Like hell we will! Say it!” She was there in front of him again. “Say it or so help me, I’ll smite you as you’ve never been smited!”

“ ‘Smitten,’ I think, is the word. Is it not?” Bastian asked Duarte. “Which tense is that? English has always confused me.”

“You can’t smite me,” Kostya said with a smug quirk to his lips. “Naiads don’t smite.”

“Oh, no,” I said, suddenly realizing where the conversation was going to go. I glanced at Magoth, my fingers tightening around Gabriel’s hand. “Cyrene, I hate to agree with Kostya, but really, another time would probably be better for this.”

Gabriel wasn’t slow on the uptake. He glanced down at my hand for a moment; then his brow cleared. “I agree with my mate. Another time, Cyrene.”

“You think you know everything, don’t you?” Cyrene said, glowering at Kostya. “Well, you don’t!”

I dropped Gabriel’s hand and hurried over to my twin. Magoth, blast his hide, must have caught one of my glances toward him, because he stood up, watching me with close attention. “Cy, really, this isn’t a good time. You can yell at Kostya later, after everyone’s gone, OK?”

She completely missed the emphasis I put on the word “everyone.”

“Stop yanking me,” she snapped, jerking her arm out of the grip I had on her. “And stop siding with that pig-dog!”

“You will cease calling me that,” Kostya spat, a truly world-class glare pointed at her. “It is unfitting, and you are out of control.”

Cyrene cast her arms wide, and black sparks snapped off her fingers, sending the two cover-model dragons squealing as they scrambled backwards. “I’ll show you who’s out of control!”

“May!” The roar of anger almost shook the house.

I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and met Gabriel’s sympathetic gaze. “Too late,” I told him.

He smiled. “You can always shift and knock him unconscious?”

“That is my power!” Magoth bellowed, I mean, really bellowed. The kind of bellow that makes windows rattle. Drake stood protectively in front of his wife, looking daggers at Magoth. “She has my powers! That . . . that . . .”

Cyrene turned on Magoth with a look that would have scared a lesser demon lord. Streaks of black lightning edged with gold crackled between her hands, a manifestation of the dark power. “That what?”

“That is my power,” he snarled, striding toward her, little tendrils of black crackling off him, floating to the ground as a fine ebony powder. “You stole it! By the dominions over which I rule, you will return it to me, or I will grind you into the earth you so fervently worship!”