Sixteen

I had to take a little break after that, strolling out to a small park across the street from Drake’s house, along with Ysolde, Aisling, and Aoife.

“I can’t believe they kicked us out like that,” Aisling said, sniffing in a faux-injured manner. “It’s my house, too! I’m definitely going to have words with Drake later about them giving us the boot. Jim! Don’t you dare do that right next to that flowerbed! Honest to Pete, I can’t take you anywhere!”

“What do you think they’re going to talk about?” I asked Ysolde. I kept glancing over at Aoife, expecting her to be giving me the usual cold shoulder that she’d adopted ever since she found out the part I had played to keep her safe from the demon lords, but she walked at my side with an abstracted expression on her face.

“Kostya will argue about unimportant things for a bit. Drake will try to calm him down. Baltic will enrage everyone with his opinion that none of it matters, and Constantine—” She stopped, frowning down at the ground. “I was going to say Constantine would instigate bad behavior in the others, but he seems to have changed since I last saw him.” She looked up and beamed at me. “I believe we have you to thank for that.”

“I’m not a dragon’s mate,” I told her.

“Perhaps not,” she said with a little one-shouldered shrug. “Perhaps so. Time will tell.”

“We don’t have time, that’s the whole problem,” I pointed out. I stopped, looking around the park. It was full summer now, which meant the flowers were bobbing their colorful heads in the gentle breeze, while children screeched and shrieked with joy as they ran around chasing each other. Dogs barked excitedly, the ever-present hum of traffic provided a low droning background noise, and above it all, the faint, thin twitter of birds floated above. It wasn’t idyllic by any meaning of the word, but it was pleasant, and I hated the idea that it could be wiped out by a wave of Bael’s hand. “We have to stop him. We have to do something.”

“And we will,” Aisling soothed. “You know, it’s a shame you aren’t Constantine’s mate, because if you were, you could join the Mates’ Union.”

“You’ve unionized?” I asked, somewhat scandalized at the thought, although I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why that was.

“It’s just a name, really,” Ysolde said quickly. “It provides us mates—and we’re missing one, a delightful woman named May who was in Australia with her wyvern, but now is coming to Paris to discuss the ramifications of the breaking of the curse—where was I? Oh, yes, it’s just a way for all the mates to get together and have lunches and bond. Aoife will join us now, of course, and we’d be delighted to have you, only…” She stopped speaking, and I felt highly uncomfortable.

“I thought the meeting today was supposed to discuss the curse being broken,” I said after a few moments’ awkward silence. Ysolde and Aisling had been sending each other telling glances, but I couldn’t see them well enough to read them.

“It is. But there are two other wvyerns who weren’t in Europe when you Charmed the curse, and they will want to have their say. May and Gabriel, that’s the silver wyvern, were holding down the fort in the South Pacific as best they could. The blue wyvern was in the U.S. for a while, then I think he went to Canada.”

“Interesting,” I said politely, even though I didn’t particularly care about where the other dragon septs were. I had enough trouble with the ones present.

“I need to talk to you for a few minutes,” Aoife suddenly said, tugging on my sleeve with a look toward Aisling and Ysolde.

I was surprised; Aoife hadn’t said more than a half dozen words to me of her own will since our last argument, so I paused, giving her my full attention.

She glanced around us, biting her lower lip for a minute before finally meeting my gaze, and saying, “What you said back at the sarkany—about the Venediger—I thought that was nice.”

“Thanks,” I said, my heart filled with pain for the way our relationship had been destroyed. Was this a sign that it could be mended? “I meant every word.”

She nodded. “You always were the altruistic one of the three of us.”

“Pfft. I’m the oldest child.”

“Rowan is older than me,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but he’s a man,” I said lightly. “He gets the double whammy of being a brother and a male, which pretty much guarantees he is always thinking of himself.”

“Not all men are self-centered.” Her expression turned guarded again. “Kostya isn’t like that. Well, he is sometimes, but most of the time, he’s very devoted to his sept and his brother.”

“Well, if we’re going to be pedantic, then neither is Constantine. He may seem like a big goofball, but he really is the sweetest, most thoughtful man I’ve ever met—” I stopped at the look of surprise on her face.

“You’ve fallen for him, haven’t you?”

I glanced around us. Ysolde and Aisling had gone on ahead of us, and evidently realized we’d been left behind, because they had turned and were strolling back toward us, Jim snuffling the grass beyond them.

“I don’t know what I feel for Constantine other than I like him, and I like being with him. And honestly, I don’t think the question of my emotions is very important given the situation we’re facing.”

She tipped her head to the side, her long brown curls swinging to the side. It was such an Aoife move, one that brought back memories of our childhood, that tears pricked behind my eyes. “It’s kind of ironic,” she said, “isn’t it, that we both ended up with dragons? I mean, five years ago we didn’t even know they existed.”

I looked away, not wanting to hurt her feelings any more now that she was finally making an effort to talk to me.

“Wait…” Her eyes narrowed on me, and she clutched my arm with a hard grip. “You knew about them five years ago?”

“I dated a red dragon when I was twentyish,” I admitted, wishing like hell I could lie to her, but I’d never been good at it. “It didn’t last long, but yes, I knew about dragons then.”

“And you never told me?” The outrage was stark in her face. Her fingers tightened on my arm. “What the hell, Bee?”