Love in the Time of Dragons (15 page)

“Why do you care where he is?” May asked.

Chuan Ren just smiled again. It wasn’t a pleasant smile.

“We are agreed, then, that Ysolde should have time to . . . what?” Bastian asked, looking puzzled. “How does one find oneself?”

“My mother says the dragon inside her is waiting to be woken,” Gabriel said. “That is what must be done.”

“But how do you go about doing that?” Bastian shook his head. “I’ve never before met a dragon who didn’t know he was a dragon, who wasn’t able to
be
a dragon.”

“I think I may know of a way to do that,” May said thoughtfully. She sat up a little straighter when she realized all eyes were on her. “There is a house in the country that belongs to Baltic.”

“It is mine now,” Kostya interrupted. “I have claimed it on behalf of the black dragons.”

“That’s right, we have,” Cyrene said. “It’s a bit too big as houses go, and needs a lot of redecorating, but it has a nice pond. Kostie says we can dig up the garden to enlarge the pond into a small lake.”

Kostya gave his mate a thin- lipped look that she ignored.

“When I bore the dragon shard, it caused me to react quite strongly to the house.” May’s gaze turned to me. “It actually had me feeling things that I believe you felt while you bore the shard.”

“I bore a shard?” I asked, refusing to cope with one more bizarre thing. “A shard of what?”

“A dragon shard, one of the five pieces of the dragon heart.”

I closed my eyes for a minute. “Is the dragon heart something that’s going to make me completely lose the tiny shred of sanity I’m holding on to? Because I have to tell you, if it is, I think I’d rather just not know about it.”

May laughed. “It’s not that bad, honest.”

“The dragon heart is made up of five shards. Each of the wyverns here possesses a shard,” Gabriel told me. “For a while, May bore the same shard that you bore. Just as she did, you successfully re- formed the dragon heart—imbued with the power of the First Dragon—and allowed it to reshatter into five pieces.”

“That sounds very clever of May and me, and I’m thrilled to bits to hear it despite the fact that I don’t have the slightest idea of the significance of any of that, but so long as it has no bearing on whether or not there is a dragon curled up inside me, I’m willing to move on.”

“Brava,” Aisling said, applauding until her husband scowled at her.

“I take it you think that if I were to go to Baltic’s home—”

“My home! It belongs to me now!” Kostya said.

“Pardon me, Baltic’s former home, that it would somehow prove I’m a dragon? Will I start setting things on fire? Burst into scaly lizard form? Suddenly become fascinated with gold?” I asked, too tired to mind my manners as I should.

“Judging by what I felt when I was there, yes, I think you’ll have some sort of a definitive experience,” May said.

“But Ysolde doesn’t bear the Avignon Phylactery anymore,” Kostya said.

May slid an unreadable smile toward her wyvern. “No, but I can attest to the fact that once you’ve borne a shard, it changes you. I’m sure it changed Ysolde, too.”

“It sounds like a good idea to me,” Aisling said.

“With Kostya’s permission, we will take you to the house in question tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “You will not, I hope, mind if May and I accompany you?”

“I will be there as well,” Kostya said.

“Oooh. That sounds interesting. Can we go?” Aisling asked Drake.

He raised his eyebrows and looked at Gabriel. “We have no reason to, but if Gabriel—and Ysolde—have no objection, I admit that I am curious to see if the house does have some effect on her.”

Gabriel stated a time, and everyone agreed to meet at the house. I sat back in my chair, drained by the emotions I’d been through in the last few days, wanting nothing more than . . . I sighed to myself. I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore, other than peace of mind.

I expected to dream that night, and I did. I closed the door to Brom’s room after seeing him settled for the night, wished May a pleasant evening, and stepped into my room, and straight into a maelstrom of testosterone.

“You are too late, Baltic,” the man who stood in front of me taunted. “Ysolde has spoken the words. She has sworn fealty to me. She is now my mate.”

I stepped to the side to look around Constantine. Baltic and about ten men emerged from the trees that formed a gentle curve around the cliff top where we stood, Kostya and Pavel immediately to his rear.

Instantly the silver dragons pulled their swords, surrounding Constantine and me.

“Is that true?” Baltic asked me, his expression as stormy as the sea that raged behind us.

I took a step forward, but Constantine put his hand out to stop me. “You will address me, and not my mate. Ysolde is mine. You will never have her.”

“Why are you here?” I asked Baltic, shrugging off Constantine’s hand and pushing past his guards. They made a move to stop me, but fell back when I glared at them.

“Why do you think I’m here? I came to claim my mate,” Baltic answered, his eyes glittering darkly.

“Your mate? You said you didn’t want me. You said you would never have anything to do with a silver dragon,” I cried.

“I said I would never bed a silver dragon,” he corrected. “I have since changed my mind. You are my mate. I sent a messenger telling you I would come to claim you as such.”

“I know of no messenger!” I said, shocked and horrified.

His expression darkened. “I should have known that Constantine would claim you for himself rather than let you be mine.”

“Ysolde, my dove, let me deal with this,” Constantine said, his voice warm and rumbly and comfortable just as it had been for the three months while I had been with him in the south of France.

I spun around to face him, suddenly filled with knowledge that left me furious. “You knew he was coming for me, didn’t you? You knew my heart was breaking, and still you kept his message from reaching me. By the rood! That’s why you pressed me to make the oath to you! You deceived me!”

“You are my responsibility,” Constantine said, taking my hands in his.

Baltic positively growled. Kostya, his eyes on the silver guards, held him back.

“I promised to care for you that first day when you were given to me,” Constantine continued. “I could not help but love you, my precious dove. Can you blame me for wanting you as my mate?”

How stupid I’d been. How stupid and naïve, falling for the honeyed words and the promise of a lifetime of being loved, when in reality, I was being used as an instrument in a war that had raged for two hundred years. I pulled my hands from his and backed up, sickened by the way he’d fooled me. The guards looked to Constantine, but he lifted his hand to stop them. “You told me I was the one meant to be your mate, but all the while you knew Baltic was coming for me. You watched as I pined for him, pined for the love I would give my soul to have, and yet you bound me to you? Why?”

“I love you,” he said, his eyes glowing with a strange golden light. “How could I let the one thing I love more than life itself go to a madman, a monster who would destroy our sept rather than let us live in peace?”

I couldn’t look at him any longer. “You say you love me, and yet you ensured that I would spend the remainder of my days a shadow of what I could have been.”

Constantine reached out for me, but let his hand drop before he could touch me. “You are merely confused, Ysolde, not truly in love.”

“How do you know?” I lifted my head to glare at him. “How do you presume to know what’s in my heart? You won’t even listen to me! I told you that I loved him, Constantine, and you just told me he would rather see me dead than alive.”

“You—” he started to say.

“No,” I said, cutting him off with a sharp gesture. “I know my own mind and heart. I love Baltic. If he had asked me to be his mate, I would have accepted.”

Baltic smiled, a slow, smug smile.

“That doesn’t mean I’m not furious with your high-handed dealings,” I told him over my shoulder.

His smile slipped a notch.

“Even knowing what he is, knowing what he’s done to our people, to your own family, you would bind yourself to him?” Constantine asked, his voice reflecting the anger now in his eyes. “You would let him use your body, taint your soul?”

I met his gaze, my own steady. “I would do what I could to bring calm to this troubled time.”

“You swore fealty to me,” he answered.

“What choice did I have?” I countered. “You deceived me!”

He was silent for a moment, pain flickering across his face.

“If only you had told me the truth,” I said softly, putting my hand on his arm. “I have great respect and affection for you, Constantine. You are a wonderful wyvern, and a generous, loving man. But much as I honor you as such, I would never have pledged myself to you if I had known the truth. You tricked me into becoming your mate simply to spite the man who holds my heart. How can I find happiness with you knowing that?”

Baltic stepped forward. “Constantine Norka, by the laws governing the weyr, I challenge you by
lusus naturalae
for your mate, Ysolde de Bouchier.”

Constantine and I both stared at him.

“
Lusus
what?” I asked.

“
Naturalae
. It has many meanings, but to dragonkin, it applies only to one thing—the ability to steal a mate,” Constantine answered, eyeing Baltic with palpable hostility.

“It is not stealing if I win the challenge,” Baltic said, striding forward. At a gesture, all of his men but Kostya remained standing where they were. Likewise, Constantine nodded at his guard, who gestured the others back. The dragons spread out until they formed a loose circle, in the center of which the five of us stood. “Do you accept the challenge?”

“I do,” Constantine said, his stance aggressive. “Ysolde is young and confused. She has not yet had time to adjust to our ways. I am convinced that with time, she will realize what a tragedy her life would have been if she spent it with you.”

“I dislike being spoken of as if I weren’t standing an arm’s length from you,” I told him somewhat acidly. “I am not invisible, nor am I witless. This is
my
life you’re talking about, and I demand the right to have a say in it.”

“You are female,” Constantine said abruptly. “You are young and inexperienced with the ways of dragons. You will allow me to decide what is best for you.”

“I am the one who found her,” Baltic said arrogantly, swaggering forward until he stood a foot away from us. “I will decide what is best for her, and that is to become my mate.”

“Does no one think it is a good idea for me to decide what’s best for me?” I asked.

“No!” both wyverns said.

I crossed my arms and looked daggers at both of them. “I think you’re both obnoxious. I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want either of you. I’ll take Kostya instead.”

Kostya’s eyes widened in surprise and something that looked very much like dismay. “Er . . .”

“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Baltic asked, irritation pulling at his lips.

“No. If I were, I would do this.” I walked toward Kostya, but he evidently read the intention in my eyes because he backed away from me. I stopped, stomped my foot in irritation, and demanded, “Stop running away from me and let me kiss you!”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” he said with a wary glance at his wyvern.

“Ysolde,” Baltic said in an even, almost disinterested tone of voice.

I marched over to him, narrowing my glare until it could have sharpened the edge of his sword. “What?”

“You don’t have to attack Kostya to make me jealous,
chérie
,” he said, the irritation in his face replaced with wry amusement. He gestured toward Constantine. “I’m ready to fight him to the death for his audacity in claiming you. I don’t think I could get much more jealous than that.”

“Oh.” I thought about that for a moment, then took a step closer to him, not quite touching, but close enough I could feel the heat of his body. I looked deep into his eyes, searching there for the answers I so desperately sought. “You really want me for your mate even though I’m a silver dragon?”

“Yes.” A muscle in his neck twitched.

“Why?”

His eyes took on the same wary look Kostya’s had just borne. “Why?”

I prodded his arm. “Yes, why? Why do you want me for your mate?”

“Eh . . .” He looked from me to Constantine, who was standing watching us with a black scowl. Baltic squared his shoulders and leveled a haughty look at me. “That is unimportant. Only the fact that I have claimed you should matter.”

“It matters to me,” I said, and put my hand on his chest, over his heart.

Behind me, Constantine took a step toward us.

“You are female. You do not know what you’re saying.”

“By the rood, I don’t. Tell me, Baltic. Why me?”

“Because,” he said, his eyes glittering darkly. “Just . . . because.”

“Do you love me?” I asked.

His jaw tightened. “That is none of your business.”

I laughed; I couldn’t help but laugh at him. Love in marriage was only a dream, my mother had once told me, and yet I knew she loved my father. She had also said that some men have difficulty admitting to such tender emotions, and clearly Baltic was one of them.

“I think it is my business. It’s important to me, Baltic. I would like to know—do you love me?”

He stepped closer until his chest was pressed against my arms. “This is hardly the place to discuss such a thing.”

“I think it’s the perfect place,” I said, gesturing at all the dragons, hesitating a moment when I noticed that every single one of them wore expressions of pain identical to the one on Baltic’s face. “I must know. I will not bind myself to a man if he doesn’t love me.”

“That’s foolishness,” Baltic scoffed, and the dragons scoffed with him, murmurs of agreement rippling around us.