Love in the Time of Dragons (20 page)

“Yes!” he snarled.

“Fine!” I bellowed.

He was so angry I swear his eyebrows were bristling, and before I could finish my sentence, he was on me again, his arms as hard as the oak floor beneath us, his mouth hot and demanding and just as exciting as it had been in my dreams. His tongue was everywhere, twirling around my tongue, tasting me, firing my blood with little touches that seemed both gentle and demanding at the same time. He filled my senses, overwhelming me with the scent and taste and feel of him pressed up against me.

And then the fire came. Actual fire, the kind that burns things down. One minute I was kissing him, feeling as if I were on fire, and the next I really was. For a second I panicked, sure I was going to be horribly burned, but just as I was about to fling myself away from Baltic’s fire, an amazing thing happened—something inside me shifted. It was as if the entire world seemed to go slightly out of focus for a moment, then snapped back to its normal clarity.

The fire that threatened to char my skin suddenly danced along it instead, leaving me with a sensation of warmth, but nothing more. Well, nothing more that was harmful—it also fired up the burn inside me to new levels, until I wiggled against Baltic, doing a seductive little dance that I’d never done before. He groaned into my mouth as his fingers dug into my behind, pulling me tighter against him as his lips and mouth and dragon fire consumed my every thought.

“You love
me
with all your heart,” he growled, his control very close to snapping.

As I told myself that I really needed to stop before things went too far, the words he had spoken sank in through the miasma of lust and love that raged in my brain, settling into a righteous annoyance.

“You know, I really hate people telling me what I do,” I answered, biting his lower lip, and not gently, either. I didn’t break the skin, because I didn’t wish to cause pain, but it was the sort of a nip that would make him take notice.

And take notice he did. “You dare bite me?” He reared back, shock evident on his face as he touched his lower lip.

“Yes—yes, I do.” With my hands on my hips, I took a menacing step forward. “I don’t like being told what to do! So you can just stop this Mr. Demanding bit and kiss me properly, or not kiss me at all!”

“Now you are telling
me
what to do!” he stormed, taking a step forward until his chest rubbed against mine. “I don’t like it, either. And as for the kiss, Madame Bossy, I will kiss you any way I see fit. I am the wyvern here, not you!”

“Madame Bossy!” I gasped.

Nose-to-nose, we glared at each other until I couldn’t help it, and laughed. To my surprise, Baltic’s lips twitched; then a rusty chuckled emerged, which cascaded into an outright guffaw.

My heart sang as I watched him laugh until tears wetted the corners of his eyes.

“Ah,
chérie
,” he said, putting his arms around me again. “Thus it has always been between us, eh?”

I brushed the hair out of his eyes, my fingers tracing the satiny length of his eyebrow. “I don’t remember.”

“You are the only one who has ever made me laugh,” he said, kissing the corner of my mouth. “You used to say outrageous things, things I would not tolerate from any other dragon. Then when I was ready to throttle you, you’d tickle me, or perform some other silly act to lighten my mood, and make me think that life could not be any better.”

His confession touched me, making my eyes burn as I dabbed away the remnants of laughing tears on his lashes. “Many things have changed about me, Baltic, but I’m afraid I’m still prone to saying outrageous things. Did I hurt you when I bit you?”

“No.” His hands slid down to pinch my behind. “But do not do it again.”

I giggled.

“You
do
love me with all your heart.”

That was a statement, but there was a shadow in his eyes that had me answering quickly, “Yes, I do. I’ve just met you, and yet I’ve loved you for centuries. I love both you and Brom.”

“Equally?” he asked, pinching me again.

“Yes,” I said, keeping my smile to myself.

“You should love me more.” His voice had a faintly disgruntled hint to it.

“That, my little periwinkle, is about a toe and a half over the line.” I slid out of his arms. It took more than a little effort to do that, since my body badly wanted to stay smooshed up to his, but the way my insides were humming, it was that or give in to him.

“Why do you push me away?” he asked, his eyes hot with desire.

“I . . . you overwhelm me.”

“Good.”

“No, it’s not good. At least, not until things are straightened out with my husband. Now . . . what were we talking about? I’ve lost track.”

“We were discussing your refusal to mate with me,” he said, his eyes still smoldering with heat.

I held my tongue, not wanting to make another pass on that particular verbal merry-go-round. “You said you wanted to claim me in order to protect me. That claiming business is just an oath of fealty, isn’t it?”

“That is part of it, yes.”

“Can we do the swearing without the sex?”

“It is possible, but unheard of.”

“Well, you’d better start hearing it, because I will agree to accept you as a wyvern, but I won’t have sex with you. Not until I can resolve the issue of my husband. I fully intend to get a divorce from him, but until I have a chance to tell him I want one, to tell him that we are officially separated, there will be no sleeping together.”

He dismissed the entire issue with a little wave of his hand. “I will take care of any concerns you have about the mortal.”

“I’m not so sure he is mortal,” I murmured, thinking back to what Dr. Kostich had said.

“It matters not. He will cease to be a problem.” Baltic stood in front of me, a handsome, vital man who had suffered untold centuries of anguish. I touched his cheek, touched the hard planes of his face, tracing my finger along his high cheekbones and around his eyes, those beautiful black eyes that had a slight upward tilt, giving him a faintly Slavic look.

I brushed a strand of hair off his cheek. “How did we both come to be alive again?”

He captured my hand, kissing the tips of my fingers, his eyes never leaving mine. “I don’t know how you came to be resurrected. But I will find out,
chérie
. I will find out.”

“What do I need to say to swear fealty to you?”

“Whatever is in your heart.”

I laughed. “My heart is confused at this point, so I wouldn’t look to it for any help. But I ought to be able to come up with something. Let’s see . . . I am Tully Sullivan, and I—”

“You are Ysolde de Bouchier. This other name, this mortal name, has no bearing on us,” he insisted.

“I happen to like the name Tully—
fine.
I am Ysolde de Bouchier, also known as Tully Sullivan, and I hereby pledge my fealty to you, Baltic . . . um . . . is Baltic your first name or last name?”

“It is my only name. I have no other.”

“Oh. All right. That’s very movie star, but that’s fine. I hereby pledge my fealty to you, Baltic, wyvern of the black dragons. No, wait, that can’t be right. Kostya is the wyvern of the black dragons. He was at the
sárkány
.”

Baltic swore. “His traitorous hide deserves only to be split on the end of my sword.”

“Please tell me you’re not going to fight him for control of the black dragons,” I said, unable to handle the thought of what I knew would be a huge battle between Baltic and everyone in the weyr.

“By rights I should, but I will not. I am no longer a black dragon.”

“You’re not?” I looked him over as if that would tell me anything. “What sept do you belong to? Not the silver dragons?”

He shifted into dragon form, his body covered with glittering white scales.

“You’re a white dragon?”

“Not white—light,” he said as he shifted back, holding out his hand. Light formed there, stretching out to form a white and blue sword. “When I was reborn, I became something new, something not seen before—we are light dragons, you and I, Ysolde. Our dragon form reflects the fact that we encompass all colors, just as light does. We wield arcane magic, which other dragons cannot do. Ours is a new sept, with only the two of us as members.”

I digested that. “That sword belonged to Antonia von Endres, didn’t it?”

“Yes.” He glanced at it. “She gave it to me long ago.”

“Why would she give you something like that?” I asked. “That sword is famous in magedom, and although you’re not a slacker at arcane abilities, you’re not a mage.”

He tossed the blade up, catching it on the tip of one finger. It balanced perfectly. “Antonia gave it to me because she said I gave her great pleasure.”

“What sort of great pleasure?” I asked, a sudden roar of anger whipping through me so great that it drove off my intention to tell him that Dr. Kostich had asked me to take the sword from him. “Great pleasure as in, oh, I don’t know, sex?”

“She was my lover, yes.” He frowned, shaking his hand so that the sword dissolved into nothing.

“You screwed her for a sword?” I asked, my fingernails digging into my palms with the effort to keep from shaking him. I knew my anger was unreasonable, but I was powerless to stop it.

“Why are you so angry?” he asked, looking thoughtful all of a sudden. “Are you jealous?”

“Of course I’m not jealous! What do I have to be jealous of? I mean, it’s not like the man I just told I loved beyond all reason informed me he’s been out bonking anyone who has mage toys, is it? It’s not like he just admitted infidelity, oh no! It’s not like you’re standing right there with your penis all bulgy and poking me”—I gestured at the fly of his pants, which was looking rather strained after our steamy kiss—“and telling me that it’s been visiting other women, not because you are seeking another lover, but so you can have a fancy mage sword! It’s not like that at all, is it, Baltic?”

He looked delighted, the bastard. “You
are
jealous!” “You are the most obnoxious, reprehensible, despicable man I’ve ever met.”

“I am a dragon, not a man.”

“Gah!” I yelled, and slapped both hands on his chest.

He covered them with his own, doing that lovely rusty chuckle that made my knees go all weak despite the fact that I wanted to knock his block off. “
Chérie
, I remember many times you threatened to emasculate or decapitate me when you believed I was looking at other females, but I had thought the centuries we spent together had eased your suspicions.”

“Just tell me this,” I said, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “How many times did you betray me?”

Anger followed surprise in his eyes. “What cause have I ever given you to believe I would do such a thing?”

A horrible silence followed, one that was filled with my brain suddenly pointing out that time actually existed before I met Baltic. “Er . . . you knew her before you met me?”

He sighed, unclenching my fingers from his shirt. “Yes.”

“But you never told me she’d given you a mage sword.”

“I had no cause to use it,” he said, shrugging. “I did not have the skills at that time to wield it. It was only after I was reborn that I was able to do so.”

“So you didn’t sleep with her after you met me,” I said, wanting to make absolutely certain of that point.

“I took no females after I met you.” He started to smile, but suddenly looked away.

I pounced on that. “Oh, really?”

He made a vague gesture, a flicker of embarrassment in his eyes. “There was a barmaid in Bordeaux, but I did not rut with her. I tried, but I could not.”

“What a goddamned shame,” I growled, wanting to punch him all over again.

“She was not my mate. I thought I would ease my lust on her, but I could not. I knew then that I must have you and no one else.” He took my clenched fists in his hands, stroking his thumb across the top. “That is when I sent to Constantine to let him know I was claiming you.”

The fury inside me melted away into a dull throb. “It’s very hard to be angry at someone when he’s just told you he can’t have sex with another woman because he wants you instead.”

“You have no need to be angry. I have not given myself to another, as you have.” His voice was etched with acid.

“I can’t help it if I lost my memory and got married. And wait a minute, are you saying that you haven’t had sex in”—I did some quick calculations—“over three hundred years?”

“I have not had a female since I met you, no.”

I blinked, unable to keep from asking, “Have you had a male?”

He looked outraged. “No! I do not lust after males, as Pavel does. I have been mated, and to a dragon, that bond exists for all time.”

“Pavel your guard? He was gay?” I asked.

“That is the mortal term for it, yes. He enjoys both males and females equally.”

I picked up on the present tense of that sentence. “Whoa! He’s still alive?”

“Yes. He has been in London, but I expect him back shortly. Are you going to accept me as your mate, or not?”

“Er . . . yes. I’m sorry, I was just distracted by the thought of . . . never mind.”

He gave me the oddest look. “You were distracted by the thought of Pavel with another male? Do you lust after him?”

“No, of course not! I don’t even know the guy. It’s just that, sometimes . . . well, you know, sometimes guys with other guys . . . it’s just kind of . . . er . . . hot.”

I thought his eyeballs might pop right out of his head.

“Hot? You are aroused by males making love to each other?”

“No! Not normally! Just once in a very rare while. It’s kind of . . . titillating.”

“I see.” He didn’t look like he saw at all, what with his lips pursed and his arms crossed over his chest.

“You don’t ever think that once in a blue moon, it can be sexy?” I asked.