Love in the Time of Dragons (30 page)

“Did we die again?” I asked when I recovered enough ability to move my mouth.

A soft, rusty chuckle sounded in my ear. “No, but it was a close thing.”

“Dear god,” I said as, pulling me with him, he rolled onto his back. “Was it always like that? Because I’m serious, Baltic—I don’t know if my heart can stand that every night. I’ll have to take up an aerobics class, and I hate that sort of thing.”

“It has always been and will always be thus between us,” he said, moving my limp body so I lay draped over his chest, one of my legs caught between his. “You will learn to adjust to the more strenuous dragon matings, just as you learned to harness your fire.”

“That wasn’t my fire. It was yours. I just used it,” I said, too drained to do more than smooth my hand over his still-heaving chest.

“It was both.”

Next to us, a body hit the bed.

I glanced over, smiling as the past Ysolde dabbed tenderly at a spot of blood on her Baltic’s forehead. He tolerated that for a moment, then pulled her over him, catching one of her breasts in his mouth. “Goodness. You appear to have had a lot of stamina then.”

He didn’t even look, just smiled, his eyelashes thick sable crescents as he lay with his eyes closed. “Give me five minutes, and I will show you that I have improved in that way, as well.”

“You might have improved, but I think another round would be the end of me,” I commented, unable to keep from watching when Ysolde impaled herself on the past Baltic. “You know, it’s really too bad we can’t interact with them.”

He cracked open one eye and looked at me. “Why?”

I gestured to where his previous self bucked, Ysolde riding him as if he were an unbroken stallion, and pursed my lips a little. “Well, if we could, you and the other Baltic could . . . you know . . .”

The look he shot me was so outraged I giggled. He slapped my behind, then rubbed away the sting before closing his eyes. “Many people have told me to go fuck myself, but I never expected my mate to actually suggest that I do it.”

I giggled even more, kissing the pulse in his neck, my body and heart and soul happier than they had ever been.

M
y suggestion was, I thought, extremely acceptable. “How about Strand Palace Hotel? It has conference capabilities, and their big business suite is available tomorrow.”

“Are you kidding? After what happened the last time Baltic came to a
sárkány
in a hotel?” Aisling’s voice was filled with scorn. “I don’t think so!”

“Why, what happened?”

“He tried to shoot everyone present!”

“Oh, that. One moment, please.” I covered the mouthpiece of the phone and turned to where Baltic stood glaring at me. “Did you really go to a
sárkány
recently and shoot the participants?”

“Yes.” The answer was given in a grumpy tone, which, given the look on his face, was no surprise.

I took a deep breath. “You do realize how difficult it is to get the wyverns to agree to meet you on neutral ground so we can talk about things, don’t you?”

“What the weyr does or thinks is none of our concern. We are outside of them. They do not matter to us.”

“They matter to me,” I said.

He continued to glare. “Not as much as I matter to you.”

“Of course not, and stop being so insecure. I’ve loved you for over four hundred years. I think you can relax.”

“The other you loved me. This you . . .” He raked me up and down with a wary gaze. “This you is different. You have unnatural desires. My old Ysolde would never have left me to try to position herself between two lovers.”

“I didn’t try anything of the sort! I just moved off you and happened to roll exactly where the old version of us was going at it. Again. For a third time in the space of an hour.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “You only managed once.”

His eyes blazed black fire at me. “I told you to give me five minutes and I would recover enough to pleasure you again! You are the one who stopped me. You did not wish for me to start again!”

“Regardless, I did not deliberately roll under the other you and get my jollies from him pounding away. Although I really liked the looks of that little swirl thing he was doing. Do you think we could—” A faint voice in my ear reminded me that I was on the phone. Evidently, my hand had slipped off the mouthpiece.

“—arguing with him. No, not about meeting us, about sex, I think. Evidently he only did things once and she wanted three times. And it sounds like there may have been another couple involved.”

“Um,” I said, giving Baltic a glare of my own. “I’m sorry you had to overhear that, Aisling. Baltic drives me a little batty sometimes.”

“Only sometimes?” she asked; at the same time he snorted and said, “It is your bizarre fantasies that make me insane.”

“My fantasies are not the least bit bizarre!” I said loudly.

“No, of course not,” Aisling said, laughter in her voice. “Although I have to say, you’re the last person I had pegged for a swinger.”

I took another deep, deep breath, and managed to hold on to my temper. “All right, a hotel is out.”

“Yes. Our house is big enough if we open up the downstairs to make one big room.”

I glanced at where Baltic was now pacing beside me, his hands behind his back. He glared at the floor as if it personally offended him.

“I think we’re going to have some objections to the neutrality of that location. How about Hyde Park? That’s large.”

“Too public,” Aisling said. “And too many portals there. If the dragons start fighting, things can happen, and I’m not back to full Guardian duties yet. What we need is something private, yet roomy.”

“How about Baltic’s house, the one with the garden?” I asked, my spirits lifting just thinking about it.

He raised his eyebrows at the suggestion, looking strangely thoughtful.

“Let me check.” Muffled voices followed that, too muffled for me to make out. “An objection has been raised for that location, as well. It’s been pointed out that you could escape to the beyond there.”

I sighed. “Tell May hello.”

“She says hello,” Aisling duly repeated. “May wants to know if they should bring Brom’s and your things, or if you’ll be picking them up?”

“If it’s not too much trouble, that would be lovely. I guess that leaves us with only one solution.”

“What’s that?”

I kept my eyes on Baltic as I spoke. “You’ll just have to come here. Baltic’s house isn’t huge, but there are ample grounds, and I think everyone would feel better if we held the
sárkány
out in the open.”

“No!” Baltic bellowed, whirling around to face me. “You would bring my enemies here?”

“They wouldn’t be your enemies if you stopped shooting at them!” I pointed out.

“And blowing up their houses,” Aisling said. “And trying to steal their mates.”

“Yes, and blowing up their houses, and . . . what was that?”

“Stealing their mates. Didn’t May tell you? May, didn’t you tell her that Baltic was trying to steal you with the shard?”

“Gargh!” I yelled, and for the first time, I felt Baltic’s fire raging within me of its own accord.

“Oops. I take that as a no,” Aisling said softly. “Oh dear. I think I set Ysolde off—”

“You tried to take May?” I yelled, clutching the phone so tightly, my knuckles were white. The pressure built within me, and I spat out a fireball the size of a grapefruit that slammed against his chest, rocking him backwards. “You tried to claim another mate?”

Baltic looked stunned for a moment, then worried. He absorbed the fire, his hands spread in placation. “
Chérie
, it wasn’t like that at all—”

“Don’t you
chérie
me, you scaly-skinned monster! You wanted May! You never really wanted me, did you? I was dead, so you looked around for the first piece of dragon ass you could find, and you tried to take her!”

“I wanted the shard, yes. I wanted it so that the dragon heart could be re-formed. I never really wanted the silver mate—”

“Then why did you try to take her?” I spat out another fireball, this one a little larger. He caught it before it could slam into him, extinguishing it as he slowly came forward, hesitantly, as if I were a dangerous animal.

I narrowed my eyes and wished I could switch into dragon form.

“My intention was to remove her from the silver wyvern, not to claim her for my own mate. He should never have had a mate in the first place.”

“Oh, really? Why not?”

He looked disconcerted and waved away the question. “That is a matter for another discussion.”

“I don’t think so!” I held the phone back up to my ear. “Aisling, are you still there?”

“Er . . . yes. Ysolde, I’m sorry, I had no idea that you didn’t know about—”

“Why shouldn’t Gabriel have a mate?” I asked, ruthlessly interrupting her.

“Ysolde, you will not question others when I am here to answer anything you wish to know,” Baltic said arrogantly, but I shot a bigger fireball at him, one that knocked him back a couple of feet, onto the couch. He dropped the arrogance and went straight for seduction. “My love, you distress yourself unduly over a minor incident.”

“He cursed them to never have a mate born to them,” Aisling said succinctly.

“Please hold. A curse, Baltic?” I asked, wrapping my fingers across the mouthpiece again.

“You were dead! Constantine killed you! That damned Kostya was trying to hack off my head! I had to curse someone, and Constantine ripped my life from me by killing you. Of course I cursed them!”

A memory of the pain he suffered when I was killed shimmered in his eyes and effectively squashed my ire. “You’re going to have to lift the curse, you know.”

His expression darkened. “I do not
have
to do anything, mate.”

“You cursed the silver dragons because their wyvern killed me. But I’m not dead any longer.”

“You are also not the same Ysolde you were.”

“I do not have strange sexual kinks!” I yelled, slamming the phone down on the table. I poked him in the chest because I knew it would irritate him. “Things just conspire to make it look that way! By the rood, Baltic! Just because a little guy-on-guy action isn’t objectionable to me, you think every little peccadillo is some majorly perverted desire on my part! Oh, hell.” I looked down at the phone, picking it up carefully. “You heard that, didn’t you, Aisling?”

A muffled laugh followed. “I’m afraid we all did, thanks to the invention of the speakerphone.”

“Oh, god.” I closed my eyes for a moment, overcome with embarrassment. “I will give you directions to the house.”

“You will not tell them where we live!” Baltic ranted behind me.

“I trust you will continue to honor the agreement regarding Jim. Once the
sárkány
is over, I will turn it over to you.”

“Your turn to hold,” Aisling said, but she had an actual hold on her phone. A slight humming noise filled the earpiece.

“Mate! I forbid you to do this!” Baltic said, grabbing my arm.

I set the phone down, turning to face him, sliding my hands into his hair, gently removing the leather thong. “I love you, Baltic.”

“I will not allow—er . . .” His tense jaw relaxed as I nibbled along it, gently biting his lower lip. His hands, which had been gripping my arms, moved around to cup my behind, pulling me tight against him.

“I love you more than anything in the world, but I would like us to live in peace with the weyr. Please do this for me. For us.” I sucked his lower lip into my mouth and tried to summon his fire, but it seemed to be banked. “Fire?”

It roared through me as he claimed my mouth properly, his tongue being every bit as demanding as he was. Just as I was seriously contemplating wrestling him to the floor and indulging in a few acts I’d seen my past self perform, the door opened.

“Fires of Abaddon, they’re still at it? Brom, my man, you don’t want to see this.”

“Don’t want to see what? Oh. Sullivan is kissing Baltic.”

“Father,” Baltic said, breaking off the kiss to inform Brom.

“Huh?” my son asked, eyeing me as if I were one of his experiments. “How come your hands are on her butt?”

“I like her butt,” Baltic said, giving the object in question a little squeeze. I bit his chin. “You will refer to me as ‘Father’ henceforth.”

“But your name is Baltic,” Brom pointed out.

“Hey, is that Aisling I hear squawking on the phone?” Jim asked as it wandered over to where I’d set down the receiver. “Ash, babe, you there?”

“Oh, damn, I forgot her again.” I turned in Baltic’s arms, but he didn’t release me.

“It is not fitting that you refer to your parents by their names. It does not show respect. You will therefore refer to me as ‘Father.’ I will leave it to your mother to decide if she wishes to tolerate you referring to her by her surname.”

“No, it’s cool,” Jim said, plopping down next to the table, its head lying next to the phone so it could talk and hear. “Pavel made sage- roasted game hens for lunch, and I had a whole one to myself. He needs to give the recipe to Suzanne because it was seriously yummy. And Ysolde said she was going to brush me later. No, they stopped kissing, although Baltic’s hands are almost on her boobs. Right in front of the kid, too.”

Baltic’s hands, which had indeed been moving up from my stomach, froze.

“I don’t like ‘Father,’ ” Brom said, his brown eyes serious as they considered Baltic.

“Papa?” I suggested, placing my hands over Baltic’s and leaning back into his chest. Despite the worry of the upcoming
sárkány
, I felt aglow with happiness. That Baltic cared so much about how Brom referred to him was a good sign. Brom would have a real father at last, one who cared about him.

“Yeah, yeah, but you’re overreacting, Aisling. I’m fine—no one’s hurting me. Ysolde keeps giving me scary mom looks, but I don’t think she can help it. Besides, it’s wild seeing Baltic being all lovey-dovey with her. How the mighty can fall.”