Me and My Shadow (31 page)

“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!”

“Get Nora,” Aisling said, tugging on Drake's shirt. He said nothing, just nodded at Pál, who had returned with István. Pál disappeared out the door.

“I didn't steal anything,” Cyrene squeaked, suddenly looking afraid despite the fact that she was in possession of more power than she knew how to use. Her eyes widened as he continued toward her, the black glow between her hands fading to nothing as she pointed. “May gave it to me!”

Magoth whirled around and pinned me back with a look that chilled me to my toenails. “You I will deal with later, slave.”

“This isn't good,” I muttered to Gabriel. He wrapped an arm around me, narrowing his eyes at Magoth until the latter turned back to my twin.

“Return it, and I will let you live,” Magoth said, gliding toward her.

Cyrene's gaze flickered from me to him. “I . . . I . . . May wouldn't like that.”

“No, I wouldn't, any more than I like Magoth threatening you. If you have a bone to pick with anyone, it's me, so stop trying to intimidate Cyrene. She has no idea how to give your power away, and she wouldn't do so even if she did.”

Magoth turned slowly to face me as I spoke, his eyes black pools that promised retribution.

Instantly, Gabriel was in front of me, the wrath demon's sword held easily in his hand, his legs braced in an obvious battle stance.

Nora and Pál appeared in the doorway just as Magoth said, “You think you can stop me with a pathetic blade, dragon?”

Gabriel raised the sword. “Try me.”

I think Magoth would have—I truly think that even though he knew he didn't have enough power to confront Gabriel and win, he was enraged enough that he would try to get through Gabriel to reach me. Luckily, Nora took the situation in almost immediately, and slapped a binding ward on him.

He snarled and spat out curses while she quickly drew an even-stronger confinement circle around him.

“I'm sorry, Drake, but I will need Aisling's help. I've never done this before,” she said a few minutes later.

Drake started to object, but Aisling grabbed his arm and used it to haul herself to her feet. “On it, Nora. Drake, stop glaring—your face will freeze like that. You can hold me, if you like, while we do this.”

Magoth realized at that exact moment what they intended, and turned his ire onto me.

“Wife!” he bellowed. “I will take you with me! By all that is unholy, this I swear to you—you will pay for the treachery you have performed this day!”

I leaned into Gabriel, drawing strength from him. “This isn't going to be pretty, you know.”

He turned me to face him, his mouth warm on mine as he spoke. “I can stop it.”

“No. It really is the only way. I just hope Nora is fast, because Magoth knows that he will have very little time to inflict a punishment on me before I'm summoned back.”

“Is there no other way?” he asked, licking my lips with dragon fire.

“No. Just tell her to be quick, OK?”

Magoth screamed, a horrible sound that was punctuated by several explosions of glass objects in the rooms.

“I'm so glad we had the window glass demon-proofed,” I heard Aisling say as Magoth's scream rose higher and higher, piercing my brain.

I wrapped my arms around Gabriel's head, clutching him tight to me as I kissed him, taking in his dragon fire, letting it wrap around me, wrap around us, bonding us together in a fiery melding of love, regret, and passion.

“Shadow, little bird,” was the last thing I heard before Magoth, banished by Aisling and Nora to the Akashic Plain, summoned me to his side.

I hit the ground running, shadowing instinctively as Magoth gathered what remained of his power and whipped it around me, yanking me back to him.

“Did you think you would escape this?” he snarled, his eyes burning with black revenge.

At best guess, Nora would take about three minutes to complete the summoning, which meant I had to stay alive long enough for there to be anything left of me to summon. There was only one answer for that—I shifted into dragon form and slammed my tail upside Magoth.

An interesting note about the Akasha: because it is outside the realm of reality, what applies beyond it does not necessarily apply within. Although Magoth had been stripped of most of his powers, in the Akasha, what he had was amplified, enlarged, and strengthened. He didn't have the ability to get himself out, but he was overall
more
than he was in our reality.

I threw everything I had into the slam against him, and fully expected him to go flying. He didn't. He grabbed my tail as I hit him, and used the momentum to throw me a good fifty feet, striking a spiked outcropping of rock with enough force to knock me out for a few seconds.

When I came to, I was in human form again, and Magoth was crouched over me, my dagger in his hands, both of which were raised over my chest.

“First I will dig out your heart and slowly crush it beneath my heel. Then I will hack off all your limbs, slowly, so you can feel each stroke of your blade; then I will sever the veins in your neck one at a time, so that you can feel each exquisite moment as your brain is starved of blood. The last thing you see will be me, licking your blood off the dagger. The last thought you have will be that I destroyed you even as I helped make you.”

“You always were such a ham,” I said, every atom of my being aching. “Overacting every scene, just as you are now.”

“Cunnus,”
he snarled, plunging the dagger into my heart.

Chapter Sixteen

“. . .What mortals sometimes think of as limbo, a place where beings are sent to be punished.”

“I know what it is. I may be an elemental being, but I am familiar with things beyond my domain, like the Akasha. What I don't know is how you expected to get Mayling
out
of there.”

“It's tricky, but not impossible. It helps that Nora had summoned her from Abaddon before. There's some sort of a sympathetic link between the two of them now that eases the more difficult summoning from the Akasha, which is why it only took Nora three tries to get May. Oh good, it looks like Gabriel has brought her around.”

I opened my eyes to find those of the purest silver peering down at me with concern.

“I'm not dismembered?” I asked the eyes.

Tiny little laugh lines appeared around them as Gabriel smiled. “No.”

“I still have my heart?”

“Yes. It was pierced, but it's healed now.”

“The dragon shard?” I touched my chest, worried.

“Is still in you. For now.”

“Magoth?”

“Successfully banished.”

I relaxed. “And my silver-eyed wyvern?”

“Still madly in love with you. How do you feel?”

“All right. A bit woozy.” I let him help me up into a sitting position on the dining table that had served, I gathered, as a makeshift operating table. I glanced down at the ruined tunic, gently fingering the gaping hole on the front where the embroidered dragon's head had been. “He ruined my dragon.”

“
That
dragon can be replaced,” Gabriel said with pointed emphasis as I got to my feet. He had an arm around my waist, holding on to me while I waited to see if my legs were going to cooperate. “You lost quite a bit of blood, but we got the dagger out and the wound sealed as quickly as possible.”

I swayed into him, and whispered very quietly,“I know I was taken from you, but if you had plans to sweep me off my feet and take me up to the bedroom—”

He stopped me with a quick, hot kiss, his eyes twinkling and his dimples blaring as he said just as softly, “The standard rules do not apply when the mate in question has been injured. At least, not for an hour or two.”

“Deal,” I said, warming up nicely by the look in his eyes.

“May, I cannot believe that you didn't tell Magoth I had his powers,” Cyrene said, her hands on her hips as Gabriel escorted me over to a chair.

Aisling murmured something about juice and cookies, but thankfully, the glass Gabriel handed me was filled with the spicy red dragon's-blood wine that I knew would do more to restore me than juice ever could.

“I didn't tell him because I knew he would have exactly the same reaction as he did, and I wanted to avoid being forced to banish him to the Akasha,” I said when I could speak again. I eyed the glass of wine. It had coursed through me with the subtlety of a bulldozer, filling me with fire. I waited until the scorched feeling in my esophagus faded before adding, “Luckily, he can only do so once every half-year. Besides, I thought you'd have enough sense to keep from mentioning it in front of him.”

“Sense,” Kostya said, snorting. “She has no sense.”

Cyrene turned on him. “I'm not done with you! You still have to say it!”

“Sit down,” Kostya growled, and his two models closed in on Cy. She spun around and gave them such a warning look they backed off a couple of steps.

“Are they still at it?” I asked Gabriel, rubbing my face on his tunic for a moment as I breathed in the wonderfully woodsy scent of him.

His hand was warm on the back of my neck. “They haven't stopped.”

“We did so,” Cyrene said, interrupting herself to snap at Gabriel. “We stopped while Nora summoned May, and then while you pulled the dagger out of her chest. But we have unfinished business, and I insist that it be taken care of before the meeting is started.”

“Our business has nothing to do with the weyr,” Kostya growled.

“It does, and you know it. You're just in denial, but I'm done humoring you. I know you were tormented and tortured and held prisoner for decades, but you're free now, and it's time to move on, emotionally speaking. It's time to admit your feelings.” Cyrene looked mean enough to arm-wrestle a grizzly. “If you don't say it now, I'll . . . I'll . . .”

“You'll what?” he asked, nose to nose with her now, and honestly, I didn't know what to think. “You'll smite me?”

Cyrene straightened up, her back as stiff as a broom handle. “I will leave you.”

Kostya began to turn away, obviously dismissing her threat.

“Really leave you.
Forever.
”

He froze, and I knew then that it wasn't what she said that stopped him, but the way she said it. The pain in her voice came from her heart. I was a bit surprised—Cyrene had fallen in and out of love with regularity over the century I'd known her, but her heart had never really been touched. Until now, it seemed . . . and with Kostya of all people.

Kostya's expression grew blacker and blacker until I thought he was going to burst. And then he did. “Fine! You want me to admit it? You want me to bare my soul to you? I love you, you deranged water twit! I accept you as my mate! Are you happy now?”

The echoes of Kostya's declaration faded softly away as we all stared in disbelief at the two people standing in the center of the room.

“Can he do that?” I whispered to Gabriel. “Accept her as a mate if she's not one?”

“Yes,” he said, taking me by surprise again. “She is not a dragon's mate, but he has accepted her as a substitute. It is binding. I am curious that he has chosen to do so in front of so many witnesses, however. That gives your twin status in the eyes of the weyr.”

“That's not really the action of a man who is so intent on destroying the sept or weyr,” I pointed out, eyeing Cyrene as she flung herself on Kostya and started kissing him all over his face.