Katie MacAlister - Playing with Fire

I looked thoughtfully at the very pregnant Aisling. A faint smile twitched her lips. ‘‘He never really wanted me, you know. He just wanted a mate.’’

A painful knot gripped my stomach as I wondered if it was merely for a mate that he had so enthusiastically embraced me.

‘‘No,’’ he said, watching Kostya.

It didn’t matter… or rather it did, but now was not the moment to examine the basis of the man I’d bound myself to. As Gabriel said, there were more important things at hand, such as the whereabouts of Maata and Tipene.

All the same, the words echoed in my head: He just wanted a mate.

‘‘Well. I’ll say this for Gabriel-he has good taste in houses.’’ Cyrene dropped the handle of her suitcase with an audible thump on the rich carpet of the entrance hall. ‘‘I hope the rest of the house is as nice as the entrance. It’s much nicer than my flat, and certainly better than that dark little hole you inhabit. How many rooms did he say it has?’’

‘‘Seven bedrooms.’’ I closed the front door, consulting a small card to punch in the code needed to pacify the security system.

‘‘I shall graciously accept Gabriel’s invitation to stay with you until he gets here, then,’’ she said, opening up the door nearest us. ‘‘Sitting room. Kitchen back here, do you think?’’

‘‘I guess.’’ I stood for a moment in the hallway, noting absently that Cyrene’s assessment of quality was, as ever, dead on. The house mightn’t be a huge mansion, but it was located in Marylebone, right in the center of London, and it appeared to be furnished simply but elegantly. I touched a finger to the halfpaneled wall before slowly following Cyrene. She explored the house, scattering excited little oohs and ahs of pleasure behind her as she ran from room to room. I paused to look in the sitting room, decorated with antiques of cream, rose, and gold, admired the kitchen with its huge marble-topped center block, and finally stopped at the back of the house, in a parquet-floored conservatory sporting tall palms and a beautiful blue-gray granite fireplace that had to be at least three hundred years old.

It was all lovely, perfectly charming… and utterly lifeless. It was as if Gabriel had never even been there at all, as if his presence hadn’t touched the house in any way.

‘‘The master bathtub is divine!’’ Cyrene announced, coming down from the second floor. ‘‘Would you mind…?’’

‘‘Go ahead,’’ I said, sitting gingerly on the edge of a spindly legged chair.

‘‘You know how a bath always makes me feel better.’’ She started to go, but paused, looking back at where I sat. ‘‘Is something wrong, Mayling? You have the oddest look on your face. Don’t you like the house?’’

‘‘The house is beautiful. It’s just…’’ I hesitated, finding it difficult to put my strange mood into words. ‘‘It just seems so bare, as if it was just here for show and no one has ever really lived in it.’’

‘‘Well, Gabriel did say he wasn’t in London much. Maybe he hasn’t had time to make it feel like a home yet. Besides, that’s what you’re for, isn’t it?’’

Her words brought to the surface all the feelings of doubt that I’d successfully pinned down during the last twelve hours.

‘‘Mayling?’’ Cyrene took a couple of steps into the room, her brow furrowed. ‘‘You are going to be happy with Gabriel, aren’t you?’’

Her concern touched me, making me forget my earlier annoyance with her. That had always been the pattern of our relationship… she got into trouble, and, exasperated, I ran to her aid, forgiving her when faced with her genuine affection and gratitude. ‘‘Of course I’ll be happy. How could I be otherwise? I have a man so sexy he literally burns down a hotel room, a gorgeous house in a prime spot in London, and carte blanche to do with it what I want. I’d have to be insane not to be happy.’’

‘‘Yes,’’ she said, touching my cheek lightly. ‘‘You would. Those dragons are incredibly sexy, don’t you think?’’

I glanced up quickly, but she had a dreamy look in her eyes, not one that hinted of jealousy. ‘‘That’s one way of putting it.’’

‘‘I think it’s because they’re so… oh, I don’t know… exotic. You know what I mean? There’s a sense of danger about them, as if they are barely just holding back the beast that dwells within them.’’

I couldn’t deny her assessment, although I was more than a little reluctant to have this discussion. ‘‘I suppose so, although Gabriel seems much more even tempered than Drake or his obnoxious brother.’’

‘‘Obnoxious!’’ Cyrene gaped at me. ‘‘How can you possibly say that about Kostya? He’s not obnoxious! He’s just… intense. Very, very intense. And so handsome, don’t you think?’’

Relief mingled with disbelief as she continued to sing Kostya’s praises. I recognized the signs all too well, having lived through a good hundred or so of Cyrene’s relationships. ‘‘He doesn’t seem terribly stable, emotionally speaking,’’ I said slowly.

‘‘Who doesn’t? Kostya?’’ She wandered over to a palm, absently stroking its leaves in a manner I knew would have the plant sprouting new branches (plants love naiads). ‘‘There’s a reason for that, you know. I had a long talk with Aisling earlier, and she told me all about how Kostya had to go into hiding after he killed his wyvern, and then how he was kidnapped by someone unknown, and left to starve in a horrible prison until Drake and Aisling rescued him. So you see, he’s been through a lot in the last couple of hundred years. Allowances should be made for his rather brusque manner.’’

I stifled a little smile at the word ‘‘brusque’’ being applied to Kostya, but kept silent, feeling it was better for her blossoming infatuation to burn itself out without help from me.

‘‘I wonder if he’s going to be wyvern of his sept,’’ she said, looking out of the floor-to-ceiling window to a darkened garden.

‘‘I was under the impression there was no sept to be wyvern of.’’

‘‘Aisling said she thought there were a few black dragons still left, but they are in hiding.’’ Cyrene turned back toward me, making a contrite face. ‘‘I’m sorry, here I am chatting on and you’re obviously tired and should get some rest. Bath for me, and then the master room is all yours.’’

She hurried off to take her restorative bath, leaving me to my murky thoughts.

My emotions were too raw to dwell much on the last few hours I’d spent before Cyrene and I had left Greece. Most of the day had been spent kicking my heels at Aisling’s house, waiting to hear what Gabriel and Drake had found out about the disappearance of Maata and Tipene. I had been frustrated being kept out of the way, but knew too little about the ways of dragons to know if it was a case of being kept from underfoot, or if Gabriel and Drake were putting themselves in a situation that would have been dangerous to me.

‘‘Anything?’’ I had asked when Gabriel returned after four hours.

‘‘No.’’ He took my arm and edged me away from where Aisling was grilling Drake. ‘‘No one has seen them. Their things weren’t touched, and they didn’t leave any message for me. I’m afraid the worst has happened.’’

I put my hand on his chest, wanting to comfort him. ‘‘You think they’re… dead?’’

He was silent for a moment before shaking his head. ‘‘No. I’d feel it if they were dead. But someone has taken them against their will, and that someone is Kostya.’’

‘‘He says he didn’t.’’

Gabriel’s eyes were as bright as mercury, his face suddenly frightening in its austerity. ‘‘He lies. He’s tried to sway Drake over to helping him against us before. This is just another attempt to put me in a bad light, and himself in the role of a victim.’’