Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

the watch, his hand rising to deflect the arcane ball- turned-banana that I hurled after him.
    “Damn him. Damn him!” I railed, turning to Baltic. “Why did you give that to him? I know you loved that sword.”
    “If I told you that you mattered more to me than anything, even something so unique as the light blade, would you do unnatural things to me?” he asked, his fire simmering in both of us.
    “I’ve told you I don’t do unnatural things! Why you insist on thinking my simple little common everyday sexual fantasies are bizarre and depraved is beyond me.”
    He just waited, his eyebrows raised in silent question.
    “What sort of unnatural? You mean something like tying you down and coating your entire body with chocolate so I can lick—”
    A noise behind me reminded me we weren’t quite alone. I spun around, my cheeks heating as Kostya gave me a very odd look.
    “Tying him down, hmm?” Cyrene said thoughtfully. “Milk or dark chocolate?”
    “Milk. Belgian. Or Swiss,” I answered.
    “Melted, of course?”
    “You can do so ahead of time, but I think it would be more fun to melt it right on him with dragon fire.”
    “Hmm,” she repeated, looking at Kostya.
    He cleared his throat, trying to scowl but seemingly not able to with Cyrene’s speculative gaze on him. “If I see you again, Baltic—”
    “You will try to kill me,” he answered wearily, sliding an arm around my waist. “Yes, I know—again.”
    Kostya was silent for a moment, some of the antagonism leaving his face. “I am glad you are not dead after all, Ysolde.”
    “Thank you. It’s nice to be alive,” I said with no little irony.
    He bowed to me, then glanced at Baltic. “I would have taken care of her.”
    Baltic waited for the count of five before answering. “I know. I never distrusted you with regards to my mate.”
    “You never had cause to,” I said, frowning a little at Kostya. “Not since that time when you showed up to claim me, and Kostya ran from me because he was afraid I would accept him, instead.”
    A little smile flickered at Kostya’s lips at the memory, and for a moment, I was transported back to happier times.
    “Oh, really? I’m going to want to hear about this,” Cyrene said, tugging on his arm. “Come on, let’s go home. I want to swim in the pond.”
    “The pond,” I said, thinking of that beautiful home, with the even more beautiful grounds.
    “That house was built for Ysolde,” Baltic called after Kostya. “She will have it again.”
    “You can try, dragon,” Kostya said in mimicry of Dr. Kostich. “You can try.”
    We stood together alone in the field, the afternoon sun beating down on us, the smell of the warm earth sinking deep into my soul, where Baltic’s fire resided.
    I let my gaze roam over his face, over the high, Slavic cheekbones, along his widow’s peak, to the eyes that shone like polished ebony. “Everything is wrong, Baltic.”
    “Not everything.”
    “We’re at war with the weyr.”
    He shrugged. “We don’t need them.”
    “We do. They are our kind. More importantly, I want to be a part of the weyr. I want there to be peace between us.”
    He took my hands, his mouth hot on my fingers as he kissed them. “I don’t know that I will be able to give you that.”
    “We’ll work on it together, OK?”
    He said nothing.
    “Then there’s the First Dragon. How do you know him?”
    He dropped my hands and wrapped an arm around me, gently urging me toward the house. “If I tell you all my secrets now, what will you have to worm out of me with your inventive sexual persuasions?”
    “Typical dragon answer. I can’t tell you how annoying that is.”
    “I am not typical. I am the dread wyvern Baltic.”
    “You are the annoying wyvern Baltic, that’s what you are. What are we going to do about this thing that the First Dragon expects of me? How can I do whatever it is when I haven’t the slightest idea what he was talking about? And how did I fail him in the past?”
    “Questions, questions, you were always full of questions,” he sighed, pulling me tighter against his body until his heat became mine.
    “What about your sword? That’s not right that you should just hand it over to Dr. Kostich.”
    “There is a difference in surrendering something temporarily, and relinquishing the same,” he said cryptically.
    I glanced up at him, squinting against the low sun. “If you’re going to steal it back from him, I want to help. I can’t believe I