Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

someone would tell me where my family is. My dragon family. So long as I have been ripped from the only parents I have known, I would like to meet the ones who gave me up.”
    Constantine’s hands flexed, but at last he stepped away from the altar, finally turning his gaze to me. In the distance, the song of the monks could be heard as they prayed in a smaller chapel. “It grieves me to tell you this, but your parents are dead, Ysolde.”
    “No,” I said, stopping when he tried to take my arm and lead me out of the cathedral. “They can’t be. I came all this way to find them.”
    “I’m sorry. Your father died in battle with your savior .” His words and expression were bitter as he nodded toward Baltic. “Your mother did not long survive him. They were a very devoted pair. I did not know you survived—your mother told us you had drowned. I don’t know why she placed you with mortals rather than her own kin, but we rejoice that you have been returned to us.”
    A deep sense of sadness leached into my heart, filling me with a black despair. I lifted my gaze to meet that of Baltic. He was waiting for me, his eyes guarded, his face devoid of emotion. “You killed my father?”
    “We are at war,” he said. “Lives are lost during wars, Ysolde.”
    I nodded, tears filling my eyes, my heart so heavy I couldn’t speak.
    “Come. I will take you to your mother’s family. They will welcome you,” Constantine said, one hand on my back as he escorted me down the aisle of the cathedral, his guard falling in behind him.
    I paused at the great double doors and looked back. Kostya and Pavel had joined Baltic at the altar. All three watched me. I wanted to thank Baltic for honoring his word to me, even when it meant he had to meet with his most hated enemy. I wanted to tell him how much pleasure he had given me in our nights together. I wanted to tell him that I was no longer angry that he took me away from the only family I’d known.
    I said nothing. I simply looked at him, then turned and accompanied Constantine out of the cathedral and into my new life.
    “You will be cherished now, Ysolde,” Constantine reassured me. “We have much to teach you, but you will learn that by-and-by.”

Chapter Six
    B y-and-by , I thought, my heart filled with so much sadness I knew it must shatter into a hundred little pieces. By-and-by .
    By-and-by? No, that wasn’t right.
    “I said hi. Hello? Howdy? Hidy ho? Hi hi hi?”
    I blinked, the fog evaporating into nothing, the back of the bench once more solid under my hand. In front of me sat a large shaggy black dog, panting in the sunlight, long streamers of drool dribbling from his slobbery lips. I looked around for the dog’s owner, but no one was there.
    “There you are. Ysolde, right?”
    My eyebrows raised, I looked down at the dog. The voice was coming from him.
    He tipped his head to the side and I swear he winked at me. “Wow, you look like hell. How ya doing after that header you took into Ash’s marble coffee table?”
    “Er . . .” My jaw sagged slightly. “Do I know you?”
    “Yeah. We met at Aisling and Drake’s house during the big birthing hullabaloo. I’m Jim. Effrijim, really, but that’s way too girly for a butch guy like me. You look kind of funny. You didn’t see me when May ordered me into human form, did you? Because that would explain why you look like you’re seeing a three- headed alien dance A Chorus Line .”
    “Human form,” I repeated stupidly. “No, I was . . .”
    I was dreaming. In the middle of the day? Panic gripped my stomach with clammy fingers. Now the dreams were coming to me while I was wide awake? “Dear god, the shock treatments are going to be just around the corner if my brain keeps going at this rate!”
    “Ya think?”
    I stared at the dog; my thoughts panicked.
    “Ouch. You look like you’re gonna pass out or hurl. If you’re going to do the latter, can you aim away from me? This magnificent coat takes forever to dry after a bath.”
    “I’m all right,” I said, managing to get a grip on my errant emotions. “You’re a dog, but you can use human form?”
    “I’m a demon. Sixth class, so it’s OK. I’m not going to rip your entrails out and drape them over a tree or anything like that. Besides, Aisling would lop off my package if I did that. She’s always threatening to lop off my package. I think she’s got a secret genitalia fetish, if you want to know the truth, but she’s a nice enough demon