Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

to Baltic’s home—”
    “My home! It belongs to me now!” Kostya said.
    “Pardon me, Baltic’s former home, that it would somehow prove I’m a dragon? Will I start setting things on fire? Burst into scaly lizard form? Suddenly become fascinated with gold?” I asked, too tired to mind my manners as I should.
    “Judging by what I felt when I was there, yes, I think you’ll have some sort of a definitive experience,” May said.
    “But Ysolde doesn’t bear the Avignon Phylactery anymore,” Kostya said.
    May slid an unreadable smile toward her wyvern. “No, but I can attest to the fact that once you’ve borne a shard, it changes you. I’m sure it changed Ysolde, too.”
    “It sounds like a good idea to me,” Aisling said.
    “With Kostya’s permission, we will take you to the house in question tomorrow,” Gabriel said. “You will not, I hope, mind if May and I accompany you?”
    “I will be there as well,” Kostya said.
    “Oooh. That sounds interesting. Can we go?” Aisling asked Drake.
    He raised his eyebrows and looked at Gabriel. “We have no reason to, but if Gabriel—and Ysolde—have no objection, I admit that I am curious to see if the house does have some effect on her.”
    Gabriel stated a time, and everyone agreed to meet at the house. I sat back in my chair, drained by the emotions I’d been through in the last few days, wanting nothing more than . . . I sighed to myself. I didn’t even know what I wanted anymore, other than peace of mind.
    I expected to dream that night, and I did. I closed the door to Brom’s room after seeing him settled for the night, wished May a pleasant evening, and stepped into my room, and straight into a maelstrom of testosterone.
    “You are too late, Baltic,” the man who stood in front of me taunted. “Ysolde has spoken the words. She has sworn fealty to me. She is now my mate.”
    I stepped to the side to look around Constantine. Baltic and about ten men emerged from the trees that formed a gentle curve around the cliff top where we stood, Kostya and Pavel immediately to his rear.
    Instantly the silver dragons pulled their swords, surrounding Constantine and me.
    “Is that true?” Baltic asked me, his expression as stormy as the sea that raged behind us.
    I took a step forward, but Constantine put his hand out to stop me. “You will address me, and not my mate. Ysolde is mine. You will never have her.”
    “Why are you here?” I asked Baltic, shrugging off Constantine’s hand and pushing past his guards. They made a move to stop me, but fell back when I glared at them.
    “Why do you think I’m here? I came to claim my mate,” Baltic answered, his eyes glittering darkly.
    “Your mate? You said you didn’t want me. You said you would never have anything to do with a silver dragon,” I cried.
    “I said I would never bed a silver dragon,” he corrected. “I have since changed my mind. You are my mate. I sent a messenger telling you I would come to claim you as such.”
    “I know of no messenger!” I said, shocked and horrified.
    His expression darkened. “I should have known that Constantine would claim you for himself rather than let you be mine.”
    “Ysolde, my dove, let me deal with this,” Constantine said, his voice warm and rumbly and comfortable just as it had been for the three months while I had been with him in the south of France.
    I spun around to face him, suddenly filled with knowledge that left me furious. “You knew he was coming for me, didn’t you? You knew my heart was breaking, and still you kept his message from reaching me. By the rood! That’s why you pressed me to make the oath to you! You deceived me!”
    “You are my responsibility,” Constantine said, taking my hands in his.
    Baltic positively growled. Kostya, his eyes on the silver guards, held him back.
    “I promised to care for you that first day when you were given to me,” Constantine continued. “I could not help but love you, my precious dove. Can you blame me for wanting you as my mate?”
    How stupid I’d been. How stupid and naïve, falling for the honeyed words and the promise of a lifetime of being loved, when in reality, I was being used as an instrument in a war that had raged for two hundred years. I pulled my hands from his and backed up, sickened by the way he’d fooled me. The guards looked to Constantine, but he lifted his hand to stop them. “You told me I was the one meant to be your mate, but all the while you knew Baltic