Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

they had been in my dreams. I sensed power about him that I realized with a shock was his dragon fire, carefully leashed, but present nonetheless. “Is that how you think? In terms of people attacking you?”
    “Dragons, not people.”
    “Well, perhaps if you didn’t run around slaughtering other dragons, you wouldn’t have to protect yourself from them when they seek revenge.”
    A frown pulled his eyebrows close. “If you are referring to the wars—”
    “Actually, I’m not,” I said, heedlessly interrupting him. “I’m talking about the sixty-eight blue dragons you killed a couple of months ago.”
    He said nothing for a moment, pulling a long cream and gold curtain across a floor-to-ceiling window before turning to consider me. “What would you think if I told you that I was not responsible for those deaths?”
    “I’d say . . .” I thought for a moment, my lips pursing. “I’d say that everyone believes you are.”
    He shook his head. “That is not what I wanted to know.”
    “It’s what you asked,” I pointed out.
    “But it is not what I wanted to know, a fact of which you are well aware.” To my surprise, he smiled. “If you had any doubt that you are a dragon, Ysolde, the fact that you avoid answering a direct question should be proof positive.”
    “You should do that more often.”
    “Point out reasons why you should recognize the fact that you’re a dragon?”
    “No, smile.”
    His smile faded. “I have had no reason to do so.”
    “Maybe not, but a sense of humor is right at the top of traits I find sexy in a man.”
    “You already think I’m sexy,” he said with arrogant ease, strolling toward me with the same sense of a panther gliding silently down a jungle path that I remembered from the other Ysolde’s life.
    “In the past? No doubt. But there are a whole lot of sexy men around today.” I kept my voice light, striving not to let him hear the smile in it.
    He paused, a moment of uncertainty in his face. “You find this other man, this husband, sexy?”
    “Gareth? Lord, no.” I frowned, wondering about that.
    “Then why did you mate with him?”
    “Physically, you mean?”
    He nodded, watching me with the intensity of a panther, too.
    “I don’t really know. I must have slept with him at some time. That’s what married people do. But . . .” I sat and tried to examine the still impenetrable mass that was my memories. “No. There’s nothing there. I can see his face, and I know he’s a bastard, and I don’t wish to be married to him anymore, but beyond that, it’s pretty much a void.”
    “That is a small comfort,” Baltic said with a wry twist to his lips. “What man is it you find sexy, then? Is it Gabriel? You find him arousing?”
    I couldn’t help but smile at the sudden look of sheer outrage that passed over his face. “Why on earth would you think that?”
    “You are a wyvern’s mate,” he snorted. “He is a wyvern, and you were staying in his house. Did he touch you?”
    “Even if he wanted to—and I assure you, he views me as nothing more than a big pain in the ass—May would kill him. And quite probably me, although perhaps she’d let me live because if she killed me, she’d feel obligated to take in Brom.”
    “Who is Brom?” he asked, his frown back. “Is he yet another man who arouses you?”
    “I think lots of men are sexy, but that doesn’t mean squat,” I said, trying not to laugh again.
    “It does to me.”
    “Pfft. Like you haven’t ever seen a woman and thought she was attractive?”
    “No,” he said in complete seriousness.
    I gawked at him, just a little gawk. “Oh, come on, Baltic.”
    “You doubt my word?” he said, bristling at the implication that I thought he was lying.
    “I think you’re trying to make me feel bad, yes.”
    He sighed a very exaggerated sigh, pulling me to my feet. I stepped away immediately, knowing that just being close to him would leave me indulging my carnal desires. “Ysolde, you are my mate. I desire no other woman than you. I would not try to make you feel bad. I would not lie to you, a fact you should know.”
    “All right, I apologize for doubting your word,” I said humbly, moving over to the window. Although my body screamed to be near him, my mind knew it was wiser to put a little distance between us.
    “Good. Now tell me where this Brom is so that I might geld him.”
    I laughed again, amused by the flash of ire in his eyes.
    “You laugh at me, woman?” he said,