Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

is a one-way street!” I bellowed, leaning forward over the seat to try and wrap my arms around Brom in a desperate attempt to protect him from imminent death.
    “I’m only going one way!”
    “Yes, the wrong waiiiiiiiiieee!”
    “Wow.” Brom’s voice came from the depths of where I had him smashed against my chest. “That really is your nipple. What’s that mark near it?”
    “Stop looking at my boobs!” I roared as Baltic, in blatant disregard of the fact that he was driving against traffic, and indeed was now up on the sidewalk scattering pedestrians hither and yon, turned to see just how badly I was popping out of the corset top.
    “You will not be purchasing garments from that shop again,” he said sternly. “I do not approve of this belief you cherish that exhibition games will arouse me. They do not.”
    “Pull over!” I screamed, pointing to a parking lot.
    He pulled over, the sounds of horns, crumpling metal as cars avoided him but ran into parked vehicles, and breaking glass following us to the car park.
    The second we stopped I was out of the car, marching around to the driver’s side. I yanked open the door and pointed at the backseat. “I will drive!” I said, daring Baltic to defy me.
    He glared, his eyes narrow slits of obsidian. “You are impugning my ability to drive a vehicle, mate. You will cease doing so, and get back into the machine.”
    “Please,” Jim whimpered from the back. “Let her drive. I don’t know how many more magnificent forms I can find.”
    My glare turned into a thing of fulminating beauty.
    “Very well,” Baltic said with haughty graciousness as he got out of the car. He stared pointedly at my chest. “But you must stop showing everyone your breasts. I realize that your rebirth has caused you to develop odd sexual preferences, but I will not tolerate my mate exposing herself to all and sundry. If you wish to display them, I and I alone will be your audience. You must resign yourself to this, mate.”
    “Oooh,” Jim said, sitting up straight. “What sorts of odd sexual kinks other than flashing nip do you have, Soldie?”
    “I am not exposing myself to anyone!” I said, then looked down and saw I was doing just that. I tucked my right breast back into the shirt, saying, “Well, dammit! I don’t normally do that! And I don’t have odd sexual preferences, so you can just stop whatever suggestive comment you were about to make, Jim.”
    “I was just going to ask if it involved sticks of butter or cloven-hooved animals,” it answered.
    “You cannot deny the overriding desire you harbor to watch Pavel with—”
    “Gah!” I yelled, wanting to tear out my hair. I slapped my hand over Baltic’s mouth, instead.
    “Who’s Pavel? And what does she want to watch him do?” Jim asked, leaning forward over the front seat.
    I glared at it for a second as I slid behind the steering wheel. “Get in,” I told Baltic.
    He crossed his arms. “I will not share a seat with a demon.”
    “Hey! I can hear you!”
    “I’ll sit with Jim,” Brom said, giving me a considering look as he scrambled into the backseat.
    “There, you see? My son is kindly allowing you to ride shotgun.”
    “ My son,” Baltic said, giving me another of his patented annoyed looks.
    “What?”
    “He is my son. By rights he should be, and you said you wanted me to treat him as such, so I am doing that. I claim him as my son. You, Bram—”
    “Brom,” my child corrected him.
    “You will cease being the offspring of the usurper who stole Ysolde from me. You are now my son.”
    “OK,” Brom said, not the least bit ruffled by that idea.
    “There, you see? I have fixed things,” Baltic told me.
    “Lovely. Great. Wonderful. I’ll get you a Dad of the Year T-shirt later. Can we get going now? I hear police sirens, and if we don’t get out of here now, we’re going to have a whole lot of explaining to do.”
    “Yeah. Demon- napping is a federal offense now, I hear,” Jim said as Baltic got into the passenger seat.
    It was a very long ride back to Baltic’s house.
    “What are we doing here?” Brom asked as I stopped an hour later. He peered out the window at the white house.
    “We’re going to be staying here with Baltic.”
    “For how long?”
    “Until I can rebuild Dauva,” Baltic replied as he got out of the car. The door to the house opened, and a man emerged. “Ah. Pavel is back. Good.”
    I looked over the roof of the car to the man I recognized from my