Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

given up the idea that May and Kaawa were potentially dangerous—they let me have a shower, had promised to feed me, and had given me coffee, and crazy people seldom did any of that.
    “Ah. No ill effects from it, I hope?” he asked.
    “Not unless you call fifty-two elephants tap-dancing in combat boots while bouncing anvils on my brain an ill effect,” I said, gazing longingly at the bottle of ibuprofen.
    “No more,” May said, moving it out of my reach. “You’ll poison yourself if you take any more.”
    I sipped my coffee with obnoxious noisiness as punishment for her hard-heartedness.
    “I’m afraid there is little I can do for a headache.” He nodded toward the man with him. “Tipene, when we are done here, e-mail Dr. Kostich and let him know his apprentice has recovered.”
    The second man was also black, but with much shorter dreadlocks. He nodded. Beneath the light-colored T-shirt he wore, I could see thick black curved lines that indicated he bore rather detailed tribal tattoos across his chest.
    “We were just having some coffee while waiting for lunch,” May continued, smiling up at the first man. “Ysolde says her brain is a bit fuzzy still.”
    “Not so fuzzy that I can’t correct something that’s seriously wrong,” I said, setting my cup down. I addressed the man who stood next to May. “I assume you’re Gabriel Tao . . . Tow . . .”
    “Tauhou,” he said, his eyes narrowed as he searched my face.
    “Sorry, I have the memory of maple syrup when it comes to people’s names. I was trying to tell your . . . er . . .” I waved vaguely toward May.
    “Mate,” he said.
    “Quite.” I didn’t even blink over the odd word to use for a partner. What people called their significant others in the privacy of their own homes was not one iota my business. “I was just trying to tell her that I think you have me mistaken for someone else. My name isn’t Ysolde. It’s Tully, Tully Sullivan.”
    “Indeed,” he said politely, taking the seat that May had been using. She perched on the arm of the chair instead, not touching him, but I could sense the electricity between them.
    “I’m an apprentice mage,” I explained. “You mentioned contacting Dr. Kostich—I’m sure he’d be happy to tell you that you’ve got me confused with someone else.”
    “Whether or not you are a mage remains to be seen. That you are Kostich’s apprentice, we know. You were introduced to us by him almost two months ago, when you came to the home of the green wyvern to prevent an attack.”
    “Wyvern?” The word was mentioned earlier, but it took until now to sink in through the fog wrapped around my brain. If it meant what I thought it did, it would go a long way to explaining their odd behavior. “The kind that are . . . oh! That’s why you mentioned dragons. You’re them, right? Dragons?”
    “My father is a dragon, and May is my mate,” Gabriel said, taking May’s hand. “Tipene is also a silver dragon, as is Maata, whom you will meet shortly. As, I need not say, are you.”
    I would have laughed, but my brain was still slogging along at a snail’s pace. I gave him what I hoped was a jaunty little smile, instead. No wonder they seemed to be so very odd—they were dragons! “You know, in a way this is very exciting. I’ve never met a dragon before. I’ve heard about you, of course. Who hasn’t? But I can assure you that I am not one of you. Not that there’s anything wrong with, you know, being an animal. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. I’m sure some very nice people are dragons. I just don’t happen to know any other than you guys, and I just met you. Oh, hell. I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”
    “Yes,” Kaawa said. “But that is all right. We understand.”
    “Do you?” I asked hopefully. “Good, because I don’t understand anything since I woke up, not the least of which is why you’d think I was the same as you.”
    “You are Ysolde de Bouchier, silver dragon, and mate to Baltic, who used to be wyvern of the black dragons,” Kaawa said, her gaze seeming to strip away all my defenses and leave my soul bare. I squirmed in my chair, uncomfortable with her intense regard.
    “I think I would know if I was a fire- breathing shape-shifter with a love of gold,” I said gently, not wanting to upset her because she seemed rather nice, if a bit odd. I racked my sluggish brain to remember everything I knew about dragons. “I’m afraid I don’t even know much