Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

to a furry black dog, who was now rubbing the top of its head along the edge of the mattress upon which I was lying. “Jim! What the devil were you trying to do?”
    “See if you were still breathing. You were making funny little grunting noises.” It lifted its head and bellowed, “She’s awake!”
    I realized at that moment that I wasn’t alone in the bed. The familiar warm, solid form who lay next to me was too still, however. I pulled myself up again as I bent over Baltic, who was lying on his stomach, and I noted signs of serious wounds in the process of healing. “Saints of the apocalypse, what happened to his back?”
    Aisling bustled into the room, May on her heels. “Oh, good, you are awake. How do you feel?”
    “Confused. What’s happened to Baltic?”
    “Dirge at point-blank range,” Jim said, peering over the bed to look at the bruised and battered back. “He takes a licking but keeps on ticking, doesn’t he?”
    “Dirge . . .” Memory returned to me. “Thala!”
    “I’m so glad you told us where you were going, or we wouldn’t have arrived just as she brought the house down on you,” Aisling said, fetching a soft robe from a wardrobe. Absently, I put it on over the nightgown in which I’d been dressed.
    “Baltic took the brunt of it, but Gabriel and Tipene worked over him and Pavel all night.” May’s blue eyes considered me with a frankness that drove home the debt we owed them. “You weren’t hurt badly, but the others . . . well, I’m just glad that Aisling and Drake brought you to us in time.”
    “I will move heaven and earth to repay all of you,” I swore, tears swimming in my eyes as I gently touched the marks on Baltic’s back. He moaned into the pillow, moving restlessly. I couldn’t keep from bending down to kiss his cheek, whispering, “It’s all right, my love. You sleep. I’m right here.”
    He murmured my name, his body relaxing again as I stroked his shoulder.
    “If you can stand a visitor, I know of someone who’s anxious to see you. Jim, stop touching Ysolde with your nose. It’s unhygienic,” Aisling scolded, shooing him toward the door.
    “Sheesh, you yell at me for not wanting to see her when she’s all bloody and gooey, and now you’re yelling because I’m just checking that she’s OK. Inconsistent much, Ash?”
    “Sullivan?” Brom appeared in the door, his face anxious. I slipped out of the bed and met him halfway, hugging him as tightly as I could without cutting off his oxygen. “Nico said you’d be OK, but you didn’t look like it when they carried you in.”
    “I’m absolutely OK,” I said, giving him one last squeeze before he started casting glances at the others in the room. “So is Baltic. I’m sorry if we frightened you.”
    “I wasn’t scared,” he said with all the insouciance of a nine-year-old. He glanced again at Baltic, then gave a little twitch of his shoulders. “Not much. I’m glad you’re back, though. Jim says Thala went postal and exploded the house. Is the basement blown up as well?”
    I smiled, relieved that the strained expression had faded to one of purely mercenary interest. “I’m sure it was. We’ll have to get you some new equipment for your ghastly experiments, all right?”
    “OK. Nico says he’ll go with us the next time Maata and I go to the British Museum. He says he knows someone who works there who will let us see behind-the-scenes stuff. He says they have mummies that they don’t even let people see, but that he can talk to them and they might show them to me. He says they have mummies of cats.”
    “You’re just a really weird kid,” Jim told Brom. “Luckily, I like weird.”
    “And once again balance is restored to the world,” I said, smiling.

Chapter Twenty
    “ M ate, stop fussing over me.”
    “Gabriel says—”
    “I don’t care what the silver wyvern says. You will cease trying to force me into bed, and instead give me my trousers.”
    “You haven’t rested enough!” I stuffed the pair of pants that one of Drake’s men had brought into the wardrobe and spun around with my back to the door. “Gabriel was very clear that your injuries were sufficiently serious that you needed time to finish the healing he started. That doesn’t mean you can get up a few hours after you were just about blown to kingdom come!”
    “I will not be ordered around by Gabriel Tauhou!” Baltic stormed, marching toward me in all of his naked glory, his scowl truly magnificent. He