Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

Baltic said before turning to face Antonia. “Quench your fire, and let her go. She has news that I seek regarding Constantine. That is all I desire from her.”
    Absently, I tamped down on the fire, allowing the strange stream of power that flowed around her to dissipate, just like water seeping into parched earth. “The father of us all? Not . . . by the rood, that was the First Dragon?”
    The words echoed in my head as I watched Baltic confront a furious Antonia, my mind dazzled by the fact that the ancestor of all dragons who ever were and ever would be had spoken to me. Not just spoken to me . . .
    “Told me his hopes rested with me,” I said, blinking as the velvet night brightened into a cloudy day. I looked up at my Baltic, who gently stroked my back, his breath ruffling my hair as cars whizzed past us. “Did you see that, too?”
    “Your vision? No. But I remember it.” His lips twisted. “Antonia threatened to destroy you for almost a century. Only the fact that she would have had to deal with the First Dragon if she had done so stopped her. And now you will question me for weeks as to what the First Dragon meant, and I will tell you repeatedly that I do not know. It is the truth, mate; I did not know then, and I do not know now. Nor do I particularly care.”
    I pulled back and gave him a long look. “You don’t like the First Dragon, do you?”
    He made a face. “My feelings toward him do not matter.”
    “Uh-huh. What about Antonia? What was all that business with her?”
    “As you said, it was business. She had an interest in Constantine, and I sought to find out where he was.”
    “Hmm. And that water?”
    He looked surprised. “I do not remember water. You attempted to burn Antonia alive, not drown her—not that you could have done either, but you came close to succeeding with your dragon fire.”
    “There was some other form of power I was tapping into. It felt like I was standing in a stream of it, flowing around and through me.”
    He shrugged, and looked pointedly at his watch. “We will be late picking up Brom if you do not continue. Would you prefer for me to drive?”
    “No,” I said, resuming my seat and snapping the seat belt over my chest. I gave him one last look before I pulled out into the stream of traffic. “But I do want you to tell me one thing.”
    “What is that?”
    I gripped the steering wheel with grim determination. “If you weren’t at Dauva overseeing the reconstruction for the last couple of days, just where the devil were you?”

Chapter Nine
    “ W e’d almost given up on you,” May said, smiling as she greeted us at the door of Gabriel’s house. “Brom was ready to go, but then a bird hit one of the back windows, and he went outside to see if it was stunned or dead. I’m sure this is completely against the agreement Baltic made with Gabriel, but would you like to come in for a few minutes? I can promise you that no one will hold you prisoner or otherwise harm either of you.”
    “I do not wish to enter the silver wyvern’s house, no,” Baltic said somewhat stiffly. He looked at me. “Are you speaking to me yet?”
    “No.”
    He sighed. “My mate is making a futile attempt to punish me, but she will follow my desires in this as in everything and not enter—Ysolde!”
    I pushed past him into the house, glancing around the cool hallway. “I’d love to chat for a bit, May. Hello, Gabriel. We’ve come for a visit.”
    “No, we have not! For the love of the saints, woman, I just finished telling the silver mate that we did not wish to enter!” Baltic stormed in after me. “Why do I speak if you will not heed my words?”
    I raised an eyebrow at him.
    “No,” he said, answering the unspoken question. “I am a wyvern! I do not need to explain to you, my mate, the one who says she loves me beyond all else, the one who has promised to obey me, my every move.”
    “Obey?” May asked, her eyes widening with mirth. “Oh, dear.”
    Gabriel’s lips twitched in an otherwise somber expression.
    I kept the pleasant smile on my face despite the desire to whomp a certain dragon upside his handsome, if annoyingly stubborn, head. “We’re having a little argument. Baltic feels he can go traipsing off who-knows-where without bothering to tell me, and I feel he can shove his head up his—”
    “Ysolde!”
    “You are welcome to our home despite the current situation between the weyr and you,” Gabriel said, clearly fighting a smile. He