Light Dragons 02 - The Unbearable Lightness of Dragons

snapped. “Very well. Your mate is welcome here as well.”
    I smiled and put a restraining hand on Baltic’s arm, which was tense, as if his muscles were poised for attack. “Thank you. We appreciate it, despite the fact that this is really our house.”
    “Is it?” He gave a little smirk. “I believe it is held by the wyvern of the black dragons, and that is me.”
    “Only so long as I allow you to remain so,” Baltic growled.
    Kostya’s eyes narrowed, a little smoke emerging from his nose. “Do you wish to challenge me for the sept?”
    “I do not need to. If I wanted it, I would take it,” Baltic answered.
    “Oh, lord, please tell me I don’t have to let you two boys break each other’s noses again,” I said, sighing heavily.
    Both men turned identical glares on me. “Boys!” Kostya snorted. “We are wyverns!”
    “That may be, but you’re acting like twits dancing around each other with your hackles up.”
    “Twit!” Baltic repeated, outraged.
    “Hackles! We do not have hackles!” Kostya said, just as outraged. “Dogs have hackles. Dragons do not!”
    “Then stop acting like you do,” I told him with a look that I reserve for Brom at his most fractious. I turned to Baltic, giving his arm another squeeze. “And you can cease muttering rude things under your breath. We can all hear them, and even though they’re in Zilant, I can tell what it is you’re saying.”
    He shot me another outraged look, but stopped swearing to himself.
    Kostya’s expression turned martyred. “You are far too outspoken for your own good, Ysolde, but it does not surprise me. It will be a cold day in Abaddon before I ever meet a mate who displays the respect proper to wyverns.”
    I looked at Baltic, expecting him to take offense at Kostya’s speaking to me that way, but he said nothing, just glared. I threw my own good intentions to the wind. “Are you going to let him get away with that?”
    “With speaking the truth?” He shrugged. “I have not seen the red wyvern’s mate in centuries, but from what I remember of him, he was the only mate who knew how to behave.”
    “And speaking of errant mates, where’s Cyrene?” May cut in as I was about to argue the point with Baltic.
    Kostya, who had been matching Baltic’s glare with one of his own, transferred it to May. “That is a very good question. You would have to ask her that for an answer, however, since she has apparently left.”
    “Left? Left for where?” May asked, not looking at all surprised.
    “I am evidently not to be privy to such information. She simply hurled all sorts of insults at me, packed up her things—and several that weren’t hers—and stormed out of here promising all sorts of watery vengeance if I tried, and these are her words, to follow her, woo her back to my arms in order to have my lustful way with her pristine body, or notify you that she had abandoned me for a god who evidently knows how to treat a naiad. Despite that, consider yourself duly notified.”
    “Oh, no, she hasn’t . . . not Neptune?” May asked, groaning. “A god who knows how to treat her? He took her stream away from her until she made me help get it back. She’s absolutely . . . I’m sorry, Kostya, I really am. There’s no excuse for what she’s done to you.”
    “She said she loved me! She made me name her as mate in front of the weyr!”
    “I know, and I’m sorry.” May put an arm around Kostya and gave him a little hug. “She swore that this time it was different, and I believed her. I thought she really was going to stay in love with you.”
    His martyred look returned. “I should have known she was trouble. She was always demanding I let her meddle in sept business. I told her no, that was not the bailiwick of a mate, but she would not listen. My mother said it would come to a bad end, but I didn’t listen to her.”
    “Yes, well, Catalina isn’t who I’d really go to for relationship advice,” May said with a little smile as she returned to Gabriel’s side. “Is she still dating Magoth?”
    “No, thank god.” Kostya’s shoulders slumped in a manner that indicated a morose sort of pleasure. “Your former demon lord dumped her for some Hollywood starlet. Mother is currently living with a trio of bodybuilders in Rio, and only comes to plague us when she remembers that Drake has children.”
    “She sounds like a delightful person,” I said dryly. Baltic looked bored, glancing at his watch. I estimated I had about ten