Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

the side as she listened. A slow smile lit her eyes as she said simply, “Well, I’m glad to see you again, Cyrene, although I have a feeling you’re not going to be quite so happy in about thirty seconds.”
    I caught the rumble of masculine voices at the same time May did, both of us turning to the door seconds before it opened and two men strolled in.
    “I know you are having your meeting,” the man in the lead said, his green eyes glittering with some secret amusement as he strolled over toward Aisling. “But it would be a rudeness for us to not greet May and Ysolde-” He came to a halt at the sight of the fourth person at the table.
    “Good afternoon, Drake,” I said, watching with interest as his older brother froze with a horrible expression of complete and utter disbelief on his otherwise handsome face. “Kostya, it’s nice to see you again. I’m glad you’re here, actually; I was planning on giving you a call while I was in town.”
    “What is she doing here?” Kostya asked, pointing at Cyrene and sucking in approximately half of the oxygen left in the room.
    “Kostie!” Cyrene squealed after looking disconcerted for a moment. “You’re back! Lambkins!”
    Kostya, I noted absently, was looking much more like his old self. I remembered him well from my past as Baltic’s former heir, and the man who had stood by him for many centuries-until the day he decided to kill Baltic. He’d always been a darkly handsome man, with the black eyes and onyx hair so common in black dragons. But when I’d been reintroduced to him a few months before, he’d been thin to the point of gaunt, having suffered, so Aisling informed me, from imprisonment and starvation at the hands of lawless, septless dragons.
    Now he was looking much healthier, breadth and depth returning him to an impressive figure of a man, and although I’d be the last person to ever apply the word “happy” to Kostya, his expression the last month had been much more relaxed.
    Kostya sidestepped Cyrene as she leaped from the chair and tried to throw herself on him. “I am not your lambkins, and I will thank you to refrain from flinging your person at me.”
    “Oh, Kostie,” Cyrene said with a simper, flashing glances around us. “Silly dragon, thinking you ever stopped being my one true love.”
    May groaned as Aisling rubbed her hand over her face, shaking her head. Drake moved to her side, his hands on her shoulders as he watched his brother. I watched Kostya, too, interested to see what he’d do.
    “Silly dragon?” Kostya roared, his expression as dark as his hair as he glared at Cyrene. “You left me! You made me name you as a mate-despite the fact that you aren’t a wyvern’s mate-in front of all the weyr, and then you left me six weeks later!”
    “I didn’t really leave you. I just had to go do some ... er ... work ... .”
    “You told me I was a beast and cruel and wasn’t worth the ground you walked on!” Kostya stormed. “You said you hated me, and that you were going away to live with some water god, and you never wanted to see me again.”
    Cyrene, with another glance at the rest of us, tried to put her hand on his arm, but he snatched it back with a disbelieving glare. “Now, dumpling, I’m sure the others aren’t interested in our silly little squabbles-”
    “Squabbles!” Kostya bellowed, sucking in the remainder of the air in obvious preparation for continuing at that volume.
    “Cyrene, I think now is not the time to have this discussion,” May said, taking her twin and pushing her toward the door. “You’re just upsetting everyone, and if Kostya continues to yell like that, he’ll wake Aisling’s babies.”
    “But I’m a mate,” Cyrene protested as May forced her out of the room. “This is a mates’ meeting. I should be here.”
    The door closed on May’s soft murmurs, leaving the room highly charged.
    “Wow,” Jim said, snuffling Kostya’s legs until the dragon narrowed his eyes. “Never thought she’d have the balls to try to sweet-talk her way back into your good graces. You’re not going to take her back, are you? ’Cause if you are, I’m going to want to have a video camera handy to film it. It isn’t often you see a wyvern emasculate himself over a chick.”
    “Aisling,” Kostya growled in warning.
    “Jim, silence. Don’t you give me that look-you know better than to say things like that, especially to Kostya. Although ... ” She glanced up at Drake. “Although I do