Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

as my mate.”
    His voice and expression were contemplative. “Hmm.”
    Ludovic was growing impatient, gesturing toward his watch even as he continued to scan the streets for potential threats.
    “I have to go, Constantine. Is there ... This sounds so strange ... . Do you live anywhere? Is there somewhere I can contact you about the situation with Kostya?”
    “Kostya,” he said in that same tone of contemplation, his attention focused on some inner vision. “Yes, I believe that will suffice. It should have been mine by rights, after all.”
    “Also, do you have a cell phone? Or is there some other way I can get a hold of-what should have been yours by rights?” I asked, suddenly suspicious of the pleased look that spread across his face.
    His lips curled in a smile as he grabbed me, suddenly fully solid, and pressed a fast, hard kiss on my lips. “The black sept, of course. Your idea is most excellent, Ysolde. It should have been mine to begin with, but that underhanded Baltic used his grandfather’s affection to challenge me for the position of heir, and Alexei gave it to him.”
    “Whoa,” I said, twisting myself out of his grip. “I asked you to steal a shard from Kostya, not take his sept!”
    “But now,” Constantine said, continuing just as if I hadn’t spoken, “I will have my revenge, against Baltic, against Alexei, against all of them. I will take the black sept, and return it to its full glory!”
    “Heaven preserve me from dragons with one-track minds,” I swore.

Chapter Five
    “S avian speaking.”
    “Hello, I don’t know if you remember me, but my name is Ysolde de Bouchier, and I-”
    “Ack!” The man on the other end of the phone squawked so loudly that Ludovic, at the wheel of the car as we headed back to the pub, cast a curious glance at me in the rearview mirror. “You’re the deranged dragon who has the unnatural interest in my nuts!”
    “I am neither deranged nor do I give a fig about your testicles,” I said with much dignity.
    “You threatened to turn them into toads!”
    “It was all a mistake, and I apologized later for that. Besides, it’s not like I actually did turn them into anything. It’s just that you were being very annoying by telling Gabriel and May that my ex-husband hired you to get me away from them, which was extremely embarrassing considering they were nothing but nice to me, so really, any testicular threats made-and again, I will point out that they were threats only, and not actions-were perfectly reasonable given the circumstances.”
    Savian Bartholomew, roguish Englishman famed for both his ability in tracking, and his record as a thief-taker for the L’au-dela, breathed heavily into the phone at me. “That point is open to debate. If you didn’t call me up to harass my nuts, what do you want?”
    “I have a job for you, one involving the location of a stronghold.” I had to go carefully here, needing to assess his willingness to steal something from people who occasionally employed him.
    “Which stronghold?”
    I cleared my throat and idly watched the buildings stream by as we passed into the London suburb where the pub was located. “I don’t know that it has a proper name, but it’s a place where items of great value are stored.”
    “I’m not a thief,” he warned, his voice rife with suspicion. “If you’re thinking to hire me to steal something for you, you can just think again.”
    “I wouldn’t dream of asking you to steal anything that wasn’t mine. And as a matter of fact, the item that I do want removed from this stronghold belongs to Baltic, so even if I was thinking of it, it would be perfectly moral to do so. However, all I need is for the location of the stronghold to be found. After that, your job is done.”
    “You’re talking about a dragon’s lair, aren’t you?” Savian’s voice was relaxed now, almost lighthearted. “But wait. May said you’re hooked up with that wyvern with the deranged theurgist who almost killed me when I hunted down his lair. Whose lair do you want found if it’s not his?”
    “It’s not really a lair I want found. Well, perhaps it is of sorts, but it ... uh ... doesn’t belong to a dragon. I’m glad you mentioned May, though. She said that she and Gabriel had hired you to do some things that would have made Dr. Kostich angry had he known about them.”
    “Now you’re blackmailing me?” he asked, his voice rising.
    “No, no, I’d never dream of doing that. I just