Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

his, drawing strength and comfort from his touch. “All those dragons who died because you met me instead of the woman you were supposed to spend your life with.”
    “A woman? What woman?” He sighed again. “You will remove your clothing and climb into bed so that I may comfort you. I would prefer to make love to you, but I know how you are at this time, so I will simply hold you as you said you enjoy.”
    I slid from the bed, slowly unbuttoning my shirt, not with the intention of teasing him, but with a sense of regret so strong, it made me want to weep. “The woman you were supposed to mate with. The human woman that some soothsayer told you would bring you untold happiness, or something like that. And instead, you met me, and we fell in love, and I brought death and destruction to the sept and the weyr. Oh, Baltic, what have we done?”
    I wanted to curl up into a little ball, so heavy was the guilt that weighed me down.
    Baltic marched around the bed, his hands on my shoulders as he gently shook me. “You insist on having these visions, and now you see what comes of it. I demand that they stop, Ysolde. They distress you, and I do not like to see you unhappy.”
    “I can’t help it,” I said, sobbing now. “If only you hadn’t met me. If only you hadn’t come to my father’s castle-”
    “ You are the woman I was supposed to meet. Chérie , do not weep for such a foolish reason.” He tipped my head back, brushing off my tears with his thumb. “And do not look at me with such accusation in your eyes. I have never lied to you, and I do not do so now.”
    “But ... ” I swallowed back the ache in my throat. “But in the vision, Constantine said the soothsayer foretold that your mate was a human.”
    “You are human. You retain a dragon consciousness, but until that has fully claimed you, you appear human.”
    I thought about that for a moment, letting him kiss along my jaw, my fingers digging into the warm, satin-covered muscles of his arms. Despite having attained dragon form in Spain, the dragon being within me was still, I knew now, slumbering. It had woken once, and I had hope I could bring it to full awareness again, but for now ... well, he was right. I was human.
    But I hadn’t always been so.
    “I wasn’t human when we met.”
    “You thought you were. You had been raised as one. To everyone but the mortals who gave you sanctuary, you were human.” He pulled back enough to look down at me, his eyes glowing with mingled passion, love, and annoyance. “You heard Constantine talk about the soothsayer? That happened the night of my mother’s sepulture.”
    “Sepulture? You mean her funeral?”
    “Dragons do not have funerals. We burn our dead in a ceremony called sepulture.” His eyes narrowed. “Is that the vision you had?”
    “Yes.” I slanted him a look. “We have a lot to talk about. I’ve got oodles of questions.”
    He sighed a third time, quickly divesting me of my clothing before picking me up in his arms and carrying me to bed. “You always have questions.”
    I giggled at the martyred tone in his voice. “At least you can’t say your old Ysolde never asked you questions, because I know full well I did. Why did the First Dragon force your grandfather to kick you out of the sept just because you didn’t want to hook up with Chuan Ren? Why did he say your mother’s death could have been avoided, and that you were responsible for it? And why-”
    “Enough!”
    “I want answers!”
    “And I do not wish to give you anything but extreme pleasure.” He paused, his mouth a hairbreadth from my breast as he glanced down my torso. “Is your woman’s time over?”
    “Oh, for the love of the saints. You are the most irritating, annoying, arrogant man I’ve ever met.”
    “Yes, I am,” he said, not batting so much as one single eyelash. “Is it over, or must I wait to make love to you?”
    “Baltic, I’m tired of your never answering my questions. And I have a lot of them.”
    “Your woman’s time is not here?” he prodded.
    “By the rood, Baltic! Do we have to discuss this right now?”
    “Is it here, yes or no?”
    “No!”
    He looked down at my breasts with a speculative glint to his eyes.
    “Wait! I’ll make a deal with you.” I held him back as he was about to dive for my chest, my fingers taking the opportunity to gently massage the tendons in his shoulders and neck.
    “What sort of a deal?”
    I smiled to myself. There was nothing dragons loved