Light Dragons 03 - Sparks Fly

Pavel said quickly, snatching the toy from me and stuffing it into the bag along with the others. “You’ve been more than generous, but I believe I will be able to work out how to use everything.”
    I beamed at him, pleased that he was so enthusiastic. “I hope you enjoy them. And Holland enjoys them, too. Do let me know how that bed restraint goes, and whether or not the electric thing works as well as Dido said it does.”
    I swear he choked as he hurried out of the pantry, but I put it down to his being overwhelmed with the number of toys I’d brought. “Now, if I can just get Baltic to agree to play with the toys I bought for us, we’ll be set.”

Chapter Twelve
    A few minutes later, when I was arranging a vase of rather aphidy wildflowers in a cracked vase, I heard noise from upstairs.
    “Oh good, you’re still here,” Maura said as she walked briskly down the stairs, a small duffel bag in her hand. “I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye, and thanking you for making my imprisonment as charming as it could be.”
    “You weren’t imprisoned,” I said with a bit of exasperation.
    “My kidnapping, then. Thank you for making it a pleasant kidnapping. Or as pleasant as it could be having been chained to that man.”
    “I know it wasn’t pleasant, but Savian isn’t that-”
    The front door was suddenly flung open, the breeze from the action whipping my hair around.
    “I knew it!” The silhouette of the man in the doorway resolved itself into a familiar form as he entered the house. “I knew you were here in Riga!”
    “Kostya? What are you doing here? And why are you banging my front door around like that? I hope you’re not treating my door at Dragonwood that way, because if you are, I’ll have a few things to say to you about it.”
    “Dragonwood is not yours, so what I do with my own front door is-” He stopped, took a deep breath, and said in his most dramatic voice, “ What are you doing in Latvia?”
    “Will you move, you great big ... You could help me, you know!”
    Kostya jerked as if someone had shoved him, stepping aside to glare down at the woman who dragged a huge suitcase in after her. “You shoved yourself-uninvited, I’d like to point out-into my car. Since I no longer recognize you as my mate, I am not responsible for you, the immense amount of luggage you crammed onto the backseat, or the hotel bill you tried to force me to pay.”
    “Hello, Cyrene,” I said, suddenly weary. “I take it by the suitcase that you’ve come to visit us? I’m afraid you’ll have to share a room with Maura now that Savian is on his own again, unless you wanted one of the attic rooms, but I didn’t have the cleaning ladies do anything with them, so they’re no doubt full of spiders and bats and really nasty things like that.”
    “You can have my room, because I’m leaving. I’m in a world of trouble for having been away this long as it is,” Maura said, trying to scoot around the couple.
    “Thank you, Ysolde,” Cyrene said, smiling broadly at me as she leaned into Kostya. He promptly moved away. “We’d love to stay with you for a bit!”
    “Wait, Maura, just a second. I want to talk to you.”
    Her shoulders slumped a little when she gave a longing look to the door. “If you’re going to apologize again, you needn’t do so. I know the kidnapping wasn’t your fault.”
    Kostya gave me a considering look. “You kidnapped that woman?”
    “No! Not really. Kind of. It was an unforeseen, and very regrettable accident, that’s all, and Maura, don’t you dare take another step toward the door.”
    “Almost free,” she said in a dramatic voice, her eyes locked on the door. “Freedom, the sweetest of all balms to the immortal soul.”
    “Oh, for the love of ... no, Cyrene, Kostya cannot stay here. You may share Maura’s room if you like, but even though Baltic no longer wants to kill Kostya on sight, there’s no way he can stay in this house.”
    “I don’t want to be in the same house as Baltic. I have a perfectly nice home in St. Petersburg.” Kostya shot a harried glance toward Cyrene. “Or I used to, before a certain watery tart tried repeatedly to break into it.”
    Cyrene hung on to her smile for all she was worth. “Isn’t he cute?” she said, patting him on the arm. The expression in her eyes was less amused, however. “Kostie does enjoy his little jokes. But that is so kind of you to ask us to stay. We’d love to, naturally. I don’t think