I sucked in my breath at the anger in Dmitri’s voice, peeking at Drake from the corner of my eye. I needn’t have wondered whether he was going to explode. Drake’s anger was always controlled, unlike my lamentably explosive temper. His was slow burning and long to become fully inflamed.

“There are no rules regarding the species of a wyvern’s mate,” Drake answered evenly. “If that is your only objection—”

Dmitri laughed and stalked down the stairs to the stage. “It is but the beginning, cousin.”

Well, that explained a lot. The way he spat out the word explained even more.

“Like the rest of the sept, I grow weary of your mismanagement, your bad decisions, your inability to keep the peace as you swore to do. You are more human than dragon now! Your ineptness, abuses of the sept in general, and clear acts intended to inflame relations between septs exhibit your unsuitability for the position of wyvern. All that we could excuse, but it is your parentage that demands your removal.” Dmitri sauntered onto the stage and stopped in front of Drake, waving a hand at the audience.

Parentage? What was all that about? I kept my mouth shut, knowing that Drake would not welcome my defense of his character and actions, no matter how well meant it was. I had an inkling of what was coming next, though. Drake did, as well, because he didn’t move a muscle as the familiar words were spoken.

“By the laws that govern the sept, I, Dmitri Alexander Mikhail Askov, sergeant in the green dragon militia, do hereby issue a formal challenge of transcendence to Drake Fekete, the one who falsely claims the position as wyvern of the green dragons.”

“Oh, you do not want to be doing that,” I said in a low voice, quiet enough that just the people nearest me could hear it, but not so loud that the microphones picked it up. Dmitri’s head snapped around to look at me, his dark eyes narrowing in scorn as I spoke. “Look, I’ve been in your shoes, and I can tell you from experience that Drake takes challenges very seriously. Obviously you have some is sues with him, but take it from someone who knows—you don’t want to do the challenge thing. The payback on that is a real bitch.”

“I do not recognize you as a member of this sept,” Dmitri said, then spat on me. I was so stunned by his action, I just stood there with a glob of spittle splattered on my collarbone.

Drake’s reaction was instantaneous. He was a blur, one moment standing between me and the podium, the next ten feet away, the theater ringing with the sound of the backhanded slap he delivered to Dmitri.

Slowly, Dmitri turned his head to look at Drake, his eyes bright with fire. “So be it,” he snarled, turning on his heel to march off the stage.

“That’s just about at the top of the gross-o-meter, and you know, I’ve seen a lot of gross things in my time,” Jim said, nudging aside a pitcher of ice water and bringing me the folded linen napkin that was underneath it.

I took it, wiping the spit off my chest. For some reason, my hands were shaking, as if I had been the sole focus of Dmitri’s obvious animosity.

Drake returned to the podium, raising an eyebrow at me. I gawked at his control for a moment, then took a cue from his apparently calm demeanor and hurriedly resumed my place on the chair between him and Pál.

“The second order of business I have to announce concerns the red dragons. This morning I received a statement from Chuan Ren that as of this date, the red dragons have withdrawn their acceptance of the current peace treaty and have declared war against members of this sept.”

“Holy cow,” I said on a nearly silent breath, leaning over to Pál to ask, “What happened? I know things were dicey when I left Budapest, but I didn’t know it was bordering on war.”

“Things suffered much when you left,” he said, his eyes filled with sadness. A band tightened around my heart.

“I’m so sorry. I never thought things would go downhill without me. I was sure Drake had things in control, or I wouldn’t have walked out. I had no idea Chuan Ren was serious about declaring war,” I whispered, miserable and bowed by guilt.

“The wyvern of the red dragons is serious about everything. Particularly so where it concerns Drake,” Pál whispered back. I wanted badly to ask why, but Drake had been shooting quick little annoyed looks at me while he read the formal declaration of war. It was, like others of its ilk, couched in all sorts of grandiose language, but what it boiled down to was the red dragons were pissed and wanted the green dragons to be their servants.

I snorted and said under my breath, “Ha. In her dreams.”

“As most of you have been through this before,” Drake said, lifting an eyebrow slightly at me, “you will know how to safeguard your family and property. The militia will be in contact with each family to ensure the full resources of this sept are available to those who need them. Due to the stranglehold the red dragons have in the Far East, travel to Asia should be undertaken only in the direst of situations, and with ample protection.”

I leaned over to Pál. “When was the last time you guys were at war?”

His brow furrowed in thought. “One hundred years.”

“Is that all?”

Drake shot me another, more prolonged, annoyed look.

“Yes,” Pál answered after a few moments, leaning so his mouth was close to my ear. “Drake defeated Chuan Ren in trial by combat in order to gain peace.”

Hmm. That explained why the red wyvern seemed to have it in for Drake. I bet losing to him didn’t sit well with someone with her warrior pride.

The rest of the meeting was pretty much a summation of the last year’s major events, septwise. There were three births to announce, one death by accident when a dragon was caught in a car bombing in Egypt, and a list of academic and professional achievements that had me squirming in my seat with inferiority.

I was a Guardian, dammit. And a demon lord. Fancy degrees or economic honors and respect of the sept were not important to me. I was trying to convince myself of just that when there was a brief spattering of applause and everyone stood up, the front row filing onto the stage. One by one the members of the sept stopped in front of me, shook my hand, told me their names, and moved on to be greeted by their wyvern. It took almost three hours, and by the time it was done my hand ached, my brain swam with names and conversational inanities, and my stomach rumbled almost as loud as Jim’s grousing.

“Are you going to feed us?” I asked Drake when the last sept member left. “Or do I have to apply an emergency hamburger to Jim so we can make it home without it expiring of starvation?”

“Feeeeeeeeed me,” Jim moaned, flopping on its side in apparent exhaustion.

Drake’s eyes glittered dangerously. I knew he must be as tired as I was, more so since he had talked to everyone twice as long as I had. I just administered conversational cocktails while they waited for the main course. “I would be happy to feed you. I was not aware you were welcoming my presence in anything but a purely formal situation.”

“Yes, well, I need to talk to you about that, amongst other things, but right now, we need food. Is there somewhere nearby we can go?”

There was. A short half hour later, I squeezed a slice of lemon into a tall glass of iced tea and sighed with dry-throated relief. Drake lounged across the table from me, consulting a menu. He’d managed to get us a private room, going so far as to bribe the restaurant manager to allow Jim in.

“Are István and Pál not joining us?”

He turned the menu over and scanned the back of it. “They are eating in the other room. They wished to give us privacy.”

“Oh, good. That means you guys are either going to talk relationship or get naked. Either of which should distract me while my steak is being cooked.”

“You’re having a chicken sandwich, not a steak. And just remember what the phrase ‘Effrijim, I command thee’ can do.”

I swear Jim grinned at Drake. “She’s crazy about me.”

“I can see that,” he answered dryly, turning his attention to the menu when a waiter slipped into the room. I gave an order for Jim and myself, toying with my iced-tea glass while Drake grilled him about the freshness of the salmon. There were so many things I wanted to say to Drake, so many questions I had, so many wicked, wanton acts my tongue wanted to engage in with him…but my brain, that ever-trusty organ, reminded me where those sorts of urges had led me in the past and warned me to make my way cautiously. Drake had broken my heart twice. I knew it couldn’t survive a third time.

“Jim, when I order you not to listen to me, what exactly do you do? Hear the words but just don’t pay attention? Don’t remember anything?”

The demon sighed. “I knew you were going to do that. I can’t hear anything when you do that. It’s an order, and I can’t violate an order. So the words just aren’t there for me to hear.”

“Oh. Good.” I set down my glass. “Effrijim, until further notice, you are not to hear anything Drake and I say.”

Jim groaned and laid its big furry black head on its paws, giving me a nasty look. I ignored it. “We have some things to talk about. I dearly want to know what’s up with that Dmitri guy, but first things first.”

Drake leaned back in his chair, an obstinate look on his handsome-as-sin face. “Yes, first things first—what did you mean when you told Pál that you’d been pushed in front of a train?”

I hate it when Drake pulls the rug out from under me, conversationally speaking. “Oh, that. He asked why I was favoring one side when I had said I wasn’t hurt in the car crash. There’s not much to it—someone tried to kill me. Or rather, you, since no one would benefit from my death.”

“You think not?” Drake’s eyebrows rose a little, but he didn’t explain. He just gestured at me to continue.

“No, there’s no reason for anyone to want me gone unless it’s to try to get to you. To be honest…oh, man, I don’t know what to think. Gabriel was there, right next to me, so he could have been the person to push me. But he’s my friend!”

“Gabriel?” Drake frowned to himself as he thought that over. “Describe to me exactly what happened.”

It took a good ten minutes to go over everything. Drake asked several questions about who was standing next to me on the platform and how Gabriel had suddenly appeared.

“I have always thought of him as an ally, it is true,” Drake said at last. “But he is the wyvern of another sept.”

“You really think he pushed me?” I set down the piece of bread I’d been toying with. “But why? He’s always been so nice to me. I like him.”

“I am merely exploring the possibilities, not stating it as a fact,” Drake answered, his voice the teensiest bit censuring. “I have had no indication that Gabriel means to do anyone harm.”

“Well, then, who did it? I didn’t fall, Drake. I know the difference between a fall and a push. Someone slammed into my back, knocking me down in front of the train. If it wasn’t Gabriel, then it had to be Fiat. But if that’s the case, why did he save me right after I fell? And why didn’t Gabriel say anything to me afterwards? He must have seen Fiat push me. You’d think he would have something to say about that.”

“It has been many decades since I have understood the way Fiat’s mind works,” Drake said slowly. “The blame does not necessarily fall on him, however. The red dragons take the status of war very seriously, and I have no doubt whatsoever that they will make several attempts to harm you in an attempt to make me yield. I suspect they are the ones behind the hit-and-run accident, as well.”

“Great, that’s all I need—the red dragons on my back.”

“You need not fear on that score, kincsem.” His eyes glittered at me with restrained heat. “I will allow no one to harm you. What else did you have to discuss with me?”

I shifted my mental gears from murder attempts to more intimate matters. “Something a bit more personal. I want to talk about what happened in Budapest and what it means to us now.”

“Ah.” He sat back, giving me a long look. “I take it you’re about to lambaste me again for your lack of foresight.”

I took a deep breath. No other man—no, no other person—in the entire world left me simultaneously frustrated, enraged, and so much in love it made me giddy with joy just to look at him. “No, I’m not going to lambaste you again for anything. I realize now that I went into this arrangement blind, and although it would have been nice to have someone tell me what exactly was going to be expected of me as a wyvern’s mate, I am willing to take my share of the blame for not asking enough questions.”

A light flared for a moment in Drake’s eyes, dying al most immediately. “If only you had been this reasonable in Budapest.”

I carefully set down the table knife I’d been gripping. “You’re not going to bait me into an argument, Drake. I want to talk to you about what’s going on, but if you have no desire to participate seriously in a discussion about the possible future of our relationship, then this is a waste of time.”

He was silent for a moment, his fingers drawing lazy circles on the tablecloth. I shivered a little, knowing the sort of fire those fingers could stir within me. “You wish to negotiate?”

“Yes.” I nodded. Negotiate was as good a term as any, and one to which Drake responded well. “Things got out of hand in Budapest. I’m the first one to admit that and to admit that I was as much to blame for it as you were.”

I waited to see whether he’d object to that, but he didn’t say anything, just inclined his head for me to continue.

“But I’ve had some time to think, and sort things out, and really work through what it is I want from life.”

“You wish to be a Guardian,” Drake said, his face impassive. I was instantly suspicious.

“I am a Guardian. There’s nothing anyone can do about that now. I may not be formally trained, and I may not ever be recognized officially as one, but I’ve made my peace with the fact that I was put on this earth to wrangle demons and watch over portals to Hell.”

“Is that so?” Drake asked in a deceptively soft voice. He was silent again for a moment, but there was a banked fire in his eyes.

I opened myself up to it for a moment, embracing that dragon fire that seemed so natural to me, watching with amazement as my fingernails burst into flame. One by one I doused the dragon fire by dipping my fingers in my water glass.

“I take it you believe there is another reason for my existence?” I smiled to myself as I sipped my iced tea. I knew exactly what he was going to say.

“Do you know how wyverns are born?” he asked, causing me to choke on a piece of chipped ice. That’ll teach me to be smug wherever Drake was concerned.

“You said that dragons are born in human form, not…er…hatched or anything, so I assume it’s the normal human way.”

He shook his head, sipping from his glass of dragon’s blood. “I did not mean literally. A wyvern is born, not created. He has one dragon parent and one human. Wyverns ascend to their positions by right of tanistry, so they are not necessarily the direct descendant of a wyvern.”

“You have a human parent?” I asked, stunned by that revelation. “You’re only half-dragon?”

“No, I am completely a dragon,” he answered, looking slightly annoyed. “Dragon blood is dominant, always.”

“No surprise there. So…a wyvern is the most important person in the sept. Why don’t the sept members want a full-blooded dragon at the helm?”

“Human blood is required for a wyvern because long ago it was proven that the mixture of dragon and human brought about the best attributes in both species, but most importantly, it heightened the dragon qualities so they stood out above others.”

“So…” I sat back and allowed the waiter to place before me a plate of sesame chicken salad, waiting until he’d placed Drake’s and Jim’s lunches down and left the room before finishing up my thought. “Basically, you’re saying that diversity strengthens the gene pool?”

“That is a gross oversimplification of a complicated genetic situation, but it is in effect true.”

“Gotcha. What has this to do with me?”

Drake speared a piece of chilled marinated steak. “I am a wyvern. I have a human parent. You are a human. It is against the rules of nature for a wyvern to take a human mate.”

“Why?” I asked, wondering if that was the rule Dmitri had referred to.

“Because too much human blood can dilute the dragon genes. Diversity is one thing—dilution to the extinction of dragonkin is another. Thus, for you to be my mate regardless of this fact indicates that we were intended to be together, no matter what the consequences.”

“You’re talking about children, aren’t you?” I asked, setting down my fork, annoyed that even Drake would bring up this silliness. “Look, I don’t know what Pál told you he overheard, but I’m not pregnant. I’ve never been set-your-calendar-by-it sort of reliable, so if everyone would lighten up about this, I’d be…” The words dried up on my lips at the sight of the emotions that passed over Drake’s face: incomprehension, surprise, followed quickly by a fierce expression of utter and complete possessiveness that made me realize that until I’d opened my big mouth he hadn’t the slightest inkling about that whole pregnancy business.

“You’re pregnant,” he finally said, a little wisp of smoke escaping from his nose.

I slapped my hands on the table on either side of my plate and stood up. “No, I’m not. I just said I’m not! Why does no one believe me?”

“We mated several weeks ago,” Drake said, his eyes narrowing on me, but I had a feeling he wasn’t really seeing me. I could almost hear his brain working as he cast his mind back over the last month. “We had unprotected sex. Frequently. If you were in the middle of your cycle…yes, it is possible.”

“Possible is not the same thing as probable. Anything is possible, as Amelie is always telling me. But this is not happening, Drake. So wipe that pushy, going-to-tick-Aisling-off look right off your face. Yes, we didn’t use birth control. But it was only for a few days, and since I was newly mated, my body probably hadn’t changed over to mate yet.”

Drake just looked at me, the only sound being Jim as it snored its way through its postlunch nap.

“It doesn’t work like that?” I asked.

He shook his head.

I sighed. “Great. Now I have to go get an at-home pregnancy kit before the breakdown gets a good grip on me.”

“That will not do you any good,” Drake cautioned as I pushed my plate aside and grabbed my purse. My appetite was gone, shriveled into nothing in the sudden, gripping worry that everyone was right and I was wrong.

“Why? Jim, wake up. We have to find a pharmacy right away.”

“Huh?” Jim asked, its voice sleepy as it shook itself awake. “What’s up?”

“The chemicals that a human test uses to determine pregnancy are not relevant with a mate,” Drake answered, standing when I headed for the door.

Jim’s eyes opened wide as it whistled. “Oh, man. You told him, and you didn’t let me hear? I miss all the good stuff!”

“Fine. I’ll use a dragon one, then,” I told Drake from the doorway. “Just point me to someplace that sells one.”

Drake shook his head again. “That is not possible.”

“They don’t make them?”

“They do, in fact, but just as the chemicals in the human one wouldn’t be applicable in your case, nor would those in a dragon test. You are a mate, Aisling. You are neither fully human nor fully dragon. You are some thing unique.”

“Well…hell!” I swore, slamming my purse onto the table.

“Abaddon,” Jim corrected.

“Whatever. Was your mother or father human?”

Drake’s eyes burned with a bright light that I was familiar with. I’d seen it before, when he looked at anything that qualified in his dragon brain as treasure. “My mother, Doña Catalina de Elférez, was born in Seville, Spain, sometime around the year 1580.”

It took me a couple of beats to get past that date. “So, what did she do when she thought she might be pregnant?”

Drake smiled fondly. “She tried to kill my father.”

“I know just how she felt,” I muttered.

“She succeeded thirty-five years later, after I was born,” he added, handing me my purse. “If you are finished, I will drive you home.”

“Wait a minute—your mother killed your father?” I grabbed Drake’s arm before he could leave the room.

“She killed him?”

“Yes.” His eyes held mine for a moment, the emotions in them too mixed to read. “Like you, she did not take kindly to the idea of being a dragon’s mate. My father was less sympathetic than I am, however. He forced the oath out of her by threatening to kill her family unless she accepted her role. He slaughtered half her family before she finally gave in.”

He paused for a moment, ignoring my openmouthed, silent, bug-eyed gawk of horror. “She’s stubborn like you, too. An unfortunate trait that I hope is not passed along to our child.”

“I am not pregnant!” I ground through my teeth as I left the private room, forcing a smile on my face for István and Pál, who were in the middle of their meal. They immediately jumped up.

“No, please, sit down and finish your lunch. I’m just a little”—I shot a look at where Drake stood next to me, his hand possessively on the small of my back—“tired. It’s been a long day, what with Jim eating the imp king and everything.”

All three men looked at Jim with identical startled expressions.

“It’s a long story, one I’ll have to tell another time. Right now I’m going to go home. It was nice to see you both. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.”

Without waiting for Drake to start tossing around orders and commands that would be sure to infuriate me, I hurried out of the restaurant. I half hoped Rene would magically be waiting for me out front, but the street was strangely empty of taxis.

“I will take you home,” Drake’s voice announced from behind me.

“My home?” I asked, braced for the worst. “My home with Nora? I don’t have anywhere else to go, but I’ll keep her safe from the imps.”

“Surely in view of this situation, you see that your place is with me?” he asked, doing the usual dragon trick of answering a question by asking one.

“There is no situation. I’d prove that to you if I could, but since I can’t, you’re just going to have to take my word for it until time proves me right,” I said firmly, holding up a hand to stop his objections. We stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by people. This was not the time to discuss something so tangled as our relationship.

“We will discuss this when we get home,” he said, acknowledging my thoughts. “I will take you to Nora’s flat so you may gather your things. You may also tell me about the imp situation.”

I got into the car that István pulled around a few minutes later, my heart heavy. This was the same old Drake, arrogant, stubborn, and seeing only his own way, with no sense of compromise. I couldn’t live like that. I just couldn’t. But could I live without him?

I gave him a brief summary of the imp events while I tried to sort out my conflicted emotions. He said nothing but looked a whole lot more worried than I was happy about.

Jim yacked nonstop all the way to Nora’s, ignoring the fact that no one was really responding to it. Drake sat silent, his eyes on me as his fingers rubbed his chin. The gesture melted the stone wall I’d tried so hard to build around my heart. I loved the man; that was the bottom line. And since that didn’t seem likely to change, it would be better for everyone if I stopped fighting that fact and focused on making it work.

I examined all the possibilities, decided that absolutes weren’t going to get me anywhere, and came to the final conclusion that I was willing to give Drake another chance if he could learn to compromise. I’d stay at Nora’s house until that time, dividing my day between Guardian training (or nontraining, given the order from the committee) and the dragons.

It was a sound plan. It was reasonable. It would allow Drake and me to explore our relationship without the usual stresses that happened when people moved in together. We would have time to get to know each other, to be comfortable with each other, and most important of all, to understand our respective roles. When the time was right, I’d move in with him, and we’d live happily ever after.

We arrived at Nora’s street to find the way blocked with police cars, fire engines, ambulances, and at least a hundred people watching a fully engulfed building.

Nora’s building.

“Do I get my own room?” Jim asked, turning to Drake. “One with a water bed? I’ve always wanted a water bed. And I hope you have satellite cable, because I get really cranky in the morning if I don’t get my dose of Montel.”