“Bringing a demon lord out to a dragon’s lair—it’s not the brightest idea you’ve ever had, Mayling.”

I caught the branch she released that time, mentally uttering retorts to her comments as I plodded after her, my gaze alternating between watching for more face-slapping branches and examining the terrain in an attempt to figure out where we were in relationship to the nearest town.

“Kostya is not at all happy that he’s here,” Cyrene added, turning to give me a stern look before hopping over a fallen tree. She slid down an embankment, her head disappearing from sight, but her voice still able to reach me. “Not happy at all.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Kostya is never happy,” I muttered as I made my way over the log, slipping on the soft earth. Tendrils of damp hair clung to my cheeks.

Ahead of us, Gabriel, Kostya, and Savian were deep in conversation. Magoth followed them, the four men plowing a path through a murky, forested area that would have been a perfect setting for an atmospheric gothic movie, vines snaking off the densely packed trees, and moist, springy moss clinging to every surface.

It was oddly quiet, as well, no sounds of civilization managing to penetrate the thick cotton-wool fog that wrapped around us. Only the occasional whine of a mosquito broke the pat-pat-pat of dripping water.

One of the little bugs landed on the back of Cyrene’s exposed neck. I shuffled forward through earthy-smelling leaf residue, and slapped the back of her neck.

She spun around, her mouth opened in surprise.

“Mosquito,” I explained.

Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, you’d like me to think that, wouldn’t you? But I know the truth—you’re just peeved because Kostya is angry with you because you insist on bringing Magoth, and you’re taking it out on me.”

I gave her a little shove forward when Magoth, clad in expensive hiking garb that I suspected owed its orgins to my credit card, disappeared behind a clump of scrubby fir trees. “I don’t give a hoot if Kostya is angry. And if you don’t want to end up lost in the wilds of rustic Latvia, I’d advise you to get moving.”

Cyrene hrmphed and started forward. “I just wanted to point out that if Kostya is in a grumpy mood, you have no one but yourself to blame. He’s very unhappy about having you and Gabriel out here, but when you said Magoth had to come, too, I thought he’d never calm down.”

“Magoth being here wasn’t my choice,” I pointed out, smacking at a mosquito that landed on my arm. “He invited himself, as you know, and since I have no way of making him do what I want him to do, we figured it would be easier to just bring him along where we could keep an eye on him, rather than have him follow us and get up to who knew what sort of trouble.”

“Hrmph. Kostya doesn’t like Magoth.”

I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, then said only, “I’d be surprised if Kostya liked anything.”

“He does, too, like things! He likes lots of things,” Cyrene said, deliberately releasing a tree frond early.

I glared at her again before saying, “Such as?”

She marched on for a moment in silence while she tried to find something that would satisfy me. “Well, I can’t think of anything at the moment, but there are any number of things. Oh . . . oral sex! He likes oral sex a lot!”

Jim, who had been off sniffing what it said was an imp trail, shambled up behind me, catching the last bit of the conversation. “There’s not a male alive who doesn’t,” it said, spitting out a tiny little boot. “If I couldn’t lick my own package—”

“Enough!” I said hastily, not wanting to hear more.

Jim cast me a hurt look. “I was just going to say I would have picked a human form if I couldn’t. Sheesh. Some people have dirty, dirty minds.”

“A dirty mind is the sign of a healthy libido, say I,” Magoth said, popping up from behind a large cluster of rocks. “What are you ladies doing back here? Are you engaging in wild lesbian urges? We could have a quick threesome if you like.”

He waggled his eyebrows at Cyrene, who just rolled her eyes and pushed past him.

“You could have a Magoth sandwich! One of you could start at the top, while the other started at the bottom, and you could meet in my center,” he suggested.

Something inside me stirred.

“That’s not even funny,” Cyrene told him.

“It is a bit self-centered having both of you pleasur ing me, I admit. How about this—you and your twin can make love, and I will watch and give pointers?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

Cyrene spun around to give him a tight look. “I told you before—I’m Kostya’s mate.”

“I suppose he could join us, too, although it’s not so much fun with two males,” Magoth said thoughtfully. “Mind you, there are ways. I haven’t indulged in an all-out orgy in, oh, at least a week. No, ten days. But if you have your heart set on it, I suppose I could oblige.”

I gritted my teeth and scooted past Magoth, giving him a wide berth. “You are not a dragon’s mate, Cy.”

Magoth turned to leer at me as I passed. I realized at that moment that the dragon shard was responding not only to Magoth but to the location. It liked it here; it liked the primal feeling of the area, the earthy sense of power that seemed to flow around us in intangible streams between ground and living things and air. My feet stopped as the shard zapped me with a sudden, overwhelming wave of emotion.

“Get Gabriel,” I gasped to Cyrene, wrapping my arms around myself as I struggled to control the power of the dragon within me.

“What?”

“Oh, man. That’s not good,” Jim said, studying me. “You’re going to do the nasty with Magoth, aren’t you? Right out here in the open where Gabriel can see? Wait! Let me get out my cell phone. Ash is going to want pictures of this. . . .”

Magoth looked startled for a moment, then slipped into his normal suave, seductive persona. “I knew the day would come when you gave in and—”

“Shut up,” I snarled, doubling over as I fought the transformation. “Cy, for the love of all that’s aquatic, get Gabriel!”

“What is wrong with you?” she demanded to know, marching over to me. Doubled up as I was, all I could see was her feet. “Is this an attempt at garnering some sympathy? Because if it is—”

Silver shimmered up my arms and legs, my back arching as my body lengthened and stretched into a shape that was not normal for a doppelganger.

Cyrene took two steps backwards, her hand to her mouth in surprise. “I’ll get Gabriel,” she said, still backing up.

I snarled something unintelligible at her as I spun around to face Magoth.

He watched me with pursed lips and a thoughtful expression. “You prefer to do it in dragon form, eh? I can’t say that I’ve indulged in that before, dragons being strangely averse to visiting Abaddon, but if you insist on it, I’m sure we can make it work.”

“Oh man, oh man, oh man,” Jim said, trying to hold a cell phone in its mouth and use one of its paws to take a picture of me. “This is great. I’m going to make millions off of this video.”

I flicked my tail at it, sending the cell phone arcing through the air into the dense undergrowth.

Jim’s lips formed an O of astonishment. “That was Aisling’s phone!”

I narrowed my eyes at the demon and breathed fire. “Do you want to follow it?”

“Hurry with Gabriel!” Jim bellowed after Cyrene, keeping its eyes fixed firmly on me. “May’s gone feral!”

Feral. The word resonated within me as I stretched, relishing the power to be had in this form. I was feral. I was dragon, and this place was mine.

Magoth shimmied forward toward me, his clothes dripping off him with each step until he stood before me stark naked. He put one hand on his hip and gave me a knowing look. “Shall we begin?”

I smiled, and sent a plume of fire onto his penis, which was waving jauntily at me.

Magoth’s jaw dropped for a moment.Then he grabbed my head with both hands and planted his mouth on mine.

“May!” Gabriel’s voice sounded distant and faint, as if he were at a great distance, not just a few hundred yards ahead.

“I don’t suppose you have a digital camera in your bag? I’ll just check, OK?” Jim said.

I let Magoth kiss me for a moment, the dragon shard analyzing the sensation. The differences in the shapes of our mouths made him less effective than I knew he was with a human, but it wasn’t that that ended up causing me to reject his advances.

It was the place. It was the land around us that called to me, not Magoth. I pushed him away just as Gabriel burst from a dense clump of ash trees, Savian hot on his heels. Kostya and Cyrene pulled up behind them, all four watching with startled expressions as my tail whipped out, catching Magoth in the midsection, flinging him a good thirty yards backwards until he smacked into a large tree.

“Wow, nice one. That’s gotta be at least a bronze medal for demon lord flinging,” Jim said, watching with interest as Magoth fell out of the tree to the ground.

“Thanks, but no, thanks,” I yelled to Magoth before turning my attention on Gabriel. The dragon shard hummed happily inside me at the sight of him, and I thought seriously for a moment of pouncing on him. I knew he would like that—it was a dragon mating game, and something told me that he would respond to it.

“Yes, I would, but that’s not what you want,” he said, reading my mind again.

I made a little pouty dragon face.

“My darling!” Magoth staggered into view, still naked, but now covered with dirt and lichen, with bits of tree clinging to his hair. “My sweet, powerful May! Your idea of foreplay is most pleasing to me. Do it again?”

I flicked my tail again, and he went flying, squealing with delight that was stopped only by the sound of his body smashing into yet another tree. He cooed gently to himself as he slid down the trunk.

“Silver medal. I think you should go for the gold,” Jim said.

“May, why have you shifted?” Gabriel asked, stroking his hand down the elongated curve of my neck.

I shivered at his touch and leaned my head into his chest, bathing him in a light sheen of fire. “I don’t know. Chase me?”

“What is going on?” Kostya asked, pushing between Savian and Gabriel to look at me.

I licked Gabriel’s neck.

“Oh, that’s what’s going on. Er . . .” Kostya glanced at Gabriel.

“No, this is not normal. May does not embrace the dragon within,” he answered the unasked question. “May?”

“I just felt like it,” I said, twining my tail around his leg. “It’s this place. It feels right here, like I’ve come home after a long, long journey. It feels like a place we should play.”

“Play?” Gabriel looked around us.

“What does she mean, play?” Cyrene asked, frowning at me. “May, honestly! Should you be sucking his ear like that in front of Magoth?”

“I’m fine! Don’t worry about me!” Magoth called from the distance. The only part of him visible was one hand waving out of a dense bank of ferns. “I think I’m in love.”

“Dragons use play as part of their mating,” Kostya explained as he, too, started examining the area around us.

“Really?” Cyrene transferred her frown to him. “You never play with me when we make love.”

“That’s different. You’re human.”

“I am not! I’m a naiad!”

“You look human,” he pointed out.

“Well, so does May. Most of the time.”

Magoth tottered toward us, dirt speckling the front of him, twigs now added to the leaves and lichen and moss that clung to his head, a small leafy shrub evidently stuck to his foot. His hands waved in the air as he approached. “Once more, my sweet—”

The whipcrack of my tail as it hit him was followed almost immediately by the sound of Jim whistling. “That’s got to be an Olympic record right there. Nice going, May. I think you knocked him out.”

Magoth’s unresponsive body tumbled from the tree to the ground, hitting with a muffled thud.

“I’ll go rescue lover boy, shall I?” Savian said, giving me a long look as he headed off to where Magoth had fallen into a thick patch of what looked to be poison ivy.

“Mayling, tell me what you feel,” Gabriel said, his hand on my neck again.

I looked deep into his eyes and let my emotions show.

“No, not that.” His dimples threatened to burst to life. “I know that. What do you feel about this place?”

I sighed and tried to clear my mind of the lustful images of me twined around Gabriel in an erotic dragon dance. “It’s . . . right. It’s a good place. I feel happy here.”

“Do you feel happy, or does the dragon shard?” he asked.

I tried to sort through the emotions that swamped me, picking out those sensations that were native to me. “It’s the shard. It likes it here.”

Gabriel and Kostya exchanged glances; then both turned to look at a rocky outcropping that was about ten yards away. The rocks jutted out of the earth like angular, flinty fingers, softened over the centuries by moss and plants and the detritus of the forest around them.

“The lair?” Gabriel asked Kostya.

He nodded. “Has to be.”

“What do you mean, the lair? We found the lair already,” Cyrene said. “Or we found where it should be. It’s over there.” She pointed to the south.

“It’s a false entrance,” Kostya explained.

“Set up to fool anyone who was searching for it,” Gabriel added, nodding to himself. “Very clever. I would have done the same, although I’m not sure I would have gone to the trouble of rune binds.”

“You have to admit it was convincing,” Kostya said as both men strolled toward the rocks.

Savian emerged, dragging a limp Magoth. He deposited him in a heap, looking over at Gabriel and Kostya as the two men climbed over the outcropping, clearly searching it. “What did I miss?”

I hummed to myself and tapped my claws on the ground, visions of Gabriel chasing me through the woods keeping the dragon shard occupied. “They think this is the entrance to Baltic’s lair.”

“You’re kidding. This?” Savian looked around, his eyes carefully searching the outcropping of rock. He shook his head. “I don’t see it. Where?”

“I’d show you, but I’m currently occupied,” I said.

He pursed his lips as he glanced back at me.

“I’m keeping the dragon shard distracted while I try to shift back,” I answered the question in his eyes. “If I get near Gabriel, it will demand I jump him, so I’m letting it have all sorts of fantasies about being chased through the woods. Ooh. That one was really good.”

I was distracted for a moment by the vision the shard provided to me, but gently eased myself out of it, focusing my attention on my body as I slowly, inch by inch, urged the dragon form to withdraw back into my normal one. Savian nodded, and went to help the others examine the rocks for the entrance.

“Half-babe, half-dragon, and me with no camera,” Jim sighed as it plopped its big hairy butt down on Magoth’s still form. “Life sucks. There’s just no two ways about it.”

“He’s not dead, is he?” I asked, nodding toward Magoth.

Jim snuffled Magoth’s dirt-splattered face. “Naw, just knocked out.”

“Good.”

“May, we need you,” Gabriel called.

“Sorry, can’t right now. I’ve only got one leg done, and almost a whole arm,” I answered, waving my mostly human arm at him.

“We need you in dragon form.”

“You do? Why?” The shard stopped imagining hot, steamy, dragon-form sex with Gabriel under a moonlit sky, and focused on him again.

“There she goes. Bah. Nothing exciting about seeing a dragon in its natural form,” Jim said with a disgusted snort.

“The shard you bear was Ysolde’s. She has a tie to this place because of her relationship with Baltic. If you are in dragon form, you will be able to utilize the power of the shard easier.”

I let the shard take over as I marched over to Gabriel. “You’re both dragons. Why can’t you do whatever it is that you want done?”

His grin warmed me to my toes. “Ah, but we don’t have the same delectable dragon shape as you.”

I gave him a look.

He laughed. “Neither Kostya nor I can detect the opening of the lair, but the shard might let you find it.”

“It is well hidden, even from me,” Kostya agreed, scowling at the stones.

“I still say you’re barking up the wrong tree. I’d feel it if this was the opening to a lair,” Savian said, shaking his head.

“Fine. But if I can’t shift back, and end up staying like this, I’m not going to be happy,” I grumbled as he stepped out of the way so I could scramble up the rocks.

“How do you feel?” Gabriel asked, watching me carefully.

The dragon shard wanted to dance with happiness.

“Right now?” I paused for a moment, gathering my inner strength, both my own and the strength of the dragon within me, allowing the two to merge for a moment before I brought my tail down onto the rocks with a force that knocked the people around backwards several feet just as if they were made of paper. The stones crashed inward with a muffled explosion, dust and debris swirling around me in a whirlwind that blocked my vision for a moment. As the air cleared, a black, gaping hole slowly became visible at my feet. The dragon shard celebrated, the teasing, heady scent of gold drifting out of the darkness. “Right now I feel great.”

Gabriel was first to his feet, but Kostya, with a snarl, flung himself forward over the hole into the lair. “It is mine!”

“Gold,” I crooned, stretching sensuously at the thought of it.

“Mine!” Kostya bellowed.

“We outnumber you,” I pointed out.

Cyrene, who had been grumbling as she dusted herself off, hurried over to stand with Kostya. “Oh no, you don’t!”

“We have Jim and Savian,” I pointed out as Gabriel, his eyes lit with familiar lust, took a step toward the hole, his breathing deepening. I knew the gold scent had hit him, as well.

“The agreement was for the shard,” Kostya yelled. “You will get use of the shard until May can re-form the heart and reshard it. That is all! The rest of the lair belongs to the black dragons!”

“Yeah!” Cyrene said.

I slipped down the edge of the rock, back to the almost-invisible pathway where Magoth lay gently snoring.

Gabriel watched me for a moment.

“Kostya’s right,” I told him, overriding the shard’s demand that I take it to the gold. I separated my mind from it, and started the process of shifting back to my own body again. “Much as I would love to see the gold that smells so very nice, we did agree to the shard only in exchange for our support with the weyr.”

Gabriel sighed heavily, but jumped off the stones and returned to my side, waving one hand at Kostya. “I bow to my mate’s demands. I will not challenge you for the lair so long as you let us use the Modana Phylactery.”

Kostya wasn’t happy over the idea of letting the shard go, even temporarily, but he had agreed to the terms, even if he was now regretting them. He nodded curtly at Gabriel and, grasping a convenient bit of vine, swung himself over the edge of the hole into the yawning darkness. Cyrene started to follow, stopping when his head popped back up, a familiar scowl on his face.

“This is my lair, Cyrene. Only black dragons may gaze upon its treasures.”

“I’m your mate,” she said, trying to shove his shoulders aside so she could climb into the hole.

He sighed heavily, casting me a plaintive look.

“You made this particular bed,” I told him, wrestling with the shard to regain control over my body. “I’m afraid you’re going to be lying on it alone. Dammit, Gabriel, the smell of gold is too much for me. I can’t shift back to my normal form here. I’m going to have to do it somewhere else.”

“I am so your mate! Well, all right, not technically, but I’m mate lite, so that counts.”

“Then we will go somewhere you feel more comfortable,” Gabriel said immediately, pushing a branch out of my way. I knew he would prefer remaining to take charge of the phylactery that Kostya would retrieve from the lair, but he selflessly escorted me up the almost-invisible path.

“No, it doesn’t count,” Kostya said as we left. “You are not a black dragon, Cyrene. I appreciate your help and support—”

“Oh! I like that! You string me along and now you dump me just when things are going good? Well, I have a few things to say about that, Mr. Dragon!”

Luckily, we moved out of earshot of Cyrene’s harangue. It took a good five minutes before we were out of the range of the scent of gold and I was able to catch my mental breath and take charge of myself again.

Savian and Jim followed along after a few minutes.

“Sorry. Don’t mean to intrude,” Savian apologized as Gabriel stood gently stroking my back while I pushed the dragon form back into a more familiar one. “But your twin is a little . . . er . . .”

“Bitchy,” Jim said, snorting when the last of the silver scales disappeared into beige-ish skin.

“Vehement,” Savian corrected with a smile at me.

“ ‘Vehement’ doesn’t threaten to drown someone in their lair. ‘Bitchy’ is all over that,” Jim pointed out.

“Agathos daimon,” I swore softly to myself, glancing at Gabriel. “If she’s threatening him with water, she’s really pissed. I suppose I should go back and intervene.”

“You’ll shift again,” he pointed out. “I’ll go.”

“I don’t think she’ll listen to you,” I said as he started back the way we had come.

“Does she ever listen to anyone?” Jim quipped.

“Quiet, beast,” I told it, about to go after Gabriel when Cyrene appeared, hauling a befuddled-looking Magoth after her.

“That’s it!” she yelled as she caught sight of us. Her free hand gestured wildly. “I’ve had it! I’ve totally had it with that . . . that . . .”

“Dragon?” I offered as she pulled up to a stop in front of me. She let go of the hold she had on Magoth, who collapsed to the ground with a particularly fatuous leer toward me.

He was still naked, although no longer aroused, and had managed to lose the small shrub on his foot, but he wore a coronet apparently made up of an ancient, unused bird’s nest, dirty spider silk, and a small clump of leaves sprouting from the region of his left ear.

“There you are, sweet May. Was it as good for you as it was for me?” Magoth asked.

“Better,” I said, letting myself smile just a little.

Gabriel gave me a look that let me know he didn’t appreciate it. I immediately rearranged my expression into one of serenity. “Cy, please tell me you didn’t flood Kostya’s lair.”

“No, I didn’t, but not because he didn’t deserve it,” she said, snapping off each word. “I wouldn’t waste precious water on that . . . beast! Do you know what he said to me?”

“Yes,” I said, taking her arm and cutting off the rant I knew she so desperately wanted to make. “I think it would be better if we were to go back to town. Gabriel?”

He hesitated a moment, casting a glance toward the trees that screened the entrance to Kostya’s newfound lair. “You go. I’ll follow with Kostya.”

I nodded and gave Cyrene a nudge. “Come on, twin of mine. Let’s go back to town and get a drink. You look as if you could use one, and I certainly wouldn’t mind a belt or two, myself. Gabriel will make sure your boyfriend is all right.”

“He’s not my boyfriend anymore. We’re through. Do you hear me? Through! I’m done with him! Although I would like a drink. Do you think they have lemon Perrier? You know how I love that.”

“I also know how drunk you get off it,” I said, leading the way. I gave the lair a wide berth as I headed us back in the direction of the town. “Only a water elemental could find carbonated water literally intoxicating. But if you’re a cheap date, at least you’re an easily pleased one.”

“You gonna leave your boss here?” Jim asked.

I released Cyrene’s arm, turning to frown at where Magoth lolled on the ground. He stroked a hand sensuously down his filthy, leaf-bespecked chest.

“Much as I am tempted to do just that, I suppose the mortal world is safer with someone keeping an eye on him.”

Magoth smiled. “You can deny it all you want, my sweet one—I have seen the truth in your dragon eyes. You want me. You need me. You crave that which only I can give you.”

He was, I noted with dismay, showing signs of arousal again. I searched my mind desperately for something to distract him, not trusting the dragon shard to behave itself when he was at his randiest.

“Get your clothes on, and I’ll treat you to a bottle of Bollinger’s,” I told him.

Magoth loved Bollies, but even that wasn’t enough to drag his mind off his cursed penis. He got to his feet slowly, completely oblivious to the fact that he more resembled a muddy swamp monster than a seductive former silent-movie heartthrob. “Not even going to try to dispute the facts? Wise woman.”

“I’m not going to argue the obvious with you, no,” I said calmly, and gestured toward the direction we were headed. “Come along with us, or don’t, but make up your mind. I’m not going to stand out here all afternoon and be eaten by mosquitoes.”

“I would be happy to eat—” Magoth started to say.

“I think we can all imagine a suitably inappropriate and borderline sexually harassing comment, thank you,” I interrupted.

He leered, but checked himself almost immediately, an angry look flashing in his eyes. “May the fires of Abaddon roast that bastard Bael,” he spat out, his hands making aborted gestures of frustration. “I can’t even en-thrall you as is my due! He will pay for this, just as everyone will pay for the dishonors done to me!”

“You have nothing to complain about,” Cyrene told him as he marched over to where we were waiting. “You haven’t had your love and trust abused by the most hateful man ever!”

Magoth slid her a narrow-eyed look that, were we in Abaddon, probably would have rendered her as close to dead as an elemental being could be. She didn’t notice, however, being fully immersed in righteous indignation.

“Your clothes?” I said as Magoth stormed past me, Cyrene hurrying after him as she continued to vent her spleen about Kostya.

“And then do you know what he said? He said he didn’t have time for me anymore, that bringing together the sept would take all of his attention, and he wouldn’t be able to deal with me, as well. Deal! Yes! He actually said the word ‘deal’ just as if I was a problem to be . . . well, dealt with. Can you believe that? I’ll feed his testicles to a shark—see if I don’t!”

He ignored Cyrene, pausing just long enough to give me a haughty look. “I am Magoth, sixth principle spirit of Abaddon—”

“Former principle spirit of Abaddon,” Jim said.

Magoth ignored the demon, too.

“—lord of thirty legions—”

“Now in the charge of Bael, or whoever he’s found to replace you,” Jim interrupted.

Cyrene whapped Magoth on his bare chest. “I am so not a problem person. I’m a naiad! We are the most pleasant of all the elemental beings! There’s nothing about me with which he needs to deal, except my vengeance, which shall be as deep as the ocean and as dark as the . . . er . . . the ocean. In the bottom parts, that is, where it really is very dark.”

“Marquis of the order of dominations!” Magoth bellowed, no doubt in order to be heard over the chorus of Jim and Cyrene, but the smidgen of power he still possessed gave his words an unexpected volume. His voice echoed for a few seconds, the harsh sound of birds screeching their objection to the noise slowly dying out.

We all looked at Magoth.

“I have no need of such things as clothes,” he said, dismissing such mortal concerns with great dignity, turning on his heel to stalk back toward town.

“You wanna be the one to tell him he’s got a big ole slug stuck to one of his butt cheeks?” Jim asked.

Magoth’s shoulder twitched at the demon’s question, but he didn’t stop. He just kept walking.