I groaned as I sat up, muscles worn and well used in the vigorous lovemaking that was so common with Gabriel. “He was conscious when I went to bed. Mad as hell, but conscious. I think Drake was going to wait until you arrived to talk to him.”

“Drake knows it is my right to kill him,” he said matter-of-factly as he pulled on his pants and shoes.

I looked with dismay at the remains of my clothing. “You’re not going to kill him. Crap. I ripped your shirt off you, didn’t I? How am I going to get back to Drake’s house?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” He ignored my last question to address my statement, offering me his hand. I took it and let him pull me to my feet.

“Because you’re not a vindictive person,” I said, looking around for anything I might use as a covering. He picked me up in his arms.

“Shadow. I will carry you home.”

“That’s going to look a little odd,” I pointed out as he started off to the gate.

“It can’t be helped.”

He was silent as he strode through the streets, keeping out of the streetlights as much as possible. He did, in fact, garner a few odd looks from passersby as he carried an apparently invisible burden, but the street was dark enough that I doubted if anyone saw my naked form.

István opened the door to Drake’s house. Gabriel had set me down, standing in front of me as the light spilled out of the house onto the front steps.

“May we borrow your shirt?” Gabriel asked István.

The green dragon blinked a few times, but obediently peeled off his shirt and handed it over to Gabriel, who shoved it behind his back. I took it, pulling it on over my head, shivering with the cold now that I didn’t have Gabriel to warm me.

István said nothing as Gabriel stepped aside and I entered the house clad in only the shirt.

“It’s a long story,” I told István.

He just grinned, closing the door behind us.

“Is Magoth still unconscious?” I asked as we headed for the stairs.

“No.” He made a face. “He is with Catalina.”

Gabriel raised his eyebrows.

“You don’t want to know,” I told him. “Neither, for that matter, do I. I’m going to bed.”

Gabriel didn’t join me for an hour, and then he had only just fallen asleep before it was time to wake him up for the sárkány.

“I hate to do it,” I told Kaawa as we walked slowly up the stairs from the breakfast room. “He only got to sleep an hour and a half ago, since he insisted on dragging Fiat from his bed.”

“Is that what all that yelling was about?” Kaawa asked as we rounded the landing and started on the second flight. “I wondered about that when I heard his voice raised in anger, but since there was no general outcry, I assumed it was some dragon business.”

“He evidently went in to scare the crap out of Fiat, but you know how hotheaded Fiat is. He threatened to dismember me, or something along those lines, and Gabriel snapped. I was going to stay out of it, since the sight of me seems to enrage Fiat, but when I heard Gabriel bellow, I decided a calmer mind might be needed. I got there just as Gabriel tried to decapitate Fiat, but luckily, Drake was there ahead of me, and he and his men, and Tipene and Maata, managed to pull Gabriel off Fiat before he could do anything more than slice him up a bit.”

“I can’t think of the last time Gabriel truly lost his temper,” Kaawa said as we reached the top of the stairs. We paused outside the door to my room. “How very unusual of him.”

I said nothing for a moment, remembering how Gabriel wielded a shadow sword against Baltic. “He really needs his sleep, but I guess there’s nothing for it but to wake him up.”

I had my hand on the door when Pál emerged at the far end of the hall. “There you are,” he said, coming up to us. “Drake wishes to see you.”

“Now?” I glanced at Kaawa’s watch. “I have to get Gabriel up for the sárkány. How’s Fiat, speaking of that?”

He made a face. “He healed.”

“Figures.”

“Drake said it was most urgent,” Pál urged.

I followed him down a flight of stairs to Aisling’s bedroom.

“—the most unreasonable, arrogant, stubborn dragon in the whole entire history of dragons—oh, May, thank god. A voice of sanity. Will you please tell this deranged wyvern I’ve married that it’s perfectly safe for me to ride in a car?”

Pál melted away, closing the door quietly after having delivered me to the room. I looked from an obviously distraught Aisling to Drake, standing stoic and silent in the middle of the room, his arms crossed, and over to Jim, who lay on a large dog bed set against the window, evidently playing with a handheld game device.

“Didn’t I tell you to stay out of Aisling’s way?” I asked it.

“Yeah, but she said I could stay in here so we could play our PSPs together. Ah, damn. You made me crash into Darth Vader. Now I have to start this level over again.”

A look in Drake’s eyes warned against the flip comment I was going to make about dragons being overprotective. Perhaps there was a reason he wanted Aisling at home other than general stubbornness. “I assume you’re peeved because he’s insisted you can’t go to the sárkány?”

“Bingo,” Jim said, looking up from its game console. “Give the girl a cigar.”

“I’m his damned mate,” she said, glaring at Drake, her hands on her hips. “He’s made sure I am dragged off to every other dragon event, but now he is being totally and completely unreasonable!”

“Bean said the baby had turned. You could go into labor at any moment,” Drake said, his eyes somewhat wary.

I bit back a smile. “Bean the midwife?”

Aisling nodded. “She’s a lovely person, really, but she’s admitted herself that she’s never dealt with a human having a dragon baby, and that the timeline is a bit off because of that. So there is no reason whatsoever I should not go to the sárkány.”

“You are not leaving the house,” Drake said firmly. She took a deep breath, obviously about ready to yell. He held up a hand to stop her, adding quickly, “Since it means so much to you to be there, and more importantly, since I am unwilling to leave you at this time, we will bring the sárkány to us.”

Aisling blinked at him a couple of times, her mouth ajar slightly. “You’re having it here?” she asked, clearly astounded.

I knew how she felt. A sárkány, so Gabriel had told me, was a formal meeting of wyverns, used to address issues of the gravest importance. They were sometimes volatile meetings, ones that could have deadly repercussions, such as the one that had been held when Baltic stormed in, his guns literally blazing.

“I thought it would please you,” Drake said smoothly.

“Oh. Well . . . it does please me.” She gave him a blinding smile. Jim clicked its tongue and went back to playing its game machine. “I knew you could be reasonable if you tried. I should probably go check with Suzanne to make sure we have some snacks and beverages. Jim! Heel.”

“But I’m about to go after Vader,” it complained, shambling after her. “You’re just pissed because you can’t make it past the Yoda level.”

I waited until the two of them were down the hall and out of earshot before I turned back to Drake. “I assume Gabriel told you about what he and the others found?”

His expression turned dark. “It was not Kostya.”

I studied his face for a minute. Drake was a hard man, I suppose technically handsome, with bright green eyes, dark hair, and an obstinate jaw, but he wasn’t what I thought of as particularly flexible. He was, I suspected, very loyal.

It was for that reason I picked my words with care. “I find it difficult to believe that Kostya would do something so heinous, but Gabriel insists that Kostya was seen. Have you spoken to him?”

“Kostya?”

I nodded.

Drake’s expression grew blacker. “Briefly. I told him the sárkány was moved to this house, and asked if all was in readiness on his end. He assured me it was. I do not fear for the safety of Aisling with him around, if that is what you are so carefully hinting. He is my brother. I know him. He has been tortured and tormented for many decades, and he has much darkness inside him, but he would not act in the way Gabriel suggests.”

There wasn’t much I could say about that. I happened to agree with him, but I was very cognizant of the fact that I was expected to show nothing but support for Gabriel’s decisions. Although I felt a certain amount of leniency toward that archaic rule could be shown while I was around Drake and Aisling, I didn’t want them thinking I wouldn’t back up Gabriel no matter what choices he made.

The fact that I’d simply persuade him away from doing anything stupid was beside the point.

“I just hope you have a lot of green dragons who can keep everyone civil,” I said. “If Kostya is planning on bringing his full delegation, and the other wyverns bring their members, the house is going to be very, very full.”

“We will open up the downstairs rooms,” Drake agreed. “It was once a ballroom—it will suffice.”

And so it was that slightly over three hours later I stood next to Gabriel at one end of the long room that ran the length of the house. It had been divided up into three smaller rooms, making up the large sitting room, a small morning room, and the dining room, but now the screens normally covering the folding walls were pulled aside, most of the furniture had been removed, and the long heavy dining table was pulled into a central position with five heavy wooden chairs set around it.

I brushed Gabriel’s hand, needing the comfort of his touch, but not wanting to do anything that could be considered inappropriate in front of the other dragons.

He took my hand without looking at me, his fingers rubbing across my knuckles. “Do not fear, little bird. I will not allow Fiat to disturb the sárkány.”

I said nothing, just straightened my shoulders, sliding a quick glance to my left at Maata. Behind us stood Obi, Nathaniel, and Tipene. Like the other silver dragons, they wore what I thought of as the formal dragon wear: knee-length tunics of a black material that seemed impossibly dark, heavily embroidered with silver to the point where the fabric beneath was almost impossible to see. The embroidery consisted of abstract shapes and swirls, a detailed, intricate pattern that seemed to shift and move in the light. Gabriel’s tunic was heavy with silver, real silver, I knew from examining it earlier, glittering as bright as his eyes, patterned into several fan tastical shapes of dragons leaping and cavorting. He had presented me with a tunic, as well, one bearing only one dragon, but I loved it the most—it was clearly based on Gabriel’s dragon form, and the head of it lay directly over my heart.

Gabriel also wore a belt slung low over his hips, a familiar sword hanging from it. It was the shadow sword I’d taken from Bael’s wrath demon, a powerful weapon that I prayed he would not need to use.

“Showtime,” I said under my breath, straightening my shoulders and trying to look calm and collected as Kostya strode through the doorway. He was followed by two women and one man, all three of his attendants dark-haired and dark-eyed.

“Is that his entourage?” I asked Gabriel quietly.

“His guard, yes. Drake mentioned he had at last formalized them.”

Kostya stopped in the middle of the room, and made a formal bow first to his brother, then to Gabriel. The latter tensed, but did nothing other than return the formal greeting. A sárkány, I had learned, was a very rigid affair, and followed innumerable rules, evidently put into place to keep the volatile dragons from killing one another should tempers run high.

“The others have not arrived yet?” Kostya asked Drake.

“Fiat is here,” Drake answered with the briefest of glances toward us. “Chuan Ren will no doubt be here. Bastian called a short while ago and said his flight was delayed, but he would be here immediately upon landing. I expect him momentarily.”

While Drake talked with his brother, I studied Kostya and his little group, noticing as I did so that Gabriel, normally a very sociable person, made no effort to join their discussion. I knew Fiat’s involvement with Baltic had thrown him a bit, for which I was frankly grateful. I had no desire to get on Drake’s bad side should Gabriel pursue the idea that Kostya was behind the murders of all those innocent dragons.

“Those two women don’t look like they could take down a curtain, let alone a dragon intent on attacking Kostya,” I murmured to Gabriel.

Maata, on my left, heard me and snorted under her breath.

“Knowing Kostya as I do,” Gabriel said, his dimples flaring briefly to life, “I suspect they are there more for effect than actual use.”

I had to agree. The women were of average height and slender builds, looking more like expensive models than bodyguards. They were dressed in black, matching leather bustiers trimmed with straps and chains, and tight black pants that looked like they’d been painted on. One wore shiny leather stiletto boots that probably could have put someone’s eye out; the other had open-toed sandals with laces that crisscrossed up the calves of her pants. The man was just as somber as his companions, his long hair pulled back in a short ponytail, his goatee nowhere near as charming as Gabriel’s.

“He would have to bring them here. I can’t begin to tell you what sort of hell there will be to pay if Cyrene sees Kostya with his little harem,” I said softly.

Gabriel shot me a questioning glance. “I thought she broke up with Kostya?”

“Cy’s method of breaking up isn’t final until the man dies or moves to another continent,” I said wearily. “She’ll keep moping over him for at least six months. If we’re lucky, she’ll find someone new who will drive all thoughts of the faithless Kostya from her mind.”

“May.” Kostya approached, giving me yet another bow. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”

Mindful of my manners and dragon etiquette, I smiled, and did not ask him if he cold-bloodedly murdered sixty-eight dragons in the last few days. “Thank you.” I searched through available topics of conversation that would not address any touchy subjects. “I imagine you’re happy the sárkány is finally being called. It must have been a difficult two months for you.”

There was a questioning look in his eye as if he sensed I might be insulting him, but he simply inclined his head in agreement. “I am indeed. As, no doubt, you have been waiting for this.”

He waved a hand and the male black dragon stepped forward, pulling from his inside coat pocket a long ebony case. Kostya took it, his gaze shifting to Gabriel. “I will not insult you by asking if you intend to honor your agreement.”

“I have yet to be accused of violating a vow,” Gabriel said calmly, although his placid expression hid a veritable inferno of emotions.

Kostya studied him for another few seconds, then handed him the long wooden box, turning away and returning to his brother’s side without another word.

The two supermodel guards eyed first Gabriel, then me, their expressions as blank as a wall. They followed Kostya, silent and stalwart, although I noticed one of them, the smaller of the two, was giving Gabriel a look that bespoke a personal interest.

The damned hussy. Eyeing him right in front of me.

Gabriel slid aside a metal lock and opened the wooden case for a moment. Lying on a bed of dark navy velvet was a long glass tube wrapped in intricate gold filigree. Inside the tube, a glittering crystal was suspended in some form of viscous liquid. I thought at first it was a clear crystal, somewhat quartzlike in appearance, but as Gabriel examined the phylactery, I realized that the shard wasn’t clear—it held innumerable colors, each of which flashed as light caught a plane of the shard. It was incredibly beautiful and just as incredibly impressive, positively reeking of power.

“So that’s the Modana Phylactery,” I said as Gabriel closed the case and handed it to Tipene. “It’s really lovely.”

“May, I can’t believe you would do this to me—so it’s true!”

“Oh, no,” I said, my heart sinking as Cyrene stood posed in the doorway, glaring dramatically at Kostya.

“You are having a sárkány now! You deliberately tried to exclude me! And who are those . . . those . . . hussies standing around that pig of a dragon?”