“Talk about your leap of faith,” I muttered as I sat on the windowsill and swung both legs over the edge. “I just hope to heaven that this works or I’m immortal, because if I’m not, I’m going to be in very bad shape.” I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and held out my hands as I whispered the light invocation, a spell used to temporarily guard mages from harm. A faint golden glow rippled up my body, skimming the surfaces, leaving me with a familiar tingly feeling that told me I was surrounded by arcane power. “So much for an interdiction, Dr. Kostich,” I said somewhat smugly, and jumped off the windowsill.
“Ow.” I spat out the bit of dried lawn and dirt and a very startled beetle. “Ow. Dear god in heaven, ow.” The light spell didn’t work. That became apparent to me about half a second after I left the windowsill, and just before I hit the ground of the tiny garden spreadeagled and facedown.
I touched my nose, wondering if I’d broken it. “Ow.” It wobbled back and forth just fine, so I gathered that it wasn’t shattered, as it felt. I sat up slowly, gingerly moving my arms and legs. Everything on me hurt, but nothing seemed to be more than bruised. Either the spell did work after all, or I was immortal.
“Wish I… ow… knew which it was,” I muttered to myself as I got painfully to my feet and limped off around the side of the house. By the time I took a few steps, I was moving a bit easier.
“Now to find Savian,” I said as I glanced up and down the street. There was little traffic at this time of night, just a few cars passing. As I started off toward a busy intersection where I hoped to find a taxi stand, a car passing me suddenly slammed on its brakes with a squeal of tires on wet pavement that was painful to the ears.
To my amazement, the car backed up, and a door to the backseat was flung open.
“Get in!” the man who emerged said.
I stared at him in amazement. “How did you—” “Get in!” Baltic didn’t wait for me to comply; he simply picked me up and tossed me into the car, following me with a growl to the driver. Before I could pick myself off the floor, I was flung backwards when the car shot off like a rocket.
“Hey!” I struggled to sit upright, allowing the man next to me to pull me upward onto the seat. “That was totally uncalled-for! I am not a sack of potatoes you can just toss around!” “Under no circumstances do I regard you as a sack of potatoes.” “Good.” I gave him the meanest look I had. “If you intend on blowing up Gabriel’s house, you can just think again!” To my surprise, a little smile flickered over his lips. “I see that the centuries have not diminished your desire to tell me what to do, mate.” “I’m not your mate,” I said primly, untwisting the sweatshirt that had been whipped around my torso when he’d thrown me into the car. “I may have been in the past, but now my name is Tully, and I would appreciate it if you would call me that.” “Your name is Ysolde de Bouchier, and you are my mate. Why have you sought refuge with the silver dragons?” I glanced at the driver.
Baltic followed the path of my gaze, and said something in a language I didn’t understand.
“I’m sorry. I don’t speak Russian.”
“That was Zilant, not Russian,” he said.
“Well, I don’t speak that, either.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do. I taught it to you myself.” “I’m happy to argue with you about this all night, but honestly, there are approximately a thousand questions I have for you, and we aren’t going to get to any of them if we spend all our time on whether or not I know a language.” “I have a solution to that — don’t argue with me.” “You are just as bossy as you used to be, do you know that?” I told him, poking him in the chest.
He grabbed both my arms and pulled me over until his nose was a fraction of an inch from mine. “And you are just as argumentative and lacking in respect as you used to be.” We stared at each other for a minute. He narrowed his eyes. He sniffed the air. “Why do you not smell as you should?” I pushed myself out of his grip, straightening my sweatshirt a second time. “Well, I am sorry I offend you, but you have no one but yourself to blame for that, Mr. Disappear into the Beyond. Rather than take a bath, I opted to go find Savian in order to force him to find you so I could talk to you, which, I would like to point out, I wouldn’t have had to do if you hadn’t disappeared like you did.” “You might think it’s an afternoon’s frolic to face three wyverns bent on your destruction, but I have other ways I’d prefer to spend my time,” he said dryly.
I smiled to myself. I didn’t remember the Baltic from my dreams having a sense of humor. “All right, I will grant you the right to make a timely escape — they were unfairly ganging up on you. But that doesn’t give you the right to make insulting personal comments by telling me I stink.” “I didn’t — for the love of the saints, mate! I did not say you stink!” “You did, too! You said—”
“I said you do not smell as you should, and you do not.” He held up a hand when I was about to protest. “You do not smell like a dragon.” “Oh. Well. That’s probably because I’m not — hey!” Baltic lunged at me, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “You smell… human.” “I am human,” I said, my body suddenly coming to life in a way that almost stripped the breath from me. It was as if his touch electrified me, sending little zaps of pleasure down my skin. His hair brushed my cheek, and it was all I could do to keep from grabbing his head and kissing him until he was insensible.
“You are not. You are a dragon.”
“No, I’m human. My name is Tully, and I’m human now. I’ve only just decided to accept the fact that in the past I was a dragon named Ysolde, but now I’m human, and are you licking me?” I couldn’t stand it. The feel of him against me, the scent of him, something almost indefinable, like the smell of a rain-washed sky, pushed me close to the edge of my control. When his tongue licked a flaming path along my collarbone, I knew I had to stop him. I heaved him away from me with all my strength.
He licked his lips, an indescribable look on his face. “You taste the same. How is it that you smell differently but you taste the same?” “How do I know?” I said, shakily trying to regain my wits and keep from flinging myself on him. “I’m still trying to get over the fact that you were dead and now you’re not. Where are we going, by the way?” “I am stealing you from the silver wyvern,” he said with great satisfaction.
“You can hardly be said to be stealing me if I come with you of my own accord, not to mention escaping the house to go find you.” “I would expect nothing less from my mate,” he said with that same satisfaction.
I sighed, probably for the fifteenth time that day. “I seem to be sighing a lot lately,” I commented.
“That is because you were pining for me. Why did you not tell me you were alive?” he demanded.
“Have you always been this arrogant and egotistical?” I asked, then continued quickly before he could answer. “No, don’t bother to tell me. The few visions I’ve had answer that question. I will tell you what I know, but I warn you that it’s just going to raise more questions than answers.” It took the whole of the ride to a large house about an hour outside of London for me to tell Baltic what had happened since I woke up in Gabriel’s house.
“You knew I was alive but you did not seek me out immediately?” he asked as we stopped outside a gate, the driver punching in a security code.
“People mentioned you, yes, but most of the time, I figured I was nuts and made you up,” I answered, watching the driver in order to memorize the code, just in case I ever needed to make a fast escape.