Jim sat down with a put-upon look on his hairy black face. “I don’t suppose I could have a burger first? Lunch was a long time ago.”

I cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Fine! I’ll just sit here and quietly starve to death. I’m bound to Aoife, not that I knew that until Slick over there told me who I was.”

“Slick?” Aisling asked.

“That’s what he calls Kostya. Mostly because it infuriates him.” A little smile tugged at my mouth. We both looked over to where the fight was going on. Kostya and Drake were now on their feet, dancing around each other and making swinging jabs. The two redheads watched from the sidelines.

Aisling laughed and ruffled the top of the dog’s head. “Well at least I’m happy to see that nothing else has changed, even if you did lose your memory. I’m going to have more than a few things to say to Magoth when I see him, but I suppose until I can get Jim back to where it belongs, I’ll let that go. Can you please transfer Jim to me, Aoife?”

“Sure.” I gestured at the dog. “Jim, you’re now Aisling’s demon.”

He scratched his neck. “I’m not saying that I wouldn’t like to do that, ’cause she has a nice smell and she knows how to scratch behind my ears just how I like it, but I don’t think I can do that.”

“Oh, I have to order you. Okay. Jim, I order you to be Aisling’s demon.”

Aisling was shaking her head before I could even finish. “It doesn’t work that way, I’m afraid. First you have to disavow Jim first; then I can summon it and bind it to me.”

I looked at Jim. “How do I do that?”

He shrugged. “No clue.”

“You’re the demon. You should know this sort of thing.”

“You’re the demon lord. You shouldn’t go binding demons to you if you don’t know how to give them back to their rightful, food-giving homes,” he countered.

I turned back to Aisling. “I’m afraid I’m going to need a little help.”

She frowned and shook her head. “Demons aren’t bound to individuals by any set method. How you bound Jim to you determines how you unbind it.”

I slid a glance over to where Kostya was battling his brother. Both men were now wielding what looked like two-by-fours.

“Um… maybe we can talk about passing Jim along later. I get the feeling if we don’t do something pretty quick, those two are going to really start hurting each other. You may not think they will, but Kostya’s kind of a badass.”

“That’s what comes from having too much testosterone,” Jim commented. “That makes your balls big, right? Kostya’s got quite the pair on him, so yeah, gotta be testosterone overload that’s making him jump everyone in sight.”

We both looked at the demon. Aisling appeared to be disconcerted for a moment. “I… you know, I really don’t think I need to know about Kostya’s testicles, thank you, Jim.”

“Just trying to be helpful,” he said, giving her hand a lick before wandering over to plop his butt down on my foot. “Eefs’ll back me up on the ball thing, won’tcha, babe?”

A memory of Kostya standing in the doctor’s office without the towel rushed front and center in my mind. “Um…”

“Moving on!” Aisling said brightly, and got to her feet. We both started forward, Jim following behind. “I suppose they’ve had long enough to fight. But we should make some plans. What exactly has Kostya told you about the curse?”

“Not much at all. I only met him yesterday.”

She blinked at me a couple of times. “You what?”

I described briefly how Jim and I had found Kostya.

“That’s… unexpected. I don’t quite know… I assumed you were… Have you taken his fire?”

“Taken it where?”

She shook her head. “This is going to sound very impertinent, but you appear so much like a mate that I have to ask—have you been intimate with Kostya?”

I straightened my shoulders. “I realize that you dragon people are different from the rest of us, but that’s seriously over the line.”

“They played sucky face a couple of times,” Jim said helpfully.

I ignored him. “Not to mention more than a little insulting that you think I’m the sort of woman who jumps into bed at the drop of a hat… er… dragon.”

“And she keeps ordering me out of the room so she can touch his naked chest,” Jim added, waggling his eyebrows. “They keep saying they aren’t interested in each other, but you could steam broccoli with the looks they give each other when they think no one’s looking.”

“Oh, we do not,” I said, feeling my face go hot nonetheless.

“You totes do, babe,” Jim said, giving me a knowing look.

“Well, he’s a handsome man,” I snapped, feeling defensive. “You’d have to be dead not to want to kiss him. And touch his chest. And run your fingers through his hair, and feel those muscles in his back, and…” I realized what I was saying and stopped to clear my throat. “You’d have to be dead, and I’m not.”

“I had a feeling that what I was going to say would come out wrong,” Aisling said with a wry smile. “I didn’t mean to imply anything. I simply wanted to know if you’ve taken his fire. Only mates are able to withstand a wyvern’s fire, but if you’ve only kissed him a few times, then obviously you don’t know what I’m talking about, so it’s a moot point.”

“Well,” I said, wiggling my toes. “There was the thing with my feet this morning.”

Jim gawked at my feet. “Ew! He has a foot fetish? Did he suck your toes? Because I’m a dog, and even I think that’s wrong.”

“No,” I said, giving him a gentle whomp on the shoulder. “Of course I didn’t let him suck my toes. And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. Oh, sorry, Aisling. I didn’t mean to hit your dog.”

Surprisingly, she gave me a cheery smile and stopped a few feet away from where Drake and Kostya were now fencing with the two-by-fours. “Don’t think anything about it. I frequently have to banish it to the Akasha when it gets overly lippy with us. What happened with your feet?”

I glanced at Kostya, but he seemed to be fine, other than a stream of blood running from a cut on his forehead. “Kostya kissed me, and somehow that set them on fire. I thought they burned to horrible stumps, but they weren’t touched at all.”