Kostya, who had been sitting up and shaking his head, suddenly lunged at his brother’s legs, and nailed him on the chin in a way that left Drake limp on the ground, clearly knocked out.

“Very brotherly,” I told Kostya when he staggered to his feet. Now his nose was bleeding, too.

“He started it,” Kostya said, and lurched toward us. “What has Aisling told you?”

“Many things.” I tsked at the sight of the way his shoulder was carried. “You’ve gone and broken your collarbone again, haven’t you?”

“No,” he said, touching it and wincing. “Possibly. But it will heal. What plans have Aisling and Drake made?”

“Er…” I looked at Aisling. “Kostya wants to know about any plans.”

“We haven’t really made any other than finding the ring, and we’ve had no luck there for the longest time.” Aisling squatted next to Drake, dabbing at his head with her sleeve. “Drake’s going to be furious when he wakes up. He hates it when Kostya bests him.”

“What is she saying?” Kostya asked.

“Nothing your ego needs to hear. Kostya thinks we need to go to Paris, Aisling. I’m not quite sure why, but he seems to feel that’s a safe place.”

“Nowhere is safe from the red dragons,” she said slowly, rising when Drake, who had just come to, leaped to his feet with a snarl. He wobbled quite a bit, which is why Aisling was able to hold him back with just one arm. With her other, she handed me a card. “Here’s my number. Call me in a bit and give me your number. Go to Paris with Kostya. Drake has a house there, and I’ll arrange for us to head to France as well. Kostya must think the ring is there, else he wouldn’t leave Sweden. Above all else, it’s important that we find it, or the weyr is forever doomed. Jim, don’t give Aoife any grief or be obnoxious, and do whatever she tells you to do.”

I bit my lip, glancing at Kostya. Once again, I wanted to tell Aisling that I had the ring, but if Kostya hadn’t instructed me to tell her I had it, then he most likely didn’t want her to know. Although why escaped me. Perhaps he felt they would take it from us? It would be nice to hand off the responsibility of it to someone else, but on the other hand, it seemed like the ring had chosen me, and for some strange reason, I was loathe to give it up so easily.

While I was waffling over what to do, Jim tipped his head and looked at Aisling. “Can she tell me what to do, Eefster?”

“Hmm? Yes, she can.”

“Oh, Jim, if only I had time… but I don’t.” Aisling leaned forward and gave the dog a hug, and kissed him on his head. “Just remember that you’re a good demon, not a bad one. And for heaven’s sake, stop standing around in the middle of roads!”

She and Drake began walking toward their plane, but Aisling paused to toss over her shoulder, “Remember what I said about Kostya’s fire, Aoife. It’s time he move past Cyrene and realize just how blessed he is to have you in his life! It wouldn’t hurt to make him grovel just a little, but keep in mind that he’s had a hard time lately. I’m sure you won’t be cruel.”

I looked at Kostya, wondering if my life would ever be the same again.

Nine

I watched Aisling and Drake’s plane taxi away, then slowly turned back to Kostya, who instantly demanded to know what was said. “Did Aisling say what the green dragons were doing? Did you tell her about the ring? Is there news of the other septs?”

His eyes were as shiny as ever, the little silver flecks glinting dangerously in the surrounding onyx. I took a mental step back and looked at him, really looked at him. Aisling clearly thought that I was the person meant to be with Kostya, his life mate, or whatever dragons had, and that thought was both frightening and enticing.

I’d never had a serious relationship with a man but had long wanted one. I’d never felt like I was truly part of someone’s life. There were my parents, and later my siblings, but they were family—stuck with me whether they liked it or not.

And when they don’t like it, they stick you in an insane asylum, the small voice in my head said. I shook that thought away, eyeing Kostya even as he impatiently waited for me to answer his questions.

What was it about him that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside? Certainly not his gruff manner. Or his way of telling me that he didn’t want me as a girlfriend, even while he risked life and limb to keep me safe.

I’d have to be dead not to feel the pull of his masculinity, but it wasn’t just the cute cleft in his chin, or the six-pack, or even his fabulous butt that kept him uppermost in my thoughts; no, it was the sense of need surrounding him that struck such a chord within me, a sense of pain deep within him that I wanted desperately to lessen. He had scars that ran so deep, I wasn’t sure anything I could do could ever heal them, but I knew that I very much wanted to try.

“Aoife?” Kostya almost tapped his foot with impatience.

I giggled to myself. What a man I’d picked to become obsessed with. “No, I didn’t tell Aisling about the ring. I didn’t know you wanted me to. Should I have? I can call her super quick if you think it’s important they know this second.”

Kostya shook his head before I even finished speaking. “No, we must go to Paris. We can’t use the ring here.”

“I thought you said we couldn’t use the ring at all?”

“Dragons cannot.” His gaze flittered away. “We are affected by the curse.”

That sense of being an outsider, of not belonging, hit me again with his words. The meaning was quite clear—I was only a means to an end, a way to bring the ring to whoever or whatever would use it to break the curse.

Dammit, I was not going to fall in love with Kostya. Not when he kept pushing me away. To continue would leave me tragically heartsore.

“And then where would we be?” I asked aloud.

“We are in Sweden. You should know that. Are you having an episode of derangement?” He frowned, his two straight ebony brows pulling downward until I couldn’t stand it any longer and reached up to smooth out the wrinkles between them. “You said that you were not deranged, but there is something wrong if you don’t know where you are.”

“I know exactly where I am.” He caught my hand, his thumb rubbing across my pulse point in a way that had various parts of me tingling in pleasure despite my better intentions to not give in to his sexy, sexy ways. “What I don’t know is what I am. I thought I was just me, a normal person who saw some pretty extraordinary things and was tossed in the nuthouse as a result. But now I don’t know for sure. Why are you rubbing my hand?”