“I know of no Charmers, but there are bound to be some in Paris. The Venediger is known to favor them.”

“Someday,” I said, looking out the window, “I’m going to be able to have a conversation with you and actually understand every word you say.”

He smiled. It didn’t last long, just a couple of seconds, but it was there and I saw it, and I rejoiced at the fact that his emotions weren’t so devastated that he couldn’t be brought around. He smoothed his hand across my hair. “Now go to bed and sleep. I must make plans.”

“I’m not a doormat,” I told Kostya. “I just want you to know that. My first inclination is to brain you with something bulky, but because I’m a nice, civilized person who has a goodly amount of empathy, I’m going to let your comment slide and instead ask you what a Venediger is.”

His lips tightened for a moment, and then he gave another of his martyred sighs and tossed the pencil stub onto the table. “You are doing this to enrage me, aren’t you?”

“No.” I shook my head. “But I was raised to ask questions if I didn’t understand something, and you are not going to make me feel bad for doing just that.”

“The Venediger is a mage who lives in Paris. She controls the Otherworld in Europe.” A slightly amused look came into his eyes.

“The Otherworld being, what? The part of the world with dragons and mages with funny names?”

“Among others, yes… What are you doing?”

“Snuggling with you.” I scooted over on the couch until I was pressed up against him, running my finger along his eyebrows until the frown smoothed out. “I like it when you smile, Kostya. It makes me happy… and a little aroused, to the point where I want to touch you and kiss you and do wicked things to you with my tongue. I don’t, however, like it when you frown. That just makes me want to pinch you. Now, which mood would you like me in?” I kissed a little path along his jaw to his ear, sucking on his earlobe.

If anything, he looked grumpier than normal. He gave me a sidelong glance, then said sourly, “Drake was right.”

“About women who think you’re sexy when you smile?” I asked, nibbling my way back to his chin, where I swirled my tongue around the cleft in it. At the same time, I unbuttoned a few of his buttons and slid my hand inside his shirt, delighting at the sensation of his soft chest hairs.

“No. He has said many times that Aisling has made his life a living hell and that a mate would do the same to me. Later he said that he enjoyed her brand of hell and would die rather than give her up, but I believe that to be a statement of pride. She has certainly put him through much that I would never tolerate.”

I leaned back to look at him.

He accurately read the question in my eyes. “I will not have a mate.”

I held my breath for a moment. Did he really bring the subject up so soon after shutting me out? I had to tread carefully here, I knew. I tipped my head and, beneath his shirt, stroked his pectoral muscle. “Why?”

“I’ve already spoken to you about this. Repeatedly.”

“That’s because you haven’t really told me why you are so hurt. I won’t judge you, Kostya—surely you can see that I was devastated by the whole Thor thing. I can empathize with the pain from the loss of misplaced love.”

He sighed a huge sigh that could have filled a hot-air balloon. “Very well, I will explain to you this once, and then we will speak of it no more. I told you that Cyrene forced me to declare her as my mate.”

“Yes, but she wasn’t really your mate, and I am. So despite that, you’re going to spurn me, spurn everything we could have together—and again, I want bonus points for going from a perfectly normal human being to someone who accepts that there are dragons and Venedimages and demon lords marching around—”

“Venediger, not Venedimage.”

Gently, I pinched his side. “You want to turn all that down just because you had a bad experience with a girlfriend? One who didn’t even throw racial and sexual slurs at you like some people I could name? Really, Kostya? You’re that dense?”

And in a flash, he was back to enraged. “A proper mate does not refer to her wyvern as dense!”

“I bet she does when he acts that way!”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “It’s Aisling, isn’t it? She told you to say these things to me. She’s not going to be happy until you have me as deranged as she has Drake.”

I laughed and leaned forward to kiss him again, very sweetly this time, before biting his lower lip. “She didn’t, but I can see I’m going to have to have a long, long talk with her. Am I your mate or not?”

His lips tightened for a moment; then suddenly we were both on our feet. “If you do not wish to sleep, then I will,” he said, heading for the bedroom.

“Coward!”

His shoulder jerked. He paused a moment, half turning toward me. “To retreat when you cannot win a battle is not cowardly. It is self-preservation.”

“Hmm,” I said aloud after he disappeared into the bedroom. “Now what am I going to do about that?”

I had no answer, but I was fairly confident that something would occur to me before too long.

Three hours later, I was no wiser, although I did put the problem aside to appreciate the fact that I was in Paris. “You’re sure it’s okay to talk in front of this guy?” I asked Kostya as we got to a taxi. The driver was a middle-aged man with a nice face, brown hair, and a lovely French accent.

“Rene is a friend of Aisling,” Kostya answered.

“And that makes him okay?”

Kostya just gave me one of his “I dislike answering questions” faces and proceeded to pay off the bribe to the pilot for getting us into the country without having to go through customs.

“Hi,” I said to the taxi driver. “I’m Aoife, and this dog is—”

“Jim!” Rene said in a delighted tone, bending down to hug the dog and kiss him on both furry cheeks. “It has been too long, my old friend, much too long, yes?”

“Hiya,” Jim said, giving the man a friendly swipe of his tongue. “I take it you knew me before my memory got the eraso-matic, huh? I’m here with the Eefenator, not Kostya. She’s my boss now.”

Rene shot me a startled look. “She is? Aisling will be very upset by this news. She thinks the world of you. Eraso-matic? What is this?”