“Twenty-four hours,” Kostya repeated, and with a little bow to Aisling, who waved in response, Aoife and Kostya departed.

“The nerve of him giving you an ultimatum like that,” Bee said softly in his ear, her hand sliding into the crook of his arm. “He acts like he’s all Mr. In Charge, but I don’t remember anyone nominating him king of the dragons. I mean, I know there’s two sides to every story, but I have to admit that there are times when I really want to punch him right on the snoot.” She flashed a quick smile at him, and squeezed his arm. “Don’t look so glum, Constantine. We’ll get the talisman and take care of Bael, just you see.”

Constantine said nothing, but he thought a great many things. And none of them were good.

Thirteen

Constantine appeared to be in deep thought when I asked him if we should take off before Aisling’s husband came home. I had to nudge him before he turned to face me. “Hmm?”

“I said, should we hightail it out of here, too? Or are you okay with the green wyvern?”

“Yes, we should leave,” he said absently, his gaze directed inward. I wanted to ask him what had him so thoughtful all of a sudden, but at that moment Aisling came bustling back into the sitting room with a tall man with slick black hair and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen on a human.

But of course he wasn’t human. This was obviously the green sept wyvern, a man who was known far and wide through the Otherworld as a master thief.

“There were two female demons outside,” Drake announced as he kissed his wife. “They ran off before we could capture them. Pal and Istvan are in pursuit, although the way the demons went to ground, I don’t hold out much hope they will be located. The house has not been breached?”

“Of course not,” Aisling said, giving him a smile that was clearly welcoming in many ways. “You know I have three different layers of wards over every entrance. Nothing can get in that we don’t want in.”

“See that you reinforce them.”

Constantine continued to stand quiet, his mind obviously ticking away along some path that I wasn’t privy to. I had a brief review of the conversation of the last few minutes to see if I could pinpoint what had made him so introspective, but came up with a blank.

“Bee, this is my husband, Drake. Bee is the Charmer who Kostya engaged to break the curse,” Aisling said, presenting the wyvern. He bowed formally over my hand, as is the wont with dragons, although I thought Constantine did it better. Perhaps it was the green eyes, so very calculating and emotionally distant, or the high cheekbones and the glossy black hair, but everything about Drake left me cold.

My gaze drifted over to Constantine, who was now greeting Drake. What a study in contrasts the two of them made; where Drake reminded me of dark, still water, Constantine was fire and light, the warm glow of his eyes making me think of molten gold. He was sunshine to Drake’s shadows, and it made me shiver a little with anticipation when I remembered just how hot Constantine’s fire could be.

I was distracted from my smutty thoughts by Aisling giving Drake an update on all the happenings.

Drake looked startled by the information dump. “Bael is one of the firstborn? Why have I not heard of this before?”

“Only the children of the First Dragon know of Bael’s true origins, and of them, only Baltic is alive.” Constantine shrugged. “It had little relevance until now. Bael must be stopped, no matter who his sire was. I failed to stop him in the past, but I will not fail again.”

Drake noticed Gary at that point, giving him a look of pure disbelief. “What is that?”

“He’s a who, not a what,” Constantine said.

“And his name is Gary,” I said, lifting up the hamster ball so Gary could say hello and couldn’t keep from adding, “His real name is Gareth, but no one ever calls him that.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Gary said politely, giving Drake a little nod. “You have a lovely home. My apologies about the tiny dent in the paneling in the hall. I bashed into it earlier when Bee decided to play Bowling with Gary.”

Drake’s lips tightened.

“And I’ve apologized twice for that. It was wrong of me, but really, Gary—you know better than to go on about traffic cones after I’ve made it clear such topics aren’t welcome.”

“I thought it had interest,” he said with an injured sniff.

I set him back down on the couch, saying as I did so, “Oh, balls, Gary, you’re all red again. I think your juice box is leaking. I’ll take it out, shall I?”

“Please. And might I have another tissue? This juice is a bit sticky.”

I removed the offending box while Constantine mopped up Gary again. While we were doing so, I caught Drake giving Aisling an unreadable look.

She batted her eyelashes. “What?” she said finally. “You’ve never seen a disembodied head who likes pomegranate juice?”

Drake chose to ignore that question and addressed Constantine. “I understand that Baltic and Ysolde asked you to help in the acquisition of the talisman.”

“They did.” Constantine closed the lid on Gary’s ball, and crossed his arms over his chest, at his most formal, something that tickled my funny bone. “Unfortunately, we were given misinformation, and thus the talisman we liberated did not break the curse.”

“You do not know where Bael is now?” Drake asked, his arm around Aisling, but a distant look in his cold eyes.

“No,” admitted Constantine. “But I’m fairly certain he is in Paris, and if he’s in the vicinity, we will find him.”

“Hmm.”

“What are you thinking?” Aisling asked Drake. “Are you planning on flexing your green dragon skills? Because if you are, you know I want to help. And don’t tell me that it’s not safe—I feel fine, the twins are in the country with my stepparents and uncle, and you need me.”

“I would be a poor green dragon if I couldn’t extricate a simple object without aid, even from you.” Drake’s gaze turned inward as he clearly sorted through some thoughts. “It seems to me that we need two distinctly different things: to keep Bael from finding Thala and the light blade, and to locate his hiding spot. I propose to deal with the latter. You would be hard put to do both, and we green dragons are well suited to the task at hand.”