He collapsed down onto me, and time as I knew it just kind of drifted past us, leaving us in an eddy of sated happiness, not bothering to disturb us until my brain started working again. I tried moving my arms and legs, not absolutely certain they’d still work, but happily, Constantine hadn’t sexed me right out of functionality.

“Christos,” he swore, rolling off me.

“You can say that again.” I scooted over until I was draped partly on top of him. “That was—man alive, Constantine! I’ve never heard of anyone being loved to death, but I’ll be damned if that didn’t come close to it.”

“It was nice, wasn’t it?” He looked smug as sin, but given the pleasure he’d just fired between us, I figured he was due it. “That is the way of dragons. Now that we are mated, I can teach you many things.”

I lifted one of his hands. At the end of each finger was a long, curved, ivory-colored claw. “This is about as dragony as I like you. I hate to discriminate against your dragon form, but your human form is sexy enough for me. And speaking of that, did you notice that we had a perfectly lovely time without any of your toys?”

He grinned and gently dragged one of the claws down my spine, making me shiver in response. “I did notice. And I have nothing against enjoying you and you alone, but you must admit that variety is nice as well.”

“Hmm,” I said, swirling my tongue around a slightly salty nipple. “Perhaps. You may have to work at convincing me on that subject, though.”

“Happily,” he said. “I will add that to my list of things I wish to show you.”

We lay in silence for a few minutes, me trying to gather my still somewhat scattered wits and lazily drawing patterns on Constantine’s chest.

“What are we going to tell the others?” I asked at last.

I think he had been about to drift off into sleep, because he jerked beneath me. “About the ring?”

“Yes.” I sat up, looking down on him and wondering how much he had changed my life. “They’re not going to be happy with us.”

“Do you believe they would have thought it would turn out any other way than it did?”

I frowned. “Are you saying you knew how this was going to turn out? You knew that Bael was going to lop off Asmodeus’s head—which, incidentally, will give me nightmares for years—and that his men would sneak up behind us and hold me hostage?”

“No. But I knew it would not be easy defeating Bael, and we were going into his presence with a ring that he very much coveted. I knew that such an outcome would be possible if I was not very lucky.”

“And you weren’t,” I said sadly, feeling responsible for the situation for some insane reason.

“On the contrary, I am very lucky. I have found a mate despite having lost the only woman I thought I desired. I was wrong.”

I leaned down to kiss his nose. “I was wrong about dragons, too, so we’re even. But what are we going to do now?”

He tugged me down onto his chest again. “It will take immense power to defeat Bael as he is now.”

“We don’t have immense power,” I pointed out.

“No, not even joined can we take him down. We are going to need help.”

“The other dragons?”

He was silent for a long time before his arm tightened around me. “Something like that.”

And annoyingly, that was all he’d say on the matter. I tried to get him to spill what he was planning, but he just said he had to think things through, and he’d tell me when he came to a decision.

“Overbearing, cavalier dragon,” I said with a snort as I marched into the bathroom to take a shower. “So much for having a mate to share things with!”

“I will share my thoughts with you when I can get them in proper order,” he said, putting his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling.

I looked back at him lying on the bed, so sexy that we’d left scorch marks on the sheets, and told myself I was crazy to tie myself to a dragon.

Sometimes, crazy is a very good thing.

Nineteen

It was almost night when Constantine greeted the redheaded man who opened the door. I couldn’t remember if he was Pal or Istvan, but whoever he was, he bowed when Constantine said, “We have come for Gary.”

“It is good to see you alive,” was all the redhead said before standing back and gesturing for us to enter Aisling’s house. “There was no trouble?”

“Oh, there was plenty of trouble. There was a hell of a lot of trouble. There was trouble coming out of our ears.” I took a deep breath and entered the hall.

“It went as I expected,” Constantine said, taking my hand. “Are the others still here?”

“Yes. In the sitting room.” Pal or Istvan—I really should figure out which one was which—gestured toward the double doors.

One of them opened before we could reach it. Gary barreled out on his truck, now denuded of knives. “Connie! Bee! I thought you’d never get back. Jim says that dragons have a thing about needing personal time with their mates when they get stolen, so I’m not going to feel hurt because you’re wearing different clothes, although that means you must have at the very least stopped to get Bee’s luggage instead of coming here to reassure me that you’re alive and well, and in fact, judging by the looks on your faces, you probably blew the grounsils first before you came to fetch me.”

I shook my head briefly. “We what now?”

“Blew the grounsils.” Gary pursed his lips, and turned his truck to reenter the sitting room. “You know, polishing the porpoise.”

“Feeding the kitty,” Jim said with a nod and a wink at Gary when we followed the latter into the room. “Filling the cream donut. Stuffing the worm into—”

“And that is enough out of you, demon. Silence until I tell you that you can speak again,” Aisling said, glaring at her demon.

I looked at Constantine.

One side of his mouth quirked. “I will explain to him how it is with a wyvern and his mate. He will learn not to have hurt feelings when we go off to fill the cream donut.”

I pinched his arm.

“What happened? Are you two all right?” Aisling greeted us with worried looks. “Did you get rid of Bael?” She turned back to Drake, who was approaching us from the other side of the room. “I told you we should have stayed! I’m a Guardian. I could have helped them deal with Bael.”