Rene was a block away, walking toward us with Jim on a leash beside him, the ubiquitous white plastic bag tied to the leash signaling to all that we were in full compliance with the rules regarding dogs and their leavings. Evidently Jim had finally convinced Rene to take it for a quick walkie. Tiffany and I stopped next to Rene's car, Tiffany careful to avoid touching the hot metal of the vehicle. I leaned against it, my arms crossed, as I thought about my options. "Fiat's offer notwithstanding, assuming I had the money, which I don't, I could hire one of his men to do a little hermit tracking for me, but I'm fairly certain they'd need a scent or something to follow, so that's out."

Tiffany murmured something noncommittal.

I chewed on my tower lip as the heat of the car swirled up and around me, bathing me in a pleasant sensation of warm comfort. "I don't know anything about the red dragons, other than that they're clearly clotheshorses, but Gabriel... hmmm. He might help me find the hermit if I asked him."

"You would ask another for assistance when you have me?" Tiffany stopped buffing a fingernail to give me an outraged look.

"You said your skills would be in drawing the hermit out from where he was hiding once we found the general location," I pointed out. "Unless you want to walk every square inch of every park outside the city, I'm going to need more help, And if there's one thing I've learned from my time with Drake, it's that dragons can be very resourceful when they want to be."

She sniffed and looked away. "Why do you not ask this Drake person to help you? Jim says he is a wyvern and you are his mate, which means he must do as you ask."

I had a good long mental giggle over the thought of Drake doing as I asked, sobering when I realized that his earlier maneuvering might actually benefit me as much as him. "You know, you just may have something there, Tiff, Drake is going to owe me after this lunch—oh, crap, the lunch! What time is it? Is it anywhere near two?"

"Any."

"Huh?" What on earth was her problem? Tiffany was giving me a thin-lipped look that left her shy happy eyes expressing a whole lot of pointed discontent.

"'Any. My name, it is Tiffany. Mama named me for the very elegant shop that sells jewelry in New York, New York."

"Oh. Sorry."

She nodded primly and glanced at her wrist. "It is ten minutes after two o'clock."

"Crap, crap, and double crap. Rene! We have to go! Right now!"

I did an agitated little dance as Rene and Jim hurried toward us, mentally writing the apology I'd make to Drake when I arrived back at the hotel, late, not dressed in green, and sweaty from driving all around the city in a non-air-conditioned car.

Sometimes it seemed like life was really against me.

Chapter 9

AS I feared, the dragons' lunch was well under way when Jim and I arrived at the atrium at the back of the hotel, overlooking the muddy brown (never blue, I found out from Tiffany) Danube River.

"Hi. Sorry I'm late," I said breathlessly as I stopped in front of the large round table that dominated the small restaurant. Fronds of tall, spiky palms waved gracefully as Jim and I rushed past them to the two empty seats next to Drake. "Traffic was horrible. There's been no,.. uh ... plague talk or anything, has there?"

The men at the table rose, leaving the Chinese woman the only one seated. Drake waved an elegant hand at them, saying, "You are acquainted with Fiat and his men."

I murmured a polite hello, first making sure my mental guards were up to keep Fiat out of my head.

"The man to the left of Renaldo is Gabriel Tauhou, the wyvern of the silver dragons. Accompanying him are Tipene and Maata."

I realized as the two silver dragon bodyguards bowed that the taller of the two, the one named Maata, was a woman. All three dragons had beautiful coffee-colored skin, short glossy black hair, and astonishingly bright gray eyes, but hefty as Tipene was, Maata had a glint to her eyes that made me think she was the more dangerous of the two.

"Nice to meet you. Hi again, Gabriel."

"Hi… again?" Drake asked, his jaw tightening as he swung around to pin me back with an emerald-eyed glare. "You know Gabriel?"

"Aisling and I met last night," Gabriel said with a slight smile. His eyes, however, danced merrily, which made me think he was enjoying teasing Drake. "She was in some difficulty, and I was happy to be of service to her."

"He sucked her arm," Jim said, climbing onto one of the free chairs. 'There was tongue everywhere. It was a horrible thing to see."

Drake's fire—usually carefully banked—roared to life within him as I shot Jim a fulminating glare before turning back to the irate dragon next to me. "It's not like the demon is making it sound."

"Did you know that you only call me 'the demon' when you're pissed at me?"

I ignored Jim's attempt to bait me. Drake didn't have a terribly passive temper, and if I wanted to avoid horrible repercussions to the world as I knew it, I'd have to keep him calm so he didn't trigger a modern plague epidemic.

"Someone stole the amulet I'm supposed to deliver, and my arm got knifed in the process, Gabriel stopped the bleeding, then got my amulet back. That's all there was to it."

"She was not hurt seriously," Gabriel added. "Otherwise I would, as is my duty, have taken her into protective custody."

I almost groaned, instead thinning my lips at Gabriel and sending him a look that demanded he cease and desist,

Drake stiffened beside me, his voice as smooth and cold as Italian marble as he said, "Aisling is my mate. Do you wish to challenge me for her, Tauhou?"

Silence fell in the atrium, broken only by the faint chirping of birds in a huge aviary that spanned one wall. Evidently the dragons had reserved the entire restaurant, because there were no other patrons, not even a waitper-son in sight. My breath stopped for a moment while I joined everyone else to watch Gabriel. Then I remembered that I was there under protest and wasn't the wimpy, weak sort of woman who allowed other people to make decisions about her life.

"If anyone is going to challenge for me, it's going to be me," I said, somewhat irrationally. "Now, can we stop this pissing contest and get on with things? There's a poltergeist seminar I'd like to attend in an hour."

Drake didn't move as I tried to tug him down into his chair. His eyes remained locked on Gabriel. The latter smiled even brighter as he glanced toward me, making a slight gesture of surrender.