“Yup. Just you, me, and Drakeykins,” Jim said, settling back on the floor. “You guys going to do it in the chair? Where do your legs go? Isn’t that hard on the back? Not to mention the upholstery…heeeeeeeeeyyy…”

Jim’s voice trailed off as I banished it to the Akasha.

21

“There’s much to be said for wyverns, including their knowledge of people who are willing to portal them at a moment’s notice, but one of the best things is their ability to cushion falling objects,” I said into Drake’s stomach.

He pushed my knee off his face. “You made me bite my tongue.”

“Want me to kiss it and make it all better?” I asked, leering at him as I rolled off his body.

“Sheesh, weren’t you guys going at it when you so cruelly abandoned me to the torments of the Akasha? And you give me a hard time for wanting to call Cecile every day!” Jim grumbled, picking itself up from where it had landed.

“Not that it’s in any way your business, but we didn’t get to ‘go at it,’ as you so crudely put it. We didn’t have time. Paula felt it vitally necessary to unburden herself of yet another lecture about my apparent lack of interest in the wedding planning.”

“Oh. I take back what I said about the Akasha. I’d rather suffer there than have to sit through another one of your stepmom’s tirades.” Jim indulged in a full body shake, then looked up. “Incoming.”

Drake was a blur as he shoved me out of the way just in time. István’s body hit the floor with a heavy whump, Pál following almost immediately, cracking his head on István’s with an audible thunk.

“Ouchie. You guys OK?” I asked as Drake helped me to my feet.

Pál swore in Hungarian. István rubbed his head and staggered to his feet. “Yes. Maybe not. What was question?”

The two men sidestepped handily when a sixth and final form dropped to the floor.

I was less than happy about having Mr. Bossy Pants along, but Drake insisted that to exclude Kostya would create worse feelings than already existed.

Kostya rose to his feet, muttering.

“Are all portals like that?” I asked Drake as I brushed off a bit of dust from his shirt. Drake preferred raw silk shirts, usually dark green, but tonight he was dressed completely in black. “Hey, how did we get turned around? You were holding me when we went through it.”

He shrugged. “Portals are never easy. It is one reason why I wished you would stay home. You could have been harmed.”

“Oh, we’re not going to go into that again.” I straightened my shirt and dusted off the knees to my just-barely-fitting jeans. “You told me yourself that it’s a lot harder for me to be hurt, so a little portalling isn’t going to do either me or the baby any harm.”

“Just remember your promise,” he said, leveling a meaningful look at me before opening the door to peer out.

“Like I could forget it? So where first?” I asked, starting to follow him.

István stopped me, pushing me gently back so he could proceed. “Remember your promise,” he said in his gravelly voice.

I rolled my eyes and made to follow him.

“You stay behind us,” Kostya ordered imperiously, pushing past me.

I stuck out my tongue at his back and turned to consider Pál. “You’re a modern man despite your years. You aren’t going to pull any of that macho protective crap on me, are you?”

He smiled and slipped ahead of me. “You promised,” he reminded me.

My fingers jerked, itching to draw a couple of confinement wards. “Honest to god! As if it’s not bad enough having one mother hen…now I have three!”

“You love it and you know it. So, this is Fiat’s place, huh? Pretty swanky. Drake, I’m thinkin’ you’re going to have to up the stakes a little if you want to beat the competition,” Jim said, snuffling a heavy brocade tablecloth on a glass-topped table.

“Don’t be telling him that,” I said, swatting Jim on the nose. “Our house is perfectly fine. Besides, this place is…too Fiat.”

We stood in a room that was bright and sunny, but cold, as if the air-conditioning had been left on high. I shivered a little as I rubbed my arms, examining the room with curiosity. I’d seen Fiat’s apartment in Paris, but this was his home in Lake Como, and although it was gorgeous, it was lacking in…well, warmth.

Jim wandered over to look out of the window. The room had a high ceiling edged with elaborate moldings. Two crystal chandeliers sparkled in the wintry sunlight shining through tall windows flanked on either side by long, gold drapes. The view revealed a steel gray lake lapping almost to the base of the house. The elegant room was filled with gold and blue furniture.

“You break it, you buy it,” I warned Jim as I stood on tiptoe to see what the guys were doing all clustered together.

Pál held a small black electronic box. He directed it around the room, silently pointing in various directions. The others nodded, taking care to touch nothing.

“Looking for bugs?” I asked Pál in my best espionage voice.

He shook his head. “Alarms. We don’t want to trigger anything.”

Evidently the room was clear of alarms with the exception of the windows. I whispered a command to Jim to not touch anything and silently followed the four men as they opened the door and swept the hallway for signs of a security system. Pál pointed to a small white box perched high on the wall. He pulled out a cell phone–sized gadget, fiddling with it for a minute before setting it on a half-moon table in the hall, nodding to Drake that all was clear.

“What’s that?” I asked Pál as we trailed out of the room.

“It interrupts the camera image.”

“I see you guys went shopping at the James Bond Emporium o’ Spy Stuff,” Jim commented. “I can’t wait to see the exploding breath mints.”

I shushed the demon and gave in to my curiosity by having a good look around. We were upstairs in a pentagon-shaped main hallway, five corridors converging on a sunny spot that had a skylight above. The center was open to the ground floor, flooding the area above and below with light. I had to admit it was very pretty, very elegant…and very lifeless.

We made a cursory examination of the upper-floor rooms. There were security cameras at each of the corridors.