“The second order of business I have to announce concerns the red dragons. This morning I received a statement from Chuan Ren that as of this date, the red dragons have withdrawn their acceptance of the current peace treaty and have declared war against members of this sept.”

“Holy cow,” I said on a nearly silent breath, leaning over to Pal to ask, “What happened? I know things were dicey when I left Budapest, but I didn’t know it was bordering on war.”

“Things suffered much when you left,” he said, his eyes filled with sadness. A band tightened around my heart.

“I’m so sorry. I never thought things would go downhill without me. I was sure Drake had things in control, or I wouldn’t have walked out. I had no idea Chuan Ren was serious about declaring war,” I whispered, miserable and bowed by guilt.

“The wyvern of the red dragons is serious about everything. Particularly so where it concerns Drake,” Pal whispered back. I wanted badly to ask why, but Drake had been shooting quick little annoyed looks at me while he read the formal declaration of war. It was, like others of its ilk, couched in all sorts of grandiose language, but what it boiled down to was the red dragons were pissed and wanted the green dragons to be their servants.

I snorted and said under my breath, “Ha. In her dreams.”

“As most of you have been through this before,” Drake said, lifting an eyebrow slightly at me, “you will know how to safeguard your family and property. The militia will be in contact with each family to ensure the full resources of this sept are available to those who need them. Due to the stranglehold the red dragons have in the Far East, travel to Asia should be undertaken only in the direst of situations, and with ample protection.”

I leaned over to Pal. “When was the last time you guys were at war?”

His brow furrowed in thought. “One hundred years.”

“Is that all?”

Drake shot me another, more prolonged, annoyed look.

“Yes,” Pal answered after a few moments, leaning so his mouth was close to my ear. “Drake defeated Chuan Ren in trial by combat in order to gain peace.”

Hmm. That explained why the red wyvern seemed to have it in for Drake. I bet losing to him didn’t sit well with someone with her warrior pride.

The rest of the meeting was pretty much a summation of the last year’s major events, septwise. There were three births to announce, one death by accident when a dragon was caught in a car bombing in Egypt, and a list of academic and professional achievements that had me squirming in my seat with inferiority.

I was a Guardian, dammit. And a demon lord. Fancy degrees or economic honors and respect of the sept were not important to me. I was trying to convince myself of just that when there was a brief spattering of applause and everyone stood up, the front row filing onto the stage. One by one the members of the sept stopped in front of me, shook my hand, told me their names, and moved on to be greeted by their wyvern. It took almost three hours, and by the time it was done my hand ached, my brain swam with names and conversational inanities, and my stomach rumbled almost as loud as Jim’s grousing.

“Are you going to feed us?” I asked Drake when the last sept member left. “Or do I have to apply an emergency hamburger to Jim so we can make it home without it expiring of starvation?”

“Feeeeeeeeed me,” Jim moaned, flopping on its side in apparent exhaustion.

Drake’s eyes glittered dangerously. I knew he must be as tired as I was, more so since he had talked to everyone twice as long as I had. I just administered conversational cocktails while they waited for the main course. “I would be happy to feed you. I was not aware you were welcoming my presence in anything but a purely formal situation.”

“Yes, well, I need to talk to you about that, amongst other things, but right now, we need food. Is there somewhere nearby we can go?”

There was. A short half hour later, I squeezed a slice of lemon into a tall glass of iced tea and sighed with dry-throated relief. Drake lounged across the table from me, consulting a menu. He’d managed to get us a private room, going so far as to bribe the restaurant manager to allow Jim in.

“Are Istvan and Pal not joining us?”

He turned the menu over and scanned the back of it. “They are eating in the other room. They wished to give us privacy.”

“Oh, good. That means you guys are either going to talk relationship or get naked. Either of which should distract me while my steak is being cooked.”

“You’re having a chicken sandwich, not a steak. And just remember what the phrase ‘Effrijim, I command thee’ can do.”

I swear Jim grinned at Drake. “She’s crazy about me.”

“I can see that,” he answered dryly, turning his attention to the menu when a waiter slipped into the room. I gave an order for Jim and myself, toying with my iced-tea glass while Drake grilled him about the freshness of the salmon. There were so many things I wanted to say to Drake, so many questions I had, so many wicked, wanton acts my tongue wanted to engage in with him ... but my brain, that ever-trusty organ, reminded me where those sorts of urges had led me in the past and warned me to make my way cautiously. Drake had broken my heart twice. I knew it couldn’t survive a third time.

“Jim, when I order you not to listen to me, what exactly do you do? Hear the words but just don’t pay attention? Don’t remember anything?”

The demon sighed. “I knew you were going to do that. I can’t hear anything when you do that. It’s an order, and I can’t violate an order. So the words just aren’t there for me to hear.”

“Oh. Good.” I set down my glass. “Effrijim, until further notice, you are not to hear anything Drake and I say.”

Jim groaned and laid its big furry black head on its paws, giving me a nasty look. I ignored it. “We have some things to talk about. I dearly want to know what’s up with that Dmitri guy, but first things first.”

Drake leaned back in his chair, an obstinate look on his handsome-as-sin face. “Yes, first things first—what did you mean when you told Pal that you’d been pushed in front of a train?”

I hate it when Drake pulls the rug out from under me, conversationally speaking. “Oh, that. He asked why I was favoring one side when I had said I wasn’t hurt in the car crash. There’s not much to it—someone tried to kill me. Or rather, you, since no one would benefit from my death.”