‘‘Then either you have an extremely poor memory, or you simply didn’t take in the full meaning of the Doctrine, because it’s all there: the laws that you agreed to, and the punishments that will be meted out should you be found in violation, which, in the matter of consorts, means immediate and unconditional loss of status.’’ She smiled, a ghastly smile, one that reaffirmed my belief that she would be well suited to the role of demon lord. ‘‘Loss of status is bound to mean your utter and complete destruction, in this and all other plains of existence.’’

Gabriel frowned at me. ‘‘May, you did not tell me about this.’’

‘‘That’s because there’s nothing at all about a consort being destroyed in the Doctrine,’’ I objected, horror growing inside me. ‘‘I swear I read the Doctrine the whole way through, Gabriel, and there was nothing there about a consort risking the loss of her existence.’’

‘‘It’s not in the Doctrine per se,’’ Sally said as she examined a pale pink fingernail.

‘‘It’s not? Then why—’’

‘‘It’s in one of the codicils,’’ she said, interrupting me. Although her expression was still one of haughty disdain, there was a marked sense of enjoyment that even I could feel. ‘‘Surely you read the volume of codicils?’’

I looked at Gabriel. He looked back at me, his face passive. I was about to explain to him that I didn’t know there was such a thing as codicils to the Doctrine when the dragon shard decided that if I was going to be this near Gabriel, I should stop wasting time and get on with the business of mating.

Desire crashed over me in a tidal wave that left me breathless, and filled only with a deep, desperate need for Gabriel. I wrapped my arms around myself to keep from flinging them around him, struggling to calm my suddenly wildly beating heart. I closed my eyes, focused on the inner war that raged between the dragon shard and myself, determined to beat it once and for all. I was not going to give in to it. I would have Gabriel on my terms, and no other.

‘‘May?’’ I heard him ask. ‘‘Are you ill?’’

His voice rubbed along my skin like silk, causing me to shiver with arousal. I opened my eyes, fully intending to tell him that I was just suffering from exhaustion, but Gabriel, drat his sensitive dragon self, instantly read the emotions that roiled around inside me.

‘‘Little bird,’’ he said softly, his nearness leaving me trembling with a desperate, overwhelming, unending wanting that consumed everything I was. He took a step toward me, his eyes flashing with silver fire as he answered the silent call my body made.

The wall behind me started smoking. I squelched the fire before it could burn it, still fighting to control the emotions that swamped me. Gabriel took another step forward, his head lowered so he could look deep into my eyes.

‘‘Hello? Excuse me, it’s very rude to just suddenly ignore someone like this. May, if you really don’t care about whether or not you exist, that’s fine by me. I’ll just go get a room at the nearest Sheraton. But I really don’t think you’ve thought the whole situation through, not that I particularly mind, although it is a shame that Gabriel will have to die, too. That’s right, isn’t it? If a dragon’s mate dies, he dies as well? I read that somewhere, although it sounds incredibly inconvenient to me.’’

‘‘Mate,’’ Gabriel said, the word as much a caress as his breath touching my cheek.

I closed my eyes for a second, digging my fingers into the cloth of my shirt in order to keep from touching him. I would not give in to the shard. I would not lose any more of myself.

His breath was warm on my neck. I opened my eyes and turned my head slightly, my fingers aching as I refused to give in to my untoward desires. He breathed in deeply, and I knew he was inhaling my scent, refreshing the memory of it in his mind, pulling it deeply into his body.

‘‘Go,’’ he said, his lips bruising my jaw as he spoke.

I stood trembling, fighting with myself, my body racked with a terrible need that blotted everything else from my mind but him. His eyes were molten, pure silver, the pupils having elongated until they were the merest slivers of black. ‘‘Fly, little bird.’’

And suddenly, I was running, racing out of the room, my blood pounding as I tore down the stairs to the lower levels of the hotel. The chase was all that filled my mind, that and the images that Gabriel shared with me of a dragon mating dance as old as time.

I was possessed with a yearning to touch him, to run my hands along the warm lines of his body. My body continued to flee, but my mind was busy with the thought of stroking him, of the feel of the warm skin covering steely muscles. I imagined my fingers tracing out the lines of his chest, and heard the answering moan of pleasure from his mind. I remembered what it was like to taste him, how silky his skin was as I slid my hands lower, along his flanks.

He growled in my mind, a warning that I was pushing his arousal hard and fast, and that he would not hold back when he found me. I ran down the stairs, the mental seduction almost too much for me to bear.

His voice spoke in my mind, words that held no meaning for me, but I knew that it was a mating chant, binding one dragon to another, part of the intricate dance we were even now conducting.

I flung myself down a final set of stairs, bursting out into the hotel lobby, seeing nothing, feeling only Gabriel as he set off in pursuit of me. His emotions were mine, a shared whirlpool fueled by the most primitive part of dragons—the need to chase, to conquer, and most of all, to possess.

But I was not a dragon.

Chapter Ten

‘‘Is this going to become a habit, Mayling?’’

I struggled up from where I was floating mindlessly, wrapped in an onyx cushion that blotted out all thought. I frowned. The voice that spoke was familiar, all too familiar. I was mildly annoyed that Cyrene would pull me out of such a lovely dream, for such I assumed it was.

‘‘Is what going to become a habit?’’ I heard another voice ask, and was surprised to find it belonged to me.

‘‘Burning down hotels.’’

I opened my eyes at that, my memory returning with her words. ‘‘The phylactery,’’ I gasped, immediately reaching for the chain that hung around my neck.

There was no chain. I stared in stark horror at Cyrene as she sat in a chair next to me, my mind madly twirling as it tried to piece together the last confused moments before I’d lost consciousness.