"What-" Cyrene started to ask, looking confused as the two men hit the floor, fighting for all they were worth.

I didn't wait around to see what happened-I shadowed, raced around the side of the house, and leaped over the fence, running around to the patio with a burst of speed I doubt I'll ever be able to match.

Drake was assisting Aisling to her feet, Jim in front of them heading for the house. I ran past the two of them, hurdling the third as I headed for the hallway where I could hear Gabriel yelling.

"What on earth-what was that? Drake, did you just see someone-" Aisling was saying as my feet hit the slick stone tile of the entryway. I threw myself onto the back of the man who was trying to strangle Gabriel. Istvan had him by one arm, Pal by the other, but they weren't having much luck in stopping him.

I grabbed his hair with both hands, and using my knees as leverage on his back, flung myself backward, dragging him with me.

The man screamed as I rolled out of the way, throwing myself across him and slamming his head down onto the stone floor.

"What is going on-good lord! Is that May on Kostya? It's so hard to see her, she's almost translucent. Gabriel, are you all right?" Aisling's voice asked.

"Stop!" Drake bellowed, but I ignored him, continuing to slam Kostya's head onto the tiles. "Gabriel! Control your mate!"

"Mayling, you must stop. Kostya's head is too thick to harm; you'll only break the stone floor."

I glared down at the man, noting with satisfaction that one of his eyes was swelling shut. Gabriel must have connected with his fist before I'd made it around the back of the house. "All right, but only because if he got seriously hurt, you'd have to heal him."

"Your consideration boggles the mind," Drake said dryly as Gabriel, weaving slightly, took my hand and pulled me up next to him.

I looked him over carefully. There was a faint trickle of blood from his upper lip, and some nasty bruising on his throat, but the latter were fading before my eyes. "Are you OK?"

"Yes," he said, clearing his throat at the roughness that resulted from the throttling. "I'm fine, although I would appreciate it if Kostya would tell me in advance when he declares a kill-on-sight status upon me."

The man I'd correctly surmised was Kostya got to his feet, assisted, I was secretly pleased to note, by no one. He listed a bit to one side, and his face had a battered appearance, but already his black eye was beginning to recede. He spat something out in a language that sounded Slavic.

Drake sighed and took Aisling's arm. "Your assault on him was unwarranted, Kostya. We've already told you that Gabriel does not have the phylactery."

"The phylactery?" Gabriel looked startled for a moment, then frowned. "What game is this, Kostya?"

"Come out onto the patio and we'll explain it," Aisling said, sounding and looking a bit weary. I thought Drake was going to carry her out there, but she gave him a warning look and made her own way out to the comfortable rattan couch that overlooked the garden and beach.

I wondered what it would be like to be so cherished. Despite my relationship to Cyrene, I'd always been alone most of my life-she had her sisterhood of naiads, and I had Magoth.

"What's wrong?" Gabriel asked, his voice warm against my ear as I took a seat. He stood behind me, one hand on my shoulder in a little display of possession that I found oddly appealing. "You look as if you'd just bitten a dung beetle."

"I was thinking about Magoth," I answered quietly.

"Do not worry about him, little bird. All will be well there, you'll see."

I didn't correct his mistaken impression that I was worried about the likelihood of Magoth convincing me to destroy Gabriel-now that I'd felt the strength of the bond that connected me to Gabriel, I had little fear that Magoth's seductions would fall upon anything but fallow ground. But I did wonder what it would be like to live with Gabriel, to bear his child, to have him treat me as if I was the most precious thing on the planet. And there was something else about Drake and Aisling, an awareness that I found both curious and intriguing. They didn't touch each other often, didn't even appear to be looking at each other much, but if Aisling shifted slightly to get more comfortable, Drake was instantly there, adjusting a pillow or sliding a glass a little closer to her.

I wondered if the obvious sympathetic bond they shared was something unique to them, or whether a version of it would come as I spent time with Gabriel.

His fingers brushed the back of my neck lightly as if in unspoken answer.

"Kostya insists that you have the phylactery," Drake said without preamble.

His brother, who was pacing along the far edge of the patio, whirled around and glared at Gabriel. "There is no one else who would steal it! He must have it. I demand it be returned to me."

Gabriel's fingers tightened on my shoulder. "Disregarding the fact that I do not, in fact, have the phylactery, your claim to it is asinine. Drake found it in Fiat's lair-if anyone has a claim on it, it would seem Drake does... or at worst, Fiat. But not you, Konstantin Nikolai Fekete."

The black dragon did not like hearing Gabriel use his full name, and I didn't blame him. Everyone knew that names have power, and I certainly wouldn't want a wyvern I was more or less warring against invoking mine.

Kostya snarled and would have lunged toward Gabriel, but Istvan and Pal had taken up positions on either side of him, grabbing him when he started toward us.

I leaped to my feet, ready to shadow and go after him if Drake's men couldn't control him.

"I begin to think you are more like a falcon than like a blackbird, Mayling," Gabriel murmured gently, pushing me back into the chair. "Do not trouble yourself over Kostya."

"Mei Ling?" Kostya asked, the anger in his face giving way to surprise. "Mei Ling the thief?"

"She is not a thief, not a real one," Gabriel said with a flash of his silver eyes. "She simply acquires objects for her employer, nothing more."

"And yet you claim you did not steal my phylactery?" Kostya turned to his brother with an angry gesture. "What more proof do you need? She is a thief, and his mate. Obviously, she stole it to please him!"

"She couldn't have," Aisling said, shaking her head.

"Gabriel and May met last night for the first time," Drake explained.

"Bah! That was what they wanted you to think, in order to excite sympathy for their cause. But I am not so easily fooled as you are, brother. They are working together, and I will not allow them to succeed with their infamous plans."

The sudden calculating look he shot me sent cold chills down my spine. "Gabriel," I whispered, leaning toward him, "I think we may have a problem."

"I will not allow him to harm you," he answered in a louder tone of voice than was strictly necessary. "Do not fear for your safety, mate. He will not touch you."

"That's not quite what I meant," I said, intending on pointing out that as Dr. Kostich hadn't lifted the price on my head, it was entirely possible Kostya might turn in information about me in order to gain the benefaction. I hated to think what he could do with a powerful archimage on his side.

Before I could mention all that, Kostya started ranting about the injustices done to him. "I swear to you that the black dragon sept will regain what we once held but was taken from us!"

"Oh, not that again," Aisling said, whispering to her husband, "Can we hit a fast-forward button, do you think?"

"We will face death to restore to the sept the pride, the glory, the true essence, of what it once was," Kostya declared with a dramatic sweep of his hand.

"Enough!" Gabriel suddenly roared, taking everyone aback. "I have had enough of your games, Kostya! I can only assume you are trying to turn Drake against me with these outrageous claims, but I will not waste my time any longer defending myself. There is a more important matter at hand that must be attended to."

"Drake-as a neutral party-got Kostya and Gabriel to agree to come here and talk about things," Jim said softly as it ambled over and sat next to me, leaning its bulk against my leg. "That was before you tried to bash Kostya's brains out all over the entryway, naturally. Things are probably a bit dicier now."

I shot the demon a look. It grinned back at me, pink tongue lolling.

"I suppose now is as good a time as any to begin the talks between you two," Aisling said, looking dubious.

"I will not talk peace with Kostya until he returns Maata and Tipene," Gabriel said, his fingers tightening again on my shoulder.

I could swear there was a momentary flash of surprise in Kostya's eyes before they returned to their familiar belligerent cast. "I do not know what you're talking about."

"Maata and Tipene are gone?" Aisling asked. "I wondered where they were. Kostya-"

"I do not know what he's talking about!" Kostya repeated, louder. "I have had nothing to do with any of his sept, as per our agreement prior to meeting here."

"An agreement you saw no problem in ignoring when you saw the chance to take my guards," Gabriel snapped. I leaned slightly toward him, nudging his leg with my shoulder.

"If I wanted to take out a silver dragon," Kostya said in a low, threatening voice, "he would not be missing-he'd be dead."

Gabriel's body twitched as he restrained himself. "I don't believe you," he said after he got himself under control.

Kostya shrugged. "It matters little to me what you believe. Perhaps you are simply claiming they are missing in order to garner Drake's sympathy."

Gabriel flinched as his own accusation was flung back at him. "I see that we are at an impasse again."

"And it will stay so until you return my phylactery to me," Kostya almost yelled.

"You will return Maata and Tipene unharmed, or I will finish what was started centuries ago!" Gabriel returned, his eyes positively glowing with anger.

I stood up and took his arm as Pal and Istvan closed in on Kostya again. The two wyverns glared at each other. I could feel the dragon fire within him, raging to be freed, but he had immense control, and kept it back when I probably would have burned down the entire block.

"Then there is nothing more to be said. This meeting has been a waste of time." Kostya stiffly jerked his arms from the two green dragons, bowing to Aisling. "I bid you good day, Aisling, brother."

He took a step toward Gabriel, but his ebony gaze was narrowed on me, sending a little skitter of fear down my back. "As for you, thief..."

Gabriel stepped in front of me, a ring of fire bursting to life around the two of us. "Do you threaten my mate?"

I stared at Gabriel's back in astonishment. I'd never heard such raw fury in a man's voice before, and that it came from velvet-tongued Gabriel...

"You should not have a mate," Kostya snarled, spitting little balls of fire at our feet. "No silver dragon deserves a mate since they are responsible for stealing that of the black wyvern."

"We did not steal her! We took back that which was stolen from us! Ysolde de Bouchier was a silver dragon!"

"That history does not have importance at this time," Drake said, stepping between the two furious dragons. Gabriel immediately backed down, wrapping an arm around me and pulling me tight against his side. Drake sent his brother a warning look, which, after a moment or two of antagonistic posturing, Kostya acknowledged.

"Discussing the issue of a future agreement between Kostya and the silver dragons is useless until Maata and Tipene are returned," Gabriel said.

"I have nothing to do with them!" Kostya yelled, slamming his hands down on a metal table.

"If you have not, then who has?" Gabriel argued. "Who would wish to do harm to the silver dragons? Fiat? His battle has nothing to do with us. Bastian and his blues are on friendly terms with the silver dragons. Neither do we have a grievance against the red dragons, no matter if their wyvern is Chuan Ren or another. The green and silver septs have long had a history of mutual friendship and trust."

"Which is why you sided with Fiat to destroy Drake and claim Aisling as your mate?" Kostya asked in a sneering voice.

My gaze went to the man at my side. He flickered a brief look at me, his jaw tightening as he said slowly, "My intention was never to destroy Drake or the green dragons. Fiat was intent on doing both, and I simply did what was necessary in order to lessen the massive destruction that was sure to follow if he proceeded unchecked."

I looked thoughtfully at the very pregnant Aisling. A faint smile twitched her lips. "He never really wanted me, you know. He just wanted a mate."

A painful knot gripped my stomach as I wondered if it was merely for a mate that he had so enthusiastically embraced me.

"No," he said, watching Kostya.

It didn't matter... or rather it did, but now was not the moment to examine the basis of the man I'd bound myself to. As Gabriel said, there were more important things at hand, such as the whereabouts of Maata and Tipene.

All the same, the words echoed in my head: He just wanted a mate.

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