Holy Smokes (19 page)

“He’ll be fine, Paula. A doctor looked him over while he was in Tibet.” It was a lie, but only a slight one. Gabriel wasn’t a doctor per se, but he was a healer extraordinaire, and he’d reluctantly given Kostya a clean bill of health.

“Oh, a doctor checked him over?” My stepmother bustled around the room, being what she termed useful, although in reality she was more of a hindrance than a help. “A real one? Not one of those suspicious faith healers who pretend to pull organs out of your stomach when all the while they are really using sleight of hand with chicken livers and the like? I saw a show on those men, Aisling, and they are not to be trusted in the least. Perhaps we should call a reputable doctor to have a look at him now.”

“It wasn’t a faith healer, I promise. Why don’t we leave Kostya alone to get some sleep?”

“I suppose that would be best,” she said, fluffing up his pillow for the last time before heading to the door, trailing gauzy scarves and advice as she left. “It’s all very mysterious how he just appeared, though…”

I waited until she’d drifted down the hallway to the stairs before giving the man in the bed a little smile. “You’ll have to forgive her. She means well, but she can be a bit much sometimes.”

“She is mortal,” he said with a shrug, as if that explained everything.

“Yes, she is, and I dread trying to explain dragons and the Otherworld to her, so if you could keep the fire-breathing to a minimum, I’d be greatly appreciative. Is there anything else you’d like?”

“No.”

I picked up the tray and went to the door. “Try to get some sleep. I’m sure you’ll feel better afterwards.”

Before I could close the door, his voice called out my name. “Aisling?”

I paused and looked back.

As seen by electric light, Konstantin Fekete—a name I was gravely informed was never used, the man in question preferring the diminutive Kostya instead—looked a far cry from the filthy, unkempt creature who crawled out of the back of the aerie prison. The long face, reddish brown hair that swept back from a high forehead, and ebony eyes were unfamiliar to me, but the jaw and chin were all Drake. Kostya shifted slightly in bed, winced as his still-healing wounds pulled, and gave me a smile filled with irony. “You are angry at Drake.”

“That’s neither here nor there, but yes, I am.”

“You do him an injustice. His loyalty was given to me centuries before he met you.”

I thought about that for a moment, nodded, and left the room, quietly closing the door behind me.

Drake stood directly opposite, leaning against the wall in apparent negligence, but I knew better. His dragon fire was barely contained, indicating his emotions were running very high at the moment. “Would you prefer to yell at me now, or can it wait until later?”

“I’m not going to yell at you,” I said serenely, and headed down the hallway to the stairs.

“You’re not?”

“No. There is nothing to yell at you about. About which to yell. Whatever. I am perfectly in control, and I can guarantee you there will be no yelling.”

Drake said nothing as he followed me down the stairs. The silence lasted until my foot hit the tile floor; then I turned around and smashed the tray into his chest. “Your brother, Drake? Your
brother
?”

He sighed, tossed the tray onto a side table, and taking my hands in his, pulled me back up the stairs, into our bedroom. “Yes, he is my brother.”

“A real brother?” I asked, pulling my hands from his because we both knew full well that if I maintained any sort of physical contact with him, sooner or later I’d end up flinging myself on him in a wholly shameless fashion. “Not just a brother-in-arms, or a really good friend you think of as a brother, but an actual flesh-and-blood brother?”

“Yes.” He stood in front of me, his hands limp at his sides. My heart wrung at the exhaustion that was clearly gripping him despite the few hours of sleep he’d managed to snatch on the plane back to England.

He looked longingly at the bed, sighing. I poured him out a stiff belt of dragon’s blood, the spicy wine favored by dragons. He accepted it and sank with rather less grace than normal into one of the two chairs that flanked the fireplace.

“I should go downstairs. There is much to do.”

“There’s always much to do. Did Gabriel leave?”

He nodded. “He wished to discuss the situation now, but I was finally able to convince him that you needed rest.”

“Me?” I made a face. “I slept the whole way back.”

“I admit that in this instance, I used your condition as a convenient excuse to get rid of Gabriel,” he answered, his eyes haunted. “He will return in the morning.”

I glanced at the clock. It was nearing midnight, and de spite the sleep I’d had on the airplane, I was feeling as tired as Drake looked. “Yeah, well, he’s not the only one who’s been put off until then. My uncle was pretty peeved when we dropped him off at the hotel. He muttered something about having a word with me in the morning in regard to my behavior. I don’t suppose you’d like to run interference for me?”

Drake cocked a glossy black eyebrow.

I sighed. “I know, you have enough on your plate. I’d just like to point out the same goes for me. At least with Gabriel and Uncle Damian put off until morning it means you and I can have a little chat.”

He pursed his lips slightly. “You want to know about Kostya.”

“Bingo. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? His mother is Catalina? His dad was your dad?”

“Yes.”

“Wait a sec—you told me your dad died right after you were born.”

He brushed a hand through his hair, his eyes filled with so much emotion it almost hurt to look at him. “The phrase ‘right after’ is relative to the life span of a dragon, no pun intended. He died within a year of my birth. Kostya is my older brother.”

My resistance failed me, just as I knew it would. Drake sent me a look that evaporated just about all my irritation, leaving me to find myself on his lap, nuzzling his neck and breathing in the wonderfully sexy scent that never failed to make my blood steam.

He turned his head to kiss me. I caught his face in my hands and looked deep into those beautiful eyes of his. “Your
brother.
”

“When you accepted the fact that we were mated, I told you there would be some things I could not share with you.”

“Dragon things, I remember,” I said, nodding. “And I said I was sure there were some Guardian things I wouldn’t be able to spill to you, but this is bigger than just a dragon thing, Drake! This is your family! I thought I was a part of that!”

“You are a part of it,” he answered, his hands caressing me as he pulled me down to his mouth. “You are the most important person in my life,
kincsem.
But there are circumstances surrounding Kostya that go beyond family and touch weyr politics. Until you so heedlessly came to rescue us, the world believed Kostya to be dead. Now five others know of his existence. What is worse is that one of their number is Gabriel. It could very well be that this exposure could mean Kostya’s destruction.”

I let him kiss me, enjoying the taste of him as he invaded my mouth, savoring the sweetness of holding him again in my arms. But my curiosity was stronger than my desire at the moment, and I felt like I had to get a few things straight in my mind before I could concentrate on celebrating his return.

“You keep saying things like that, but I don’t understand why. Gabriel didn’t try to attack Kostya at all. Far from it, he helped us get him down off that damned mountain. He checked him over for injuries once we got back to town. He did what he could to repair the wounds he had. Those weren’t the actions of a man with murder on his mind.”

He leaned back, his head cradled by the high back of the chair. “The situation is complicated.”

I kissed his chin. “I think that’s going to be the understatement of the year. I’m so confused, I don’t know where to begin asking questions.”

Drake slid another longing glance toward the bed. “I don’t suppose you would care to follow the others’ lead and put this off until morning? I am very tired, but not so tired I cannot pay homage to you as is your due.”

I flinched at the word “homage.” It brought up a horribly nagging feeling that I should be focusing on the situation with Bael rather than the more pressing dragon situation. But Bael had given me five days, and I’d only spent two of them. “I think I’m due a few answers first. To be honest, I don’t understand why you were so angry with me about rescuing you. You sent me the dream telling me you needed help, after all.”

“You mentioned a dream before, but it is untrue. I sent you no dream.”

“Then how do you explain the fact that I dreamed about a wind horse?”

He looked startled for a moment, pulling from his pocket a tattered green scrap of fabric that matched the one I’d woken up with.

“That’s it!”

“I was going to bring this home for you, but then we were captured,” he said slowly. “I did not send you a dream message,
kincsem.
I would have endangered you by asking you to find me, and as it happens, I am furious with Gabriel for doing just that.”

I touched the dirty bit of prayer flag. “I guess your subconscious was less stubborn than your waking mind. Oh, stop looking at me like that—everything turned out OK. Besides, there are more important things to focus on than what might have been.”

His hand slid along my thigh. “Such as my desire to make love to you?”

I stopped his hand from climbing any higher, knowing full well that once he bent his mind to seduction, there was nothing short of nuclear war that could stop him. “I would be perfectly happy to let you make wild, passionate, steamy dragon love to me, but first you have to answer a couple of questions.”

His chest heaved with resignation, his pupils black slits in a field of green that glittered with speculation and no little amount of passion. “Very well. You may ask me three questions.”

“Oh, we’re back to three questions, are we?” I asked, smiling against his mouth as I remembered the first wildly erotic dream I shared with him. “All right. First question: was it Kostya you went away to help?”

“Yes.”

I waited for more information, but none was forthcoming. “Who was keeping you prisoner?”

“I don’t know.” His expression turned thoughtful as he narrowed his gaze on the flames in the fireplace. “I thought at first Chuan Ren had found Kostya, but upon reflection, I decided it could not be her. She would not have let me live if she had me in her power. The one holding us prisoner was very careful not to be seen, and used only mortals to bring us food.”

“Hmm. There were two dragons Gabriel found outside, but he said they weren’t red dragons. What about that one you knocked out in the hallway?”

He shook his head. “I did not recognize him, nor did I have time to examine him for signs of a sept. I do not know who he was.”

“Crap. OK, last question—”

“Your third question was about the dragon in the hallway. Now I demand payment for my amiability.” Drake pushed me off his lap just long enough to stand up and scoop me into his arms, marching determinedly to the bed. With moves I didn’t even try to follow, he stripped himself, then me, and before I could form a single word of protest, he tossed me onto the bed.

“That question was part of the second one, and you know it,” I said, trying to look indignant, but failing miserably when he ran his hand up the bare calf of my leg. I shivered at his touch.

His mouth kissed a path around my belly, heading northwards to my breasts. “Very well. Since I am fond of you, I will this once grant you an additional question. But make it quickly, before I become too busy to attend mere words.”

I stopped stroking his back and pinched him hard enough to make him rear back. “Fond of me? You’re
fond
of me?”

He grinned, his eyes dancing as wickedly as his fingers, which had found extremely sensitive flesh. As if the touch wasn’t enough to drive me senseless, his grin melted me completely. Drake in his usual sober mood was sexy as hell…Drake being playful was downright irresistible. His head dipped again as he licked a shape onto my stomach, breaking fire to it to set it alight.

It was a heart.

“Perhaps fond is too mild a word,” he conceded as I pulled him down on top of me, my hands and mouth going wild on him. I was suddenly desperate to feel him inside of me, needing the joining to reassure myself that he was safe, and that nothing could take him away from me. He must have sensed that need in me, because he didn’t torment me with teasing touches as he normally did; he simply gave me what I wanted, fulfilling the need to hold him deep within me, so deep he was an integral part of my very being.

“If that’s fond,” I said some time later, pressing a kiss to his damp chest as I scooted upward along his body until I could peer down into his face, “I doubt if I could survive a stronger emotion.”

His eyes were closed, his face relaxed, his fingers drawing lazy patterns of fire on my behind. One side of his mouth quirked. I kissed it, decided I liked the taste of the quirk, and kissed it a couple of more times, sucking his lower lip into my mouth until he opened his eyes, a spark of interest in them. “You are a demanding woman,
kincsem.
I will do my best to rise to the challenge you pose, but I fear the events of the last few days will make me a bit slower than normal…”

“I have no doubt you’d meet that particular challenge,” I answered, squirming when his fingers slid lower. “But that’s not actually what I was hinting at. You still owe me a question.”

He closed his eyes again, his chest rising and falling more slowly now that we were both recovering from the passion of a few minutes past. “I have never understood how women have the energy or desire to conduct lengthy conversations after lovemaking. I am male. I must rest after I have met your not-insubstantial wanton demands.”

“Uh-huh. And if I did this—” My hand slid down his chest, trailed over his belly, and wrapped around interesting scenery southwards. His eyes shot open. “—You wouldn’t suddenly be wide awake?”

“What did you wish to know?” he asked, the slow smolder in his eyes gaining brilliance.