Light My Fire (36 page)

Drake skidded to a stop at the end of the hallway, his
eyes narrow as he looked over our little group. Behind
him, Pal appeared, followed by a couple of dragons I
didn’t recognize.

“Aisling.” Drake lowered his sword and walked slowly
toward us, a frown darkening his eyes. “Where have you
been? And what are you wearing?”

I pinched the back of Renaldo’s hand until he released his hold on my face. “To hell and back, but that’s a really
long story, and not one I want to go into here. This is
a curtain. I’d really rather not talk about it right now,
either.”

“Very well. We will leave the discussion of why you are clad in drapery for another time. The challenge has started.” He stopped ten feet away, still scowling at me.
My lips twitched. Drake was deliberately ignoring Fiat,
something I knew would irritate someone of his pride.
“What is wrong with your eyes?”

I touched the corner of my eye. “I don’t know. Is
something wrong with them? I imagine they’re bloodshot
as hell.”

“They’re washed out, almost white.” Drake’s frown
deepened. “You will tell me later what happened to your eyes, too. But now you will explain why, when you were
expected to be present for the start of the challenge, you
were not. Where is Istvan?”

“I have no idea. You’d have to ask my kidnapper that.
Fiat?”

Drake finally looked away from me to Fiat, his gaze
steady, his face mirroring nothing more than mild annoy
ance. “I hadn’t expected to see you here, Fiat.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, but as you see”—Fiat waved the
small black case at our group—”here we are. I ran into
Aisling earlier, and since I knew she would want to be here, I offered to provide her with safe transport.”

“Oh, that’s a good one. Safe transport.” Jim snorted.

“What did you do with Istvan?” I asked Fiat.

He waved a hand. “Your bodyguard took exception to
us escorting Aisling here. Naturally, my men defended
themselves against his attack.”

My stomach, already twisted around on itself to a
point where I doubted if it would ever again be normal,
gave a lurch, my palms going slick with sweat. “What
about Nora and Rene? What did you do to them?”

“We had no issue with anyone else in the house,” he
answered, relieving my mind on at least that point.

Regardless, I was still worried sick about Istvan. “Fiat,
so help me god, if you’ve hurt Istvan, I will see that you suffer as no dragon has ever suffered before.”

“You need not worry,” Fiat said with a smile that made
my bile rise. “He is no longer feeling any pain.”

He patted the side of my face. I jerked my head away, rage filling me. With the rage came a familiar thick, black
power. I pushed it back, pulling on Drake’s fire instead.

Fiat burst into flames.

“I expected better from you,” he said, shaking his head.

I snarled something that wasn’t very anatomically pos
sible and lunged toward him, Jim’s harsh bark echoing as the demon leaped forward. Fiat’s men grabbed me by the
arms, holding me back.

“What is going on here? Drake, I assume you are de
faulting on the challenge since you do not have the stomach to fight me further.” Dmitri pushed his way forward
through the people behind Drake, who continued to stand
in a relaxed pose, leaning against the balustrade that ran
around the upper hall.

Drake looked from Fiat to Dmitri, then to me. “What
do you want with my mate?” he asked, looking downright
bored.

I couldn’t keep from smiling. Damn, I loved that man. I loved the way he bluffed; I loved the way he assumed
the world revolved around him; I even loved the natural
arrogance that was part and parcel of his makeup. Any
other man would be demanding that I be handed over, but
not my Drake. He had to first establish that Fiat was noth
ing more than a minor irritation; then he’d get down to
business.

“It is as I have said—I have brought her to watch your
challenge.”

“Indeed. And what is your interest in a purely domes
tic matter?”

Fiat laughed. “Purely domestic? If Dmitri wins his
challenge, then the green dragons will have a new wyvern.
That will affect all of the weyr. Naturally, we have an in
terest in what happens. All wyverns do.”

“Odd that the other two wyverns don’t seem to share
your level of interest,” Drake said, waving his sword to
ward the people behind us.

“Do they not?” Fiat turned and looked behind him.
“Perhaps you should inform our esteemed colleague.”

“I’m sure Drake will understand just how important it
is that a balance be maintained,” a man’s voice answered
from behind Fiat’s men.

Gabriel gave me a little smile as he joined us in the
hall, the smile fading as he took in the expression on my
face.

Drake’s eyes showed surprise for a fraction of a sec
ond, gone so quickly that I wondered whether I really saw
it. Certainly his face gave no indication that he was taken
aback by the recreant nature of his supposed friend.

I, however, had no such reservations in making my
feelings known. “What on earth are you doing with this
snake in the grass?” I asked Gabriel, nodding toward Fiat.

Jim snickered. Fiat’s eyes narrowed.

“Something significant must have happened to you to
change your eyes in that way,” Gabriel mused. He shook his head and answered my question. “I know it must look
bad, but I assure you that I am not here to betray either
you or Drake. Fiat asked me to be here to mediate only.
Since I know there is increasing hostility between the blue and green septs, I felt it was appropriate that I be
here. We do not need another sept at war.”

That sounded far too pat for my liking, but there
wasn’t much I could do until I saw exactly what Fiat
wanted with me.

“I am in the middle of a challenge,” Drake said, indicating Dmitri. “I cannot just set that aside to conduct negotiations with you that could well wait until morning.”

Fiat made one of those elegant dragon bows. He didn’t do it as well as Drake, but then, no one did. “I did not in
tend to disrupt the challenge.”

“Shyeah. And monkeys might fly out of my butt, but I’m not ordering up any monkey chow,” Jim said.

Fiat spun around to glare at Jim, his hand upraised as
if he was going to strike it.

“Temper, Fiat. You wouldn’t beat up an innocent
demon in front of so many witnesses, would you?” Some
how, I knew that it would matter to Fiat what people
thought of him.

He ground his teeth for a moment, then turned back to Drake. “We would be delighted to watch the challenge, if
you do not object.”

Drake was silent for a moment, his eyes flickering to
me once before settling back onto Fiat. He waved toward
the door he’d used to enter the hall. “Not at all. It is a
straightforward-enough challenge, and not one that should
take much longer. The points thus far have been to my
advantage.”

“Things change,” Dmitri said suddenly, a smile on his
face that I wanted to wipe clean.

“Come, mate.” Drake held out his hand for me. “Your
place is with the sept.”

“I think not,” Fiat said quickly, his hand hard on my
arm as I took a step forward.

Drake’s eyes narrowed. “You hold my mate hostage?”

“Hostage
is such a harsh word. Let us say instead that
I am looking out for Aisling’s best interests. We will keep
her safe while you determine the outcome to this chal
lenge. After all, were you to lose, she would no longer be
your mate, and who knows what evils your successor
might inflict upon her.”

I was speechless for a moment in the face of such ab
solute bull, but before I could rally my wits into responding to such an absurd statement, the third and final penny
dropped.

“You’re planning on using me to force Drake to lose,
aren’t you?” I asked Fiat. “You want him to lose so a new
wyvern will take his place, someone who has less honor and knowledge, and who could well turn out to be noth
ing more than your little puppet, right?”

Dmitri, who had started back toward the practice
room, spun around and spat out an unflattering word.

Drake’s sword tip moved so fast, it was nothing but a
silver blur. The point of it pressed against Dmitri’s pulse
point on his neck. A thin line of blood appeared beneath
it. “What did you say?”

Anger, hatred, and impotent fury all took turns on Dmitri’s face. He swore, shoving the green dragon bystanders out of the way as he stormed back to the room.

“Someone badly needs to spend some time in his
happy place.” Jim’s voice broke the tension.

I laughed at Fiat’s carefully masked expression. “Oh, come on, Fiat—don’t tell me you didn’t think this idiotic
plan through. You’ve known Drake for what—a few
hundred years? Do you seriously think he’s going to do
something so asinine as to hand over his sept to someone
else just for me?”

Fiat just smiled. Drake said nothing, but I could see the
tension in his hands. “That’s just about the most ridicu
lous thing I’ve heard today, and let me tell you, I’ve heard
some pretty ridiculous things. The sept always has and al
ways will come first to Drake. I know that. I accept that.
You’re deluding yourself if you think it’s not true.”

“I believe that the situation has changed now that you
are breeding.”

There were a number of surprised noises from the
dragons behind Drake. I glared at Fiat. “I am not preg
nant! And even if I were—and for the hundredth time this week, I’m not!—it still wouldn’t make a difference. Drake
is wyvern of the green dragons. He will be wyvern until
the day he decides he wants to pass the job on to some
one else. Isn’t that right, Drake?”

Drake looked at Fiat, not me. “The sept and Aisling
are both mine. I will not give up either of them.”

“We shall see,” was all Fiat said.

Gabriel stepped forward, putting his arm around my shoulder. “I think it would ease everyone’s minds if I es
corted Aisling to the challenge.”

“Oh, don’t for one minute think I don’t have a thing or
two to say to you,” I told him as he gently pushed me
down the hallway. Drake stood to one side, waiting until we had passed before following. “Mediating is one thing, Gabriel. But this is not mediation. This is siding with Fiat for some bizarre reason. Do you really want to see Dmitri
in Drake’s place?”

“Of course not. If I thought that would happen, I
would have done everything in my power to stop Fiat.
But you have not considered all the possibilities as a good
Guardian should.”

“All the possibilities? What other possibilities are
there?”

He smiled, his dimples flaring. “Has it not occurred to
you that a show of force by Drake will do much to
weaken Fiat’s determination to war with him?”

“Hmm.” I thought about that for a couple of seconds.
He had a point. Perhaps Gabriel wasn’t the villain I’d
begun to paint him.

“I see you appreciate the fact that while Dmitri may
have the letter of the green dragon law to back his claim to the position of wyvern, it has always been might that
has held septs. Drake has shown time and time again that
he has the might to keep the sept. He simply needs to re
mind Fiat of that. And this is a perfect opportunity for
him to do so with little threat to himself or you.”

It made sense, but it still left an unpleasant taste in my
mouth. “You could have told us ahead of time what you
were going to do.”

“What makes you think I didn’t?” His dimples deep
ened. I recalled the night when Gabriel had healed my
wound. Obviously, one of the things he’d spoken to
Drake about after I left the room was this situation. No
wonder Drake didn’t seem particularly disturbed about
me being in Fiat’s power.