Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [100]
“You’ll what?” he asked, nose to nose with her now, and honestly, I didn’t know what to think. “You’ll smite me?”
Cyrene straightened up, her back as stiff as a broom handle. “I will leave you.”
Kostya began to turn away, obviously dismissing her threat.
“Really leave you. Forever.”
He froze, and I knew then that it wasn’t what she said that stopped him, but the way she said it. The pain in her voice came from her heart. I was a bit surprised—Cyrene had fallen in and out of love with regularity over the century I’d known her, but her heart had never really been touched. Until now, it seemed . . . and with Kostya of all people.
Kostya’s expression grew blacker and blacker until I thought he was going to burst. And then he did. “Fine! You want me to admit it? You want me to bare my soul to you? I love you, you deranged water twit! I accept you as my mate! Are you happy now?”
The echoes of Kostya’s declaration faded softly away as we all stared in disbelief at the two people standing in the center of the room.
“Can he do that?” I whispered to Gabriel. “Accept her as a mate if she’s not one?”
“Yes,” he said, taking me by surprise again. “She is not a dragon’s mate, but he has accepted her as a substitute. It is binding. I am curious that he has chosen to do so in front of so many witnesses, however. That gives your twin status in the eyes of the weyr.”
“That’s not really the action of a man who is so intent on destroying the sept or weyr,” I pointed out, eyeing Cyrene as she flung herself on Kostya and started kissing him all over his face.
“On the contrary,” he said, gesturing to Tipene, who pulled a chair next to his at the table. He helped me back up to my feet—a gesture I found oddly touching—and took my hand to lead me to the table. “It could be a very clever strategy, given the power she bears.”
“Cy would no more use the dark power against anyone than I would,” I said gently, rubbing his hand against my cheek for a moment. Although the memory of my few minutes spent in the Akasha was fading, a few tendrils of despair still remained, making me infinitely thankful for Gabriel. “Less, really, since she doesn’t have a dragon shard trying to make her do all sorts of inciting things.”
He said nothing to that, but I knew he wasn’t convinced, nor was he entirely easy with the idea of Cyrene now being given formal status.
As for Kostya, he suffered Cyrene’s enthusiastic embrace for a few seconds, then said something in her ear that had her standing at his side in a reasonable facsimile of a person in control of her wild emotions.
The room was cleared of nondragons, with the exception of mates, mate substitutes, and demons in shaggy-dog form. Aisling evidently felt sorry for silencing Jim.
“You can speak, so long as you don’t interrupt proceedings,” she told it before she ordered it over to a spot near the wall.
It rolled its eyes as it stomped over to the appointed spot. “You’ve been taking mean lessons from May, haven’t you? Boss, boss, boss, that’s all the two of you ever do. Does it occur to either of you to just ask me to do something? Nooo, it’s all about pushing innocent little demons around.”
“Did you want to see Cecile this weekend?” Aisling asked sweetly.
Jim glared mutely at her, obviously getting the point.
“Who’s Cecile?” I asked Gabriel.
His eyes were solemn as he watched Kostya take his seat, get thumped on the back of the shoulder by Cyrene, and leap up to get a chair to place next to his. “An elderly Welsh corgi. She is owned by Aisling’s friend in Paris. I do not like it, May.”
“I can take or leave corgis myself, but—”
“No, I mean that I do not like the air of contentment Kostya is wearing. You might not believe he is part of the heinous crimes committed yesterday, but he is up to something.”
“The sárkány will begin,” Chuan Ren said loudly, slamming her hand down on the table.
“Ugh. Don’t tell me it’s her turn to chair?” I asked Maata in a whisper.
She