Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [118]
Her eyes screwed up as she continued to scream, but she managed to wave a hand at me to let me know she’d heard.
I left the inner room, passing through to the outer one, where István stood guard at the lair entrance. He opened the door for me, asking how it was going.
“Head’s about to crown, so it probably won’t be much longer. Drake looks exhausted.”
István smiled as Gabriel, outside the lair waiting for me, stood up. “I hope it is fast. Drake told me he was never going to go through this again.”
I laughed and allowed Gabriel to gather me into his arms, breathing deeply of the scent of him. Kostya sat on a bench leaning against the wall as Tipene tended to the damage on his torso, Cyrene clinging to his hand as she wept over him.
“Did you tell Drake that I would be happy to offer my assistance with Aisling? Did you tell him that I have more experience with dragon births than my mother?” Gabriel asked, nuzzling my ear in a way that sent shivers down my arms and back.
“Yes,” I lied.
He nipped my earlobe. “You do not lie well, little bird. How do you feel?”
I looked up at him in surprise.
“You no longer bear the shard. Do you miss it, or is it a relief to have it gone?”
I remembered the sensation of seeing the first dragon, of having him see me, acknowledge me, judge my heart and soul, and find them not wanting. I remembered the wisdom in those eyes, the history that they had seen, and continued to see, and I smiled. “I am a dragon now. The dragon heart is a part of me just as it is a part of you, so no, I don’t miss the shard. It will remain with us forever.”
“I give that about a three point two on the profound-o-meter,” a male voice said.
I stopped nuzzling Gabriel’s neck to look behind me. Jim stood there, its hands on its hips, an extremely disgruntled look on its face.
“Can I have my magnificent form back now? Or is there something else you’d like me to do? Tote a barge? Haul a bale? Or just stand around and be a laughingstock to amuse everyone?”
“Oh, Jim, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to forget about you. But you’re not a laughingstock, I’m sure. You’re actually a very handsome man in that form. Isn’t he handsome, Gabriel?”
“Eh.”
I poked him in the ribs.
“I suppose as human forms go, it’s not outright repulsive,” Gabriel allowed, his dimples dimpling.
“Ignore him. You’re very handsome. I particularly like the cleft chin.”
“He lacks a certain something,” Savian said from where he was flaked out inside the sauna, recovering, he said, from the various traumas his body had gone through in the last few hours. “He looks like the sort of man who would drool on another man when he was lying in a pool of his own brains and blood.”
Jim narrowed its eyes at the towel-clad Savian. “Drake’s going to be all pissy if he knows you’ve been keeping the door to the sauna open while you have it running.”
Savian pursed his lips for a moment, and considered whether he wanted Drake pissed.
“Don’t listen to Savian—he’s feeling challenged because he doesn’t have the corner anymore on the unattached-handsome-man market,” I told him.
Gabriel pinched my behind. “You think I’m handsome!”
I grabbed two handfuls of his hair and pulled him down for a quick kiss. “More than any other man on the planet, but I did, in fact, say unattached handsome man.”
“Yeah, yeah, handsome, riiight,” Jim answered, making a rude face. “That’s why Aisling almost had a heart attack when I went up to help her, like you ordered me to do.”
“You probably just took her by surprise,” I said, licking Gabriel’s lower lip.
He growled at me, his eyes bright with interest, then gave me what I wanted and kissed me with all his fire, all his passion, and all his love.
“Kaawa yelled at me because Aisling was laughing so hard when she saw me that she totally blew off pushing during a contraction. That ain’t handsome, sister.”
Gabriel lifted his head. “Don’t call her that.”
I laughed when Jim made another disgusted face. “Go ahead and change back to your preferred form. I’m sure Aisling will thank you later for