Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [22]
“Do not say anything about it,” Catalina finished speaking to Kostya in what she no doubt imagined was a whisper. “It is best if you do not dwell on the sad situation. Her kind gets so upset.”
I smiled and slipped just a smidgen the normally tight rein I held on the dragon shard. It purred with satisfaction, sending silver scales shimmering up my arms, my fingers lengthening and turning crimson at the claws. I waggled them at Kostya. “Your mother has sage advice. And speaking of people who were resurrected, why do you think Baltic isn’t really Baltic?”
“He could not be,” Kostya said with a familiar stubborn set to his jaw. “Dragons are not easily resurrected.”
“Gabriel said that, as well, but his mom seems to think otherwise.”
“She’s never tried to resurrect a dragon,” Kostya replied with a glance at his mother.
“It is true, what my darling Kostya says,” Catalina said with a dramatic sigh. “I tried to have Toldi resurrected, but alas, he came back . . . less.”
“Less than what?” I asked, curious about the odd tone in her voice.
She cast me a sympathetic glance, nodding slightly toward me. “Just . . . less. It was a kindness to put him out of the way. Again. Which I did, naturally, because I was nothing if not a good mate.”
An odd sort of choking noise emerged from Jim. I picked up my dagger, noting that the demon’s eyes widened as I twirled it around my fingers. “ ‘Again’ as in you killed him before?”
“Oh yes. He was not a nice man, Toldi. He murdered most of my family, you know, in order to get me to accept him as mate. Which I did, but only because I knew I would be able to destroy him easily when I chose.” Catalina picked an invisible bit of fluff off Kostya’s arm, speaking with a nonchalance that would have been more at home in a psychopath.
I slid a quick look at Gabriel. One of his dimples appeared.
Drake sighed and gestured toward the sitting room, having cast a quick glance up the stairs. “If you insist on having this discussion, brother, perhaps you will do so out of Aisling’s hearing. If she thinks we are having a counsel regarding Baltic, she will want to be present, and it is her rest time.”
Jim made a whipcrack noise as it passed Drake on the way into the sitting room. I said nothing as Drake glanced at the dog, setting its tail on fire for a good ten seconds before the demon noticed. By that time, we’d all trooped back into the sitting room.
“So you killed him twice?” I asked Catalina, ignoring Jim’s hysterics as it ran around the room yelling at the top of its lungs until Drake put out the fire.
“Fires of Abaddon, Drake! I mean, literally fires of Abaddon!” it bellowed, pungent smoke trailing behind it as it marched over to where we sat.
“Sit down and be quiet unless you have something helpful to say,” I ordered it.
“Such a very odd demon,” Catalina remarked, watching as Jim obeyed my orders albeit with ill grace and no little amount of glaring. “And yes, my dear, I had to kill Toldi a second time. I couldn’t leave him . . .” She paused and gave me yet another pitying look that had me grinding my teeth. “But we have agreed not to speak of such unfortunate things. I just hope that Gabriel has the strength to do what is necessary when the time comes.”
She brushed off my look of utter disbelief with a smile at Gabriel before taking Kostya’s arm. “Come, my darling Kostya. Tell Mama what you have been doing these last one hundred and thirty years.”
“I have no time for talk, Mother,” Kostya said with a glance at his watch. “I have a sept meeting in less than an hour. I simply wished to tell Drake . . .” He hesitated a second, very pointedly not looking at either Gabriel or me. “. . . tell Drake that our trip was fruitful.”
Catalina demanded to see him at the first opportunity, and went off to oversee the unpacking of her luggage.
“You found the lair, then?” Gabriel asked after she