Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [41]
“Such as?” I sat down on the nearest chair, disappointment making me a bit tetchy. I assumed Gabriel would demand I be at his side as he hunted for Fiat. That he didn’t do so stung my pride.
There was a pause for a moment; then Gabriel’s voice dropped, pitched low and intimate. “I know what you’re thinking, Mayling. It is not so. I desire you just as much today as I did yesterday, and all the days before it.”
“One day I’m going to—”
“Read my mind, and then I’ll be sorry. Yes, I know,” he said, laughing.
I smiled at my hands, wishing I could see the dimples I knew must be showing. “What do you want me to do here?”
“You must start training with my mother to learn how to control the shards.”
“I control a shard already,” I said, putting my wallet back into my purse.
Maata checked Magoth, grinned to see he was still out, and tiptoed out of the room.
“You control the shard bound to you. It is another thing entirely to control all the shards together. My mother has studied the diaries of Ysolde de Bouchier. She is the best resource available for understanding the process of re-forming the dragon heart. It is to her that you must look for training if you wish to be successful.”
“I agree, but I still think I could be helpful in tracking down Fiat. There may be some trail I could follow in the shadow world.”
“Leave the worry of Fiat to me, little bird. You have enough on your plate with the dragon shards. Protect my mother well.”
“Do you think she’s in any danger?” I asked, surprised by his demand.
His answer was slow in coming.“I sense there is a threat to her, yes, but that could be connected to the dragon shard you bear. I ask that you be very careful, May, with yourself and my mother. You are both very dear to me.”
I warmed down to my toes with the love I heard in his voice. “I’m so glad you’re not Drake.”
“So am I. But . . . ?”
It was my turn to laugh. “Drake won’t let Aisling so much as lift her arm without a spotter and three pillows to protect it.”
“Her history might have something to do with that,” he said, amusement back in his voice. “She has not always been so competent with her powers. But you are.”
We hung up a few minutes later, after a few exchanges of a more private nature. But something he said had me thinking, so after double-checking that Magoth was all right—he was snoring softly to himself, so I gathered no serious damage had been done to him—I went in search of Maata.
“Do I look any different to you?” I asked her when I found her.
She stopped putting clean clothes into her dresser and eyed me. “Should you look different?”
“That’s not what I asked. Do I look any different? Or . . . feel any different to you?”
“I haven’t felt you.”
I made a face at her grin. “You’re being deliberately dragon.”
“I’m sorry,” she laughed, closing the drawer and walking around me to examine me from all angles. “It’s habit. Let’s see. . . . No, you look pretty much the same as you did when you and Gabriel left. Why do you ask?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I was now in possession of a demon lord’s full powers, but I decided that was probably best kept to as few people as possible.
“Just a thought I had. I’m going to trot over to Aisling’s house—What in the name of the spirits is that?”
Voices raised in anger could be heard from downstairs. The house had an elaborate security system, but due to the fact I was now bearing a priceless relic of dragonkin, Gabriel had added additional security in the form of extra patrols by silver dragons. The two dragons who watched the downstairs were yelling now, but it was a familiar, higher-pitched voice that had me racing down the hall to the stairs below.
“Sounds like your twin.”
“It does indeed. And that man’s voice is very familiar, as well. What on earth has she done to bring him down on our heads?”
The two dragons, Obi and Nathaniel, were doing their best to stop a very determined individual from entering the house, but Cyrene was getting in their way. Obi had his hands full with Cy, trying to pull her