Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [97]
“Of course it is. Say it!”
“The sárkány is about to begin. We will deal with our personal issues later,” Kostya insisted, taking Cy by the wrist and pulling her over to a chair next to the wall. He shoved her down into it before striding over to the table.
“Like hell we will! Say it!” She was there in front of him again. “Say it or so help me, I’ll smite you as you’ve never been smited!”
“ ‘Smitten,’ I think, is the word. Is it not?” Bastian asked Duarte. “Which tense is that? English has always confused me.”
“You can’t smite me,” Kostya said with a smug quirk to his lips. “Naiads don’t smite.”
“Oh, no,” I said, suddenly realizing where the conversation was going to go. I glanced at Magoth, my fingers tightening around Gabriel’s hand. “Cyrene, I hate to agree with Kostya, but really, another time would probably be better for this.”
Gabriel wasn’t slow on the uptake. He glanced down at my hand for a moment; then his brow cleared. “I agree with my mate. Another time, Cyrene.”
“You think you know everything, don’t you?” Cyrene said, glowering at Kostya. “Well, you don’t!”
I dropped Gabriel’s hand and hurried over to my twin. Magoth, blast his hide, must have caught one of my glances toward him, because he stood up, watching me with close attention. “Cy, really, this isn’t a good time. You can yell at Kostya later, after everyone’s gone, OK?”
She completely missed the emphasis I put on the word “everyone.”
“Stop yanking me,” she snapped, jerking her arm out of the grip I had on her. “And stop siding with that pig-dog!”
“You will cease calling me that,” Kostya spat, a truly world-class glare pointed at her. “It is unfitting, and you are out of control.”
Cyrene cast her arms wide, and black sparks snapped off her fingers, sending the two cover-model dragons squealing as they scrambled backwards. “I’ll show you who’s out of control!”
“May!” The roar of anger almost shook the house.
I closed my eyes for a moment, then opened them and met Gabriel’s sympathetic gaze. “Too late,” I told him.
He smiled. “You can always shift and knock him unconscious?”
“That is my power!” Magoth bellowed, I mean, really bellowed. The kind of bellow that makes windows rattle. Drake stood protectively in front of his wife, looking daggers at Magoth. “She has my powers! That . . . that . . .”
Cyrene turned on Magoth with a look that would have scared a lesser demon lord. Streaks of black lightning edged with gold crackled between her hands, a manifestation of the dark power. “That what?”
“That is my power,” he snarled, striding toward her, little tendrils of black crackling off him, floating to the ground as a fine ebony powder. “You stole it! By the dominions over which I rule, you will return it to me, or I will grind you into the earth you so fervently worship!”
“Get Nora,” Aisling said, tugging on Drake’s shirt. He said nothing, just nodded at Pál, who had returned with István. Pál disappeared out the door.
“I didn’t steal anything,” Cyrene squeaked, suddenly looking afraid despite the fact that she was in possession of more power than she knew how to use. Her eyes widened as he continued toward her, the black glow between her hands fading to nothing as she pointed. “May gave it to me!”
Magoth whirled around and pinned me back with a look that chilled me to my toenails. “You I will deal with later, slave.”
“This isn’t good,” I muttered to Gabriel. He wrapped an arm around me, narrowing his eyes at Magoth until the latter turned back to my twin.
“Return it, and I will let you live,” Magoth said, gliding toward her.
Cyrene’s gaze flickered from me to him. “I . . . I . . . May wouldn’t like that.”
“No, I wouldn’t, any more than I like Magoth threatening you. If you have a bone to pick with anyone, it’s me, so stop trying to intimidate Cyrene. She has no idea how to give your power away, and she wouldn’t do so even if she did.”
Magoth turned slowly to face me as I spoke, his eyes black pools that promised retribution.
Instantly, Gabriel was in front of me, the wrath