Me and My Shadow - Katie MacAlister [99]
“Cunnus,” he snarled, plunging the dagger into my heart.
Chapter Sixteen
“. . .What mortals sometimes think of as limbo, a place where beings are sent to be punished.”
“I know what it is. I may be an elemental being, but I am familiar with things beyond my domain, like the Akasha. What I don’t know is how you expected to get Mayling out of there.”
“It’s tricky, but not impossible. It helps that Nora had summoned her from Abaddon before. There’s some sort of a sympathetic link between the two of them now that eases the more difficult summoning from the Akasha, which is why it only took Nora three tries to get May. Oh good, it looks like Gabriel has brought her around.”
I opened my eyes to find those of the purest silver peering down at me with concern.
“I’m not dismembered?” I asked the eyes.
Tiny little laugh lines appeared around them as Gabriel smiled. “No.”
“I still have my heart?”
“Yes. It was pierced, but it’s healed now.”
“The dragon shard?” I touched my chest, worried.
“Is still in you. For now.”
“Magoth?”
“Successfully banished.”
I relaxed. “And my silver-eyed wyvern?”
“Still madly in love with you. How do you feel?”
“All right. A bit woozy.” I let him help me up into a sitting position on the dining table that had served, I gathered, as a makeshift operating table. I glanced down at the ruined tunic, gently fingering the gaping hole on the front where the embroidered dragon’s head had been. “He ruined my dragon.”
“That dragon can be replaced,” Gabriel said with pointed emphasis as I got to my feet. He had an arm around my waist, holding on to me while I waited to see if my legs were going to cooperate. “You lost quite a bit of blood, but we got the dagger out and the wound sealed as quickly as possible.”
I swayed into him, and whispered very quietly,“I know I was taken from you, but if you had plans to sweep me off my feet and take me up to the bedroom—”
He stopped me with a quick, hot kiss, his eyes twinkling and his dimples blaring as he said just as softly, “The standard rules do not apply when the mate in question has been injured. At least, not for an hour or two.”
“Deal,” I said, warming up nicely by the look in his eyes.
“May, I cannot believe that you didn’t tell Magoth I had his powers,” Cyrene said, her hands on her hips as Gabriel escorted me over to a chair.
Aisling murmured something about juice and cookies, but thankfully, the glass Gabriel handed me was filled with the spicy red dragon’s-blood wine that I knew would do more to restore me than juice ever could.
“I didn’t tell him because I knew he would have exactly the same reaction as he did, and I wanted to avoid being forced to banish him to the Akasha,” I said when I could speak again. I eyed the glass of wine. It had coursed through me with the subtlety of a bulldozer, filling me with fire. I waited until the scorched feeling in my esophagus faded before adding, “Luckily, he can only do so once every half-year. Besides, I thought you’d have enough sense to keep from mentioning it in front of him.”
“Sense,” Kostya said, snorting. “She has no sense.”
Cyrene turned on him. “I’m not done with you! You still have to say it!”
“Sit down,” Kostya growled, and his two models closed in on Cy. She spun around and gave them such a warning look they backed off a couple of steps.
“Are they still at it?” I asked Gabriel, rubbing my face on his tunic for a moment as I breathed in the wonderfully woodsy scent of him.
His hand was warm on the back of my neck. “They haven’t stopped.”
“We did so,” Cyrene said, interrupting herself to snap at Gabriel. “We stopped while Nora summoned May, and then while you pulled the dagger out of her chest. But we have unfinished business, and I insist that it be taken care of before the meeting is started.”
“Our business has nothing to do with the weyr,” Kostya growled.
“It does, and you know it. You’re just in denial, but I’m done humoring you. I know you were tormented and tortured and held prisoner for decades, but you’re free now, and it’s time to move on, emotionally speaking.