Up in Smoke - Katie MacAlister [90]
“Tch. Such is the gratitude for my magnanimity in allowing you to see your friends,” Bael said.
“They are not my friends. Either kill me now, or leave me alone. I will not be abused in this manner! You shall be the first to feel the full weight of my revenge!” she shouted, her hair whipping around as she marched to the door.
Bael looked at us. “Are you sure it is this one you wish to have released? It was not, perhaps, a wrath demon or behemoth you were thinking of? Someone with a bit more charm and less lethality?”
Chuan Ren spun around at the door, and I think she would have made a rush for Bael, but his words sank in first. “You are here to see to my release?” she asked Gabriel in a slightly less hostile tone.
“Your son has petitioned us to that purpose,” he said, glancing at Bael. “But it seems negotiations are at a standstill.”
“You ask much gold for me?” she asked, marching back into the center of the room, eyeing Bael much as a cat would a comatose mouse. “You seek treasure of an unimaginable amount? Very well. He will pay it.”
She pointed to Gabriel with the last of her words.
“Like hell he will,” I muttered, stamping out the fire that broke out around me.
Bael said nothing but watched with raised eyebrows.
“Your mate is unlearned,” she told Gabriel, a sneer on her lips. “Just like that fool Drake and his equally stupid mate.”
“I’m not so unlearned as you think,” I said, focusing long enough to light the ends of her hair on fire.
Gabriel nudged me. Sighing, I extinguished the flames, pain pricking my palms as the dragon claws tried to emerge.
“The price Bael has demanded is not payable in treasure and is not acceptable. I have hopes that we will be able to negotiate another one, however.”
“Not treasure?” Chuan Ren looked scornfully at Bael. “What price have you put as my value, if not that of treasure?”
Bael toyed with a bone letter opener that had been lying on the desk. “My standard price for everything is always what would cost the person the most. In this case, it would be the sacrifice of the silver mate.”
“Bah,” Chuan Ren said. “We agree to the price. Take the female and let me go.”
She started to walk to the door just like it was a done deal.
“I do not agree to the price,” Gabriel said swiftly.
Chuan Ren tossed him a crass word.
“You dare call my mate that?” I yelled, suddenly too angry to care if I was being politic or not.
She spun around. “You dare speak to one who is your superior? Begone, before I teach you how to properly address a wyvern.”
“Newsflash—you’re no longer wyvern. Someone else is leading the red dragons.”
“May, that is enough,” Gabriel said, taking my arm and tugging me toward him. He had an odd look on his face, a mishmash of amusement, caution, and wariness.
“What?” I asked him, wondering what that look was about.
His lips quirked. “You yelled. I’ve never heard you yell before.”
“She started it,” I said, pointing at Chuan Ren.
She spat out another word, this time directed at me, and with it, an epiphany came. The anger that had been steadily building within me flashed hot and pure, and before I could blink, I was across the room, slamming Chuan Ren up against the wall, my curved scarlet claws pricking deep into the white flesh of her throat. “I am the mate of the silver wyvern. You dare use that tone with me?”
Answering fire burned in her eyes as silver scales rippled up my hands and arms. She knocked me backwards, but I had a grip on her hair and took her with me, the two of us rolling in a ball of claws, fire, and painful blows.
She cracked my head into Bael’s desk, causing me to roar in fury, fire erupting around us as I whipped my legs around, knocking her down. Her claws flashed silver in the light as she slashed at my face, but I was too fast for her, slamming my fist into her throat. She kicked me in my gut and blasted me with dragon fire. I was about to return the favor when Gabriel, who had been yelling my name, yanked me backwards, out of her grip.
I stood hunched over, panting fire, my entire being focused on destroying the female