Fire Me Up (26 page)

"I cannot. No, don't look daggers at me. I am not being
evasive. It is not me who decides your punishment—that is left up to a
convocation drawn for that purpose. Members of my sept have flown in from many
countries to consider the type and extent of your punishment."

"Convocation? They've flown in?" I had a horrible feeling my
mouth was hanging open. "People have flown here to discuss me? Good god, Drake!
This doesn't sound like a simple failed-a-challenge punishment. This sounds
serious."

His thumb stroked a circle on my bare arm. "It is serious. I
told you that last month, when you challenged me."

"You didn't say I was likely to die over it!"

"You will not die. At least... no. You will not. For all
intents and purposes, you are immortal now, Aisling. Your body can withstand
much more abuse than when it was mortal."

Abuse? Good lord!

"Your reassurance technique totally sucks," I said, jerking
away from him, scooting over to sit in the corner, my arms crossed over my
chest. "Just don't tell me any more. You're not making me feel any better."

Drake didn't try to follow me, or soothe me, or tell me that
whatever inventive punishment his sept had come up with wouldn't actually kill
me. He just sat there and looked out the window, as if it didn't matter to him
in the least that he was taking me to a group of people whose sole purpose was
figuring out ways to punish my newly immortal self. What if the immortal thing
hadn't had time to take effect yet? What if they went to whip me, or use red-hot
pokers, or any of the other Savaronella-esque Inquisition tortures that suddenly
popped into my mind with startlingly clear detail? What if I hadn't been an
official mate long enough for my body to convert wholly to one that could
withstand dragon punishment?

Might serve him right if I did die. Jim had told me once that
dragons mate for life, which meant that if for some reason I died, Drake would
end up grieving himself into the grave, too. I peeked at him from under my
eyelashes. He might irritate me with his arrogance and unbending nature, and he
might drive me nuts with all the rules and laws of the dragons, but I didn't
want him to die. I wasn't willing to admit to being head over heels in love with
him—that seemed like such an uncomfortable thing—but I certainly wasn't
uncaring. There was a lot of emotion tied up with Drake—I just didn't want to
look at it too closely, lest something happen.

Something like I get tortured to death. Gah!

Fortunately for my sanity, I didn't have long to wait before
we arrived at our destination. I glanced at the bright blue-and-purple neon sign
above the door and turned to Drake. "You must have paid Flavia for her floor."

He gestured toward the door. A doorman held it open, Pal and
Istvan flanking either side. I licked my lips, nerves making my stomach turn
somersaults. "Do we have to do this in public? It can't be good for the
negotiations if Gabriel and Fiat and Chuan Ren see me being humiliated in front
of everyone."

"This is a matter for the green dragons, not the other septs.
No one is present but members of this clan."

"Oh. Good. I think. Although come to think of it, maybe we
should call them all up and see how they feel about me being destroyed—"

Drake didn't lay a finger on me, he just gave me another
slitty-irised look.

I stopped stalling and marched past him, pausing long enough
to say, "I am not going to forget this, Drake Vireo. Assuming I survive, I'm
going to remember this for a very ... long ... time."

I swept into the club with my head held high, clutching the
ragged talters of my pride, telling myself that although I wanted to be furious
with Drake, I really had put myself in this situation, That didn't mean I
couldn't glare at him a lot, though, which I did. At every possible moment. He
didn't try to avoid my glares, either. He just stood watching me, impassive as
the group of fifty or so people, all dressed to the nines, held a court. I was
offered a chair. I refused it, figuring the pain of my feet stuffed into
unaccustomed stilettos might possibly distract me from the red-hot pokers.

As if.

 Other than Istvan and him, I didn't recognize a single
person there. They looked just as human as Drake and his bodyguards, but I
wasn't fooled, not when I found out who was leading the team to pick a
punishment.

Istvan smiled for the first time since I had left Paris.

"What's he saying now?" I leaned to the side and asked Drake,
who was sitting in a huge thronelike chair, lstvan had been pontificating for
ten minutes, periodically gesturing toward me, the dragons in the audience
nodding their heads at whatever he said. My one last wild hope that the members
of the sept—those whose noogies hadn't almost been pierced by my lack of skill
in throwing a dart—might take pity on their leader's new mate by ensuring she
wouldn't die a cruel death.

"You don't want to know."

"Why? Does it involve some horrible torture?" Of course it
did. This was lstvan we were talking about.

"No. He's telling them how uncontrolled you are and how you
left last month swearing to have nothing to do with me or the green dragons."

I shifted my glare to Istvan. "Do I get to a chance to speak
before they decide on the punishment?"

"You may speak, but the punishment has already been decided"

"Well, that's hardly fair!" I glared even harder at the back
of Istvan's head. He was really going to town now, emoting like a soap opera
actor.

"
This is not about being fair, mate. It is a punishment."

"A few more minutes of Istvan soliloquizing up there, and
they'll lynch me before I can be punished," I muttered. I thought I heard Drake
laugh, but when I looked, he was as stone-faced as ever, the fingers tapping
restlessly on the arm of his chair the only sign that he wasn't as unconcerned
as he wanted me to believe.

Istvan wrapped up whatever it was he was saying, sweeping his
arm toward me in a grand gesture. The audience looked stunned for a moment, then
erupted into cheers. I locked my knees and fought like mad to keep from
screaming and running from the room. I would not shame myself that way.

As my gaze moved along the front row of dragons cheering
Istvan, I made a vow that no matter what they did to me, no matter how horribly
they tortured me, I would not scream. I would not beg, or plead, or grovel. I
was a Guardian, dammit. I was a demon lord. I was a friggin' wyvern's mate. I
would face their punishment with dignity. I would not give them the satisfaction
of seeing that I was terrified.

"I've changed my mind," I yelled a scant half hour later,
clutching myself against the cold wind as I looked below at the tiny winking
lights of cars passing beneath me. My dress whipped around my legs, snapping
audibly. Although the summer evening was warm, the wind coming off the river
definitely wasn't. "I'm fully prepared to scream my fool head off if that's what
it takes to get me off of here!"

"I'm sorry, mate. It was the decision of the sept." Drake
looked at me from the safe confines of the three-man bucket held aloft by the
hydraulic crane arm of the aerial lift truck parked below. "I am sure you will
have no difficulty finding a way down."

"Damn right I won't. My way down is you rescuing me!"

He shook his head, his hair ruffling in the same wind that
snatched his words away almost before they reached me. "It is forbidden,
kincsem. This is your punishment. It is for you alone to bear."

"Goddamn it, Drake!" I yelled as he flipped a lever in the
big white metal bucket. "You can't leave me here! There's no way down!"

The bucket hummed to life, slowly pulling back from the edge
of the stone platform upon which I was perched. "Be careful of the dress,
Aisling. The emeralds sewn onto it are worth more than two hundred thousand
dollars."

"Be careful of the dress?" I screamed, unable to believe what
I was hearing. "Be careful of the dress? You dirty, rotten—" I stopped, looking
down at the beautiful beaded embroidery of the gown, gently touching one of the
faceted beads. "These are real emeralds?"

"Of course," he shouted back, the bucket starting to lower.
His eyes glittered brighter than the emeralds. "You are my mate. I would not put
you in costume jewelry."

I braced myself into the wind and leaned as far forward as I
could without falling off the arch standing over the Buda side of the famous
Chain Bridge. "If you don't get me off this damned bridge, you're not going to
have a mate!"

He just blew me a kiss, the long hydraulic arm slowly folding
down onto the body of the aerial lift truck below.

"Goddamn it, Drake, I take the point! I won't challenge you
again! I've been punished enough... oh, hell."

He was gone. I watched as a tiny little itty-bitty speck that
I knew was Drake climbed out of the bucket and got into the truck along with an
Istvan-shaped speck. Then the truck left, driving across the bridge, leaving me
completely alone.

"On the top of a frigging bridge!" I yelled to the night sky.
I thought seriously about crying but decided that wouldn't do anything other
than leave me with a stuffy nose. I walked the length of the tall, flat-topped
arch, one of two that marked either end of the bridge that crossed the Danube
connecting Buda to Pest, careful not to get too close to the edge. The way the
wind was gusting, I stood a chance of being blown right off the top.

"All right, Aisling, get a grip. You're a professional. You
have powers. So let's think about how to use them to get you off this bridge." I
paced back and forth the length of the arch, scanning every word of conversation
I'd had since arriving in Paris and finding out about the whole other world that
had existed alongside the one I'd known my entire life. Had anyone mentioned
anything to do with flying? Even levitation skills would be helpful at this
point. I peered carefully over the edge of the arch, wondering if I had enough
belief in my own powers to just step off the edge.

Cars rushed by beneath me, tiny as little toys.

"That's a big no," I said, whimpering just a little as I
collapsed in a miserable ball of Aisling, still clutching my evening bag and my
black silk scarf. I looked at the latter closely for a moment, then swiveled
around to look at the long cables that arced downward from the arch to the Buda
shore. Maybe I could James Bond my way down the cable if I draped the scarf over
it, clinging to the ends as my body careened down it to safety —

Careened. What an ugly word that was.

"That's it. I've clearly gone insane," I announced aloud. No
one disputed that, which only made me feel worse. I searched my bag to see if
there was anything there to help me, maybe a magic wishing ring, or a genie or
two, or even a cell phone so I could call a helicopter, but there was nothing
other than my lipstick, a tiny vial of perfume, and the pitiful remains of my
mad money. I didn't even have my passport, so when the officials finally
recovered my vulture-pecked, bleached bones from the top of this bridge, they
wouldn't know who I was.

I spent some time railing against Drake, Istvan, dragons in
general, and pretty much everyone who had ever given me grief, but once I was
finished running down the list, I was left to contemplate the situation with a
less heated mind.

A pigeon fluttered to the edge of the arch, strutting toward
me with a jerky little head bob. Damn that Paolo and his predictions!

"So. I'm to befriend you. I don't suppose you'd care to
summon the king of eagles to rescue an old friend like me?" I asked the pigeon.
It pecked aimlessly at the cold stone. "No, I didn't think so. All right, Pidge.
Time to get serious. Let's use our brain. I'm Drake's mate. If I die, he dies.
Which means he wouldn't tolerate his people putting me in a situation where I
was going to die. Thus, there has to be a solution to this problem."

I sucked my lower lip, watching the pigeon as it wandered
around the top of the arch, looking for tiny insects.

"If only I could fly like you. But I can't. I don't remember
hearing anything about Guardians being able to fly. There must be some beings
who can fly, though. Let's see ... ghosts float. I bet they could fly. But
they're insubstantial, so even if I could summon a ghost to me, and it agreed to
float me off of here, there's no way it could. What I need is someone who can
float like a ghost, but turn solid enough to hold me ... holy cats!"

The pigeon's wings flapped madly as I yelled. I yanked up the
chain and showed it the amulet.

"Incubi, Pidge, incubi! That's the answer. They've shown up
every night, why not tonight? All I have to do is summon one. Um. The question
is how."

I racked my brain to think of anything helpful that Jim had
said about the incubi, but the only thing I remembered was women being carried
away on a cloud of smoke. "They're dream lovers. And they appeared to me when I
was in bed, asleep or very sleepy. This is a less than ideal bed, but it'll have
to do."