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Chapter Thirteen
"You can't just barge in here and order me around like that. I was headed out to your place in a little while, so cool your jets, dragon-boy!" Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed Smoky's arm, yanking him around to face me as we headed into the living room. I'd been rubbed a little too raw in the past twenty-four hours and was feeling a tad touchy.
He stared at my fingers on his arm for the barest of moments, then ran his gaze up to catch mine. He did not look amused, and I had the feeling that I was two seconds away from a massively nasty retaliation for being so presumptuous.
Slowly let go of the dragon and back away … Take a deep breath, hands off, sheepish expression on face… Maybe he won't eat you for lunch.
Or maybe he will, and you'll like it, a suggestive voice tickled in the back of my thoughts.
And then indignation flared, and I found myself wallowing in a mixture of irritation and self-pity. "Listen, in the past twenty-four hours, I've fought off a bugbear, a goblin, and a Sawberry Fae. I've helped kill two dubba-trolls, corralled a bunch of errant pixies, and found a missing one." I ticked each item off on my fingers, swallowing my fear as he waited for me to continue.
"What else? Oh yes, then there's the matter of the lightning bolt I managed to dodge. It could have fried the city, it was so amped up, but no—it was aimed straight at me. If I'd failed the test, not only would I have missed out on being the new owner of this snazzy Black Unicorn horn, but I'd be fried to a cinder in astral-land, and my body would have had a heart attack."
"Anything else?" he said, sliding into a smirk.
Annoyed now, rather than afraid—Smoky's moods were as unpredictable as my own, it seemed—I rested my hands on my hips. "Yeah, now that you mention it. If you want to huff and puff and blow the house in, then you can damn well go ahead and do it. But I'm not going to move one minute faster than I already am. I'm hungry. I'm stressed. And right now I wish I could turn into a tabby cat like Delilah and go curl up for a nice nap!"
Morio and Feddrah-Dahns stared at me like I'd just grown a second head. Perhaps I'd been a little too vocal? Venting was one thing. But lashing out wasn't my usual pattern. And Smoky wasn't responsible for anything that had happened.
He gave me a speculative look. "I know a sure cure for stress. We'll give it a try later." And then he swept past me over to the Morris chair, where he leaned on the arm and addressed Feddrah-Dahns. "Hello, again. So, you found your pixie?"
Feddrah-Dahns whinnied and shook his flowing mane. "Yes, thanks to Lady Camille and her sister."
"What? What did I do?" Delilah asked as she returned from the kitchen with a tray filled with soda cans and sandwiches. Mistletoe followed behind, eyeing the tiny goblet of cola she'd poured for him with suspicion. It was actually a thimble, which meant it was as big as a saucepan to him.
"I don't know about this," he said, squinting. "I've never tasted Earthside food. Are you sure you aren't trying to jinx me with this? It's bubbling."
"It's carbonated, not enchanted," I said, breaking in. "Honestly, Kitten, why didn't you just offer him a glass of mead or wine?"
"Because I didn't think of it," Delilah said, glancing at Smoky. "Hey. Didn't hear you come in. You want something to eat, too?"
He rubbed his temples and shook his head. "No, thank you. Every time I show up here, at least two of you are bickering. What on earth do you do when company goes home? Get into a knock-down, drag-out chick fight?"
Delilah and I simultaneously turned to him and said, "Hey, watch it!" And then she promptly broke into peals of laughter, while I eyed the sandwiches on the tray, my stomach rumbling.
"Stereo, even," he moaned. "Camille, please, get your things. I need you to come talk to that woman on my land. She's driving me batty, and if you don't come find out what she wants, I swear, I'm going to charbroil her and then sit on what's left until she's squashed like a bug. She knows what I am, and she's constantly harping at me, asking if I know where Titania is—"
Feddrah-Dahns shuddered. "Don't let her fool you. She may be a nuisance, but she can be a dangerous enemy, if you're talking about Morgaine. We don't trust her in the valley. That's why we ran her out."
"Trillian told me King Vodox exiled her from Svartalfheim, too," I said, glancing at Morio, who had a bemused look on his face. He just leaned back, put his hands behind his head, and waited. I eased my way back over to Smoky's side and placed a light hand on his shoulder.
"Let me eat lunch. Then I have to make a phone call. After that, I'll come with you. Meanwhile, Delilah, why don't you and Morio check out that rug shop this afternoon? See what you can find out."
"Sounds good to me," Delilah said, her mouth full. She handed me a sandwich, and as I reached for it, Smoky snaked his arm around my waist and pulled me into his lap.
"You got a thing for me sitting on your lap, huh?" I asked.
He grinned. "It's conducive to my thoughts. Eat fast" he said. "Delilah, be a good girl and get your sister some nightclothes. Since you're obviously wrapped up in something important, I've decided to choose my days and nights with you as I see fit. Consider tonight the first. I'll let you know when it all adds up to a week."
I stared at him. Oh yes, this was all just so peachy keen I thought I might toss my cookies. Couldn't even just one thing work out without something throwing a monkey wrench in the works?
"You'll let me know when I've spent a week's worth of time with you? Oh no, that will never do. Trillian won't stand for it—" I stopped as Delilah stuffed a ham sandwich in my hand. I automatically brought it to my mouth and began to chew.
"Trillian has nothing to say about the matter," Smoky said, his pale eyes turning glacial. "I neither like nor dislike your boyfriend, but know this: he will not interfere. Our contract is between us, not between him and me. Trillian better get that fact through his head before he wears out my patience." Taking a deep breath, he added, "Contrary to what you've speculated in the past, I am fully capable of killing and eating anyone who gets in my way."
A shaft of ice stabbed through my heart. Beneath that suave, persuasive exterior, there lurked the heart of a dragon, not the heart of a man. And dragons played by their own rules, at their own pace. I kept forgetting it, and it was a mistake that could turn out to be fatal. If not for me, then for Trillian.
"Hicc!" The sudden belch roared through the sudden silence, breaking the tension. I whirled to see Mistletoe land on one of the console tables. His belch had acted like a sudden puncture to a balloon, sending him flying across the room.
