Free Playing with Fire by Katie MacAlister Page B

Brooks,’’ I said, with a half smile of my own.
    ‘‘I beg your pardon?’’
    ‘‘I look like Louise Brooks. It’s the hair, mostly, I think,’’ I said, smoothing my hand over my short bob.
    ‘‘I like it,’’ Gabriel said to my astonishment. ‘‘Your hair is glossy and black, like the wing of a blackbird. You are small like a bird, too.’’
    Momentarily dumbfounded by both the comments and the warm undertone almost imperceptible in his voice, I was silent for a few seconds before continuing. ‘‘Louise was a silent movie star. Cyrene fell in love with the flapper styles of the early 1920s and was a dead ringer for Louise. Thus, when Cyrene created me, I looked like Louise as well. Cy usually wears her hair differently than me, but a couple of months ago she went to a costume party and decided to re-create her flapper look.’’
    ‘‘She . . . created you?’’ Aisling asked, looking astounded.
    ‘‘Yes. Doppelgangers are created when their twin gives up a part of themselves. In Cyrene’s case, she sacrificed her common sense in order to create me.’’ My lips tightened. I didn’t mind talking about doppelgangers in general, but I was not going to go into any more details about my creation, or subsequent bondage to Magoth.
    ‘‘That’s very interesting,’’ she said. Jim the demon wandered in from the yard, taking up a spot at her feet.
    ‘‘Are you finished?’’ Drake asked her.
    My stomach tightened uncomfortably at the hard look he turned on me.
    ‘‘Yes, but you could have made more of an effort to participate in a little polite conversation,’’ she told him, pinching his thigh. ‘‘Please forgive him, May. Dragons normally have the most exquisite manners, but for some reason, tonight Drake seems to have misplaced his.’’
    I avoided looking at István. I wasn’t feeling guilty about biting him—he had done far, far worse to Cyrene—but that was clearly not going to be a welcome subject of discussion.
    ‘‘I’m sure you’re all tired, so why don’t I save everyone from dancing around the issue,’’ I said, wincing at the abruptness of my tone. My eyes went over to where Gabriel had resumed his position. He seemed relaxed enough, but there was a sense of tension surrounding him that seemed oddly out of place, despite the events of the evening. ‘‘You want me to do something for you. Why don’t you just tell me what it is?’’
    The humor that seemed so comfortable in Gabriel’s eyes faded, the gray in them dulling. He glanced toward Drake. ‘‘There is a . . . situation.’’
    Drake’s eyes narrowed on me.
    Jim pursed its lips.
    ‘‘What sort of a situation?’’ I asked, not really wanting to know.
    Cicadas chirped in the silence that followed.
    Aisling looked from one dragon to the other, sighing and heaving herself over a bit on the couch so she could lean toward me. ‘‘Honestly, dragons! Here’s the deal, May—Drake is the wyvern of the green dragons.’’
    I nodded.
    ‘‘His brother was the wyvern-in-training of the black dragons.’’
    ‘‘His brother? I didn’t think families could be split like that,’’ I said slowly.
    ‘‘It’s a long story, but basically, Drake was claimed by his grandmother’s green dragon family, while Kostya, his brother, was in line to take over as wyvern of the black dragons. Only there was a problem with Baltic, the wyvern at the time. You see, the silver dragons were once part of the black dragon family, but they left to form their own sept.’’
    ‘‘After several hundred years of abuse by Baltic,’’ Gabriel said, his eyes still dull.
    ‘‘Baltic didn’t want them to be off on their own, and he basically destroyed his own sept trying to get the silver dragons back.’’
    ‘‘I see.’’ I wondered what all this had to do with me.
    ‘‘The few existing black dragons who survived—how many, sweetie?’’ she interrupted herself to ask Drake.
    ‘‘Less than ten,’’ he answered,