Free Up In Smoke by Katie MacAlister Page B

Drake asked.
    â€œIt’s safe. Does it matter where it is kept so long as Kostya will not find it?”
    Drake’s slight frown turned even blacker as he narrowed his eyes at Gabriel. “It matters because it is the Lindorm Phylactery. It is a priceless piece of the dragon heart. To treat it in a cavalier manner—”
    â€œYou do not need to lecture me as if I was a young dragon learning his history,” Gabriel interrupted, a slight frown of his own pulling his brows together. “I may not have been wyvern as long as you have, but I am not untried, nor am I a fool. I would never treat the phylactery in any manner other than what is it due . . . unlike some dragons.”
    Drake rose slowly from his chair, a nasty light in his eyes. “Are you implying that I would—”
    Aisling’s voice cut through the suddenly tense atmosphere. “Don’t make me fake a labor pain in order to get you two guys out of what is shaping up to be a really world-class pissing contest.”
    Drake shot her a glare. She blew him a kiss and motioned him back to his seat. I eyed Gabriel. A muscle that I was coming to view as a barometer of his feelings twitched in his jaw, but he made an effort to relax the grip he held on his knife, and managed to continue buttering his toast.
    â€œI thought you two were friends,” I said to him, nodding at Drake. “Don’t you go back centuries?”
    â€œYes,” Gabriel said, and applied himself to a thick slab of ham.
    Drake said nothing, but sipped an espresso. “Despite what you’re seeing here, they actually are friends,” Aisling told me. “It’s just that things were a little dicey for a while when Gabriel . . . err . . .”
    â€œWhen he tried to poison you?” I asked, having heard something of Gabriel’s recent experiences with the Guardian.
    â€œI didn’t poison her. I saved her life,” Gabriel said without meeting my eye. I had a horrible feeling he could sense the unreasonable swell of jealousy that seemed to burst into being whenever I thought about Aisling and him having some sort of relationship that went beyond what was appropriate.
    Gabriel’s eyes flashed silver at me for a moment before he returned his gaze to his plate, but I could see him fighting to keep his dimples from showing.
    The rat.
    â€œYou saved her after you betrayed us,” Drake said in a deceptively mild voice.
    â€œWhat matters is that it’s all over and done with, and everything is forgiven and forgotten,” Aisling said in a loud voice, shooting a meaningful glance at her wyvern. “We’re all friends here, no matter how prickly the boys may get now and again.”
    â€œPrickly!” Gabriel objected.
    â€œBoys!” Drake added, an outraged look on his face.
    Aisling giggled.
    â€œWhy did you betray them?” I asked Gabriel.
    Silence, heavy and pregnant, fell upon the room. Gabriel studied me for a moment before answering. “Fiat Blu, the wyvern of the blue dragons, used Aisling to strike at Drake. I tried to reason with him, but Fiat has always been . . .”
    â€œInsane,” Aisling offered.
    â€œUnreasonable,” Drake said.
    â€œ. . . difficult,” Gabriel finished. “He would not listen to my attempts to defuse the situation, leaving me in an awkward position. I did the best I could to rein him back from the destruction I knew he would inflict, but he was more unbalanced than I thought, and he succeeded in poisoning Aisling before I could stop him.”
    I sipped my coffee as I mulled over what he was saying. “What happened to the unbalanced Fiat? Didn’t you tell me there were two blue wyverns?”
    â€œThere can only be one true wyvern at any time,” he answered.
    â€œYou’ve been taking answer-avoidance lessons from Drake,” Aisling told Gabriel. “I’ll tell you what I know, May, although I have to pry every little bit of