He disappeared without another word. I cocked a questioning
eyebrow at Drake.
"Incubi," he agreed, nodding. "do, assuming I pass this ritual
that no one wants to talk about, and you like the looks of my application, what
happens then? I assume we'd have to live fairly close together? At least in the
same country?"
Rose the Guardian nodded. "The traditional method of Guardian
training is for the apprentice to live with the mentor, studying the various
aspects of the dark powers and assisting with minor jobs until the mentor feels
the apprentice is skilled enough to maintain a portal on her own."
"That would be a portal to Hell, right? Not, say, a portal to
Cleveland?"
Rose nodded again. She was slight, dark-haired, and hailed
from the Virgin Islands. Thus far my Guardian appointments had been with women
from Chicago, Marseilles, and Istanbul. Out of the four, the Virgin Islands
sounded like an idyllic place to learn to put the lid on the portal between the
real world and the dark side of the Otherworld. "Once I evaluate your
application, and those of the others who are seeking a mentor, I will let you
know if we need to schedule a further interview. I admit that the fact you have
the ability to summon and bind to you an unattached demon raises you
significantly in my estimation, but I am concerned about the fact that you are
also a wyvern's mate."
I waved a negligent hand. "Don't let it worry you. It's not
an issue."
"Ah. Good. Well, I have your room number, so if I have any
further questions, I will be in contact. Good afternoon."
"Thanks, and same to you."
I waited until Rose left the tiny cafe situated on a wide,
shady verandah on the south side of the hotel before dropping my weary head onto
my hands.
A cold, moist object pressed against my ankle.
"You may speak, Jim," I answered the unspoken request, my
voice muffled against the cool marble tabletop.
"Did you have to command me to shut my yap in front of the
Guardian? You couldn't have put it nicer? You couldn't have wrapped it up in
that hokey medieval-speak you like to use whenever you're bossing me around? I
may be a demon, Aisling, but I do have feelings!"
"Aisling, you like more drink? Food, maybe?"
"No, thank you, Zaccheo. I'm just peachy keen." I didn't look
up to see the hopeful face of the waiter responsible for serving patrons on the
verandah. Zaccheo had been hovering around me ever since I'd sat down to keep my
Guardian appointments, rather like an annoying if friendly, pimply
eighteen-year-old gawky bee.
"You like me to wait here until you need something?"
"No, thank you. I'm just fine."
"I be just over there if you need me. You call if you want
something, yes?"
"Yes," I told the tabletop. "Absolutely. The very second a
desire comes to mind, I'll let you know."
"Good. You call. I be over there, by the door. You call."
Zaccheo shuffled away.
"You could have asked him for another couple of sandwiches.
This fabulous form of mine needs a lot of food, and that diet you've put me on
is going to make it waste away to nothing."
I peered out through my fingers to where Jim was flaked out
in the shade beside a bowl of water and an empty bowl that had previously held a
chopped-up chicken sandwich. "The vet said you are twenty pounds over the
standard for Newfies. No extra snacks, remember? And I'm sorry about hurting
your feelings, but do you have to tell everyone that Drake thinks I'm his mate?
Every single Guardian has been enthusiastic about me until you pipe up and
mention that. I have two more appointments with potential mentors, and I'm
telling you right here and now that I forbid you—forbid you—to mention to them
that I'm a wyvern's mate!"
"You are a wyvern's mate? A wyvern's mate?"
My head shot up off my hands like it was one of those early
NASA rockets. The kind that didn't explode a few feet off the launch pad. On the
other side of the round cafe table stood the tall black woman I'd met at the
banquet the night before, a businesslike attaché case in her hand, wearing a
beautifully patterned African print dress. "Oh. Nora. Hi. Um ... the wyvern
thing ., . it's not a certainty, not really. That is a really pretty dress. Are
those zebras? I love batiks. There's just something about handmade cloth that
really rings my chimes."
She stared expressionless for a moment at me, then her face
broke into a smile as she chuckled. Setting her attaché on an adjacent chair,
she settled in the one Rose had vacated a few moments before. "Yes, they are
zebras, and I quite agree about batiks. You are not very good at changing
subjects, are you?"
I groaned and closed my eyes for a moment. Five Guardians
down, and Moa left—and she had already expressed her dubiousness about my
ability to be an apprentice. Crap.
"Aisling? Are you well? You look tired."
Jim snorted. "She should. What with all the naked guys
hopping in and out of her bed all night—"
"Jim!" I yelled.
"Not to mention running to Drake for a little late-night
nooky. The poor thing didn't get any rest last night." I poured one of the three
pitchers of half-melted ice water that sat on my table onto Jim's head. It
yelped in surprise. "Hey!"
I pointed out to the open lawn beyond the verandah. "Go smell
the flowers."
Jim got to its feet slowly, water running off its dense black
coat. "You're not supposed to leave me unattended, remember? If someone catches
me, they'll bind me to limbo until you can fetch me back."
"I'll take that chance. Go. Walk. Smell. No peeing on
anything pretty. And if you have to do anything else, just hold it until Nora
and I are done talking."
Jim's furry face was sullen. "Is that—"
"Yes, it's an order." I waited until the demon was gone to
turn back to Nora. She was making notes on a little pad with a ballpoint that
had teeth marks on the non-writing end. I smiled at that. I had a tendency to
absentmindedly chew on pens myself when I was trying to write something. "I'm
sorry about that. Jim is a little irreverent, but underneath, it's really a good
demon."
Her eyebrows raised high above the red frames of her glasses,
the lenses of which had reacted to the bright sunlight and turned dark. "It is a
good demon?"
"Yeah. I know that's kind of an oxymoron, but the truth is,
Jim was cast out of its demon lord's legions. I don't know all the
circumstances, but I think it was because Jim's heart wasn't as dark as those of
the other demons."
"Demons do not have hearts," she pointed out.
"You want more water, Aisling? You need more water, yes? I
saw you use the water I bring you earlier. It is good. Here is more water. I
bring it just for you." Zaccheo materialized at my elbow with a tray full of
pitchers of ice water. He set them on the table, his eyes, which I can only
describe as moony, watching me besottedly the entire time.
"Thanks, Zaccheo. I think five pitchers is my limit."
"Water is good. Very good for the womens. My mother, she
tells me this. Very good for their peepees, yes? Makes no trouble there. I go
now. You talk. You drink water."
He zipped off to his serving station, a happy smile on bis
face. I glanced at Nora. "He's very attentive."
"Yes, I can see that. And evidently well trained by his
mother to anticipate a woman's need of water to avoid urinary tract infections.
Commendable, that."
I made a half shrug. There was no way I could explain why
Zaccheo seemed to be so enamored of me, so I didn't even try. "I suppose you
want to know about this wyvern thing."
She accepted the glass of ice water I poured, absent-mindedly
plucking out a slice of lemon and squeezing it into the water. "Yes, but to be
honest, I'm more interested in hearing about the naked men hopping in and out of
your bed all night long."
"OK," I said, placing both palms down on the table to lean
forward, "Let me just say right here and now that I had nothing to do with that,
nothing at all. They were incubi, and they were definitely not invited. Jim
makes it sound like there was a whole battalion of them, but there wasn't."
"No? How many were there?"
Even through the darkened lenses of her glasses I could see
the amusement in her eyes.
"Er ... six. No, seven. But the last one got a little
confused., and he ended up making a play for Drake."
"Ah. Drake. That would be Drake Vireo, the green wyvern, the
dragon whose mate you say you are not?"
"Yes, that's him."
Her lips pursed a little as she made another note on her
notepad. I resisted the urge to crane my neck to see what it was she was
writing. "I see. And yet, despite this, you did spend the night with him?"
I bristled. Just a little bit. "I realize you have to ask all
sorts of personal questions about me in order to judge compatibility and all
that, but I draw the line at discussing my personal relationships. Since you
don't know me well enough to know that Drake is not a factor in my life, I'll
make an exception this once. Yes, I spent the night in Drake's bed, but nothing
happened there, nothing mateish, nothing intimate. We're just acquaintances,
Drake and I. That's all."
"I wouldn't say that," a smooth, silky voice spoke behind me
mere nanoseconds before warm fingers caressed the back of my bare neck. Drake
pulled out the chair next to me and sat down, his movements smoothly elegant,
hinting of controlled power. His fingers remained clasped around the back'of my
neck, stirring little wisps of heat that streaked through me, touching off any
number of banked fires. "Surely mere acquaintances do not fall asleep clasped in
each other's arms?"
I shrugged his hand off my neck, giving him a good glare. How
dare he come along and mess up my chances with Nora? "You know full well I was
so tired and groggy I fell asleep a few minutes after that last incubus left.
That's what you said this morning—that and that slanderous bit about me snoring,
which is so patently untrue, I laugh at it. Ha ha."
"You did snore," he said mendaciously, cocking an eyebrow at
Zaccheo. The waiter came running, giving me plaintive looks before Drake gave
him an order for a Bloody Mary and sent him on his way.
"I am not the one who left scorch marks on the sheets," I
pointed out. then quickly explained when Nora's eyebrows rose in shock again.
"Unlike silent me, Drake does snore, and things tend to get a little fiery.
Trust me—you never want to sleep facing him, or you'll end up with your eyebrows
singed."
"Thank you for that advice," Nora said, her voice choked. My
heart fell at the sound of it. Clearly she was marking me off the list of
apprentice candidates.
Damn Drake and his manly-lipped blabbermouth!
"The only time I breathe fire when I sleep is when my mate is
with me," the annoying man said, giving me a sultry look. I thinned my lips at
him before I remembered that Nora was watching. I turned a smile on her—not that
it would do me any good. My first full day at the conference, and already I had
run through five—no six, counting Moa—potential mentors. At the rate I was
going, I'd be through all of the attending Guardians before the final awards
ceremony.
"I'm sure you have some questions for me. That is, assuming
you're willing to overlook certain aspects of my life that would seem to
prohibit a serious apprenticeship." I gave the certain aspect in question a
quelling look. He simmered at me.
"Actually"—Nora eyed Drake in a thoughtful manner—"I don't
think you being a wyvern's mate is prohibitive at all."
I almost choked on the piece of ice I was crunching. "You
don’t? But all the other Guardians—Nora. I'll be frank. The other Guardians all
more or less washed their respective hands of me the minute they learned about
Drake." I cast a glance at him. "Not that there's anything going on there to be
worried about."
"Do you challenge me, mate?" he asked, not touching me with
anything but his gaze, but oh, baby, that was enough. I shivered under the
heated look he was giving me and dragged my reluctant eyes to Nora. "You have
not yet paid the price for failing your last challenge."
I ignored Drake. Sometimes it helped. Usually it didn't.
"I believe you must be an extraordinary woman to be a
Guardian, a wyvern's mate, and a demon lord," Nora said briskly, putting her
notepad in her case and standing up.
"What?" I blinked at her stupidly for a moment, then stood as
well, shaking the hand she offered me. "Wait a second. I'm confused. You don't
think the whole mate thing is an issue, but you're leaving? We're not going to
have an interview? Don't you want me to fill out an application form like the
other Guardians?"
"No," she said, turning to give her hand to Drake. He rose in
a graceful movement, soberly taking her hand.
"Aisling is indeed a woman of many talents," he said, "but
her priority lies with my sept. She is and will always be my mate. Because of
that, I do not approve her seeking to apprentice herself to another."