Playing with Fire

‘‘Oh, it was not! I never even unbuttoned so much as one button! I couldn’t! Not when I thought of Gabriel.’’

‘‘You’re not going to start making declarations of eternal, undying love now, are you?’’ Savian asked, glancing at his watch. ‘‘I’m afraid I can only give you fifteen minutes, and then we’ll need to be on our way to catch the plane to Paris.’’

‘‘Do not leave this room,’’ Gabriel ordered.

I turned to him, surprised.

‘‘I will be with you in ten minutes,’’ he said. ‘‘Do not leave the room unless the authorities come. And do not proposition that… that… mortal again!’’

I couldn’t help but smile at the indignant look on his face, which faded along with the rest of him.

‘‘I take it that’s a ‘no’ on the declarations of love?’’ Savian asked.

I took the sole chair in the room, unfolded a bit of discarded newspaper onto the stained seat, and gingerly sat down on it. ‘‘I think I’ll pass, thank you.’’

‘‘Ah? The dragon’s gone?’’

I nodded.

‘‘Well, then.’’ He moved across the room and closed the door, giving me a come-hither look that was almost as good as Magoth’s. ‘‘Perhaps you’d like me to show you how I can make you forget your precious wyvern?’’

‘‘I’ll pass on that, too. Why don’t you spend the few minutes it’ll take Gabriel to get here telling me how it is you were lurking around outside the room of a murdered colleague?’’

He leaned against the wall next to the window. ‘‘Oddly enough, I was curious about how you ended up here as well. Shall we exchange stories? I can give you fourteen minutes.’’

‘‘And I can give you…’’ I pursed my lips as I thought. ‘‘I’d say you have about eight minutes before a very angry dragon is going to break down the door, so why don’t you go first, just in case Gabriel gets here before you have a chance to talk.’’

I have to give Savian credit-he didn’t appear to be too worried about having to face Gabriel, although a couple of faint lines appeared around his mouth.

‘‘Although it isn’t the gentlemanly thing to do, I will go first since you so obviously desire it. I am here because I was pursuing a line of investigation, and it led me to this room.’’

‘‘A line of investigation concerning one of your colleagues?’’ I asked.

He shrugged. ‘‘Porter wasn’t so much a colleague as a rival. Thief takers… well, we tend to be a solitary lot, minding our own business and not mingling with one another too much. And Porter was… different.’’

‘‘I’ll say he was. Do you know that he was blackmailing my twin?’’

‘‘No, but it wouldn’t surprise me,’’ Savian said. He rubbed his chin for a moment. ‘‘That might explain some things.’’

‘‘What things? Were you investigating Porter himself?’’

His smile was as cheeky as ever. ‘‘Let’s just say that I was following up a sense of Porter being involved in something he shouldn’t have been.’’

‘‘Would you happen to know whom he was working for?’’

‘‘Alas, I hadn’t uncovered that,’’ he answered, his smile fading. ‘‘To be perfectly honest-something I normally try to avoid, but I’ll make an exception since I like you-I hadn’t found out much about what Porter was up to. He had something going on, and it was something big, but that’s all I could tell. Perhaps you have more information?’’

‘‘Perhaps, but like you, I prefer to play things close to the vest.’’

‘‘Now, now, I showed you my hand-the least you can do is show me yours,’’ he said with a cock of his eyebrow.

‘‘There’s really not much to my hand-he blackmailed me into trying to get something for him, but he didn’t tell me why he wanted it, or if it was for himself, or the dreadlord he said he worked for.’’

‘‘Dreadlord, hmm?’’ Savian chewed that over for a few minutes. ‘‘Interesting. Could be a demon lord, could be someone else.’’

‘‘Exactly. And now he’s dead, which means there’s someone else involved. But why kill him?’’

Savian shrugged again. ‘‘It would be foolish to speculate until we had some answers to our questions. And now, if you would not mind, perhaps you’d care to clarify how it is I found you with the not-at-all-lamented Mr. Porter?’’

‘‘Porter kidnapped Cyrene in order to get me to do something.’’

‘‘Ah.’’ His glance slid down to the dead man.

‘‘He was dead when we got here, and no, I don’t think Cyrene killed him. She couldn’t have.’’

‘‘That’s right, your twin is a naiad,’’ he said, nodding. ‘‘Although it is within the realm of possibility, I agree that it would be unlikely an elemental being such as she would harm a mortal… even one as reprehensible as Porter. It certainly is a puzzle.’’

We stood in silence for a moment before I was driven to say, ‘‘Gabriel isn’t going to let you take me into custody, you know.’’

‘‘I’m aware of that, yes,’’ he answered amiably.

‘‘Then why are you just standing here chitchatting with me while he races to get here?’’ I asked. ‘‘Shouldn’t you at least be making an attempt to try to capture me? Not that I want you to, but it’s making me curious.’’

‘‘Well, it’s like this,’’ he said, scratching the whiskery stubble on his chin. ‘‘When I first saw you here, I thought my luck had turned and I’d be able to bring you in myself. Although I will say I had a moment’s qualm about how I was going to get you to go peacefully. You’re not a pushover.’’

‘‘Thank you,’’ I said politely. ‘‘I’m also not the sort of woman who has to wait for a man to help her, although I’m not one to turn down the offer of help if it’s made.’’

‘‘I completely understand. Just as I understood that when you mentioned the wyvern was present in spirit form, my chances of convincing you to come along peaceably were pretty much nil. As were any ideas of forcing you.’’

‘‘Smart man.’’

‘‘I try,’’ he said with a wry twist to his lips. ‘‘The answer to your question is simply that I am hoping your scaly boyfriend will make it worth my while to not make trouble.’’

‘‘He’s not scaly, and if I’d known you could have been bought with something other than my body,’’ I said, musing on the sense of humor fate seemed to have when it concerned my life, ‘‘I would have bribed you in a more traditional ma

‘‘But your way promised so much more fun,’’ he said with yet another of his wickedly sinful grins. ‘‘Are you sure-’’

‘‘Quite sure. Gabriel is…’’ I stopped for a moment, not sure how to put my tangled feelings into words. ‘‘He’s warm. And strong. And concerned about people. He’s very grounded, if you know what I mean-very much of this earth. I’m not elemental like Cyrene, but I am created from her, and to me, Gabriel feels right. He’s also very urbane and elegant, not in the least… oh, I don’t know, primitive. There’s a sort of raw, dangerous feeling about the other wyvern I’ve met, but Gabriel is much more sophisticated than that. I could see him on the cover of GQ, if they’d ever let a dragon on it.’’

Savian’s smile got a bit broader.

‘‘He’s also arrogant about some things, is overly confident in his abilities to control the world, and has a single-mindedness that I suspect is going to cause a lot of friction between us,’’ I added, sure that Gabriel had appeared in the doorway behind me.

‘‘Only if you let it,’’ the man himself answered, moving up to stand next to me. He was a little out of breath, as if he’d run the whole way. ‘‘You left out the part about my possessiveness,’’ he added with a warning flash of his eyes at Savian.

‘‘You’re a dragon-that goes without saying,’’ Savian said with a shrug and a quick glance at his watch. ‘‘Shall we proceed? Time is passing.’’

‘‘How much?’’ Gabriel asked.

‘‘Right to the point. I like that. You know what the standard payment is for a thief taker?’’

We shook our heads.

He named a figure that would keep Cyrene in bath salts for an entire decade.

‘‘I’ll triple it,’’ Gabriel said immediately, without so much as blinking an eye at the fact that he was talking about an amount in six figures.