1
" You want to …?” His other eye popped open as I started to slide down his body, intent on exploring that part of him which had given me so much pleasure. He grabbed me before I was able to move four inches. I looked up, worried that I had done something wrong. A familiar strained, tense look was on his face, his eyes screwed up tight. I looked down at his penis. It was no longer in a resting state. “I thought you were sated?”
I was. Until you went and mentioned doing that to me.
No! Don’t touch me there, woman! For the love of – grk!”
A half hour later, Gabriel, his arm wrapped around me because my legs were unusually weak, hustled me toward the house with a grim look on his face.
I will beat this,” he muttered. “I am a wyvern, I am strong. I will control my needs long enough to give you pleasure, and you will enjoy it, dammit!”
I said nothing, but I smiled. A lot. [May and Gabriel, pg. 307] "
― Katie MacAlister , Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons, #1)
5
" Er..." I bit my lower lip. "Do you have a minute? I wanted to talk to you really quickly, without being overheard."
She looked mildly surprised but sat down on the end of the bed and nodded toward a chair. "Of course."
Jim ambled over, plopping itself down at her feet.
I glanced at the demon. "Er..."
"Jim, shoo," Aisling said, correctly reading my thoughts.
"What? I'm not doing anything!"
"You're making May uncomfortable. Go see what the boys are doing."
"Whatever it is, it won't be nearly as interesting as this," it answered.
"Oh, it doesn't matter, I guess," I said with a tight smile. "Jim might have some helpful insights as well."
"I'm all over helpful insights, sister," it told me with an oddly endearing grin. "What's the problem? You can tell Dr. Jim. Is it something in the romance department? Need some advice on how to handle Gabriel?"
"No, thank you-"
"Ah. Then it's the sex, right? Fiery, animalistic, dragon sex too much for you?"
It was difficult to keep from rolling my eyes. "Thank you, my sex life is not open to-"
"What's the silver dragon element? Earth?" Jim's face screwed up as it thought. "Oh, man, that means he's gonna want to do it outdoors all the time. Buck naked in the wilderness. My advice is to take sunscreen and bug spray. And maybe a spatula or something to dig the sand out of your butt crack, in case he takes you to a beach."
"Jim!" Aisling said, wrapping her hands around the demon's muzzle. She shot me an apologetic look. "I'm so sorry. It knows better than to offer unwanted sexual advice."
"Just trying to be helpful," it said in a muffled voice.
"Well, you're not. And you can just be quiet unless you have something of importance to offer to the conversation," Aisling told it as she released its muzzle "
― Katie MacAlister , Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons, #1)
6
" It is illegal to portal anyone while they are under duress,I could lose my license if I were to do so."
"You're going to lose a lot more than that if you don't tell me where my twin went," I said in a low, mean voice.
"Mayling, please. I must insist that you allow me to be the bad cop," Gabriel said as I slid the dagger at my ankle out of its sheath.
"I have never subscribed to the sexist belief that women have to be good cop," I said, twirling the dagger around one finger.
"Nonetheless, you are far more suited to the good cop role," Gabriel insisted.
"I'm going to have to go against popular opinion and side with Mei Ling on this," Savian said, watching us with a delighted twinkle in his eye. "She looks like she knows how to use that blade. What is that, a stiletto?"
"Sicilian castrating knife," I said with a smile at the portal man.
"She wins," Savian told Gabriel.
"Er..." Jarilith said, his expression starting to slide into worry.
"I am a wyvern! I can do far more to this man than merely remove his genitalia," Gabriel answered in an outraged tone, a little tendril of smoke emerging from between his lips as he spoke.
"Eh..." Jarilith said, taking a step backward.
"Hmm. He's a weaver," Savian said thoughtfully as he examined the portalist. "Those are immortal, aren't they? So he could survive a castration, but the question is would a dragon barbeque be enough to finish him off?"
"Absolutely," Gabriel said. He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile.
"Threatening a weaver is strictly prohibited by law," Jarilith said indignantly, but the fight had gone out of him. His gaze was flickering back and forth from Gabriel to Savian to the dagger I held casually. "I could have the watch on you for what you're saying!"
"Oh, please," I said with a dramatic roll of my eyes.
"Just about every thief taker in this hemisphere is after me. I've already been sentenced to banishment to the Akasha. You think one little murder is going to make that any worse? Not likely."
Jarilith's eyes widened.
"It's true," Savian said. "The price on her head has already gone over six figures."
The color washed out of the portalist's face. "Erm..."
"Mate," Gabriel said sternly. "I must insist that you refrain from slicing and dicing this man."
Jarilith nodded quickly. "Listen to the dragon."
"It is my place to destroy those who stand in your way," Gabriel continued, the pupils in his eyes narrowing as he turned to the now hastily backing away Jarilith.
"Let's not lose our heads, here," the latter said in a rush.
"I don't think it's your head the lady has in mind," Savian said as he looked pointedly at the portalist's crotch.
Jarilith's hands hovered protectively over his fly. "Such an atrocity would constitute torture. You wouldn't do that to an innocent man, would you?"
"What makes you think I'd stop at the castration?" I twirled the knife around my fingers again. "This little jobby fillets, as well."
"She went to Paris," Jarilith said quickly as he dashed for a door to a back room. "Your portal is ready in room number three. Have a pleasant journey..."
His voice trailed off as he bolted.
I turned a frown on Gabriel. "You really wouldn't have let me be bad cop? I'm very good at it, as you can see."
"I'm sorry," he said, his dimples belying the grave look he was trying to maintain.."Wyverns have some standards to maintain with their mates, and one of them is always being the bad cop.Although I do admit that you have a particularly effective manner. Would you really have castrated him to get the information about your twin?"
"Would you really have burnt him to acrisp for not answering?"
"Such a bloodthirsty little bird," he said fondly, giving my butt a little pinch.
Savian stood still for a moment, giving us an odddisbelieving look before shaking his head and following. "You two are the strangest couple I've ever met. And I have to tell you-I've met some real weirdos "
― Katie MacAlister , Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons, #1)
7
" 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. "
― Katie MacAlister , Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons, #1)
8
" Good twin calling evil twin. The weasel crows at midnight. How copy?"
"Oh, for mercy's sake... I'm busy! Stop sending me silly messages in code! If you have something to say, just say it; otherwise, radio silence, remember?"
"You're no fun anymore. You used to be fun, but lately, I've noticed a change in you. Is it menopause, May?"
Cyrene 's question took me aback so strongly, I stopped creeping down the darkened hallway and blinked in dumbfounded surprise at the mirror that hung on the wall opposite.
No reflected figure blinked back at me.
"Are you still having your period? Do you experience hot flashes at night? Are you now growing, or have you at any time in the recent past grown, a mustache?"
"Goddess help me," I murmured to no one in particular, and tried my best to ignore the perky little voice that chirped so happily in my ear as I continued to make my way down to the dark and deserted room. I thought for a moment of just turning off the miniature radio that allowed Cyrene to contact me, but knowledge born of long experience with my twin reminded me of the folly of such an idea.
"Boy, you really are in a grumpy mood if you won't rise to the bait of menopause," she said in a mildly disgruntled voice "
― Katie MacAlister , Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons, #1)
9
" That's mine!" Kostya said in a still somewhat strangled voice as he lurched forward.
Gabriel reached for the box but Misha held tight to it, backing up a couple of steps as he eyed us.
"You are who?" he asked.
"Konstantin Fekete, wyvern of the black dragons. The phylactery belongs to me."
"The black dragons," Misha said slowly. "Surely they all died centuries ago?"
"Not all. There are still a few of us. And we will regain what we once held-"
Everyone in the room except Cyrene chanted in unison, "-but was taken from us. We will face death to restore to the sept the pride, the glory, the true essence, of what it once was."
Kostya glared at us all.
"Don't get him going about that, please," Aisling said from where she stood behind us, leaning against Drake. "It's late, and once he starts, it can take hours. "
― Katie MacAlister , Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons, #1)
12
" I take it you have some sort of plan going? Something that calls for you to be arrested?"
"There, now, you see? I told Drake you'd grasp the gist of things right away, but he had his doubts."
"Drake?" I straightened up. "Is Gabriel with him? Did he get my message?"
"Of course he got your message. That's why I'm here. Is there no chair?" she asked, frowning around the empty room.
"No. I hate to let down the team and all, but what exactly are you doing here? Is Gabriel going to be able to get me out of being sent to the Akasha? Is he going to appeal the conviction?"
"Better than that," she said with smile, glancing around quickly before leaning in closely, her voice dropped to almost a whisper. "We're going to bust you out of here."
"Bust me..." I closed my eyes for a moment. "You've been watching too many old westerns. No one conducts jailbreaks these days. Especially not when the jailers are the L'au-dela committee."
"That's why this plan is so incredibly cunning," she said, giving my arm a little squeeze. "They're all expecting you to try to escape-they'll never expect us to break you out of here."
"Oy," I said, sliding down the wall to the floor. "This has 'doomed from the start' written all over it. You didn't think up this plan yourself, did you?" I asked suspiciously.
She looked offended. "No, I didn't, and you can stop being such a negative Nelly. Gabriel thought up the plan, and Drake and I are helping. I'm the decoy, you see."
"Of course you are. What, exactly, is this grandiose escape plan?"
Her mouth set in a prim manner. "I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"There could be bugs. We don't want them to know our plans."
"If they were listening in, you just told them there's a plan, so they'll be expecting something to happen," I pointed out.
"Yes, but they won't know what," she said, pulling off her jacket. Her shirt followed almost immediately, as did her jeans, shoes, and the sparkly pink socks that she was so prone to wearing despite the fact they would look more at home on a twelve-year-old.
I watched her striptease with confusion for a moment before a thought struck me.
"You don't mean-"
"Shhh," she said, waving a vague hand around as she pulled off the scarf she wore to confine her bangs. "Bugs, remember?"
I bit back an obvious reply, thought for a moment, then decided that although the plan Gabriel had come up with was too I Love Lucy for words, I didn't have any alternative. I stripped. "
― Katie MacAlister , Playing With Fire (Silver Dragons, #1)
