to kidnap her," Kostya told me. "She came willingly. My motive should be clear. She is in my power, and if you wish her to return safely, you will bring me the phylactery which you so recently stole."
"That is not acceptable," Drake started to say, but Gabriel, with a flash of quicksilver eyes, snatched the phone from me and snarled into it.
"I knew you would show no honor in dealing with me, but to use an innocent woman as a hostage for the phylactery is an act unworthy even of an ouroboros like yourself."
Kostya spat out an invective, but Drake interrupted before either of them could get into a verbal pissing match.
"Have you so little disregard for your place in the weyr that you would even consider such a dishonorable act?" he asked. "This is nothing short of a declaration of war, brother. To continue will destroy all chances you have of gaining recognition for your sept."
"There is no honor in the black dragons," Gabriel growled, "just as there is no sept."
"We will rise again," Kostya promised. "And we will regain all that was lost to us."
"What is he saying?" Aisling asked, trying to get Drake to let her listen in. "Is he being an idiot again? What a silly question, of course he is."
"Kostya is going off on a rant about the silver dragons again," I told her. "Frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of it."
"As am I," Gabriel said, clicking off the phone before doing an about-face to march out the front door we had so recently entered.
"Where are you going?" I asked, looking between him and Drake, who was arguing with his brother, Aisling and Savian sharing the phone Gabriel had tossed down.
"Out," he said without stopping.
I hurried after him. "Why?"
"I have had enough of this. That Kostya would attempt to harm me, I accept. That he would strike at you, I expect. But that he would take into his hands the life of someone not related to the sept in order to blackmail me-no. Tipene and Maata, I understand. They are part of the sept. But your twin is not. This must stop now."
"I'm with you so far as that goes," I said, taking his hand. His fingers tightened around mine in an almost painful grip as he strode down the street to a busy intersection. "But how exactly are we going to stop him?"
He hailed a cab and waited until it was under way before answering me. "We go back to the portal's exit, and you follow his trail. I will end it once and for all."
I didn't like the look of unadulterated rage in his eyes, but there was little I could say that would persuade him not to take the present course of action. Besides which, I was more than a little annoyed with Kostya's ridiculous persecution of Gabriel and the silver dragons. That didn't mean I had to blindly follow Gabriel, however.
"There must be a way to end things without you indulging in the sort of violence I have a feeling you're thinking of unleashing."
"I will not give him the phylactery," Gabriel swore, his fingers tightening on mine.
"Good gods, no, I didn't mean that!" I shuddered to think of what would happen if Magoth found out I used the phylactery to save Cyrene. He'd likely destroy both of us. "I just meant that there has to be a way other than the all-out war that Drake warned him about. You can't want that."
His fingers tightened even more until I made a little wordless noise of protest. Immediately he relaxed his hold, stroking my fingers and bringing the tips to his mouth to kiss. "I'm sorry, little bird. I do not mean to take out my frustrations on you."
"That's what I'm here for, isn't it?"
The look he gave me contained no smile. "You are my mate. You are part of me now, part of the sept, but that does not mean I should unduly burden you."
He looked away, his jaw still tight. My belly ached at the unspoken rejection. I considered pushing it away, deep and dark into the depths of my own psyche, but something inside me rebelled, some newfound sense of... oh, I don't know, togetherness, I guess. I had spent my life alone, bound to Cyrene, bound to Magoth, but never having anyone with whom I could share things. Gabriel charged into my life with a flash of his molten silver eyes, and made me a part of something bigger,