Holy Smokes by Katie MacAlister

because I was tired out after the long day, but if something happened and he had to go take care of a sept member or beat Chuan Ren’s head in or something, he would have told me.”
    Jim cocked its head at something on the floor. “Looks like he decided you and the baby needed your sleep. There’s a letter.”
    I pushed Jim aside to pick up the creamy envelope bearing the sept emblem, ripping it open to read the note inside.
    “You’ve been hanging around sailors too much,” Jim said a minute later as the blue streak I was swearing came to an end. “Although I liked the bit about stinky, slimy weasel poop.”
    “You’re right, he says he didn’t want to disturb my rest, the bastard,” I growled, wrapping a sheet around me as I stormed into the bathroom.
    Jim, wisely, stayed where it was.
    I emerged a few minutes later wearing my favorite bathrobe, a soft, comfy velvet garment that made me think of Victorian dressing gowns, but which Drake disliked because he said it covered up too much flesh. I buttoned it now with defiance as I marched to the closet that contained my clothes. “He says he had to go help someone in a desperate situation. Who, exactly, he refuses to say. He doesn’t know when he’s going to be back, but suggests we put off the wedding for a few days. The rotter! How dare he just zoom off and not tell me where he’s going, or who he’s going to help, or what exactly he’s up to!”
    “Yeah, how dare he go out and be all heroic and stuff when you want him here slobbering over your big boobs.”
    I shot the demon a look that warned of retribution. “Leave my boobs out of this. They have nothing to do with this extraordinary lack of trust that Drake is exhibiting by doing this. The rat! I thought we were to the point where we shared everything. He’s not supposed to keep secrets from me! Lord knows, he makes me tell him everything!”
    “Everything?” Jim asked, raising one doggy eyebrow.
    I froze as I thought over a few facts I’d decided to keep to myself. I’d told Drake that I had seen Gabriel, but I hadn’t recounted the entire conversation, not wanting Drake to get so annoyed that he went after Gabriel. That could be excused as a desire to keep any more of the dragon septs from warring with us, but the fact that I’d downplayed to him the involvement the dark power had in my life was less easily explained away. He knew it spoke to me, he knew I could easily wield it, but until the previous day’s demonstration at the Guardians’ Guild, I don’t think he fully realized just how much power I had at my fingertips.
    Admit it—you love me.
    I swore under my breath as I thought over what effect that realization might have had on him. Had he been so disquieted, felt so threatened because I had more impact using the dark power than his own dragon fire that he left me on a flimsy pretense? I ran over the events of the past evening, mentally shaking my head. He’d been quietly pleased when the ultrasound had proven beyond all doubts that the next generation of green dragons was a half-year away. He had treated me with his usual blend of courtesy and arrogance, laying down a series of ridiculous laws ranging from me not being allowed to lift anything heavier than ten pounds to an outright refusal to let me keep the meeting with the blue dragons.
    Things were a bit dicey for a short while when I told him what I thought of his silly rules, but by the time he’d escorted me upstairs to our room, we’d come to a compromise whereby he’d stop being unnecessarily protective, and I wouldn’t light his hair on fire while he slept.
    Then he slipped away during the night without a word and sent me the most erotic dream of my life.
    “Damn him,” I said, banging my forehead gently on the closet door.
8
    “ C ara!”
    I turned at the familiar voice that called down at me, looking with a dispassionate eye at the man who walked to ward us.
    “That him?” Uncle Damian asked, giving Fiat the