‘‘This dragon of yours . . . he is jealous of you?’’

‘‘He is a dragon. They are extremely possessive.’’

‘‘Interesting.’’ He leaned back again, his thoughts masked as he watched me for a few seconds. ‘‘I wonder how far he would go to reclaim his mate?’’

I shifted slightly, uncomfortable with the thought of Gabriel going up against someone as powerful as Magoth.

‘‘Tell me of this second rumor, sweet May,’’ he continued. ‘‘Did a thief taker finally catch up with you?’’

‘‘Yes. I was arrested, tried, and sentenced to imprisonment in the Akasha.’’

‘‘And yet you are here, in the glorious flesh,’’ he said, his gaze dropping to my breasts.

‘‘Gabriel helped me escape.’’

‘‘Again the dragon,’’ he mused, a little smile playing around his lips. His eyes were as cold as ever, though, coolly calculating. ‘‘I did hear that the thief taker caught you robbing the lair of another dragon. Tell me, minion, what did you take from him?’’

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

‘‘I haven’t taken anything from Gabriel,’’ I said, purposely misinterpreting his statement in order to give me time to think. Why was he interested in the dragons? I ran my mind over the items I’d seen in Kostya’s lair again. Could the golden dragon amulet be valuable after all? It certainly wasn’t anything else in the unlocked chest, which meant it had to be the amulet or something in the locked ones that piqued Magoth’s interest.

A horrible thought came to me—what if Porter was working for Magoth? Was this some sort of a test? Was I about to be replaced? I dismissed the notion almost immediately; if Porter was in Magoth’s employ, he would certainly know exactly what I was. His threat of the dreadlord killing me if I mentioned the amulet just didn’t fit.

None of which explained why Magoth was so interested in the contents of Kostya’s lair.

‘‘You play games with me, and yet, they are not the games we can both enjoy,’’ he said in a light tone, but the undercurrent of menace was enough to turn my blood cold. ‘‘Answer the question, servant.’’

The word stunned with the force of a lash. I didn’t want to tell him the truth, but I could not refuse to answer a direct question. I could, however, censor out any information not specifically questioned. ‘‘I didn’t have much time to spend in the dragon’s lair. I took only one thing away, a gold amulet in the shape of a dragon.’’

‘‘An amulet?’’ He frowned, sitting up. I was pleased to notice that his erection had ceased being quite so rampant. ‘‘What sort of an amulet? Describe it to me.’’