She smiled. Maata didn’t often smile, and it made me wonder how she came about being one of Gabriel’s elite guards. She was a pretty woman, her appearance reflecting more Polynesian influence than Aboriginal, and that stirred up even more curiosity about the woman who would literally give her life for her wyvern. “You think he’s worried about mortals? He’s dealt with much worse, I can tell you. He’s worried you won’t like his home.”

I gave her a puzzled look. “Why on earth would he think I wouldn’t like it?”

“He’s worried you’ll compare it to Drake’s homes and find it lacking . . . find him lacking.”

“Oh, for the love of the twelve gods. I’ve told him before I don’t care about that. I know he doesn’t have a lot of money like Drake. I am completely fine with living a modest lifestyle. My flat in London is really nothing but a room with a sink. I’m totally fine with staying within a budget, although I wish now I hadn’t let him buy me all those expensive clothes.”

“Gabriel isn’t one to hold on to money for long,” she said matter-of-factly. “He has never accrued wealth, as most dragons do. He has a lair, but it is filled with things that are precious to him and wouldn’t necessarily be viewed by others as overly valuable.”

“Sounds like my kind of man. I’m not heavily into possessions, either. I’ve never had the resources to develop that taste, and if I did, I had Magoth to consider. He’d never allow me to keep anything with any true value. So, honestly, Gabriel has nothing to be nervous about.”

She gave a little half shrug, watching along with me as Gabriel, Tipene at his side, argued some point or other with a growing circle of customs officials. “He has not had enough time to be sure of you.”

“He’s not sure of me?” I asked, pain biting into my gut. Gabriel had doubts about us? About me?

“It’s not surprising given how little time you have spent together,” she said, and I saw the truth in that. “How many days have you spent in each other’s company?”

I cast my mind over the last couple of months. “Just a few,” I admitted, feeling like a fool. How could I have allowed my common sense, the common sense that Cyrene had given up to create me, to be so completely overlooked? Of course Gabriel wasn’t sure of me—we’d known each other for only a few months, ninety percent of which I’d spent in Abaddon. But my heart had managed to ignore the obvious and fall madly in love with him, building all sorts of wonderful rosy images of a future together, images that suddenly turned to dust and wafted away.