Maata nodded. “I’m sure I would have recognized a dragon belonging to a sept, and the ones who held us were completely unfamiliar. They were not blue dragons, May.”

“There is also the fact that Fiat would have no reason to kidnap any silver dragon,” Gabriel added. “We have not come down formally on Bastian’s side, and there are no bad feelings between Fiat’s blues and our sept. In fact, we’ve had . . .”

Gabriel’s voice trailed away as the small group of dragons in the back of the room moved forward en masse, the woman in the lead.

“You are Tauhou, silver wyvern,” she said, stopping in front of Gabriel. She spoke with a clipped Chinese accent, the words shooting out of her as if they were bullets. As someone rather lacking in the height department, I seldom see women much smaller than me, but this dragon was a good couple inches shorter, something that was not reflected in her personality—there was an aura of power about her that made the air feel full of static.

He made her a bow. “I have that pleasure. This is my mate, May.”

The woman’s dark-eyed glance brushed over me with an indifference that relieved me. As a rule I disliked being the center of anyone’s attention—anyone but Gabriel—but especially so when I was wearing a valuable treasure in a room full of dragons. “I am Bao. I am wyvern of the red dragons. You will recognize me as such.”

Chapter Eight

I stared with everyone else as the small woman made her surprising statement.

“Indeed. Chuan Ren is dead, then?” Gabriel asked politely.

“No.” Bao tossed her head. She had short, spiky hair, and an attitude to match. “She remains in Abaddon. I have taken over the sept. This is Jian, her son. He will tell you that she wished for me to be wyvern should anything happen to her.”

A tall, lanky man next to her placed his hand on his chest, giving both Gabriel and me a little bow, but he said nothing. I wondered how he felt about someone stepping into his mother’s shoes.

“You must come and meet the others,” Gabriel said after acknowledging Jian. “They will be very interested to hear of Chuan Ren. How does she fare in Abaddon?”

Bao gave another head toss and proceeded in front of Gabriel. “That is immaterial. I rule the sept now, not Chuan Ren. She is gone, and I wish to meet the others.”

I took the hand Gabriel offered, glancing to the side at Jian as he followed his new wyvern over to where Drake and Kostya stood. Fiat moved to join them, making little coos of pleasure as he spoke to her.

“Shouldn’t her son take over as wyvern?” I asked Gabriel in a whisper a few moments later, as Bao was meeting the other wyverns.

“Not necessarily,” he said, a speculative gaze on Jian. His fingers tightened around mine. “Wyverns are picked by right of tanistry, not primogeniture, although the latter isn’t completely unknown. What I find interesting is that Chuan Ren has a child yet living. The others were killed in the Endless War.”