“Ooh, food! I’m famished. I’ll get us some lunch,” Cyrene said, catching sight of a sandwich vendor outside the train who was doing a brisk business.

“You miss the train, and you won’t hear the last of it for decades,” I promised her.

She rolled her eyes and hurried down the aisle to the exit.

“What was it you wanted to know?” I asked Maata, one eye on my errant twin as she pounced on the sandwich seller.

“Did you threaten Sally on the phone?”

“Threaten?” I cleared my throat and put on the face I used with Magoth. “Why would I threaten her?”

Maata’s smile changed into a knowing grin. “Because she ran to Gabriel and told him he was making a big mistake, that you were definitely meant to be a demon lord’s consort.”

I relaxed back into my seat as Cyrene reboarded the train, her arms full of small sandwich packages and bottles of water. “Was that before or after she propositioned him?” I joked.

“After, as a matter of fact,” she said, then laughed again at the look on my face. “Oh, don’t worry; you’re Gabriel’s mate good and proper. Dragons mate for life, you know. He couldn’t leave you if he wanted to, and believe me, dalliances are the last thing on his mind.”

“I don’t doubt Gabriel’s fidelity,” I said, looking at the people as they started to blur when the train rolled out of the busy station. I had the worst urge to spill my worries out to Maata. I desperately needed reassurance that I wasn’t losing myself to the dragon heart, that Gabriel wasn’t bound so firmly to me not because I was meant to be his mate, but because of what was carried inside me. Passions faded; the gods knew I’d seen that often enough with Cyrene’s love affairs. Who was to say that the sexual attraction that Gabriel first felt for me was now replaced by his response to the dragon-heart shard?

“Here we are. Mayling, you can stop scowling; I got you a chicken one since I know you don’t eat mammals. Now, what did I miss? Did you tell Maata about threatening to cut off all of that junior demon lord’s hair and glue it on backwards?”

Maata choked on the mouthful of water she’d just taken. “Is that what you threatened Sally with?” she asked me.

“Disregard anything Cyrene says about me,” I said calmly, taking a chicken sandwich. “She’s peeved because she’s going to have to earn back her wings. So to speak.”

“If you had just thrown your weight around with Neptune, he would have reinstated me instantly!” she grumbled. “Honestly, what is the point of having a twin who is consort to a demon lord and mate to a powerful wyvern if she won’t help out with a few little problems?”