They broke apart slowly. Her whole body was taut as a string stretched to its limit, and just before she took a step back, one of those differences he mentioned earlier pressed hard against her stomach.
Audrey looked straight into his smug eyes and slapped him. It was a good slap, too, loud and quick. Her palm stung.
Kaldar let her go and rubbed his face. "Really?"
"I told you no, and you still did it." And it had been glorious. When she was old and gray, she'd remember that kiss.
Kaldar looked at her, amused and slightly predatory. All of his smooth polish had vanished, and the part that was left was dangerous, reckless, and very much up to no good. Audrey had heard about the Mire before. It was a savage place, and Kaldar had grown up there, which made him both savage and crazy. Now all his sleek manners had sloughed off, and the real man emerged. And he was hot.
He must've been a feral terror at eighteen, especially with that face. Now he was older and wiser, and he hid his crazy better, but it was still there, buried deep under the surface, and he had let it out for her benefit. Well, wasn't she privileged.
Kaldar winked at her. "You enjoyed it. It made you feel alive. You were looking kind of green."
You bastard. "Oh, so it was a lifesaving kiss."
"Well, if you want to put it that way . . ."
Arrogant jackass. "Do me a favor: next time you think my life needs saving, just let me die. I'd really prefer it."
He laughed.
She shook her head. "I'm going to the front with the boys. Don't follow me. You and your paramedic kisses need time to cool off."
Audrey swiped Ling off the floor and marched to the front of the cabin.
THE wyvern dipped down, banking above the clearing, which felt only slightly less thrilling than plunging down a drop in a roller coaster. Audrey clutched on to her seat. The front of the cabin offered only two seats, and the boys had graciously let her sit next to Gaston and the enormous windshield, which she now sorely regretted.
"It will be fine," Gaston told her. "The wyverns are difficult to stop, so we're just going to spiral down for a minute. Landing is actually kind of fun."
Jack bared his teeth at her from his perch on top of a trunk. "He just says that because he isn't human."
Gaston laughed.
Audrey tried to look anywhere but at the rapidly approaching trees. "Not human?"
"His grandmother had sex with a thoas," Jack told her.
"Why thank you, Jack." Gaston showed him his fist. "You're so helpful."
"I like to be helpful," Jack told him.
"I have strange teeth, and my eyes glow, while you turn into a lynx and run around spraying your spunk on bushes. And you're calling me not human? That's rich."
George cleared his throat.
Gaston looked at him. "What?"
George nodded at Audrey.
"What is it?"
George heaved a sigh. "We have a lady in our company."
"I'm aware of that. I am not blind."
"He's telling you to watch the crude language," Kaldar said, emerging from the cabin. He stopped between their two chairs, leaning on the backs with his arms. "How does it look?"
"Looks good," Gaston said. "We're in the clear."
"Take him down."
Gaston leaned forward to a complex, polished set of levers and knobs and pushed several switches.
"So how does the wyvern know what you would like him to do?" Audrey asked.
"He's wearing a receiver device over his spark glands, just under his chin," Kaldar told her. "When Gaston adjusts the magic frequency of the console, the receiver sends the new signal through the glands. The wyvern is trained to recognize the specific commands."
"Just like a dog," Gaston told her. "He knows 'sit' and 'stay.' Except in his case, 'sit' takes about five minutes."
"Why?" Audrey asked.
"He's very large," Kaldar said. "So for him to land, everything has to align just right: approach, speed, wind, and so on."
"What if he decides that 'sit' means turn upside down in the air?" she asked.
Kaldar leaned closer to her. "Then we all die a horrible death."
Great. Audrey squeezed the chair's seat, willing the wyvern not to fall out of the sky.
"Afraid of flying?" Kaldar asked.
"No, I'm afraid of falling to my death."
"If it will make you feel better, I could hold you."
"In your dreams . . ."
The wyvern plunged down. Audrey gasped. The ground rushed at her as if she were in the cabin of a train hurtling at full speed.
Audrey dug her nails into the seat cushion.
The trees jumped up. The cabin jerked, and the wyvern's feet smashed into the ground, skidding. The huge reptile careened and stopped.
Kaldar leaned toward her ear. "You can breathe now, magpie."
Magpie? "I don't need your permission, thank you very much."
"You're welcome."
Argh.
"Beautiful landing," Kaldar told Gaston. "Your best thus far."
Gaston grinned.
If that was the best, what in the world did the worst feel like?
"Let's go," Kaldar called. "We need to make camp. The sky is clear, so we'll be sleeping outside today. Audrey can have the cabin."
"That's all right," she told him. "I can manage. I can sleep outside just fine."
Four pairs of eyes looked at her with a distinctly male skepticism.
"It's only proper that you have the cabin," George said.
"You're the only lady," Jack added.
"What they said," Gaston said.
"Then it's settled." Kaldar pointed at the cabin. "Quilts, pillows, sleeping bags. Once we're done, Jack, you find us something to eat, and George, you set up some sentries. Let's go."
Fifteen minutes later, their sleeping bags were on the ground by the wyvern. Audrey had always pictured dragons as fast and agile. But lying in the grass, the wyvern appeared barely alive, like some monolith carved from blue stone, with a blanket of green moss on his back.
Kaldar extracted a foot-long bronze box from one of the trunks and opened it. Inside, on a bed of green velvet, rested a large mechanical insect. Another gadget. The people from the Weird called them automatics.
Kaldar opened another box, pulled out a small printer with a cord sticking out of it, and plugged a camera into it. The printer whirred and spat out a picture. Audrey peered over Kaldar's shoulder. The blond blueblood woman stared at her from the cliff. Her haughty face radiated scorn.