“Oh…no!” Leala said dramatically.
“Take a fucking acting lesson,” I whispered to her.
“Says the guy randomly wiggling like he has crabs.”
“The I have crabs wiggle is different, Leala. Where have you been?”
Hannon stepped out from behind us, giving us a clear path to dart back through the portal. We now had no reason not to flee to safety, which was a problem because we needed to get captured in order for Plan A (a.k.a. the only plan) to work. The hunched figures hadn’t started running toward us yet. Actually, they weren’t even walking at a moderate pace.
“I’ll attack weakly,” Hannon murmured. “You follow behind.”
“No—but—that might spook them into killing us!” I whispered furiously as he ran forward with his kitchen knife.
At least he looked the part of “not warrior,” except for the sheer size of the guy.
“Fuck,” I said. What could I say? That word was ol’ trusty. “Okay, yeah. Go, go!”
“You go!” Leala replied.
“Fuck!” I ran after Hannon, yelling because I didn’t have a weapon and didn’t want to change out of my clothes to shift.
The figures continued to stare at us, and I could see Hannon slowing a bit, not really sure what to do with that reaction.
“Here. I got it!” I caught up, my feet sloshing through the water, and then ducked in front and continued the charge. As we got closer, the figures finally started to back-pedal…and I dramatically tripped and fell right onto my face.
Hannon, not expecting it, or maybe just a better actor than Leala and me, got tangled up in my feet and fell on top of me.
“Don’t stab me,” I yelled before my face slapped the ground and mud stuck to my cheek. “Gross.”
“Oh no, don’t capture us!” Leala shouted, not tangling in our feet and diving onto the disgusting, wet ground. It smelled like meat that had been sitting out for too long.
The hunched figures finally turned to action, however slowly. One bent over and thwapped my head with something hard, the feeling vibrating through my brain. I grunted and then went limp, figuring playing dead was a good way to keep them from doing it again.
I heard Hannon grunt, but instead of going limp, he tensed, like he was about to get revenge.
“I’ll come quietly,” Leala said, still speaking in that loud, dramatic voice. She had obviously not missed her calling for the stage. “We’ll all come quietly.”
Hannon grunted again. Leala must’ve kicked him.
“Should we take them in or kill them?” one of the hunched figures asked, his old boots caked with mud and gunk.
“The king likes his pets, and that one is pretty. The other one is sturdy.”
I tried not to let their ignoring me go to my head.
“Take them,” the third said, and his weight shifted on his feet. I felt hands on me and wasn’t sure if I should keep playing dead or feign not-quite-dead-so-I-can-help-you-carry-me. In the end, to get things moving, I went for lethargic.
They hefted us up and moved us to the boat, throwing us inside and then finally binding our hands behind our backs. Once there, they took a short break before slowly walking back to the portal and releasing one more creature.
While we waited, it occurred to me that Hannon could’ve killed them all three times over in the time it took them to decide what to do with us. He could’ve killed them before they even figured out whether to take a step forward or back at his approach. For a moment, it seemed like I should’ve changed up my plan.
But then they settled into the boat, one at the back and the other two in the middle and front, and I realized there was no motor. The rig had sails, after a fashion, but they didn’t do much out here in the still marsh. Instead, the demon put his hands on a sort of table at the back, and the boat shuddered to life. The thing was run on demon magic.
“Maybe we should’ve made boats or brought oars and stormed the demon castle that way,” Leala murmured near my ear, lying on her side and facing my head.
But it took us five days to reach the castle, with a lengthy stop at an island where more creatures were stored and a camp had been set up. I realized storming the place wouldn’t have worked. Not without an enormous army we simply did not have. A few bedraggled, out-of-practice shifters and a bunch of new, inexperienced dragons wouldn’t do much against a demon horde in their fortified home. The only way to play this was from the inside. We had to get to Finley, and then we all had to get back out again.
Which very well might prove impossible.
FIFTEEN
FINLEY
A strange sort of commotion roused me from my slumber. I lay on my stomach with my face against the stone, straw poking me in the temple. My eyes faced the wall with the stairs so that I wouldn’t have to move when an officer came down to grab someone. It was our duty to give the poor sod who was taken some encouragement, although it felt pointless. This was our life. Whippings. Parties. And, for me, the fun times I was brought up to Dolion so someone new could try to eradicate the “horrible stink” on my skin. We’d all kinda gotten used to it.
Or maybe I’d just gotten used to it. The others had surely gotten accustomed to it long before I came into the picture.
The only good news was that I’d stopped worrying whether the demons could affect the bond. They couldn’t. And while I had figured out how to stop boosting Nyfain’s scent…I didn’t. Fuck ’em.
The only thing I did worry about was time. The officers liked me for my power, so there wasn’t much of a danger they’d kill me off, but without going to the parties, and especially the after-parties, I couldn’t get in contact with the wolves or faeries. The other dragons were trying to gather and relay what information they could, but dragons were so often separated from the others. It was slow going, and I was running out of time.
I knew that because something had changed with Nyfain. I could feel his emotions winding up, as though he were readying to do something big. Something probably foolish.
Time was ticking.
“You don’t have to be so rough. I was happy playing dead!”
The voice reverberated down the steps and across the open space, pinging around my mind and quickening my heart.
“What’s up with this area? The top room was so nice and then, what, your builders decided they didn’t care about doing a good job anymore? Fuck—”
I lifted my head as two feet came into view, covered in mud and grime. The person stumbled but caught themself. Two bare knees came into view next, and then the body that belonged to them, covered in a sort of maid outfit caked with mud.
My heart stopped, and I couldn’t process the face, with his hair mussed and dark brown growth all over his face. His thin mustache was longer now, not having been trimmed and taken care of.
Hadriel.
He’d come with me after all…in a maid outfit, as promised.
Tears came to my eyes, and laughing sobs racked my tired body. Then just sobs. No matter how good it felt to see him, I didn’t want this for him. He couldn’t handle the sort of life that this part of the dungeon endured. It would be a death sentence for him.
“Go back,” I struggled to say, but whom was I talking to? It was too late. He was here now.