Chapter 14 #2
He followed Rob over to where twelve uniformed trolls sat. Dressed in the red-and-green armor of the royal guard, they were remarkably subdued.
That set his nerves on edge. It wasn’t like a group of trolls to be so quiet. Especially not a royal patrol.
“What’s going on?” he asked Rob as they sat down at the head of the table.
Rob shook his head. “Guess you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
“My father’s ill.”
Xaydin wasn’t sure how to handle that news. On the one hand, he felt bad for his cousin. But this was the bastard who’d helped kill his father and who ruled their people through his idiot brother. “How bad is it?”
Rob glanced over to his second in command. “They don’t think he’ll live.”
He grimaced at the news. While he hated his uncle, he didn’t really wish him dead. Before Gregun had decided to kill Xaydin’s father, he’d loved his uncle. That was why the betrayal had cut so deep.
All his personal feelings aside, he wished he knew the words to comfort his cousin. “Sorry.”
“Thank you.” Rob leaned back as a server brought them two tankards of ale. “And I should probably let you know that your brother wants you taken into custody.”
That was completely unexpected. “Wait…what?”
He nodded. “Zagrun’s afraid you’ll be after the throne once my father dies.”
Xaydin rolled his eyes. “If I wanted the throne, I wouldn’t have to wait for your father or my brother to die. I’d take it and kick their asses into a dungeon.”
“I tried to tell them. No one listens to me.”
Xaydin folded his arms over his chest. “Is that why you’re here?”
“God, no. This really was a happy accident while we were traveling through to the capital. As far as we’re all concerned, we didn’t see anything. Did we, boys?”
One by one, they shook their heads.
Rob smiled. “You know trolls. Hand us some ale and mead, and we’re all good.”
Xaydin wasn’t sure if he should trust that or not, but normally they would follow Rob’s lead. The question was if this was a trap. Was his cousin trying to lull him into thinking he was safe?
Rob’s brothers wouldn’t hesitate to trick him. They were all sneaky bastards, but Rob could go either way. Sometimes he was decent.
Others…
Knife in the spine.
Problem was that you never knew which way he’d turn until it was too late.
Do you need help with that group?
He glanced toward Ronan and gave him a subtle shake of his head to let him know that he could handle this.
Taking the tankard, he drained it in one gulp.
Rob laughed. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
“Why would I?” He slammed the tankard on the table and clapped his cousin on the back. “Good seeing you.”
Xaydin rose slowly, waiting for betrayal. Rob and his soldiers stayed put. Even so, he didn’t take an easy breath until he was outside the inn, in the alley where he assumed the imposter had spent the night.
Ronan followed him out, then shifted into his normal appearance of a muscular man who stood head and shoulders over almost all human males.
With long, dark brown hair and stormy gray eyes, he could easily intimidate most…
but Xaydin wasn’t most. “Well, that in there made me shit my pants. How ’bout you? ”
Xaydin laughed. “Not even close. My cousin knows better than to start shit with me with that few a number of men to protect him.” At least outright.
Behind his back…
That was when Rob was most lethal.
“Glad you think that, X. I hope and pray that you’re always right.” Ronan grinned so sarcastically that he wanted to punch him. “Well, you’re not in jail or near death. Should I be scared or honored that you rang my bell?”
“Probably both, but it’s not as bad as you think.”
Ronan glanced about. “Oh, I don’t know about that. You know my mind runs on inappropriate thoughts of all kinds. Bad to worse is what I excel at.”
That was very true. No one wanted to give Ronan too much time to think. It never boded well, as his thoughts went to interesting and always wrong places. “Fine. I have a new traveling companion.”
“Imaginary friends, huh? Love it. I always thought you’d be the first of us to lose his mind. I should have made a bet for it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Tolerating the lot of you, it’s a wonder I have any sanity left.”
“I would be offended by that if it wasn’t true…so it’s an actual travel companion and not a figment?”
“Scary, right?”
“More than you know. I thought you hated people.”
Ronan had no idea.
Xaydin smirked. “Gets better.”
That caused one brow to shoot north. “How so?”
“She’s a shifter.”
Ronan stood there for several minutes as those words echoed through his head.
She’s. A. Shifter.
That entire sentence terrified him. Mostly because he really couldn’t process it. Not in any context that included Xaydin. Because he knew his friend better than anyone.
“She…she’s a shifter…”
“That’s what I said.”
“And you’re fine with this?”
He shoved at Ronan. “Hell no. I’m not fine with this. Why do you think I sent for you?”
“No idea. The thoughts in my head aren’t making the least bit of sense. First, it’s a woman. I honestly thought you weren’t into them.”
Xaydin scowled at him. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t get pissed. I wasn’t thinking that. Mostly, I figured you were celibate or…you know. A eunuch.”
By the offended look on Xaydin’s face, he knew he was about to get punched.
“Don’t get pissed,” he repeated. He stepped back, hopefully out of range.
“You have to admit that most of what you do is sit in the back of a pub, eyeing everyone for target practice. I’ve never seen you look at anyone or anything with an interest of that nature.
I didn’t know what all Meara did to you when we were captives, but…
” He gestured awkwardly at Xaydin’s crotch.
“For all we knew, she could have cut something off. I figured it was why you were always so eager to kill.”
“You’re such an ass.”
He wasn’t wrong, but this really wasn’t Ronan’s fault. Who could blame him for thinking Xaydin had no desires at all?
“Secondly, when have you started tolerating anyone around you?”
Xaydin wanted to respond snidely to that question. He really did, but what could he say to the truth?
“Anyway,” he said to get Ronan off a subject that was irritating him, “She’s the reason I sent for you.”
That appeared to shock him. “Why?” he asked slowly.
He shoved at Ronan. “Get your mind out of there. She’s a shifter.”
“I still don’t know how to react to that.”
Xaydin growled. “Stop it.”
Ronan shook his head. “Me stop it? Me? I’m sorry, I’m just having a hard time with something that refutes absolutely everything I know to be true about you. Since when can you stomach a shifter? Hell, you barely tolerate me and I’ve saved your life.”
All true. “I know. But she’s different. She hasn’t been around her kind…ever.”
That seemed to get his attention. “How do you know she’s a shifter, then?”
“I’ve seen her shift. But she has a lot of questions about it that I can’t answer. You being a shifter, I figured you could help her better than I could.”
“No kidding. That would be like me trying to teach someone to be a troll.”
“And…” Xaydin let his voice trail off.
“There’s an and? How can there be an and?”
Xaydin gave him a droll stare. “There’s not just an and, there’s a holy shit.”
Ronan rubbed at his eyebrow. “There can’t be anything more to this. I’m not sure my brain can take it.”
“Then you might want to sit.”
Ronan looked around the empty alley.
After a second of figuring out there wasn’t a chair nearby, he sat down on the ground and looked up with a hint of fear in his stormy eyes. “I’m scared to ask.”
“She’s Meara’s daughter.”
Ronan was glad that he’d taken Xaydin at his word and sat down. Because honestly, he would have fallen over had he still been on his feet.
Indeed, he was actually dizzy from it.
When he spoke, he enunciated each word carefully. “Let me make sure that I have this straight. You are traveling with Meara’s daughter who happens to be a shape shifter?”
Xaydin nodded slowly.
Ronan let those words seep into his own brain as he repeated them silently. “Just for my benefit, is there any part of that sentence that doesn’t fly in the face of everything I know about you?”
“Probably not.”
“Then can you show me your tongue?” He stood up.
Xaydin’s eyes flared. “Pardon?”
“I have to make sure that you’re you and that you’re not a shifter, too. Because none of this makes any logical sense to me.”
Xaydin would have been more offended if he wasn’t dealing with a shifter already posing as a family member. “Can you really tell?”
“Yeah.” Ronan lifted his tongue to the roof of his mouth so that Xaydin could see beneath it. There, toward the back on the left, was a peculiar black symbol. It was tiny and yet it was obvious that it was some sort of unique mark. “What is that?”
“Each of us is born with a unique mark and no matter what form we’re in, you can find it. It’s usually under a tongue, but if you don’t have a tongue for some reason, it’ll be somewhere else.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “All shifters have it, and the symbol is unique to each of us. No one has the same symbol, and we have no ability to change or hide the mark. It’s how we can identify each other.”
“And you never thought to tell me about this before?”
Ronan snorted. “Why would I? It’s not something you need to know, and given your unnatural hatred of us…why would I give you fodder for your fire? Or a reason to effectively find us.”
“Xaydin?”
He cursed at the sound of the imposter calling him from the street. He was just about to tell Ronan that was the other reason he’d sent for him…to deal with the fake Masakage.
As the imposter rounded the corner, Ronan vanished. Xaydin glanced around the alley, making sure he didn’t accidentally step on his friend who could be a spider or some other crawly creature.
The imposter drew up short. “What are you doing out here?”
Xaydin shrugged. “Thought I saw something, and I wanted to investigate it. What do you need?”
“The captain and his crew just left the inn. I thought you’d like to know.”
Not really.
But the less the imposter knew about his business, the better.
“Thank you.” Xaydin started back toward the inn.
The imposter glanced about the alley as if he detected something amiss.
Could shifters sense each other?
He’d never thought about that before.
After a few seconds, he clapped Xaydin on the back. “When are we leaving?”
He shrugged the imposter’s touch away. “As soon as Gisela’s ready.”
“Good.”
Xaydin took a step forward. And the moment he did, he felt a fierce sharp pain in his side. An instant later, he felt another one.
It wasn’t until the third pain that he realized he was being stabbed.
Staggering back, he coughed and gasped. Just as the imposter went to stab him a fourth time, a fierce screech sounded.
Xaydin barely recognized Gisela before she turned into a giant ogre and rushed them. She grabbed the imposter. One moment, he was standing over Xaydin and the next, he was rebounding off the wall across from him.
He wanted to help and to defend her, but the pain was overwhelming. More than that, it caused a fierce buzzing in his ears. One so bad that he could barely hear anything.
Unable to stand it, he tried to step toward her.
Instead, he fell.
Then everything went dark.