Chapter 17
Chapter
Seventeen
Talon hummed as he went through the motions of working out with the heavy bag, punching it and kicking it, keeping his feet and hands toughened in his human form.
He wasn’t angry or upset. He was just working out.
He was going to go have a swim after this, and then he was going to get in the hot tub.
Cautiously, in fact, Talon felt optimistic.
His mate was getting healthier every day. His best friend and his mate were getting along better every day. And, knock on wood, there had not been a rescue that he’d had to leave the keep for in several weeks.
Kami had heard the call of a couple of stones, but they’d all been relatively local, so no question of whether Mercury was going to slide them to wherever the stone was had come up. That worked for him.
He didn’t want Mercury sliding while he was pregnant. He wasn’t particularly sure he wanted Mercury sliding at all right now, even if he wasn’t pregnant. It just seemed super dangerous to pop up someplace, especially when they knew now that there was a whole keep which had been destroyed.
Cerran had made up with Triton and Elowyn as well and was spending more time at home. He was still working the diplomat angle, but it was as if he’d found his balance again.
Talon punched the bag a few more times before backing off and giving it a massive kick. Watching it swing way too far out. He caught it with his hands, not wanting it to go flying.
“Are we having a little bit of a temper?” Reno came in, pulling off his sweater and leaving himself in a pair of loose workout pants and a tank top.
Talon raised an eyebrow. “Believe it or not, I was actually in a good mood. I still am, although thinking about that keep that got attacked is enough to creep in and make my thoughts sour a tad.”
“Wanna spar?” Reno rocked his head from side to side, then jumped up and down, swinging his arms, loosening everything up.
“Sure, why not?” He could wait to go for that swim. Maybe he would go directly from the training salle to the hot tub. Talon liked actually working out with a partner, simulating hand-to-hand combat. It kept him much sharper.
“So I gotta tell you it’s been nice that Kami and Mercury are making friends.”
“I think so too. And I know the other omegas have been very kind to both of them, but they’re kind of odd ducks, and I’m not sure how much the others actually get them, if you know what I mean.”
“I know exactly what you mean. Sort of like you and Triton. Odd ducks.”
That had him snorting, because he and Triton were odd even by warrior standards. And some of the keeps had produced some stunningly strange alphas. “We have our moments,” he admitted.
“Dude, I’m a little strange myself, I was banished to Reno, for God’s sake. To the desert. And then I hooked up with a stone singer.”
“You remember that Christmas special that we watched last year? We are the Island of Misfit Toys.”
Reno hooted and finished limbering himself up in defensive stance in the middle of the mat. “Well, bring it on, fellow misfit.”
They sparred for quite a while, both of them working up a sweat, panting a little bit by the time they were done. And they had an audience of younger alphas when they were finished as well.
They were surrounded almost immediately when they stopped. “Could you teach us that move, Reno? Could you show us how you did that, Talon?” The chorus of young voices was a little bit overwhelming, but he was proud to know that his skills were well thought of.
A sudden shriek in his mind made him stagger, and he grunted, trying to figure out what the hell had just happened.
Reno went pale under his scales, his eyes going wide. “Kami!”
He turned and raced out of the training salle, and Talon immediately followed, searching for Mercury in his mind. And coming up blank.
Reno roared, the huge dragon heading straight up, which was the opposite direction of their quarters.
Where are you going?
To get my damn mate?
Talon followed Reno, trusting the big warrior implicitly, but he didn’t understand.
Mercury was at home.
No. Kami took Mercury to play with rocks. I think they were hoping to find your baby’s stone. I don’t know, but they were going to go to the caves.
Surely there wasn’t a cave-in or anything. They must have just decided to slide and then they’ll be back in a minute.
At least he could hope so, right?
What were they thinking? Reno demanded even as they crashed through the doors to Cain’s main office, sending Betty scrambling to her feet.
“What’s going on?”
Reno roared and tried to explain, even though he was in full-on dragon, and Talon just ran toward the caves searching for Mercury, for his presence, for his scent, for anything.
He wouldn’t give in to panic. No, he had to find Mercury.
Hailee! Hailee, where are you? Tell me, and I’ll come to you.
Silence rang in his ears, and he panted, looking for a sign that Kami and Mercury had come this way.
He found it—a pair of water bottles, a pack with sandwiches and apples. Reno, they were here!
Reno came in barreling into the room, still mostly dragon. What are they now?
I don’t know, I can’t reach him. Can you reach Kami at all?
Reno blew out a frustrated breath. They could be on the moon.
Don’t say that! From what he understood about how this worked, if Kami had wanted to go to the moon and Mercury hadn’t been trying to control himself, they could be on the moon. Dead.
Mercury wasn’t the most careful dragon where his friends were concerned, and while Kami wouldn’t do anything to hurt Mercury, Talon could totally see him grabbing Mercury’s hand and saying, “I wish we could go to the moon.”
Reno stared at him. “You know you’re going to have to fix that before you have children. Can you imagine?”
Talon didn’t even want to try.
“It smells bad.”
Kami looked around at where they’d slid to, staring, eyes huge. “Where the fuck are we?”
“I don’t know!” Mercury stared at him. “You’re the one who wanted to go.”
Kami shook his head. “Uh-uh.”
“Well, I can’t do it by myself. I have to have a direction. There has to be a person leading. You have to have done it. I can’t do it! I’m just the—”
He sat down with a thump, his legs giving out. It was damp and moldy and icky and he didn’t want to be here.
“Well, let’s go home.”
“Fine, but you’re going to have to give me a minute. This is hard.”
Kami started pacing. “Okay. Okay, right. You’re right. You’re totally right. It’s hard, okay. Where the fuck are we, and why the fuck did we get here? Have you ever seen this place?”
Mercury looked around, and then he thought he was going to be sick. “I have. I have seen this place. This is the place that Biram brought me. Why did you bring me here?”
Kami shook his head. “I saw a stone, and I was coming to tell you that we needed to go find the stone. That’s all.”
It didn’t make any sense. “One way or the other, it’s gonna take a minute for me to be able to do it again, to go home, so find the stone. If that’s why we’re here, we should get it, but hurry up. I don’t like it here, and it’s scary.”
Kami snorted, dismissing him. “It’s just an old place.”
“No.” Mercury shook his head.
“It is. It’s just an old, dead, deserted place.”
“It’s not deserted.” Mercury knew that like he knew his own name. He could sense it, things moving toward them.
Kami glanced around, shoulders hunching up around his ears. “What do you mean it’s not deserted?”
“I can hear things, Kami. Just under the noise level of this goosh.” He tried not to scratch his arms like he did when he was nervous. It wouldn’t do him any good, and it might get ick into his scratches.
“What the hell is goosh?”
Mercury scowled up at Kami, waving a hand in the air. “This goo. All of this nasty icky goo around us, the mold and the dirt and the wetness and the moss.”
“And it’s making noise?” Kami kicked at a ball of moss on the ground, and it squished.
“Yes, can you not hear the stripping water and the slithering sounds?”
Kami rubbed his own arms as if we’re to go off a chill. “I’m trying really hard not to. Will you get up?” He held down a hand to Mercury. “You can help me find the stone while conserving your magical energy at the same time.”
“Fine.” He grabbed Kami’s hand and stood because he didn’t really want to be in the goosh , as he called it. He glanced around. “What does this stone look like? Is it cut? Is it natural?”
“It’s a cut stone. It’s in a box. At least that’s what the song is saying.”
Mercury nodded. “So that means it’s worth something to somebody or it was. It’s going to be inside one of the buildings.”
Kami squinted at the tall keep buildings in front of them, tilting his head and appearing doubtful. “Do you think it’s actually structurally sound in there?”
All he could do was shrug. “I mean, it looks like it’s made of stone. I’m sure there’s some infrastructure that’s made of wood and it might be rotting, but could we not think about that and just go find this rock?”
Of course. Kami kept a hold of his hand though, gripping it tightly. “Can you hear Talon?”
“No.” No, he couldn’t hear his braaken and he hated that. That meant they were too far away. The mental communication game was not precise, necessarily, and their bond was still relatively new. “You can’t hear Reno?”
“I thought I heard him roar not too long ago. But he wasn’t roaring here, he was roaring there. Does that make sense?”
“Too much sense,” he muttered. “Come on, let’s find that stone.”
This was where Kami proved himself to be efficient and good at his job because he broke everything down into grids, and they started searching from the top down.
It stood to reason that nobody would hide something they considered truly valuable on the bottom floor and have it still be there when they showed up.