Chapter Twenty-Nine
The door gave in and we sank into the ground. We meaning Laken and I, as I’d discovered, but he’d already jumped up to shut the door.
“What the fuck was that?” Remaining on my ass in the dirt, I waited. “Did you smuggle a fucking explosive elixir in here or some shit?”
Hastily, he reached out a hand to help me. “Lightning bug.”
“Lightning bug? What… you walk around with bugs crawling in your pockets? Since when can lightning bugs do that?”
He lifted me to my feet. “The Wraiths breed these, they’re different. If you have any more questions, please hold them till the end.” He nodded toward the pigs. “We have to go.”
The rancid smell of manure drew a gag from me. Looking down, my once-flawless gown had become filthy with mud and whatever else I imagined being in a pigsty. Dirt filled my shoes, and Laken’s outfit matched.
Searching the grounds, cage after cage lined the dirt, but all were empty—except one.
Two round pink bodies trod along, eating out of their trough as though nothing had happened.
Clear, sparkling wings fluttered on their backs while little grunts came from their noses.
Swirly tails, folded ears, tiny tusks, and claws.
These were definitely our piggly wigglys.
Without hesitation, we darted for the pigs’ pen. I could walk and talk. “Wait—how did you get out of the auction?” He definitely didn’t tell them it was his time of month.
As he fiddled with the lock, I couldn’t tell what Laken struggled with more—the gate or talking to me. “Well, I waited for them to come looking for you, then I slipped out behind them.”
My jaw dropped. “I was your bait?”
“They weren’t going to let me through, so…” The lock gave.
The audacity, the treachery, the—“Laken Augustus, I could’ve been killed!”
“Not with me at your back,” he amended.
Except he wasn’t at my back, not for a little while.
Long enough I could’ve had my spine ripped out and made into a necklace.
That argument would have to wait for later—we had bigger pigs to wrestle.
We took one step into their pen and the screeching started—like nails on a chalkboard.
They didn’t trust us. And they didn’t like us. Probably for good reason.
The noise would’ve immediately alerted the entire mansion if sound traveled through those thick walls. But with the guards Laken had rendered unconscious, our time already ticked.
“Alright, McCarthen.” Laken bent his legs a bit, preparing to fight for this win. “Let’s see it.” He waved two fingers to the pig on the left—my pig, I guessed. The smaller of the two.
The pen wasn’t too big, a square with enough room for the four of us to chase each other like a game of cat and mouse.
My heels sank into the mud with each step, my ankles rolled one way after another.
The oozing between my toes sent a chill up my spine, but I steadied my focus.
I focused. I focused… on the mud filling the gaps between my toes like jelly.
The shoes were done—gone for and never worried about again after I unlatched them.
My piggly wiggly avoided eye contact, smothering herself in the mud. Lovely.
Two more steps and I could snatch her, two more steps. I moved, slow and steady, keeping my arms out to my side as if she’d jump right into them. I licked my lips, then parted them to ease my breathing so she didn’t hear me panting like a couch potato forced to exercise.
One more step.
She snapped her head up, took one look at me, and bolted. So I did what I thought best: I lunged.
And missed.
And instead, ate mud.
From the absolute ruckus behind me, I assumed my failed attempt to catch her had also triggered Laken’s, as both of our pigs ran in circles, hollering away. Okay, I might’ve messed that up.
Laken pulled me up from under my arms and I stood, barefooted and ready to barrel into some pigs. Except as they both hauled around us, I couldn’t tell which was which.
“Which one’s mine?”
“I don’t know.” He kept calm, even during the pig masquerade. He shuffled around me so we were back-to-back.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?” My little boiling pot of I didn’t get the last word in last time, so let’s argue about it again began to simmer and spill over the top.
Wiping mud from my dress, I gathered it in my hand.
“Oh, you mean like how you said you didn’t know how you’d get out of the room”—I whipped around, slinging a handful of mud—“so you used me for bait?”
Mud splattered across Laken’s dreamy face, and he stopped moving.
The world stopped moving. The pigs stopped moving.
He is the Gods. He is the Grace. He is Mud Face. Laken’s ocean eyes were aimed at me like a tidal wave ready for landing. The brown, wet trail bled down his face and over his brow. Lifting his hand, he wiped it clear enough it wouldn’t get in his eyes.
I raised my brows.
Laken stood so close our filthy stains nearly smeared against each other. Dark-blond hair once highlighted by the sun now appeared to be low-lighted. My muscles pounded. My heart raced.
He slung the mud off his hand with a dramatic flair. “I used you for bait because I knew I could save your ass and you couldn’t have saved mine.”
I was appalled. “Oh, I am plenty good at saving ass.”
He must’ve thought I was joking by the look he gave, shifting around to take another look at the dirt covering my rear. “You couldn’t even save yours!”
Yeah, well… well? “Okay, and?”
I didn’t give him time for a smart-ass remark. Taking my hand, soaked with mud, I slapped a good handprint right on his formally dressed ass cheek.
Reeling back, shocked, and maybe a bit vexed, he held my stare like it was a showdown. I shrugged without any regrets weighing on my shoulders. “Now we both have dirty asses.”
He took a step forward and laid a muddy hand around my throat. I am not into this. I am not into this. I am not into this. I am not—
“By the look on your face”—his burning gaze ghosted from my eyes to my lips and back up—“I’d say you have more than a dirty ass.”
I swallowed. Motherfuc—
Doors blasted open, wood pieces splintering as two guards stampeded out of the mansion. Laken and I snapped up our heads, both of us freezing until he said, “Tackle those pigs.”
Determined, I nodded. “You got it.”
Not because I thought I could, but because I knew Laken needed me to, so he could handle them. Them as in the two boulders with swords hurling toward us. Them as in the ones standing at least half a foot taller than Laken. I’d take my chances with the pigs.
Facing the pork chops, I handled it like they were two of my own. “Alright, you little bastards.”
Without being able to see Laken behind me, I listened carefully for his voice, or more specifically, his cries.
But nothing came. A lot of loud clashing and grunting.
I hoped his fight was going better than mine because after two failed tackles, I stood with mud-crusted hair looking like I’d walked out of a swamp I disappeared in ten years ago.
Needing a moment to breathe, needing to know Laken was okay, I turned. And the unholy, sinister thoughts that filled my mind were not something I’d expected.
The second body dropped from his grip, the first already lying behind him, bent over a gate to another cage.
Laken glared up at me from under his lashes, feral and panting, wiping the blood from his lips with his thumb.
My own mouth parted, thirsty—no, parched—and feeling greedy because he was a fine glass of wine.
What happened to my mind? I’d seen Laken naked.
I’d seen him lift heavy things, I’d seen him with his sleeves rolled up and reading a book.
I’d seen Laken taking me in the mirror before.
And yet, seeing him with a red trail down his chin could’ve brought me to my knees if it weren’t for the squealing pigs. Laken did his job—I could do mine. If out of anything, out of spite. I wasn’t about to let him outdo me, even if our tasks were… unbalanced.
Watching, studying the pigs running in circles around the pen, I waited. Like a predator stalking its prey, if I waited until their paths crossed and…
Tackled them!
Face-planting straight into mud, pig booty, and hooves, I wrapped a firm arm around each and refused to let go. As I tilted my head up for air, Laken grabbed one and tucked it under his arm before helping me up.
Standing before him, mud pie personified, I laughed. This couldn’t have gone much worse, without one of us being injured. Out of all the luck in the world, how did I end up smuggling pigs out of a secret auction with my ex-lover/best friend/currently-still-figuring-it-out?
“There’ll be more coming, best get to it.” Laken grinned, his white teeth shining against the blood and muck. Another side of him unlocked.
Running with squealing pigs slipping in our arms, we made it to Moon and the cart, where I crawled up in the back with the cages.
We tried to stay quiet, but the pigs echoed under the metal roof of the stable.
The smell of hay and horse defiled the air, but it smelled better than the pigsty.
There must’ve been a hundred carts and carriages under the same roof, some embellished with gold linings and some engraved with symbols I didn’t recognize.
Settling mine into the little crate and latching the lock, I whispered soft words to her in hopes she’d know we did this to help. McCarthen’s was a better home than where she’d be heading if we hadn’t intervened.
Laken handed me his, and I placed him inside as gently as one possibly could handle a feisty piggly wiggly.
Laken’s grunts cut through the air.
Whipping around, my body trembled as he battled two guards. I froze, unable to think and terrified. How could I help? Could I even help? What do I do? What do I do!
Fighting one in the front with his legs, another held him by the neck in a choke hold.
Without thinking, I slammed a foot into the pig’s cage and dove—grabbing the dagger from my thigh and stabbing it into the back of the guard holding Laken.
The dagger did indeed penetrate his skin, as intended. And I wasn’t really sure what happened after that.
“I stabbed him!” I yanked my hand off the handle and threw myself back. Oh my Gods. I stared at the blood oozing from his back, sliding down the velvet of his crimson uniform. At least it won’t stain, right?
“Oh my Gods! Oh my Gods! I stabbed him, oh my—” My stomach rose in my throat. My hands flailed as the guard I’d stabbed, but not killed, spun toward me.
Shit.
Deep shit, indeed.
Meeting his murderous glare, I backed into the cart with trembling limbs as he raised his hand. I’d die stealing pigs. Covered in mud. Reeking of pig and horse manure.
There actually weren’t worse ways to die.
“Bitch,” the guard growled. One hand reached for the dagger in his back, but the other flailed around.
Panicked, I didn’t know what else to do.
I grabbed his thumb—and bent it like Laken had shown in our self-defense session.
He screamed. I let go. I screamed. There was a lot of screaming.
Unfortunately, he rose. And I couldn’t reach his wrist, or thumbs, or any weapons at all. I’m screwed, I thought.
I waited for his blow to land.
I waited for the cold steel to slash through my flesh.
What I got was a warm, liquid splatter across my face followed by a loud thud. Daring to look up, I became vaguely aware of the (unconscious, not dead) bodies surrounding me and became completely aware of the worry-struck wide-eyed gaze of Laken Augustus.
He closed his eyes, his head tilted back. “Thank the fucking Gods,” he whispered like a prayer. The muscles in his neck were strained, his veins running rapid from the rush of blood pulsing through them. His knuckles around his blade were white but slowly regaining their color.
I lived.
I wanted a badge saying, “Survived pig smuggling.”
Laken grabbed his dagger from the back of the guard (the one I’d stabbed) and pulled me to my feet.
Despite our unsettled argument and undecided fate, when he pulled me into a hug, I welcomed it.
His hand held the back of my head against his chest as his lips kissed my hair.
He still smelled like mint and honey. “Let’s go home, McCarthen. ”