Chapter 30
Chapter
Thirty
CLAYTON
“So,” Clayton said, desperate to get the attention away from himself, and happy to use Mal’s current state of shock to move things along. “Let’s go rescue the rest of the kids, shall we? Princess Stinky’s spell is still on code yellow, but it’s drifting to orange.”
It was difficult to tell while observing the spell with an anxious heart, but he was fairly certain the danger to his kids was increasing.
With his new memories in place, Clayton had doubled his need to rescue Tommy and Merry. It was weird being so much older than them when, once upon a time, they were the big kids he’d worshiped so dearly. They’d done their best to protect him and keep him safe, and now it was his turn.
“The kids can wait a few more minutes, Red,” Mal said, rubbing his face against Clayton’s hair like a cat marking his territory.
“Tell me what you want out of this situation. No, don’t look at them,” Mal caught Clayton’s chin and made him face Mal when Clayton tried to see what his parents thought.
“What they want doesn’t matter. If you want them gone, then they’re gone.
I can get the kids back myself if I need to. ”
“Mal, I don’t want you to bump off my parents.”
“I won’t need to. I can keep them away while we deal with this. If you need time away from them to sort out your thoughts, I’ll make it happen.”
“I…” What did Clayton want? He didn’t have the first clue, but he did know that he didn’t want them to go away. “I want them to stay. Let’s figure this all out together once we get the rest of the family back.”
Mal nodded in satisfaction. “Then that’s what will happen.”
“Sheesh, you don’t need to be so dramatic about it. I can get the kids back myself if I need to.” Clayton said in a gruff voice, trying to sound like Mal. “How powerful are you anyway?”
Mal shrugged, but it was in an annoyingly smug way that made Clayton want to suck his dick on the spot. But since Clayton’s parents were there—and a mystery creature he kept forgetting about—he refrained.
Instead, Clayton decided to address the mystery creature in the room—er, void.
“Excuse me, my good friend,” Clayton began, ignoring Mal’s snort of amusement and his parents’ (he had parents!) look of confusion at his sudden change in demeanor. “Could I trouble you to tell me who you are?”
Mal leaned down and whispered into Clayton’s ear. “It turns me on when you get fussy and proper.”
Clayton’s ear became molten-hot, and he jabbed Mal in the ribs with his elbow as hard as he could. Mal rubbed his side with an air of betrayed innocence, but Clayton didn’t believe he’d injured the man one bit.
The hazy creature before them whispered, “I am Here.”
“Yes, as are we all. Though I’m not entirely certain where here is,” Clayton said after a moment of confusion. “Can you tell me your name?”
Clayton could have sworn that the misty creature gave a sigh weighted with ancient frustration without making a sound. “My name is Here, you absolute… Ahem. Please excuse me. I’ve been under a considerable amount of strain since I was invaded. I meant no disrespect.”
Clayton’s toes were practically wiggling in his shoes. Someone who knew how to be polite? Now this, he could work with. “No worries, my good man, um, person, um… entity? Quite understandable. You say you were invaded?”
“What’s it saying?” Mal interjected, putting himself between Clayton and Here.
Clayton shoved Mal away and hissed, “I’d know if someone wasn’t interrupting me every three seconds.”
“How am I supposed to know if it’s hitting on you if I don’t check in?”
Elena stroked Naerith’s head like a puppy and said, “Aw, honey, Mal is just like you.”
Naerith leaned into her hand and gave her a besotted grin. “He knows quality when he sees it.”
Clayton averted his gaze because watching his incredibly hot parents flirt wasn’t something he ever needed to do. Fortunately, he had other business to pay attention to.
“Tell your mate that you’re not my type.”
When Clayton relayed the information, instead of being pacified, Mal snarled, “How can Clayton not be your type? Are you stupid?”
“I’m a sentient pocket dimension. We don’t mate.”
“Okay, okay, enough,” Clayton said, pinching the bridge of his nose in an attempt to fend off an impending stress headache.
“First of all, Mal, do the thing you did earlier so you can communicate with Here on your own. Second, I would like to save the rest of our family before I grow old and die. Can we all make that happen, please?”
Mal made a grumbly noise before agreeing. “Fine.”
Mal’s gaze went distant, and Clayton sensed a subtle tension in the energy around them. It was like Mal grabbed reality itself, pulled, and planned to continue until reality cried uncle and gave him what he wanted. There was a popping sensation, and Mal gave a small, triumphant smile.
Either Mal was getting stronger, or Clayton was becoming more attuned to him and could sense his magic better. Whatever the case may be, he was getting a fascinating front-row view of some of the coolest magic he’d ever witnessed.
“I don’t want your mate, nightmare. I only want my freedom.”
Mal’s eyes took on a cold gleam of calculation. “What are you willing to do to get it?”
“Nothing,” Clayton said, nipping Mal’s ideas in the bud.
“You don’t have to do anything, Here. We’re going to get rid of all the bad guys, whether you help or not.
You’ve done more than enough by reuniting me with my parents.
If you want to help, you can, but it would be nice if you didn’t get in our way anymore. ”
The misty figure smiled in a way that Clayton hoped to never see again.
Since it didn’t have any distinct features, a hole opened up in the vaguely head-shaped area of its body, and it formed into a half crescent with the tips pointing up, but instead of stopping where a normal smile would, it continued to stretch well past the limits of its head.
Clayton’s eye twitched as he fought to contain the soul-deep horror the sight instilled in him.
“I was instructed by my master to place as many barriers against you as I could before I ran out of energy. You’ll have to face them before I can allow you to leave.”
“That doesn’t sound ideal,” Clayton said, mind churning away to create discussion points that might sway the creature to reconsider.
A tiny rectangle, the height of an index finger, appeared before Clayton.
Behind it, another popped into existence, then another behind it.
Then another. Within seconds, there were hundreds of tiny rectangles lined up like dominoes.
In less than a minute, there were thousands.
Shortly after, there were so many that they seemed to stretch out infinitely into the mist.
“Um… those look pretty flimsy.” Clayton gave the first one a poke, and it fell backward, hitting the one behind it, causing it to hit the one behind it, and so on in a domino effect.
The little rectangles continued to fall over until they were out of sight, and he wondered how far the line extended.
“That was exhausting. You are a worthy foe, Clayton. I must rest now to recover my energy.”
“That was it?”
“Did you really want to face my real traps until I exhausted myself? Your mate might be able to slip past me effortlessly, but I sincerely doubt the rest of you could.”
“No, no, that was fine, thank you. Clever, too, actually. I’m impressed. If you ever want a job with the Guard—” Clayton realized that after today, he might not have a job with the Guard, so he wasn’t in a position to give anyone else a leg up. “Actually, nevermind. They aren’t that great anyway.”
“They’re really not,” Mal agreed. “From my experience, they’re stupid, have an exaggerated sense of self-worth, no true fighting capabilities, and they’re not half as attractive as some people think they are.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m not interested in Marshall, okay? You don’t need to stress about it. I only like my men scary beyond all reason.”
“Remember that.”
Here gave an awkward cough.“So… I’m just going to let you all go, and you can finish this conversation somewhere that isn’t directly inside my mind. Have fun, and don’t forget to kill the people who enslaved me.”
“We’re inside your mind? Like, physically?
” Clayton got a massive thrill of excitement at the prospect of exploring the concept further, but the mist vanished and dropped them right in the middle of five bedraggled and exhausted fae hiding behind a rock wall, completely covered in misshapen crumpets and foul-smelling jam.
Clayton swallowed hard. “Oh. Well, then. I guess we’re fighting now. Mal?”
“On it, Red.” Mal gave him a feral grin, cracked his knuckles, and got to work.
Clayton backed up to give his man room to work, but he needn’t have bothered. Mal gestured with both hands, grabbing at something invisible, whispered “Dread,” lovingly, and pulled.
Before Clayton’s fascinated gaze, the life drained from all five fae, each one with an expression of abject horror. It was so fast, none of them had a chance to so much as peep.
“Don’t get sentimental; they had it coming to them. Trust me," Mal said, licking his lips with an obscenely long tongue as he savored his meal.
“Sentimental?” Elena spat. “They killed our friends and stole our children. If we had time, I’d make Naerith piss on their corpses.”
Naerith and Clayton both pointed at Elena and said, “What she said.”
Naerith gave Clayton a delighted, fatherly smile, but it transformed into something hard and sharp immediately. “They took too much from us, Mal. They deserve whatever they get. No mercy.”
“No mercy,” Clayton agreed.
Fuck them all. Clayton was getting his family back.
Mal gave Clayton a wink. “Your wish is my command.”