Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
Night had fallen by the time we arrived in Madison.
It was cold, and the wind howled around the airport.
Cress stalked through the airport to the luggage claim, glaring furiously at everyone.
Her nap on the plane hadn’t been nearly long enough.
She’d scared everyone around her by jolting awake after about half an hour, shouting an ancient curse in a foreign tongue.
Now, with a face like thunder, she stalked like a grumpy cat through the arrivals lounge, grumbling about how awful the flight was and how humans desperately needed to import some dragons and destroy the whole airline industry.
I flinched every single time she looked in my direction. For me, the flight had been both torture and absolute bliss.
Donovan held my hand the whole time.
I was a mess. My feelings for him kept morphing and expanding and running away; I couldn’t keep up. There were so many layers to him, and I’d only just started unraveling them. His confession—that little bit of vulnerability—only made me fall for him harder.
Cress was going to rip out my windpipe and use it as a hair tie. The little nap on the plane didn’t seem to do her any good, and she seemed even more frustrated than ever. Even now, she seemed on high alert, carefully assessing all the very muscular women that strode through the airport.
We reached the baggage claim and joined the crowd of people waiting in front of the sad, empty carousel.
Our luggage clearly hadn’t been unloaded yet, so Cress and Donovan took the opportunity to do several laps of the arrivals lounge, trying to find a berserker, while Nate and Eryk hurried around looking for Cecil, who, still pretending to be a bratty little toddler, had suddenly disappeared.
“Where are we staying, Sue?” Bart asked me while we waited for the luggage to appear on the empty conveyor belt.
“Nowhere good.” I chewed on the side of my thumbnail.
“Pickings were slim, Bart. The whole city is booked out for the Ultimate Strong championships. I didn't want to have to book somewhere too far away from the stadium, but I managed to get us three rooms upstairs at an Irish pub not far away from the venue.” I grimaced. “We’re going to have to share.” I’d already resigned myself to trying to share a bed with Bart, who was as big as a king-sized bed himself.
But anything would be better than trying to squeeze in with Eryk, Nate, and Cecil—or, god forbid, with Donovan and Cress.
I watched both of them for a second, slinking through the arrivals lounge like ghosts, carefully assessing every single mortal-shaped person with a hint of muscle that walked by.
They were perfectly in sync, winding in and out of the crowds, communicating to each other with subtle nods and the odd pointed glare.
They were so familiar with each other, so similar, perfectly matched in grace and power.
Jealousy felt like sharp claws in my chest. Despite Donovan dismissing Cress as a pain in his ass, I could tell he loved her.
It was there in the way he put himself in front of anything that could be considered a threat, blocking her from taking it on herself.
I remembered him telling her to back away from me when she was putting on my weapons.
The icy note of jealousy in his tone was unmistakable.
He didn’t want Cress touching anyone else; that was obvious.
Cecil appeared, riding the luggage conveyor belt, clamoring over suitcases and kicking over duffel bags.
He blew a raspberry as he drifted past. “So, we’re sharing rooms?
Bags rooming with my daddies! Hey, Daddy!
Daddy!” He jumped up and down on the luggage, yelling at Nate and Eryk.
“Dad-deeeee!” He threw a baby bottle. Vodka splashed.
Eryk cringed. Nate put his head in his hands.
Donovan and Cress rejoined us, stalking back to the luggage claim like supermodels.
“No berserkers?” I asked.
Cress shook her head. “It is infuriating. They look like berserkers.” She waved her hand, gesturing towards an absolutely ripped young woman who was walking past, wheeling twenty suitcases stacked up behind her. “But all these people are human.”
“We’ll find one.” And we had to do it soon. My worry for Audrina was starting to consume me.
“We have bigger problems,” Donovan said, his tone grim.
I glanced up at him. “What is it?”
“We are not alone.” Cress gestured to some oily spots on the floor near the exit. “Banwyn excrement.”
I looked. Sure enough, there were dark tarry-like substances there. “Connor is here?”
“He has been here.” Donovan’s eyes blazed in an almost preternatural way, as if his fury couldn’t be contained. “His minions have been here. Their spoor is not too old. Like us, it appears they have traveled here, to this city, to follow the berserkers.”
“They got here before us?” Oh, no. This meant Audrina was only a step away from Connor. Did he have her now? Was he hurting her?
Donovan moved closer towards me and nodded. “Connor will be traveling with his assassin.”
The memory of the huge fae warrior in pitch-black armor loomed up in my mind like a specter. “Agarthon?”
“I hope so.” Cress cracked her knuckles.
“Wait.” I shook my head. “He has other assassins?”
Donovan nodded, moving a little closer again as a group of new arrivals streamed into the luggage claim.
“I will tell you of them later. We must find rest now. The others are magically depleted and will be prone to making grave errors of judgment.” His eyes drifted over the moving conveyor.
Our luggage had finally appeared. Nate held baby Cecil in a headlock while Eryk loaded our bags onto a cart.
“Did you find us any lodgings for the night?”
“I did.” It had taken me longer than usual.
All the online booking sites were showing no vacancies anywhere in the city.
I had to resort to calling a long list of local businesses with ‘hotel’ in the title to find somewhere that could squeeze us in.
And even then, I had to lay on the charm in spades to talk the bar’s proprietor into letting us have the rooms. Apparently, he always kept a few free in case his favorite customers got too drunk, and he needed somewhere to throw them to sober up.
“It’s not the Ritz, but it will do for the night. ”
Donovan’s eyes glowed again. “I was not looking forward to sheltering under a bridge in this place. We need privacy to recharge.” His gaze turned to a smolder. “You are most resourceful in finding us shelter.”
“It was nothing,” I stammered.
“It is not. I understand there is no lodging anywhere in the city. Yet you found us something.”
“Yes.” Cress stepped into the tiny space in between us, shoving Donovan back with her hip. “You are most resourceful, Chosen.” She stared down at me, thrusting out her chest so it almost touched mine.
I cringed back. “Uh. Thanks.” I could almost feel the combatant rage emanating from her. This bitch was going to murder me in my sleep.
I hustled the whole company out into the frosty night and tried to get an Uber, but there were none around.
After a long wait, I managed to hail a minivan taxi to take us to the pub.
As the taxi pulled over to the curb beside us, Donovan gently moved me out of the way.
“I will handle the carriage driver today, Chosen.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary?—”
He stuck his head in the open window and glared at the driver. “Are you an honorable man?”
The driver—a large middle-aged man with a bald spot and black bristly stubble all over his chin—glared right back at him. “What kinda question is that? I get you from A to B, buddy, that’s my whole job. Now, you hailed me. You wanna ride somewhere or not?”
Donovan scowled. “You will answer the question.”
“I don’t get paid to answer questions. I get paid to drive, pal. I don’t need to be honorable. You getting in or not?”
“We are not,” Donovan growled.
“We are!” I tugged on Donovan’s hoodie, pulling him back. “We’re not going to get another taxi big enough at this hour.”
“There are no other carriages?”
“It’s late, and it’s Saturday night, Donovan. We were lucky we got this one.”
“Yeah, y’all are lucky,” the driver said. “Lucky I’m not driving off right now.” He hit a button on the console, and a timer began to click over at an alarming rate. “You better decide quickly, buddy, or it’s gonna cost ya.”
“It’s this, or we have to split up,” I hissed.
Donovan leaned closer, meeting my eyes. “You will not sit next to him, Chosen.”
“I don’t have to. This is a, uh, a private carriage, Donovan. There’s no one else in it. We can all sit in the back.” I slid the back door open and showed him. “See? Go on.”
He inspected the back seat, noting the plastic security partition between the front and back. “There are not enough seats. One of us will have to sit next to the driver.”
“You gotta ask first, pal,” the driver snapped. “There’s a reason there’s a security screen. This is a tough job, and I take my safety seriously.”
I butted Donovan out of the way with my hip and stuck my head in the driver’s side window.
The ID on the dash said his name was Greg.
I noted the bags under his eyes, the stubble on his cheeks, and the veteran sticker on the window.
“Would you mind, sir? We’re all really tired.
I just want to get us to our accommodation so we can rest.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Since you asked so politely, sure, honey. One of you girls, though. And no talking. I don’t wanna hear no bitching in my ear while I’m driving.”
Donovan opened the passenger door. “Cress, you will do the honors.”
She screwed up her nose. “I will not speak, but I cannot promise he will have all his limbs when the ride is finished.”