19. Ava
AVA
Ava’s blood ran cold as Talos turned back to her. That all-too-familiar cruel smile curved his lips at the edges, crinkling the corners of eyes, which remained stone cold.
“You’ve put me through a lot of trouble, Ava Blodrhys. You and your brother have always been more trouble than you’re worth.”
Ava’s head snapped back. “Leave my brother out of this.”
“Why should I? You’re not in charge here. I am.”
And yet, Ava couldn’t help but notice the subtle tremble of his hand, the dark circles hugging his eyes, the bloody bandage wrapped around his arm… Unless she was mistaken, Talos was in a bad way.
“When was the last time you ate anything?” she asked, trying to sound amiable and harmless.
Poison.
Yes, that was a good idea. Poison.
Maybe she could slip some into his drink…if she could find any poison in the next five minutes, that is. She looked sideways at Brynja, hoping she could somehow wordlessly communicate her idea to the girl, but Brynja stared at her in mute fury.
Of course she couldn’t read Ava’s mind, not the way Dragon could.
“Don’t pretend you care,” Talos growled, but his tongue snaked across his lips again, and he looked hungry. “But I suppose it would be a good idea for me to eat something before I faint from hunger and accidentally slit this one’s throat.”
Roar’s mother went a little whiter in the face, but she remained perfectly still, to her credit.
Ava flicked her gaze around the camp and found the child and his father standing nearby, holding tightly to one another, both of them staring at Talos with hatred and fear in their eyes.
Ava’s stomach clenched. Oh, she’d never forgive herself if they accidentally got this wife and mother killed. They needed to do whatever they could to keep Talos from harming the girls in the camp.
“If you want me, Talos,” she began, her voice shaking, “I’m here. You can let her go and take me instead. I’ll go quietly.”
Jerrid hissed behind her, but she ignored him. It was her life to throw away as she pleased. Maybe her death would do some good if it saved the girls in the camp. She’d finally have done something worthwhile.
“I don’t want you,” Talos said with a sneer. “You’re worthless to me. What I want is a way out of Eroth, and you’re my insurance. My golden ticket. Although…”
He looked around the camp. “This place does offer a unique possibility. Maybe I could exchange pardon for the capture of runaways.”
One of the younger girls began to cry.
Ava’s nostrils flared, and she took a step forward. “Leave them alone, Talos, or so help—”
“What?” He threw her a mocking look, his hand trembling against Roar’s mother’s throat. “What will you do, Ava? You can’t even light a candle. You’re nothing. You hear me? Nothing.”
That wasn’t anything she didn’t already know.
“You might kill her, yes. And then you’ll probably kill me. But do you really think you can take on the whole camp in your condition?”
He barked a laugh. “A camp of helpless women?”
Something inside Ava snorted.
To Ava’s right, one of the helpless women rose to her feet, clutching a fire poker. Another took a step forward with her garden hoe, and behind her stood two more girls holding makeshift spears.
“Not so helpless,” Ava said wryly as Talos shifted, his gaze skittering around the camp as if he were assessing the danger.
He had seen it too.
“That’s the problem with bullies,” she continued as she took a cautious step forward.
Talos watched her with glittering eyes as she approached the fire and stooped slowly to pick up a cooking pot someone had left to cool in the ashes at the edge of the fire. A little stew still filled the bottom.
She gave it a stir with the wooden spoon, but her gaze remained fastened on Talos, her focus on this dangerous game they played.
“And what problem is that?”
She straightened, holding the handle of the pot in a fistful of her skirt so that she wouldn’t scald her fingers. “You think everyone is too scared to stand up to you. And by themselves, they might be.”
His attention shifted again to the women and girls slowly standing around them, their expressions determined, tense.
“But together? Well, that’s a real threat, isn’t it?” She ignored Jerrid’s muttered growl and walked toward Talos so that she could hold out the pot of leftover stew. “Why don’t you eat something and think this over. Maybe we can come up with some kind of compromise.”
“I don’t compromise.” But his gaze had fallen to the pot and lingered.
If he had been any other living soul in Rhuin, she would have felt sorry for the poor, starving creature. But it was hard to feel sorry for someone like Talos.
“Let’s start with something small.” She offered a tight smile. “The woman for a pot of soup. Personally, I know which one I would choose.”
Talos’s eyes glittered, his mouth twisting in a way that looked a little on the petulant side.
But his hand began to lower from the woman’s throat.
Ava held her breath as the blade eased away from the sensitive skin around the woman’s neck.
At last, he shoved her away from him as Ava set the pot on the ground at his feet.
“No, none of that,” he said, his gaze moving furiously as if trying to watch everyone at once. “You’re going to feed me.”
Ava’s stomach clenched, but she said nothing as she used the stirring spoon to lift a mouthful toward him, watching out of the corner of her eye as the mother ran back to her family, to safety. Talos glared at her before lightly blowing on the stew and slipping it off the end of the spoon.
If only she kept poison in her pocket, it would have been so easy to put an end to this. He was too hungry to even consider the chance that someone had doctored the food.
The entire camp held its collective breath as Ava scraped every drop of soup from the pot and fed it to Talos.
When he finished, he demanded water. Brynja brought a waterskin, her expression murderous as she handed it to Ava and then backed slowly away. Talos watched her intently, probably recognizing a threat when he saw one.
He was too devious and too good at being devious not to notice the most dangerous threats in his environment.
He’d probably pegged them all in order of their threat-assessment scores. She wondered briefly where she fell in the ranks. Probably at the very bottom with the still-unconscious Ponytail Girl. Even Roar ranked higher than she did.
As Talos tipped the waterskin back, Brynja took a step forward. But Talos snapped his fingers, and a spark of fire ignited in his palm.
The human girl froze, eyes glittering, before she slowly backed away. Ava stared at the careless flame of fire with more than a little envy. He had made it look so easy, so natural. Why did everything have to come so hard for her?
Once again, life had proven that it didn’t believe in fairness.
Sometimes she didn’t even think that life cared about rightness.
Warmth flooded through her body, soothing her raw emotions, her frayed edges. It was familiar and comforting. Like a strong pair of arms wrapped around her on a cold winter’s night.
“That’s better,” Talos said as he corked the skin and tossed it onto the ground at Brynja’s feet.
She shot him a foul look as she stooped to retrieve the discarded item. Ava watched her intently, hoping that her piercing expression would convince the girl to back off and let the matter rest. Thankfully, Brynja did indeed back away.
“That’s close enough, shifter,” Talos called, and the movement that had begun to stir behind Ava ceased abruptly. “You’re fine right where you are. We’re all getting along so nicely, so let’s not spoil it, shall we?”
“I would prefer to spoil it,” Jerrid muttered between his teeth.
This elicited a genuine smile from Talos, but for the life of her, Ava couldn’t figure out what he thought was so amusing.
Didn’t he realize how much trouble he was in if they all decided to take him down?
This could go south very quickly. The only thing keeping the peace was the fact that no one had lost their temper yet.
“Well, this has been fun,” Talos said, wiping his hands on the front of his tunic, “but I think it’s time we go, Ava, don’t you?”
Footsteps pounded against the ground behind her, and Ava’s eyes rolled closed in exasperation.
Jerrid snarled, “She’s not going anywhere with you, elf.”
And there went their fragile peace…
Talos grinned at him, too mean and stupid to realize how much danger he was in. Because Ava knew something he didn’t. Something even Jerrid didn’t know.
It was her secret. Their secret.
That warmth swept through her again. This time it was decidedly smug as it teased her senses and emotions, frolicking like a puppy set free in a meadow.
“And how are you going to stop me, shifter?” Talos widened his stance, letting the flame in his palm widen and grow until it was big enough for him to toss it from one palm to the other. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that your dragon friend hasn’t come out to play yet. Where is he?”
Jerrid froze alongside Ava, his face growing gray.
Talos’s smile widened.
“I wondered as much. Thank you for clarifying this for me. Ever so kind of you. I take it your little scaly side isn’t up for playing right now, is he? Which means you”—he waved a hand to indicate all of Jerrid—“are just one more helpless, useless human.”
Ava choked down a hysterical laugh, the warmth growing inside her, alongside the realization this was about to get really, really ugly… And that she would be the cause of it.
“Just like she”—he indicated Ava—“is another useless, infertile wh—”
Jerrid, already coiled like a condensed spring, launched forward.
“Dragon, stop him!” Ava screamed.
Jerrid’s head whipped toward her, confusion distracting him from his intentions. But it didn’t distract Talos, who hurled his first fireball.
A strength outside herself threw Ava forward, tackling Jerrid unceremoniously around the knees and out of the path of the fireball that disappeared into the trees beyond the camp.
Talos cursed, snapping his fingers again.
But Ava leaped back to her feet in a smooth motion similar to something she’d seen Jerrid do in the past. Instincts not her own flooded through her body, honing her senses as she turned to face Talos. She cracked her neck from side to side and relished the pop.
“You’ve bitten off more than you can chew, Talos,” she spat between her teeth, enjoying the confusion that stole over his cocky features.
Beside her, Jerrid scrambled to his feet as he swung his attention back and forth between her and Talos. The poor, foolish man had no idea what he had done. What they were about to do.
He’s such an idiot, Dragon agreed through the mental link. He really thought he could put me in a box.
Because Dragon had been there the whole time, curled into a ball on the edge of her consciousness, so small and unobtrusive she might not have noticed him. But a dragon, even one trying to seem small, is anything but. And Ava had noticed him.
It’s hard not to notice when a dragon invades your mind.
“What are you talking about?” Talos demanded as he faced her.
They’re both idiots.
Yes, she rather agreed with that sentiment.
“You made a mistake,” Ava said as she cracked the knuckles of her left hand, and then her right, enjoying the way Talos watched the movements with growing alarm. “You both made a mistake.”
“How do you figure that?” Talos asked.
Jerrid focused only on her now, completely ignoring Talos, his stomach twisting as he began to realize what he had done. What he’d forced Dragon to do.
“Yes,” Jerrid echoed, his voice haggard, “how do you figure that, Ava?”
She relished the warning tone in his voice, the fear. Because for the first time in her life, she felt like more than herself. She felt powerful.
“You both forgot about me.”
And me.
“Us,” Ava corrected. “You forgot about us.”
Then her veins began to burn, and she wondered if she had just made the biggest mistake of her life when her skin crackled like corn in a pot over a raging flame.
She ground her teeth together to hold back a scream as the heat in her chest blazed as hot as a blacksmith’s forge.
Was Dragon trying to kill Talos…or her?