Chapter 3
Chapter Three
CHAMPION
Raymond Charles Flowers the IV had aged well. He looked closer to fifty than sixty, thanks in part to his thick blonde hair and smooth skin. His eyes burned with an inner light as he flicked his wrist, sending the poisoned dagger into my shoulder.
Tarnish was on the floor at the end of the counter screaming about his grandfather while he rocked and had a truly impressive breakdown.
I’d taken a nice antidote cocktail before I came here, since I wasn’t a novice, but I immediately felt the burn as the poison spread through my veins from Flower’s fine blade.
“You’ve come here to die,” Flowers observed, looking me over with the perfect blend of contempt and disinterest. I wasn’t worth his fear or concern, not when he had five men behind me, and I had Tarnish and his broken mind on the floor.
I pulled out the dagger and looked down at it before I stumbled back a step.
His men were spreading out, blocking our exit while Flowers himself stood there, strong, capable, and incredibly put-out that his ex-fiance’s no-good son had broken into his favorite lab for the second time.
It was a pretty lab, which made sense because Flowers was all about the aesthetics.
There was even a grand piano at the end, while plants cascaded over cabinets that were a distinguished dusty blue instead of generic white.
“Freddy, please don’t hurt me,” I said, working to sound scared.
It took half a second for Tarn to come out of his meltdown, and hold a gun to Flowers’s temple, blinking panic and tears out of his eyes.
The blonde man’s eyes widened as he studied me with slightly more interest. “You won’t leave here alive if you kill me. Neither one of you.”
I smiled nicely while I used his own dagger to slice through his sleeve without so much as scratching his skin.
I inserted the needle into his vein so I could take his blood.
The second I’d realized that his lab didn’t have the records I’d come for, I’d tripped an alarm that would get me what I needed, which was his blood.
The poison was working through me, giving me stomach cramps, chills, aching muscles, and overall pain, but I’d had worse.
Literally, because the first time I’d dealt with his poisoned knives, I hadn’t taken an antidote cocktail first.
“I have no interest in killing you. After all, you’re related to someone valuable.
” I smiled as I pulled the needle out of his arm and then nodded at Tarn.
He grabbed Flowers by the neck and dragged him towards the wall of windows that looked out over a lovely and lethal drop to the roiling water below.
I moved through the men, disarming them and taking their guns with me. I moved towards Tarn and then looked at Flowers while my stomach churned. He had Sunshine’s eyes, but hers never looked like that, so cold, so contemptuous. “Stay safe.”
I grabbed Tarn and shot the glass before I took it with my shoulder, the one that hadn’t been stabbed, taking us through it and down, down, into the cold water.
I dragged Tarn through the waves while bullets hit the water around us.
Apparently I’d missed a few guns. Flowers, probably.
I hadn’t disarmed him. Pity, because I’d had enough bullet wounds this month.
The rip of metal through my leg was enough to made me want to cry manly tears. Apparently, I hadn’t had enough bullet wounds this month. Pity I wouldn’t get Sunshine’s neat stitches this time around.
Three hours later, I woke up to Tarn shaking my shoulder, the one that needed a nice bandage. “Boss, the Croc’s on the phone,” he whispered, big eyes hunted, haunted, and generally unstable.
I patted his face, because I’d missed his shoulder, and then he held up the phone to my ear. My arms still weren’t working quite right. Not that my lack of functionality had stopped me from piling up the bodies.
“What are you doing?” her cold voice demanded. “It’s not like you to upset the careful balance of power in this part of the world.”
I licked my lips and pulled myself together.
My lips were too dry, my body still aching.
“I’m working through some poison. Flowers has gotten even more toxic in his old age.
Some people get sweeter with time, but not him.
I’m touched by your concern for my health and happiness. Tarn, isn’t that touching?”
“That’s another thing, taking one of my employees, one whose conditions makes him—”
“Extra capable and brilliant. I know, he’s one of your best, but we wouldn’t want your high praise to go to his head.
” I cut her short because Tarn was delicate, and she was likely to set him off with the way she was going.
“I didn’t break any alliances, because you’d never ally with Flowers.
You’re going to complain because I humiliated your old friend for the fun of it? ”
“I was unaware that being poisoned was so fun.”
“Next you’re going to say that leaping through windows off cliffs isn’t fun. Maybe you are getting old.”
She sniffed. “You’re delirious. I’m sending Hammond.
Tarnish, contact Hammond before your prince’s blood is on your hands.
Yes, Nix, I am getting much too old for this kind of nonsense.
” She hung up, and Tarnish took the phone back.
We were in the guts of an old fishing rig, the deck high above us while I processed the poison.
We’d had a boat, but it had been hit by a rocket.
The last three hours had been mostly a blur with the poison, and the swimming, and the fighting, but luckily, I had Tarnish who had miraculously avoided bullets and blades.
“Don’t do it,” I warned him, but his face was spinning dizzily, and he only shook his head before he texted Hammond our location.
“Boss, you really shouldn’t have tried to take on Flowers without some kind of backup,” he murmured in his scratchy voice. He’d done a lot of screaming on this trip. “Makes you look as crazy as me.” He grinned at me, eyes gleaming like a madman.
I laughed. Couldn’t help it even though it hurt. “That would explain a lot about me. I hear more footsteps on the deck. Watch the bodies when you make your way to the hatch.”
“I haven’t tripped on a body in a long time. Pity you’re so determined not to kill anyone. Dead bodies we could just throw overboard. Keeping them alive just isn’t efficient.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. “Killing people is what the bad guy does. I’m the champion, hadn’t you heard?”
He snorted and headed towards the hatch, a knife in one hand and a gun in the other. “You look like a champion, lying there like that.”
“Champions bleed a lot. We’re notorious bleeders. Bleeding legs, bleeding hearts, bleeding shoulders…”
It wasn’t long after that when there were shouts, screams, and then footsteps pounding down the steps until a light shone in my eyes while Hammond laughed.
He didn’t laugh often. It wasn’t what a fallen champion wanted to hear.
The enormous man picked me up and slung me over his shoulder like I wasn’t still wounded and bleeding.
“You’re prettier than I remember you being,” he rumbled, voice still tinged with his mocking laughter.
“Thanks. I’d say the same, but I wouldn’t want you to think I’d developed feelings for my heroic rescuer.”
He snorted. “Saving lives? Just you and Tarn can kill a lot of people, but keep them alive? You overreached.”
I sighed heavily while my head dangled over his shoulder. “I’m beginning to feel the wisdom of your words.”
He carried me up the narrow steps and then over a long gangplank to a larger boat where my mother’s House of Beasts waited, the kind of men who had no compassion for the weakness of others.
I sighed heavily because the last thing I wanted to do was have Hammond land on me, but if I didn’t want them to turn on me, I had to be strong.
Annoying. Hammond was a surprisingly good carrier.
I rolled off him pulling him down and happily not getting crushed by the enormous guy.
“This boat is mine. All of you are mine.” I had my bare foot against Hammond’s cheek, his arm hyper-extended while I said it, frowning around at the men who stared back at me with various expressions of feral anticipation.
Would I have to brawl with all of them? I only had a few bullet wounds, but the poison had weakened me and some was still in my system.
Yeah, I could handle a little brawl with dozens of psychos.
Thanks to my biological father, I was born for this.
“He’s still poisoned,” Tarn said loudly, climbing past me and patting my shoulder, the one that was still raw and swollen.
“Don’t mind him, just took on Flowers with zero casualties and without any backup.
Other than me.” He smiled at the other men and their anticipation faded a touch.
“The Prince needs his beauty sleep. You did hear he got himself a wife, didn’t you? ”
I scowled at him. When had he heard about it?
They all nodded. Apparently, it was common knowledge.
“You don’t talk about my wife,” I growled, and Hammond grunted, because I’d accidentally twisted his arm too hard.
“Sorry about that,” I said, releasing him and stepping back.
I reeled into another guy who didn’t move, just stood there while I grabbed his arm and tried not to fall over.
“You should probably conquer the bed before you play with your beasts,” the solid guy said. Arnold. He looked much more evil and vicious than he sounded. His voice was positively soothing.
I patted his arm. “Your suggestion has some merit. Serious merit. I’ll just…”
Hammond picked me up and continued carrying me like that whole thing hadn’t happened. “You’ve already won their loyalty,” Hammond grunted, sounding more like himself, irritable and hungry.
“That wasn’t a challenge, it was a welcome,” Tarn agreed, once again patting my shoulder, the stabbed one that was oozing all over the place.
“Either way,” I mumbled, but what I really needed to do was sleep it off.
Pity I wouldn’t be sleeping with Kitten curled around me.
I’d kill to have her head resting on my shoulder, even the stabbed one.
No, I wouldn’t kill. Not a single one of Flower’s men, however difficult that made things.
Kitten needed me to be her champion, so that’s what I’d be. Even if it did almost kill me.