Chapter One
Cottonmouth
Callum was exhausted. The old saying was tired to the bones, but it went deeper than that.
He was run dry. His heart wasn’t in it. Hasn’t been for some time now.
But one does not simply quit being Cottonmouth.
He lied, cheated, killed, and much, much worse to get to where he was…
no one ever talks about how unsatisfying it is to be at the top.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown and all that.
“Boss?” Grahm asked from the doorway to his cabin.
The earthy-brown Drakonis swatted mosquitoes away from his elongated snoot.
Callum twisted to inspect the scaley bastard he called a captain.
Grahm had an empty socket where his left eye used to be, gray streaks cleaved across his face to show off the claws that took it.
Outside of that, Grahm was a bulky guy. Six foot tall, broad-shouldered, sharp-toothed, and with little spikes running down his back.
“The boys are headed out to catch that train. Yer sure ya don’t want me to go babysit ‘em?”
“Positive. If those knuckle-fucks can’t handle a simple train robbery, then they deserve the Paladin blades in their bellies they’ll get.
Ain’t nothin’ special on that train, just a bunch of rich fucks.
All they gotta do is hop in, rob ‘em, and roll out the back.” Callum threw a look of disdain toward the map pinned to the wall of his office.
His cabin may stand on stilts, out of the swamp, but that didn’t stop the insects and weather from getting inside.
There was no weather-proofing shit in Gloomsdale.
Callum slithered up to the window and stared out into the sticky, wetlands.
Thick, tall trees broke out of part water, part soil; a lumpy place to live.
The town was a collection of buildings all scattered throughout the dense forest that stood between the Searing Wastes and Parandor. Their little town? Bah!
His cabin was tucked away in the belly of Gloomsdale.
There were always three things to be said about their forsaken town: hot, humid, and miserable.
They didn’t fuckin’ name it Gloomsdale because the damn SunBringer blessed it.
Not a day went past without a sky full of pregnant clouds.
The gods cursed the place long ago, because there was no reason at the edge of a desert and the grass lands of Parandor, for there to be a murky wasteland.
And yet? Here he was, the king of the wastes.
What I always fuckin’ wanted.
He scowled harder at his wavering reflection in the dirty, tinted glass of his windows.
Long face, long hair, long fangs, just a long motherfucker in his books.
Darkly lined eyes to match the murky, muddy color of his hair that he kept tied back out of his face.
Sharp features that were a little hollower than he’d prefer, but he’d lost interest in eating extravagantly.
Everything tastes like ash. Furrowing his heavy brow, he glanced away from the mean mug printed on every wanted poster board from here to Eshiron. Outlaw. Brigand. Bandit. Murderer.
He was The Cottonmouth, and he looked the part.
A Slathair—long, thick tail covered in yellow, brown, and black scales from his waist to the tip of his tail.
From the belly button up, his chest was more or less humanoid, minus his back and the edges of his arms. His claws could be retracted around his fingers, and his fangs grew long enough to impale when he was chowing down on some poor bastard’s neck, but outside of that…
it was the face. The resting bastard face that never eased up; even when he laughed, according to his underlings.
“Aye-aye,” Grahm sighed, bowing his head.
“What?” Callum grumbled.
“Huh? Oh, nothin’. Just…got a bad feelin’ about this one.” Grahm gave Callum one of those grimaces that told him the muscle-brained jackass was not going to let it go.
Callum rolled his eyes. “A bad feelin’ huh? And nothin’ to do with that sweet piece of ass on the other side of the swamp yer wantin’ to go see instead of waitin’ at the docks for the knuckle-fucks to get back?”
Grahm’s eyes widened and Callum sighed. I knew it. He hated managing people. Grahm cleared his throat, “Sorry, sir.”
“Don’t fuckin’ lie to me ever again,” Callum snarled, his body striking forward.
Grahm tossed himself out of the doorway, tumbling hand over tail to get out of Callum’s reach.
Fortunately for the lizard thinking with his cock, Callum didn’t care that much.
About anything anymore. The problem was that he couldn’t let go of the persona.
They expected him to be rotten to the core, unfeeling, uncaring.
And he was…it just didn’t have that oomf anymore.
None of it did.
“Yer gonna go sit out on those docks and wait for them to come back with the loot. And yer not gonna let those bastards pocket a single coin without my say so, and yer gonna be fuckin’ glad to do it. Now move!”
“Yes, boss!” Grahm yowled as he raced out of Callum’s cabin and out into the gloomy, slate gray horizon.
A bolt of lightning cut through the sky, followed swiftly by thunder that rumbled through all the trees.
Callum returned to his window to brood. Hot rain spit over their heads as the sky ripped open once again.