Chapter Fifteen
Cottonmouth
Damn, she really did a number on Neddy .
Callum wasn’t scared of his warlock, per se, but he’d be a rotten liar if he didn’t think she was powerful.
Neddy and Callum got into a tussle the first day he slithered back into the swamp wearing the name Cottonmouth.
Neddy allowed regular people to take up refuge and dwell in the swamp.
Even took care of them. If they didn’t have food in their pantries, she made them dinner.
Then he came back home, daggers on his belt, name on a poster, bad attitude…
boy did they wrestle. He bit her three to four times, but every time he pumped poison into her veins, she got stronger.
Took him a bit to figure that out, and then he called a truce.
She took the deal. He’d feed her tree and she let him live there.
Only him and his crew. The other outlaws never figured out how he conned his way into Neddy’s good graces, but he thought she saw a kinship with him.
She never liked the others, forcing them to take up space on the outskirts of her swamp, facing the searing wastes.
Or worse, she drove Madman Marvel into the Dreadflats…
Callum never did see that bastard ever again.
Neddy was a tough nut to crack. And somehow his sweet as a bunny, petrified warlock sent the old witch into the next life—express delivery.
How? He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
Neddy looked like she’d been injected with ink.
Poison, venom, nightshade; he’d never seen a single drop put a dent in that swamp witch.
It’s like Avelina filled her veins with liquid death.
The Bark Father would have to con some other fool to do his bidding.
Callum watched her from the doorway as she lay in bed, despondent.
Her eyes stared across the room at the wall.
The howling wind against the cabin kept the eerie quiet of the swamp at bay.
Most of his crew hunkered down in their homes, Rat’s ship strapped to the stilts of Callum’s cabin.
It wasn’t the heavy rainfall or the lightening that was the threat—it was the ripping winds.
They felt like being carved with shards of glass.
They could take the legs right out from under the cabin.
They often threw a person clean out of their boots and into the trees.
Wind would kill a person just as fast as a burst of lightning or drowning floods in Gloomsdale.
“You gonna mope all day or you gonna come out here and read me something out of that book of yours?” he teased, leaning against the frame.
“Go. Away,” she whined, not bothering to get up from the bed.
“I’d love to, darlin’, but we’re kind of trapped in here.
What with the storm out there.” Callum slithered closer inside.
Avelina rolled onto her back, glaring at him.
Someone has started to grow a backbone. He wanted to hate it—she was so much easier to manipulate when she was a terrified bunny rabbit.
But he liked the sneer that curled at her lips just a little too much. “Why don’t you go toss yourself into it and leave me to my misery.”
He struck forward, watching her eyes widen and body stiffen in response.
Callum pinned her to the bed. Knuckles to the sheets, blanket trapping her legs beneath him, he leaned over her with a wicked grin.
Oh yes. Callum enjoyed her so much more when she was bold.
Not that she needs to know the extent of it.
“Careful now, someone’s growin’ a spine, I fear.
Watch yer mouth, darlin’. I enjoy your spunk, but yer only alive and well because I find you… mildly entertaining.”
“You find me more than mildly,” she whispered back.
While her eyes had widened, and he could feel the tension in her muscles, there was something in her stare.
It wasn’t there before, something sour and rotten growing within her chest. A cruelty she’d not yet explored.
Maybe she always had it, he wouldn’t doubt for a second a festering seed of hatred, put there by her father.
Or maybe she’d learned it from that friend of hers.
The pawn he sent to keep an eye on—and if need be, kill—Tala had yet to send word back, so he couldn’t tell if this was influenced or homegrown.
He secretly hoped it happened naturally. That she’d always had a deep-seated rage within her. Behind that sweet, obedient nature there was a boiling pot of acid that was finally spilling over. Only so much a person can take.
“Watch yerself, darlin’.”
“You need me,” she countered.
“Do I?” He laughed, pulling back from the bed.
She sat up with him, still only dressed in one of his shirts.
Hers were never large enough to sleep in, and he’d grown accustomed to seeing her thick, pale legs sticking out from under the stained cotton.
“I think yer countin’ chickens before ya’ve laid any eggs.
Ya’ve not even really done a job for me, yet. ”
“Then I should just leave,” she sighed dramatically, shrugging too.
Avelina pulled back the sheets and threw them off her, giving him an inch or two more of her skin.
He could see the already fading bruises along her chest where he nipped.
He’d not come into the room to feast on her.
But damned if he wasn’t suddenly hungry as she stood up.
The shirt fell around her, a curtain pulled over her nest of curls.
He’d only gotten a glimpse, and it was all he needed for his stomach to clench up.
“By all means,” he bluffed. With a swoop of his arm, he motioned for her to leave the bedroom. She stomped past him. Callum followed, slithering across the creaking floorboards. He cleared his throat, “But…”
She whirled to glare at him.
He smirked, crossing his arms over his chest. The front door rattled suddenly, and her attention darted to the door.
If the poor thing wasn’t careful, she’d break her own neck.
The windows shuddered as rain pelted against them.
Between the trees violently swaying outside, the inches of rainwater that turned into a fast-churning river, and the lightning, he didn’t believe for a second she would leave.
Avelina returned her gaze to him. Callum grinned even broader, spreading his arms out to his sides.
“We both know you’re not going anywhere. ”
Her gaze fell to the floor as he swept his tail around her smoothly. He pulled open the bathroom door and nodded inside. “Come on, little viper, let’s get washed up. Then we can—”
He wasn’t sure when she decided to call his bluff. It happened so fast. She bolted from the spot in the same blink of an eye as the front door slammed open. A howling wind raced past her and cut into him. She disappeared into the gloom. Callum roared in fury, “Ya little shit! Get back here!”
Callum raced out of his cabin, head first into the storm after his prey.
He flew down his steps and dropped into a heavy river already forming between the roots of the swamp.
The trees groaned as wind whipped their branches left and right.
Lightning struck one to his right, leaving a smoking, marred stump behind.
Shrapnel made of bark and splinters filled the air.
He ducked out of the way as he heard it pelt the side of his cabin.
He peeled his eyes through the heavy rain, finding his drenched warlock racing in the direction of the docks.
“Wrong way, little viper!” he roared, tail flicking through the water.
It propelled him forward, making him a bullet fired from a gun.
In a split second, any leeway she had was eaten up.
She pulled branches as she danced out of his grip.
When she let them go, he ate a bundle of leaves and moss.
He caught onto her tricks quickly and dropped low, using the full length of his tail to chase after her.
“What are you gonna do when you get to the lake?” he bellowed over the clap of thunder. Avelina cleared a thick log and kept running. Callum waited at the top of the fallen tree, watching her. She was, indeed, racing for the lake. “Like I can’t catch ya.”
Avelina didn’t fall for his bait. It appeared she was solely focused on making it to the boat. He wondered for a moment where she might be going until he laughed. “You can’t be serious!”
“Fuck you!” she roared over her shoulder.
He swam through the rising waters. Her legs splashed about as the mud grew thicker. Callum actually slowed down, letting her get closer to the docks. He howled with more mocking laughter, “Yer gonna walk to Eshorion? You? In nothin’ but a shirt and your skin?”
“Shut! Up!”
A bolt of purple lightning cut through the clouds and hit the water.
It threw him and her into the air. Unlike her, he grabbed onto a few tree branches and tossed himself, tail first, in the direction of the docks.
Avelina tumbled through the mud and moss.
She scrambled back up to her feet. He would give credit where it was due—she didn’t give up.
Stubborn prey, it made his game ten times more fun.
He lunged out of the pile of branches he landed in and pinned her against the closest wall of bark.
She thrashed, kicking his tail uselessly.
It was all thick muscle and tough hide. He didn’t even feel it as he pinned her knuckles against the damp bark.
Rain pelted his back and her cheeks as she jerked in his grip.
He took both her hands in one of his and scraped them up the tree.
Avelina sucked in a breath sharply, eyes clenched in pain.
The other hand of his had her by the throat, a warning.
She might have taken out Neddy, but the old warlock wanted taken out. Callum didn’t want death. Didn’t crave it, didn’t seek it out. He wanted out of this life, off his throne, and in order to do that, his feisty, little viper needed to work for him.