Chapter 19
Felix’s heart leapt into his throat at Sarah’s admission. “You do? You know where they are?”
She gave a slow nod, and Cruze poked her. “All right!” she hissed back at her. “Look, I’ll tell you, but you need to promise I get to live with my dad. I don’t—I don’t want to see any of them ever again.”
Felix pinched the bridge of his nose, things abruptly making sense. Cruze hadn’t been talking about herself the other day, she’d been talking about Sarah. “You’re the one with the house you hate living in.”
She looked away, tearing up. “It wasn’t that bad until after my dad left, but she’s—my mom—she’s not my mom anymore, and the twins, Mike—”
“They whisper like snakes,” Sway’s piping voice interrupted, looking up at Felix. “I hate them even more than Kitty Weaton. They’re not very nice. Cassie laughed when Derek pushed me off the swings at recess. Does that make them hags, too, Uncle Felix?”
“She sounds like one, but it makes him a little prick,” Felix muttered before he thought better of it.
“Sarah, I can’t promise that, but I know it’s what your dad wants more than anything.
And if we can get him back, I know he’s going to move heaven and earth to make it happen, and I’ll help him do it. ”
She chewed her lip again, uncertainty written all over her face.
“Uncle Felix doesn’t lie,” Sway said. “He promised that if the answer was gonna be no, he’d say so, instead of making us eat peas.”
“Shut up, Sway, you’re not helping,” Cruze huffed at Sarah’s furrowed brow, and put a hand on her arm. “But she is right about Uncle Felix. He doesn’t lie, and he keeps his promises.” She met his gaze, and suddenly they weren’t just talking about Sarah and Liam anymore.
“They’re in the cave,” Sarah said, her voice a thready whisper.
“The cave? Can you tell us how to find that?” Chase asked, leaning forward in his seat.
She glanced at him. “Um…yeah, maybe? I’ve only been there once. Pete called it the bug-out shelter, but it’s not—” She shivered, and Cruze put an arm around her friend. “I know it’s off the main road going to Fayet. There’s a trail through the woods you go down, and it’s by a bunch of big rocks.”
The adults exchanged glances. “Can you see the swamp from the rocks?” Jena asked.
Sarah nodded. “Yeah, and it’s super creepy. The shelter’s in a cave on the cliffside above a circle of stones. You have to get really close before you can tell it’s even there, and then it only looks like this little crack, but it opens up once you squeeze through.”
“Then what’s inside?”
Sarah looked at Felix. “He is.”
Liam lay back against the coins, staring at the ceiling, his hand on Axle’s back, taking some comfort in the steady rise and fall of breath beneath his palm.
There wasn’t much to be had elsewhere. After a painfully thorough search of the cave walls, Liam had come to the conclusion that however they’d gotten in here had to be some kind of sorcery.
Meanwhile, the torch had gutted lower, and his mouth had gotten drier, an acrid tang at the back of his throat.
“Comfortable?”
Liam bolted upright at the rough, hissing drawl. A tall, lean man in a long black robe stood at the center of the room. He was incredibly pale, his skin and hair an unnatural alabaster, with luminescent green eyes, vertically slit above bitingly sharp cheekbones.
Oh, yeah. This was bad. No way was that a man.
“This is one of the nicer chambers in the lair,” he continued, looking around before meeting Liam’s eyes. A strange pressure accompanied his gaze.
“Why are we here?” Liam growled, putting a hand to his head.
The creature smiled, his teeth a series of sharp points, serrated like a shark’s.
“Why to bargain, of course. I’m afraid you coming back has upset the status quo, and that won’t do at all…
but come, I’d be a poor host if I didn’t offer you succor.
” He held out a long-fingered hand, his nails black and curved.
“You’re the dragon.”
“I am.”
“I’m not going anywhere without Axle.”
“You say that like you have agency. I assure you, you do not.”
“If that were true, you wouldn’t feel the need to bargain.”
The dragon laughed. “Touché, Counselor. Fine. Bring the boy, if you must.”
Liam stood, hefting up Axle and paused. Wherever they were going, it had to be an improvement over this, right? Liam’s thoughts flew through everything he’d ever heard about dragons. None of it made him feel any better about taking the creature’s hand.
“I’m waiting,” the dragon said, more than a hint of malice in his tone.
Liam exhaled roughly and stepped closer. The room wavered and spun before he’d taken a second step, then reality solidified around him, and he stumbled.
It wasn’t an improvement.
They were in another cave, this larger than the first and far hotter. A sickly glow came from a deep crevasse bisecting the space, and beside it, a long stone table with a feast laid out. Jenny sat at one end, her face slack, with the twins and her youngest at her sides.
“Please, sit,” the dragon said, his tone brooking no argument. “Eat.”
Liam took a seat on one of the stone benches, shifting Axle to his lap.
His gaze ran over the spread, that pressure in his head sharper than it had been.
Every dish on the snowy tablecloth looked like something out of a magazine, the places set formally with gold-rimmed dinnerware and crystal goblets.
The dragon sat at the end opposite Jenny and began to fill his plate.
Liam’s gaze flicked to her and the kids.
They’d begun doing the same, the children with far more relish than her.
He tried to catch her eye, but she avoided his gaze, her lips pressed firmly together.
Liam reached for a chicken leg, and the barest waft of carrion hit his nose as he put it onto his plate. Sweat beaded his forehead.
Illusion. Dragons were supposed to be adept at illusion, to the point that it became tangible to the unwary. Was that why he’d smelled rotting meat? It looked amazing, but, at this point, he was definitely fucking wary.
And now, not hungry in the slightest.
Liam kept his face blank and reached for the potatoes, fighting to ignore the sense of skittering legs running up the spoon to his arm as he spooned them onto his plate.
“So, what’s this bargain you’d like to discuss?” Liam asked, his stomach clenching at Jenny lifting her fork to her lips. Her eyes flicked up and she smiled at him as she chewed.
“The last consort my bride chose was less than ideal. He failed to abide by the terms of our agreement and brought too much attention to my brood.” The dragon’s gaze slid to the children at Jenny’s sides, gorging themselves on the feast.
They’d forgone the silver utensils beside the fine china. Dark bits flecked their chins and spattered the fronts of their shirts, ruddy liquid running to their elbows in long greasy streams.
Jesus. The longer Liam looked, the more filth he saw, and he had a bad feeling that the truth of what was on this table would send him straight back to the psych ward.
“So, you killed him,” he said, tearing his gaze away, his stomach churning as he pushed whatever the potatoes really were around his plate.
Jenny’s brow crumpled then smoothed, that pressure on Liam’s mind increasing.
“I removed an impediment. You, however, have proven yourself to be an adept provider. I’ve taken action to allow you to step back into that role.
” The dragon raised his glass and smiled, nodding toward Jenny and the kids.
“You’ll return with them to town a hero, having saved them from the clutches of an evil wyrm. ”
Liam wiped sweat from his brow. It was so hard to think. His thoughts spiraled and jumped like one of his episodes. He blew out a shaky breath and focused on Axle’s slack weight against him. Liam needed to keep his shit together for the kid. “Yeah, and what would you get out of it?”
“The continuation of my line and more gold to feather my nest. My dearest Jennifer can continue to take care of the minutia of our arrangement, can’t you love?”
“Yes, Salsibar, whatever you need of me,” she murmured at her plate.
“That’s all I have to do?” Liam asked, struggling to focus on the conversation and not obsess on what the hell was really on the table or squirrel on all the variables. “Get a job?”
The dragon laughed. “Oh no, Counselor, you’re also going to get me access to the node.”
Liam started, shock clearing the swarm of random thoughts threatening to overwhelm him. What? “The node? Why—how the hell do you expect me to do that?”
“No more than you already are.” He took a sip of whatever was in his goblet, and Liam swallowed, parched.
“Jennifer tells me you’re quite friendly with its guardian.
As to the why, that’s simply a matter of aesthetics.
I like shiny things, and the node is very, very shiny.
I was drawn to these shores by its power, but another had, shall we say, prior claim.
However, playing the long game has always served me well.
Now that he’s been removed from the equation, the sharks have begun to circle, and the only thing standing between me and all that delicious power, is an unproven witch and several bothersome wards. ”
“Killing her won’t get you past them.” Something large skittered behind the fruit bowl, and Liam fixated on the motion, his wolf scrabbling for release so he could chase it. NO.
“I’m aware, and if she wasn’t the only one who can remove them, she’d already be in the ground.
” The dragon frowned, not missing Liam’s reaction.
His slitted pupils widened, then contracted.
The pressure in the room tightened like a fist around Liam’s skull.
He gasped, pinching across his temples. Fuck, what was that?
“Interesting,” the dragon murmured, the pressure receding. “But no matter. The gears are already in motion, and I have no intention of killing her. She’ll be much more useful as my thrall.” He smiled at Jenny. “Won’t she, my love?”
“Yes, Salsibar.”
Liam panted, blinking as the pain behind his eyes subsided.
Was that what’d happened to Jenny? The dragon had brainwashed her and was planning on doing the same to Jena?
Then why bother to bargain with him and Pete?
Why not just hit them with the same whammy?
Variables clamored through Liam’s mind, and the dragon grimaced.
“I tire of this form, and there are preparations to make,” he said, standing abruptly.
“Explain his role to him and then attend me in my chamber.” The cavern wavered and spun, and he was back in the room of coins, his heart trying to beat out of his chest. He clutched Axle to him. Fuck. They were fucked.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Jenny said in a hollow monotone from the center of the room.
Liam looked up at her wan face, a thin, stained shift hanging to her filthy, bare feet. Holy shit. She was pregnant again. “I guess now I know where all the money went,” he said, flicking a coin.
She put a hand to the rise of her abdomen, neither confirming nor denying the statement. “You have to do as he says. Otherwise, people will get hurt.” Her gaze went to Axle.
Liam growled, holding the boy closer. “Why isn’t he waking up?”
“Salsibar doesn’t want him to, and he won’t, unless you comply.”
Liam laughed. “Comply. Why doesn’t he just fuck with my mind like he did yours?”
“My mind is my own, and the way your brain works, atypical thought patterns—he can’t work with broken tools. He couldn’t compel Pete when he was drunk, either,” she said cruelly. “Which is why you have to accept his bargain.”
“It’s not a fucking bargain. I’d be agreeing to be his slave, and there’s not a goddamn chance I’m living under the same roof as you and his spawn.” After what Liam had seen out there, those weren’t kids, they were little monsters in the making.
“It’s your only chance to save Felix when he comes for you. If you agree to Salsibar’s terms, I may be able to persuade him to let the warlock go. If you don’t, he will die.”
“What? Felix—” Gorge rose in Liam’s throat. That’s what the dragon had meant about wheels in motion. Felix had gone to the Witchery. Jena would’ve been there, and as soon as they found out the dragon had taken him and Axle, they’d be on their way.
“Think about it, Liam. You don’t have much time to save him,” Jenny said smugly, raising her brow. She turned on her heel and walked out of the chamber, through the solid wall.
Liam stared at the space where she’d disappeared for a breath before running over and crashing into stone. He slid down its face with tears in his eyes.
She was right. He never should’ve come back.