CHAPTER 8 #2
Ned clears his throat. “The Western outfit will need more clothing until our blood and belongings have adjusted from the temperate climate of the coast.” He rubs his rough hands together. “I’m already missing Broadbank, to be honest.”
I let my anger simmer, trying to cool it down from the boil that’s still raging.
I jerk my chin toward my father-in-law. “Master Hull has quite the collection of furs. He’ll see to it your men are dressed.”
Master snorts. “After all these years of shit talking, my clothes finally save the day.”
“Your service is noted, Master,” I say in jest, although every word rings as true as the Hunter sword swings.
Master Hull pushes himself to a teetering stance before steadying and striding to the door. “Come on, Ned, let’s raid my closet.”
Ned rises, gaze lingering on my wife. “I’m sorry,” he says and spins on his heel, Longton filtering out behind them.
Riot takes his chair again, stretching his massive legs toward the fire. “Well, that was awkward,” he drawls, and Grace bursts into laughter.
Uncle Brachett cracks his knuckles. “That Hunter has always had something to say. Pissed me off more than once.”
Riot looks at me as I finally sit back down. “I’m so ready to get into Goreon Castle and kill some assholes. I still think our access is going to be through the dungeon, like your father said.”
Riot has been a strategist since the day I met him; he can’t help himself.
“I need to vet it.”
He nods. “I’m not arguing with that.”
“Have you forgiven him yet?” Uncle Brachett asks suddenly.
My eyes flick to him and his pointless question. “You know that day will never come. Unless you can bring my mother back from the dead.”
Brachett sighs. “I miss that beast of a Mother. Gods bless, was she a force.” He leans forward on his elbows, his bushy eyebrows furrowed and features shadowed in the firelight. “Your father didn’t have a choice, Kade.”
“He had a fucking choice. He just made the wrong one,” I growl. “They’re both dead—why bother with forgiveness, Uncle?”
“It was all of us. It was his Hunters or your mother.”
I look him dead in the eyes. “It was the wrong choice. He acted too early. He doesn’t deserve forgiveness for the price he chose to pay.”
Brachett shakes his head at me and stands. “Death is a faraway thing until it touches us. Don’t let it poison you, Kade.”
I stare into the fire, watching flames lick the wood, momentarily wishing I could hurl myself into it to escape this conversation.
“I’ll see you back out there,” I tell Brachett and wait for him to leave.
His boots finally scrape into the distance.
Grace slides into my lap and curls herself around me, my being softening from stone underneath her. My head finds home against her collarbone.
“Let’s go have some fun with the boys. We need to take a break tonight before all of this is upon us,” she says.
Grace knows how I wear my stress, like a thick, heavy chain around my neck, and it tightens and coils until I can’t breathe.
And right now, I can’t stop thinking about Sam. And Lou.
“Sam is stubborn, and that makes him hard to kill,” Grace says, a small smile playing on her lips. “Believe me, I’ve tried.”
I shake my head at her with a creeping grin. Grace walks through life with confidence and mental strength like no one I’ve ever met.
I stand us up, Riot leading the way back toward the hoard of Hunters dining and drinking in the main chamber.
Stuffed bellies, half-empty kegs, and outlandish fighting bets land us in the pens an hour later.
“Now this is living.” Riot beams as he drops the gate to a pen, locking himself in with Rhett.
Nothing like training in a cage to fish out the feral. Because when a Hunter feels trapped, look the fuck out. I’m just glad our magic heals cuts and bruises with a little rest; otherwise, this wouldn’t be our wisest pastime before battle.
“You’re not winning,” Riot informs Rhett.
Rhett scoffs, muscles quivering as he strips his shirt. “I’ve got a hundred coins on my own neck. You’re going down, you beast.”
Grace crosses her arms over her chest, assessing the fighters. “Just get after it already. I want my money.”
Riot points at her. “You’re next, pretty girl.”
“Big talk from the boy who could never outrun me.”
Riot rakes his hands over his enormous, chiseled physique. “Don’t need stamina.”
Grace shakes her head at him, and I bask in the absurdity of my gods-blessed life.
“Riot,” Grace whispers. “Seriously, don’t lose. The savings for the summer home is on the line.”
Riot blanches, and my focus swivels down to my wife.
“You didn’t—” I say.
She shrugs. “Brink of war and all that. Does it even matter?”
Kind of. We’ve been saving up for years.
And no. I’d give every coin I have to the men in this cavern.
I grin at her and dart a serious expression back at a pale Riot. “Don’t lose.”
Riot shakes out his tree-trunk arms and sets up at the far end of the metal cage, staring down Rhett fifteen feet away on the other side.
“Ready yourselves,” I cue and grip a cage bar, my magic fizzing along my skin and into the metal.
It vibrates and pulses beneath my touch, glowing and burning to a bright molten orange, and the cage door disappears as the metal molds together into a seamless prison.
This is the only external use we have of our magic, sealing and manipulating cages—which is highly valuable, considering a vampire is powerless against a cage locked with our magic.
Vampires can still reach through it, summon things between the bars, but they can’t open it.
Serving a single purpose for us: to trap them.
The Hunters’ forms hone, eyes piercing with intensity, and muscles contract, hands flexing and skin rippling, magic sensing their surroundings.
The pens aren’t intended for weapons training—brute strength and fighting talent only, to test survival, to test what you have when no weapons remain, no help is coming, and all that is left is you.
“Begin,” I command.
The Hunters collide in a demonstration of precision and strength that makes my blood sing, and the captain within sparks with pride. I don’t give a shit who wins—the show is worth the price I’ll pay if Riot loses.
“Come on, Riot!” Grace screams.
Riot lands a punch to Rhett’s jaw, and a tooth flies into the metal bars, disintegrating on impact.
Riot is going to win this one. He’s five moves out.
“Come on, Riot. Please gods,” Grace whispers next to me.
I glance down at my wife. “If you lose us the summer house, you owe me a new blade for not asking me first.”
She glares up at me. “It’s our money.”
I raise an eyebrow at her. “Right. So it should have been our decision to bet it on Riot’s big ass.”
She huffs and bolts her hands to her hips, attention pinned on the match again.
“Take him, Riot!” she commands.
I clear my throat to hide the smirk burning at the edges of my mouth.
Riot lands a blow to Rhett’s gut and then a victory punch into his chin as the Hunter goes flying, landing just short of the scalding cage.
Grace spins, eyes and smile plastered wide. “We won!”
“Congratulations, my love.”
She presses herself into my side. “And Captain—” Grace whispers. “I commissioned you a new blade last week for your birthday.”
I pull away to look at her. “You’re too good to me.”
“You need a token of my love at your hip. Don’t feel too special, though. I got myself one, too.”
My grin widens. “Good.” I kiss her temple. “And Gracie—”
She runs her fingertips down my forearm. “Hmmm?” she hums at me.
“You can bet our entire fortune I’ll start over anywhere with you.”
Her lips part, and she unleashes a sparkling smile that has me starving for her mouth. “Your words have always been your best weapon, Kade.”
Rhett stomps over to the bars separating us, face bloody, and shoves his blond hair back. “Stop eye-fucking each other and let us out of this damn pen.”