Or her mother to shed blood when she was in one of her moods.
“Great. So how do I go about getting this thing?”
“Word of advice? Ask nicely.”
* * *
Falcyn stared at Narishka. “You want my dragonstone?” He laughed in her face. “Fuck off and die in agony, you worthless bitch.”
“Does your son mean so little to you, then?”
“About as much as you value your life.” He smirked pointedly.
Blaise stepped between them, aggravating Falcyn, as it prevented him from killing her. “Why do you need his stone?”
Narishka raked a cold glare over him. “This doesn’t concern you, maggot. Stay out of it.”
Falcyn crossed his arms over his chest as he cleared his throat. “Can I kill her now?” he asked Blaise in a bland tone that belied his fury.
“I’m about to give her to you, but aren’t you curious why she’s here?”
“Not enough to spare her life.”
Blaise laughed. “Wow. Remind me to never really piss you off.”
“I would, but you don’t listen.” As he moved to make good on his threat, the door opened to admit Urian and Medea into the room.
Falcyn drew up short at the sight of them. And at this point, he was rushing through the last of his patience for anyone. Even a woman with an ass that fine. “Here to help or to hinder? Declare yourself.”
Urian’s eyes widened before he answered. “Whichever choice ends with me on your good side.”
“Grab the bitch.”
But before anyone could move, a bright light pulsed inside the room, blinding everyone except Blaise, who couldn’t see anyway.
Falcyn cursed as pain radiated through his skull, leaving behind a flashing strobe that made him queasy as he tried to see past the swirling white dots that peppered his vision.
“Urian?”
“Blind as a bat!” he snapped in response to Falcyn’s call. “Dee?”
“Can’t see shit.” Medea held her hand up to shield her light-sensitive eyes.
“It’s demons in the room.” Blaise moved to cover them. “Gallu.”
Ah, that’s just great.
“Who invited the assholes to our party?” Falcyn snarled.
They were one of the few breeds that could infect a victim and turn them into mindless slaves.
Or killing machines. Neither of which appealed to Falcyn. While he didn’t mind senseless violence for the sake of it, he wanted the ultimate decision for who and what he killed to be his alone, and not the behest of some evil overlord. No one would ever hold dominion over him.
No one.
Something grabbed Falcyn.
He moved to punch the fool.
“Don’t you dare,” Blaise growled in his ear. “Or I’m leaving you to them.”
In another quick blur, Falcyn felt himself falling. He reached out and started to transform, then stopped himself, since the transformation could kill Blaise, or him, or both, depending on what it was Blaise was up to. Because this suddenly felt like interdimensional travel. And transforming during the middle of that was never a good idea.
“Blaise? What are you doing?”
“Hang on! Everyone stay calm!”
Yeah, right. Calm wasn’t his natural state of being.
Pissed off?
Check.
“Then why do you sound panicked and why am I still blind?”
No sooner had Falcyn finished that sentence than he slammed hard against a mossy cushion. And something soft and curvaceous landed on top of him with a loud “huff.” Worse than that, it elbowed him right in the stomach.
And would have kneed his groin had he not twisted and moved with lightning speed.
“Hey, hey, love! You only touch the no-zone if you intend to make it happy.”
Grimacing, Medea gave him a look that said he was some unwelcome goo that had attached itself to the bottom of her bare foot on her way out of the bathroom. “There’s not enough beer in the universe for me to touch your no-zone, dragonfly. Don’t flatter yourself.”
“Says the Daimon crawling all over it.”
“Jumping off it, you mean, before I catch something I’m sure antibiotics won’t cure.”
He scoffed at her insult. “Not what it feels like from where I’m laying, and you’re still on top of—umph!” He growled as she elbowed the air out of his lungs.
With a fierce scowl, he rubbed the abused area and pushed himself to his feet so that he could look around at something other than her shapely ass. He’d expected to find himself either in the bar or Peltier House—the residence the bears owned that was attached to their bar.
This was neither.
Irritated, he faced the cause of this particular disaster. “Blaise, what did you do?”
They were out in a meadow. A dark, dismal, creepy-ass meadow, the likes of which human kids used to scare each other. Or B-movie directors favored for the backdrops of their cheesy sets.
Yeah, he could definitely see some axe-wielding lunatic coming at them from the brush. ’Course, the mood he was in, that lunatic might be him before much longer.
Blaise turned around slowly in a way that said he was using his dragon-sight to feel the aether. “Well, this wasn’t what I had planned.”
“What?” Urian’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “You weren’t wanting a trip to Halloween Town? I’m so disappointed, Blaise. Was hoping to get my Jack Skellington underwear signed.”
Falcyn snorted at the sudden image he had of Urian in his head, posturing in Jack Skellington briefs like some Calvin Klein model. Actually, he could see the freak in that. Which was the most disturbing part about all of this. ’Cause really, he’d much rather be wasting that brain capacity on picturing Medea naked than imagining Urian in his twisted Disney underwear fetish.
Pushing the images out of his mind before he went as blind as Blaise, Falcyn scratched at his whiskered cheek. “So how’d we get here?”
“Not sure. I was aiming for the parlor of Peltier House.” Blaise screwed his face up. “Epic fail. Not even sure where we are.”
Urian let out a long, tired breath as he surveyed the twisted landscape. “I think I know. But you’re not going to like it. I sure as hell don’t.”
Medea pursed her lips. “Try us.”
“Myrkheim.”
Falcyn grimaced at how right Urian was, as an ulcer started in his stomach.
Blaise made an expression of exaggerated happiness. “Oh goodie! The borderlands where heathens go to rot! Just where I wanted to build my vacation home! Where’s a lease? Sign my scaly ass up!”
Medea rolled her eyes. “What’s Myrkheim?”
Falcyn laughed bitterly at her innocent question. Which made sense, all things considered. “Guess the Daimons don’t spend a lot of time here, as it’s not really part of your mythology. It’s a nether realm. A holding ground, if you will, between the land of light and dark where the fey can practice their magick.”
“Who’s feyfolk?”
Legitimate question, he supposed, as there was a lot of fey in the world to go around, and he hadn’t specified the pantheon. Falcyn sighed. “At one time, everyone’s. But nowadays, it’s mostly reserved for Morgen’s rejects. And some other IBS-suffering bastards.”
“Yeah, okay … So what’s the—” Before she could finish her sentence, a bolt of light shot between them, narrowly missing her.
In fact, it only missed her because Falcyn deflected it. “Stray magick. You have to keep your head up for it. If it hits you, there’s no telling what it might do. Could vaporize you. Turn you into a toad. Or just ruin your chances for children.”
Medea’s eyes widened as she watched it explode and morph a tree not far from them into a chicken that screeched, then dove under the ground to burrow like a frightened rabbit. “That happen a lot?”
Falcyn nodded. “’Round here? Good bit.”
“Great. Anything else I should watch out for?”
“Yeah,” he said bitterly. “Everything.”
Blinking, she met Urian’s gaze. “Joke?”
“Falcyn has no measurable sense of humor. At least none that we’ve identified to date.”