Page 17 of Against the Veil (Endangered Fae #3)

Chapter Ten

Dragon Logic

“ Y ou’re either with me or against me!” Brandon bellowed.

Kara advanced on him until they were nose to nose. Figuratively, since Kara’s nose was at collarbone level on Brandon.

“That’s gotta rate as the most epically stupid thing you’ve ever said!” she shouted back. “If one of your ideas is stupid, somebody needs to tell you! So I’m telling you!”

“It does sound kinda hard to pull off,” Nate broke in more reasonably. “I mean, aren’t the fae sort of ridiculous when it comes to alcohol? I read he’s guzzled five pitchers, got up and walked away.”

Minky sat curled in her corner chair, leafing through her copy of A Pooka’s Life for the millionth time. It was one of her favorite books, but right now she was looking for a specific passage and she wished the rest of them would shut up.

The initial excitement after they found out Prince Lugh was in the city had worn off.

The prince only came when he had appointments with U.N.

officials and the core of Brandon’s idea was a good one.

Incapacitate the prince so that his human colleague, Consul Sandoval, would need to leave the island to keep these appointments.

The bad part was, no one could figure out how to do it.

She found the passage she was looking for and smiled. She loved the way the pooka said things. In the book, Mr. Sandoval had called him Thistle, but everyone knew by now that he was really Finn Shannon, the Consul’s lover and, more recently, husband.

“Catnip,” she said into a break in the argument.

Brandon’s head whipped around, his eyes blazing. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Minky cringed, fading into the fabric of the chair.

“Please don’t yell at her, Bran,” Will said. “She can’t explain if you scare her half to death.”

“God.” Brandon huffed out a breath, ruffling both hands back through his ebony hair. “Bunch of neurotics.” He pushed past Kara and crouched in front of Minky’s chair. “Okay, little bit. What are you trying to tell me?”

She wasn’t trying to tell just him, but she wasn’t brave like Kara to say so. “Catnip. It’s, like, an intoxicant for them, like fae crack. Maybe we could smuggle some in to him.”

Brandon’s forehead creased and he had that condescending smile on his face. Minky wanted to slap him. It wasn’t his idea, so he wasn’t listening.

“And how in the world would you convince the prince to eat too much catnip?” he asked her in that too-gentle voice.

“Wait, hold up.” Nate rose to pace. “According to Fae Watcher , he’s only got two security men with him, and neither one’s Morrison.”

“Isn’t that kinda weird? That he doesn’t have his aide with him?” Kara asked, her voice still sharp.

“Not really. Poor sergeant’s probably gonna be bedridden for a long time after getting mauled.” Nate waved a hand impatiently. “Anyway, we’re getting off track. So, three big guys in a condo, no staff to cook for them…what would you do, Bran?”

“Order out,” Brandon said in a puzzled tone. Then he laughed. “Of course! They’ll call for pizzas or something.”

“Oh, please.” Kara snorted. “You think the prince wouldn’t smell freaking catnip ?”

“See, I’m thinking we want him to,” Nate continued, patting the air to stall further arguments. “He’s without Morrison, and it doesn’t sound like he’s been out clubbing like he normally does, so he’s already feeling kinda…”

“Depressed!” Will supplied, his eyes shining with excitement. “Yes! Everyone says they’re lovers. So he has to leave his love behind on the island and the catnip would be like offering a bummed-out human a drink.”

“And once he starts, he’ll feel the happy buzz and keep going,” Brandon said on a wicked grin.

“You got it.”

“Nate, you’re a genius!”

Minky rolled her eyes. It wasn’t worth the argument.

“Better this morning?” Diego asked as he rolled up their blankets.

“Much, thanks.”

Zack was sure he’d scared the hell out of his traveling companion when he hadn’t been able to stop shivering the night before. Diego had wrapped him in blankets, made him lie down and finally had lain down with him, curled up to his back.

“I’m a little freaked out still,” Zack went on when Diego gave him a look. “But the weird, shaky feeling’s gone.”

“I think it was a physical reaction, not just being freaked out. They were reaching inside you. Not inside your body but inside your…” Diego trailed off. “Your aura, maybe? I don’t know what else to call it.”

“Do me a favor, Diego. Don’t, please, don’t tell me any more.”

Diego nodded and shot him a little smile. “You do realize you’ve started calling me ‘Diego’ instead of ‘Mister,’ don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Zack grumbled. “I guess after someone holds you naked and wailing in his arms, it’s kinda hard to be formal.”

The rest of their journey downriver proved uneventful. When Zack asked why Diego didn’t just make a door into dragon lands as he had to the hospital, Diego shook his head.

“The dragons need to feel us coming. And they will. It gives them a chance to gauge our intentions.”

On the third day, they beached the canoe and continued on foot, over ground that became stonier and more sharply graded with every yard.

Soon they climbed a steep path where Zack had to stop and wait every few minutes for Diego to catch up on his shorter legs.

After one of these stops, Zack turned back to the path and halted, his way suddenly blocked by a golden-skinned young man.

Lithe and lean muscled, he wore nothing but a black torque at his throat, and as he approached, Zack had to revise his original impression.

Not a young man, this was a fae of some sort, with the tapered ears of many Otherworld inhabitants.

He had to blink, certain his eyes were picking up illusions in the bright sun.

For a moment, he thought he had seen golden wings.

“There is nothing here for you.” The golden fae stopped, arms folded over his chest. “Why do you hold your lives so cheap?”

Diego came forward, easing carefully around Zack. “My name is Diego Sandoval. I’ve come to seek council with Lord Hssetassk.”

The fae threw back his head and laughed. “ You , little man? You cannot be the Light-wielder, the great mage who flung open the Veil! And you bring this abomination with you?” He waved a hand at Zack. “I should end its miserable life and yours for your impudence.”

Diego put a hand on Zack’s arm. Not that he was going to rush the jackass and deck him, but he had to admit he felt like it.

While he seethed, Diego smiled. He lifted his free hand and Zack felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.

The wind kicked up around them in miniature tornados.

The air sizzled and popped. A softball’s worth of plasma lightning hovered over Diego’s palm.

“Shit. Diego, don’t hurt him.”

The fae backed up a step, suddenly far less sure of himself. Diego bounced the ball as if testing its weight, then hurled it into the clouds. A moment later, a clap of thunder deafened Zack.

A booming voice followed the thunder, echoing off the hillsides. “Are you daft, Gssetik? Bring the Light-wielder ere he leaves nothing of you but a pile of ash!”

“Yes, skatath ,” the fae, presumably Gssetik, replied in a small voice. Chastised, their antagonist became their guide and led them to the mouth of a cave set high on the hill. Cool air bathed Zack’s bare skin, soothing after the sun’s heat, and he took a moment once inside to let his eyes adjust.

He had to blink a few times, uncertain what he really saw.

First, the cave seemed a comfortable size, with a ten-foot ceiling.

Beautiful, golden-skinned young men lounged on stone sofas around the periphery.

When Zack turned his head, the cave suddenly appeared massive, large enough to park a destroyer inside, with equally huge figures curled up around the edges—long, sinuous shapes with wedge-shaped heads, gleaming scales and wings. The young men were…

Dragons .

“The Were is not as blind as some.” A deep, gravelly voice interrupted Zack’s thoughts and the double-vision cave resolved into the smaller one.

The voice belonged to another golden fae, this one larger, obviously older, power washing from him in almost visible waves.

Arms crossed over his massive chest, his only clothing the mass of golden hair tumbling down his back, he stood in the center of the cave beside a stone table.

“Our Knight of the Pen comes to us with a curse in tow. This is an odd way to begin a polite visit.”

“My Lord Hssetassk,” Diego offered, as he pulled Zack along to approach the older dragon. “I wish the visit could have been under different circumstances. But first, I’ve brought a strange substance which I thought might interest you.”

He rummaged in his pack and handed the red plastic egg to the dragon.

With exaggerated care, Hssetassk opened the egg with one claw and tipped the putty out onto his palm. “Ah. Wonders from the human world.” He prodded at it, pulling at it gently. “It is between one thing and another. How is it made?”

“It’s a silicone oil, my lord, mixed with boric acid.” Diego took out paper and pen so he could sketch the molecular structure for their host.

Zack found his attention wandering away from the technical analysis, especially since the naked young dragons decorating the room’s perimeter were more interesting.

Some slept curled on their sides, some read, and some preened and stretched.

He had to look twice at a pair in the far corner.

One with a red tinge to his golden hair crawled off his couch and onto his neighbor’s where he began, without any conversation or apparent permission, to lick and suck the larger one’s thick cock.

He turned away quickly, his face heating in spite of the cool cave, but the new direction wasn’t any better. Another pair was going at it directly behind Hssetassk, growling and hissing while one flipped the other onto his stomach and impaled him.