Page 25 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Tiger

“ H ow does she know?” I asked Mal, guilt gnawing at me as I grabbed the rannat to smear on my bread.

He shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I’m not sure. But she wasn’t happy about it.”

“You might as well try to hide the color of the sky from her,” Surge mumbled.

“From whom?” Discord asked as she joined us for breakfast out on the terrace.

“Jenny knows Mal and Tiger slept together,” the pint-sized man answered casually.

My face burned and I was aghast. “Do you always tell each other everything?”

Discord nodded, while Surge shrugged and admitted, “Most things, yes. None of us are good at keeping secrets from each other, except Mal. But that’s only because he keeps palace secrets, and we don’t want to know them.”

“Better to not know anything about that awful place,” Discord mumbled and made her plate.

“Okay, fine,” I muttered, leaning my elbows on the table and pinning Mal with a look. “So should I expect you to tell them all the dirty details about us, as well?”

He smirked. “Only the good ones. Which to be fair, was the whole night.”

I almost smiled despite myself. “Don’t you dare.”

He grinned wider, making my breath hitch at how handsome he truly was. “I have to give them something. Look at them. It’s been a hundred years since either of them have gotten laid.”

“I know you’re not talking about me,” Surge said haughtily.

Discord laughed. “Same here.”

“Oh?” Mal asked, eyebrows raised. “You two have been keeping secrets, then? Do tell.”

Surge leaned in, all too eager to share. “You remember that barmaid in Petamorn? Well, she and I—”

“What is he doing?” Discord interrupted Surge, her expression sharpening as she glanced somewhere beyond us. Then, she abruptly bolted from her seat toward the forest.

At the edge of the tree line, I saw Longshot running with Jenny limp in his arms. Her hair was soaked in red.

My chest seized and I was on my feet before the shock fully hit.

I didn’t feel the ground beneath me as I ran faster than I ever had before.

I didn’t see Discord as I passed her. I barely saw Longshot.

Just Jenny’s slack, unconscious body draped over his arms and the blood that poured from her mouth and nose.

“She tripped and fell when she was running and hit her head on a rock,” Longshot blurted as I reached him.

Discord was there seconds later, followed by Mal who carried Surge on his back.

“Set her down,” the tiny man ordered sharply once Mal put him on his feet.

“What? Why? We have to get her to a hospital!” I tried to take Jenny from Longshot’s arms, but Surge was already examining her, irrespective of my demands. I shoved him back, frantic. “Get away from her!”

“Stop,” Mal said firmly, grabbing my shoulder. “Let him look at her.”

“Why?”

“Surge is a magician. Let him help.”

Ice filled my veins. I’d had no idea Surge was a magician, but all I knew of his kind was that they were sinister. I shoved him again and growled. “You stay away from her!”

Powerful hands pulled me from both of them, and I fought against Mal’s hold, but he was shockingly strong and I couldn’t shake him off.

“Tiger,” he hissed, his voice low but commanding. “You need to stop!”

I broke from his grasp and glared at Surge. “How can you let a magician touch her?” I shouted angrily at Mal. “Magicians are evil!”

“Get her to my lab,” Surge said, ignoring my tirade. “She’ll survive the trip, but don’t waste time.”

Longshot nodded, picked up Jenny again, and ran toward the mansion.

Surge climbed onto Mal’s back, and they followed.

Discord stepped between me and the retreating pair before I could take off after them, her hand firm on my chest. “If you want Jenny to live, you’ll let Surge do his job without any interference.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re all in on this? Magicians are monsters, all of them!”

She looked surprised by my words. “Does Surge strike you as a monster, Tiger?”

I didn’t answer. My throat worked, but no words came because the truth was, I was confused, unable to separate what I’d always been told about magicians from the caring, considerate man I’d come to know over the past few days.

I pushed Discord aside and ran after them, fury and terror twisting inside of me.

This time, Discord caught up to me. “What’s the plan, Tiger?” she asked, the stride of her legs matching mine. “Are you going to stop him from saving her life?”

“No,” I grunted, realizing I had no choice but to trust the man.

“Why do you hate magicians so much?” she asked.

I stopped near the breakfast table, panting for breath. “They’re evil…magicians are why Justice…murdered all the conduits.”

“No, Justice murdered all the conduits because they were the only people who could have usurped his power,” she said in a flat tone. “Magicians didn’t come into authority until after the conduits died.”

I shook my head. “Everyone knows they study and use forbidden magic! That alone—”

Her lips flattened into a grim line. “You’re wrong, Tiger.”

I had no time to argue with her, not when Jenny was dying. “Where is his lab?”

Discord hesitated, then finally said, “I will take you, but only if you swear you will not attack him and you will allow him to help Jenny.”

I nodded. “I swear not to attack him until Jenny is stable.” Right now, it was the only compromise I was willing to make.

She huffed a breath. “I’ll take what I can get. Follow me.”

We ran into the mansion and through the halls, until we came to a set of stone stairs at the end of a hall that spiraled downward. At the end of the stairs, a large wooden door blocked the path. Blood pooled just before the door, and I looked back. There were drips of it on the stairs, too.

I panicked. “He’s killing her!” I said, and burst into the lab.

Jenny lay on her side atop an exam table, her skin pale, blood streaked from her nose and mouth.

A rounded pillow braced her neck. She was still unconscious, blessedly unaware, as Surge hovered over her face with tools I did not recognize or understand.

Longshot and Mal stood behind him, ready to help if needed.

Fear rippled through me. “What is he doing to her?”

Mal stepped toward me, placing his hands on my shoulders to keep me back. “She’s going to be alright, but you have to stay clear so Surge can heal her.”

His words did nothing to ease my anxiety. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Her nose is broken, for one,” Surge said, not looking away from Jenny as he worked on her. “She has a concussion. Possible neck strain, which I’ve stabilized for now with the pillow. I did a hand reading and I’m not seeing much blood on the brain, which is a good sign.”

Longshot started to ask Surge something, but didn’t finish the question. A horrible crunching sound echoed in the room. Longshot turned away and vomited into a nearby sink.

“Big tough assassin can’t handle a simple nose reset?” Surge muttered as he gently wiped Jenny’s face clean of the blood.

He wretched some more as his answer.

Mal finally released me and turned to the small man. “What can we do to help you, Surge?”

“Now that I’ve got the bleeding under control, I’ll need you to help me reposition her body.

Longshot, be a dear and take the vomiting elsewhere.

It’s distracting. Discord, I’d like you present while I examine the rest of her body.

In case she wakes up in the middle of things, I’d like a woman present. Tiger, do you know the hydnora?”

“What?”

“It’s a flower that looks like a brown rock with an orange mouth—”

“You mean pigbane?” I asked, recognizing the description.

“Right, right,” Surge said, nodding. “Can you search the path they were on for it? It will draw out any poisons and toxins—”

I didn’t wait to hear the rest. I nodded and ran back outside to find the pigbane. Ugly flowers, if ever there were such a thing. Surge was right. They did look like rocks with mouths. The parasite flower reeked, too, making it easy to find.

The pigbane lived at the bases of trees, eating whatever bark it could reach—its favorite food.

One flower could eat halfway around a hundred-year-old tree in a day.

Pigbane was so good at deforestation that early Ladrians used it to clear land.

But they had to be careful. Pigbane’s mouths could bite fingers and tails off.

As kids, we collected pigbane to hide in bedding as a mean prank.

Aside from trees, they liked the taste of Ladrians.

Kapok had come to my rescue when someone did it to me.

I was three when it happened. The pigbane in my bed had taken a chunk of my tail hair before I found it.

I was luckier than the boy who did it—Kapok held the older kid down and let the pigbane eat one of his fingers as revenge.

The memory clawed at me. Grief tried to rise up at the thought of Kapok, but I shoved it down. I didn’t have time to get melancholy. Not now. I had to focus. I had to find the flower to help Jenny.

Wait—if she tripped and fell, how would she be poisoned, too?

I shrugged it off. Maybe it was magician logic. Or Surge was being cautious. Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about how much blood she’d lost. The way her face looked. Slack. Pale. Wrong.

My stomach twisted. I still couldn’t believe I had been living with a magician at Mal’s palace. Dining with him. Joking with him like we were friends…but he was trying to save her. And he was succeeding. And despite my aversion to magicians in general, I had to hold onto that.

Rummaging through the forest, my eyes and nose were perked to the shape and smell. I kept sniffing the air, hoping to find that foul stench. Digging in the underbrush, I tried to bait a pigbane out with the taste of my fingers, before one had the chance to bite me.