“So, which one was better?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s ridiculous, you have to know. Which one has the bigger, er, member?”
I gritted my teeth together. But I was compelled, and I couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of my mouth. “Naelen’s thicker. Logan’s… longer.”
Naelen’s jaw twitched.
“I am going to kill you,” said Logan. “I’m going to dismember you first. I’m going to cut off each and every one of your fingers and then I’m going to—”
“Stop it,” Naelen snarled. “You don’t have to make her say that stuff. Let her be.”
Cunningham just laughed.
“A trade,” said Naelen.
“Use your magic against him,” said Logan. “What the fuck is wrong with you, asshole? You’re a dragon.”
Yes, I agreed silently.
“I’m not going to risk Clarke’s life,” said Naelen.
Cunningham was staring at me. “Tell me which one you want the most. You must have some preference, some way or the other.”
“No, I’m just confused,” I said.
“Maybe if you gave the dragon a blow job, that would help you decide?” said Cunningham. “I could compel you to do that. I could restrain the dragon, and make the gargoyle watch, and—”
“Trade the knife for whatever object you’ve got,” said Naelen. “It’s obviously a manifestation object. Either the arrowhead or the comb, am I right? It’s a good trade. You can do much more with the damned knife. But unless I’ve got an object on me to protect me from your compulsion, I’m not giving the knife to you.”
Cunningham cocked his head at Naelen. “Are you particularly stupid? Your girlfriend—or whatever she is to you—the whore you’re dividing up with the gargoyle—she’s got a razor to her throat. I can kill her. Like that.” He snapped his fingers. “That’s what we call leverage, boy. So, hand over the knife right now.”
“Use your damned magic,” said Logan. “You’ve got fire. Burn him to death.”
“Sure, you’ve got leverage,” said Naelen to Cunningham. “And I guess you don’t care about Clarke’s life. But if you kill her, then I’ll still have the knife, and you won’t have anything to stop me from breathing fire and burning you to embers. Which I will do. So. A trade.”
Cunningham sighed. “Yes, all right, fine. A trade. The comb for the knife.”
“All right,” said Naelen, taking the knife out of his pocket. He held it up. “Show me yours.”
Cunningham reached into the breast pocket of his suit and took out the comb. It was an ancient-looking thing, made of metal, the tines twisted.
“So, how do we do this?” said Naelen.
Cunningham beckoned. “Come closer. We’ll hand each other the objects at the same time.”
Naelen started across the room. He stopped a foot in front of Cunningham, holding the knife up, just out of the other man’s reach. “On the count of three?”
“If she’s with the gargoyle,” said Cunningham, “then was she sleeping with you behind his back?”
“Are you really so pathetic that you have nothing better to do but to speculate on our sex lives?” Naelen growled.
“Not pathetic exactly, but easily amused,” said Cunningham, shrugging. “If I had all of you compelled and under my control, there are lots of fun things we could do.”
“Just shut up, and let’s do the trade,” said Naelen.
“Your sister could tell you all about it,” said Cunningham. “I forced her to do all kinds of things.”
Naelen’s eyes flashed. “What do you mean? What did you do to her?”
Cunningham shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her.”
“She won’t talk about it,” said Naelen, and his face twisted painfully.
Cunningham tittered. “Oh, well. I suppose you’ll never know then. Let’s make the trade.”
“Why aren’t you burning him?” Logan yelled.
Naelen was shaking all over. He looked at me, looked at the blood running down my arm from my thumb and then he turned back to Cunningham. “On three,” he choked.
“One,” said Cunningham. “Two. Three.”
The two men snatched the objects out of each other’s hands.
The wardrobes on top of Logan snapped out of existence.
Logan rushed forward, his blade raised over his head.
“Stop right there,” said Cunningham, using knife-bolstered compulsion on Logan.
Logan froze.
Naelen turned on Cunningham, and he opened his mouth. A tiny bit of smoke trickled out of his nose.
“I still compel Clarke,” said Cunningham.
Naelen shut his mouth. “Fuck you.”
Cunningham shrugged. “Think I’ll just be going then. I could kill her anyway, I suppose, but that wouldn’t be much fun, would it? No, whatever’s going on with the three of you is just… good trashy fun. I couldn’t forgive myself if I put a stop to that.” He saluted us, and then he sauntered out of the room.
“Go after him,” said Logan.
“Can you move?” said Naelen.
“No,” said Logan.
“So, then, I won’t, because his compulsion still holds. One word from him and she’s dead.” Naelen looked at me. “Can you talk?”
I shook my head. Cunningham had compelled me to only speak when he asked.
“You tell me when you can move,” said Naelen.
Logan let out a roar of frustration.
“I suppose, if it were you, you’d go after him,” said Naelen. “Risk Clarke’s life?”
Logan drew himself up, sucking in breath to answer. But then he stopped, and he seemed to deflate. He sighed. “No. No, I probably wouldn’t. It’s only that it’s hell being helpless against that bastard.”
“I know,” said Naelen. “I’m sorry.”
Logan didn’t say anything for several moments. And then he sighed again. “Don’t be sorry. There’s nothing you could have done.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Of course, by the time Cunningham’s compulsion wore off, he was long gone. Regular compulsion wore off the minute a person was out of the room, but Cunningham’s was bolstered by the knife, which meant that it could last for a long time, over long distances.
We searched the entire lodge for him, and we couldn’t find him anywhere.
Regrouping in my room, the two men paced on opposite sides of the room.
“What now?” said Naelen. “We have to stop him, Clarke.”
“I’ll stop him,” said Logan. “I’ll hunt him down and kill him. I’ve killed a lot of vampires in my time. He’s no different.”
“You can’t cut me out of this,” said Naelen. “You heard him. You heard what he did to Reign. You were talking about dismembering him? I want a piece of that action. I want to watch him die.”
“So, what?” said Logan. “You want us to go after him together? How the hell’s that going to work?”
And then they both looked at me.
“What?” I said. I was still feeling dirty from having Cunningham control all my actions and make me say horribly embarrassing things. “Why are you looking at me?”
Logan addressed Naelen, but narrowed his eyes at me. “Naelen, I’ll let you know when it’s done. And when I kill him, I’ll make sure he understands that he needs to pay for what he did to your sister. Can’t that be enough?”
“No,” said Naelen. “Not even close.”
“Couldn’t we call him when we found Cunningham?” I said.
“We?” said Logan.
I furrowed my brow. “You don’t want me to come with you anymore?”
Logan didn’t say anything.
I felt a little sick to my stomach. Logan felt betrayed, and he couldn’t get past it.
Logan spoke up finally. “I didn’t say that. Not exactly. Do you still want me to get you away from him?”
“I… Are we talking about trying to hunt down Cunningham here?” I said, “Naelen
does have resources that could be useful to us, Logan. He has a private plane.”
Logan sneered. “Toys. He’s got toys.”
“You know what?” said Naelen, glowering at Logan. “Why don’t you try to be a little bit respectful to me, huh? I gave her to you.”
“What?” I said.
“What?” said Logan.
“Nothing,” said Naelen. “Look, whatever we do, we shouldn’t stay here. We’ve brought too much danger to this lodge already with the dragons and with Cunningham. We can get down the mountain to my plane, and we can head back to Sea City and regroup. You two decide you want to go after him? Fine. I’m going after him too. Whether we work together or not, I don’t care.”
“You don’t own me, Naelen Spencer,” I said. “You can’t give me to anyone, and besides, you didn’t even want me.”
Naelen stalked to the door of my room. “I’m going to leave for the airport in ten minutes. You can either come with me or find your own way home.”
I heaved out all the air in my lungs.
Naelen disappeared out the door, shutting it behind him.
Logan walked over to the window of the room and pulled aside the curtains to look out at the snow.
I waited for him to say something.
He didn’t.
Finally, I spoke up. “What should we do?”
He turned to look at me. “I think I’ll catch a ride with him back to Sea City. You do what you want.”
* * *
I made it out to the van that was taking us down the mountain to the airport and found that Celia and Foster were out there, sitting in the back seat.
“Oh, I didn’t know you guys were coming with us,” I said, hovering in the door, unsure of whether to get in back there with them or not. There were seats behind them at the back of the van. Three people could maybe fit on the bench seat back there.
“We heard the shuttle was going to the airport,” said Celia, “and we feel like getting the hell out of here.”
“Oh, so you’re just heading to the airport, then,” I said. They wouldn’t be coming back on Naelen’s plane.
“Well, we’re going back to school,” said Foster. “Got to sort out the semester. Not sure how our credits for this internship are going to work now that everyone’s dead.”
“Not that the credits are the most important thing here,” said Celia.
“Of course not,” said Foster.
I climbed in behind them and sat down next to the window.
Now I could see that Logan was sitting up front next to Jonah, who was going to be driving.
Naelen had said he was leaving in ten minutes. Where the hell was he? I didn’t know how I was going to get back to Sea City without him unless Logan decided he didn’t hate me and had credit cards to book commercial tickets for both of us.
But then Naelen appeared. He surveyed the seating situation and then climbed into the back. He sat on the opposite side of the seat from me and looked out the opposite window.
I didn’t understand why he was pissed at me. I hadn’t done anything to him that I knew of. He was the one who’d been horrible, so I should be the one to get pissed off.
Whatever.
I settled in my seat and stared straight ahead.
The roads had been plowed, but they still weren’t great. I spent most of the trip down the mountain clutching the armrest by the window for dear life. I knew it wasn’t going to help, but I couldn’t stop myself. There was only a space about the size of one lane clear. On either side, the snow was piled up just as high as the van. And calling the road clear wasn’t really accurate. It was snow covered and it looked slippery to me. I was of the opinion that Jonah was going way too fast.
But Jonah seemed relaxed, babbling on about how this storm wasn’t as bad as the one last year, when they were all stuck in the lodge for three weeks and had started to run out of food. He said there had been wind and drifts that time, and they’d lost power for a day, and they’d had to huddle around the wood stove in the foyer and it had been horrible. This, according to Jonah, was nothing.
Okay. Sure.
I mean, it wasn’t as if I’d never seen snow before. It snowed in Maryland. Just… not like this.
Somehow, we made it to the airport safe and sound.
Naelen paused once we’d unloaded, eyebrows raised at Logan and me. “So?” he said. “You coming in my plane or what?”
“Yeah,” said Logan.
I nodded. “Yes. But, um, I need to go to the bathroom first.”
“Okay,” said Naelen.
“We’ll wait,” said Logan.
I ended up in a line for a stall, next to Celia.
She smiled at me.
“Can I ask you a rude question?” I asked.
She raised her eyebrows. “Um, I guess so.”
“You don’t think he cares? Foster, I mean. You don’t think it bugs him that you slept with a married man and all that. You don’t think he’s going to hold that against you down the road?”
Celia knitted her brows together. “That is a rude question.”
“I’m only asking because I think I might have done something really shitty to someone I care about, and I just… I want to think it’s possible for people to forgive each other.”
Celia shrugged. “Well, the way I see it, Foster doesn’t need to forgive me, because what I did had nothing to do with him. And I wasn’t the one who was married, you know?”
“You don’t think it was that bad.”
“I feel worse about the fact that I’m responsible for his death,” she said.
“But you’re not. That was Nicole.”
“She did it because she was angry that he had an affair with me, though,” said Celia.
“That’s not your fault,” I said.
She picked at her cuticles. “Maybe. Sometimes it feels like it is. What shitty thing did you do?”
“I slept with Naelen.”
“He’s upset about that?”
“No, Logan is.”
“And you and Logan are together?”
“No, but he asked me to be with him, and I said I needed to think about it, and then…”
“Did you make any promises to Logan?”
“No,” I said.
She shrugged. “I’m kind of not seeing what the big deal is here.”
Then a stall opened up, and she crossed to it.
I leaned against the wall and sighed.
* * *
On the plane, the two guys took the swively easy chairs that Naelen and I usually sat on. I was left sitting on the long couch-like seat that faced the chairs.
Of course, both of the guys swiveled around to look out the windows, and I had to stare at the back of their heads.
The flight was about three hours long.
For the first two hours, no one said anything. Naelen didn’t even bother to turn on the television set and put on a movie or something, which he sometimes did. He didn’t make drinks, either, which he always did. We all simply sat there in silence.
It was hell.
Finally, I said something. “Are we going to figure out what we’re doing about Cunningham?”
They both swiveled around to look at me.
“I’m going to use my toys to find him,” said Naelen, casting a sidelong glance at Logan. It wasn’t friendly.
Logan made a sour face. “I’m sorry for saying that. It was out of line.” He looked around the plane. “Honestly, if they’re all like this, then they’re very nice toys.”
Logan apologizing to Naelen? Huh. Unexpected.
Naelen hung his head. “Don’t worry about it. I can imagine you’re a little on edge.”
“A little, yeah,” said Logan.
They both glanced at me. Then they turned their chairs around again.
“Oh, come on,” I said. “I can understand why Logan doesn’t want anything to do with me, but I don’t know why Naelen’s angry with me.”
Naelen whirled around again.
“I’m not angry with you. I’m just done.”
“Oh,” I said. “Done with what exactly? Me?”
“Among other things,” said Naelen. “I’m going to do one last thing. I’m going to find Cunningham and make him pay, and then I’m going to stop deluding myself into thinking I can be Batman, and I’m going back to what I’m actually good at. Business. Not fighting monsters.”
“So… none of it was real?” I said. “I accused you of making up these damned jobs just so you could try to convince me to sleep with you, and you claimed you’d changed. But you never changed, and you really were just manipulating me.” I hated him. I really shouldn’t be asking him this in front of Logan, but I didn’t think I was going to get another chance to talk to him after this, and none of it made any sense to me.
“I guess so,” said Naelen, turning back to the window.
“Wait a second,” said Logan, swiveling around. “What the heck happened between you two?”
“She can fill you in later,” Naelen told the clouds outside.
“I’m not planning on going off and being cozy with her later,” said Logan, glowering at me.
Naelen turned around. “What? Why?”
“She slept with you last night. Or maybe not. Maybe you just had her nose between your legs last night and the sex happened some other time. I don’t know what it was. But she called me in the middle of the damned night. Even with the time change difference, it still amounts to her being fresh out of your bed when she called me, and I…” He settled his gaze on me. “I can get over it, Clarke. You can spread your legs for every man in Sea City, and I will still be yours. I’ll always be yours, but…” He shook his head. “After how graphic all that was, all the detail Cunningham shoved in my face, I… I need a little time. Frankly, if you just finished fucking him, I would think you’d need some time too.”
Tears stung my eyes. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “It was wrong to call you.”
“So,” said Logan, “let’s get it all out on the table, then. What happened with you and him?”
“You want to know?” I said.
“No,” said Logan. “Not exactly. But I need to know. Because otherwise, it will eat me up inside while I imagine it. So, tell me the truth.”
“Seriously, couldn’t you two do this later?” said Naelen. “Instead of discussing it right in front of me?”
Embers (The Slayer Chronicles Book 2) Page 21