by Martha Carr
The guard sucked in a sharp breath of surprise and took a step back. Then he frowned, which was about as close to reprimanding her as he was going to get.
Cheyenne cut off the sparks and pushed the heat of her drow magic all the way back down. “That’s about all I’ve got.”
Pressing his lips together, the guard just blinked at her and sighed. Then he grabbed her shoes off the x-ray’s conveyer belt and dropped them on the floor beside her. “You can pick up the rest of your things on the way out.” He waited somewhat patiently for her to slip back into her black Vans, then turned around and took off. “This way.”
He shot Sir an irritated look, but the FRoE official just shrugged again. Cheyenne thought she saw a little twitch at the corner of his mouth, but she didn’t want to look at him long enough to make sure. She was focused on following the guard across the smaller room on the other side of the metal detector toward the thick steel doors leading into the rest of Chateau D’rahl.
I might actually be the first magical to walk into this prison without any dampening cuffs.
The thought filled her with pride and weird, unexpected discomfort at the same time.
But the guard didn’t lead them to those thick steel doors into the max-security prison. Instead, he took a sharp right turn down a narrow hallway and pressed the call button on an elevator. Sir and Cheyenne stopped to wait behind him, then the elevator doors opened.
“After you.” The guard gestured toward the elevator, and they stepped inside. A heavy metal grate slid into place across the opening and stopped on the other side of the elevator with a loud clang. When the doors had closed again, the guard swiped his badge across the card reader on the wall and pressed the button below it. There was only one.
“Where does this take us?” Cheyenne couldn’t help the question. This part of the process just seemed a little odd compared to the normal protocol, even for a prison like Chateau D’rahl.
The guard glanced at Sir again but didn’t say a word.
Sir’s mustache twitched. “Just think of it as a special visitation room.”
“Anything I should know about before we get there?”
He cocked his head. “Probably.”
That was apparently the end of the conversation.
The halfling hadn’t expected the elevator to go down when they started moving. The ride lasted over two minutes, which was just one more item on the list of weird Chateau D’rahl experiences.
Even before they stopped and the elevator doors opened, Cheyenne could smell the damp stone and the tang of wet metal. The guard pulled the grate back into the side of the elevator and gestured for his honored guests to step out. “Welcome to the dungeon. Just keep walking.”
The halfling shot him a confused look over her shoulder, but she stepped out beside Sir and kept the rest of her questions to herself. The dungeon. That’s gotta be a euphemism.
They walked across the dark stone room, heading toward the same kind of booth as they’d encountered in the front lobby. This one spanned the corridor, reinforced by thick iron doors and iron bars on both sides of the bulletproof glass running around the top half of what looked like the control room. Sir stopped in front of the door on the right, and a guard with a burn scar stretching from below his left ear to beneath the collar of his uniform shirt nodded at them through the glass. He pressed a button on a wide panel in front of him, then a loud buzz echoed within the stone walls and he pushed the door open toward them.
“Come on in.”
Sir snorted and stepped into the booth. Cheyenne had no choice but to follow. At this point, she would’ve walked into that booth even if she’d been given another choice.
This is it.
The door shut behind them, and the booth suddenly felt very cramped with three people standing inside. But it was a lot easier now to get a good view of the room on the other side.
The huge cavern was twice the size of the prison’s front entrance, apparently carved out of stone beneath the building. Two-thirds of the way across the cavern was a curved wall of thick iron bars stretching from floor to ceiling, creating a giant circular cell. Dim industrial lights had been bolted into the stone walls, giving everything a muted, unnerving yellow glow, but it wasn’t enough to see anything on the other side of those huge bars, which were spaced a few inches apart.
“Okay. I will make this short and sweet.” The guard gestured at the cavern with a firm nod. “We’ll be able to hear everything you say from in here, so don’t say anything you don’t want anyone else to hear. The only thing that’s not allowed is slipping something to him between those bars. Nothing changes hands, but no one’s gonna stop you from shaking hands. And if you need help, if he does anything or says anything you don’t like, if you want someone to come in there with you, just say ‘Easter Bunny,’ and we’ll take care of it.”
The halfling raised an eyebrow. “’Easter Bunny?’”
“Yep. Last week’s word was ‘Manamana.’ Thankfully, no one had to use it. You ready?”
“Yeah.” Cheyenne glanced at Sir and tilted her head. “You’re staying here?”
“This is your visit, halfling, not mine. Honestly, just standing here in this box is a little too close to him for my liking, but a deal’s a deal. I’m not going anywhere until you’re done.”
“Right.” Not that she was worried about the guy leaving her down here while she had her reunion, but whatever. “Okay. Let’s go.”
“Yep.” The guard stepped up beside her and pressed a button on another panel, and that loud buzz filled the booth. Then he pushed the door open, and Cheyenne stepped into the even stronger scent of damp stone and metal and something else that made her think of fresh-baked bread.
The door closed with a surprisingly loud bang and an echoing click, probably as it locked behind her, and then the drow halfling was standing in the same room as the man who’d spent one night with Bianca Summerlin just to bring their daughter into this world.
She didn’t see him on the other side of those bars. Not yet. But in the next few seconds, she’d be standing in front of L’zar Verdys. Her father. The drow who’d made her what she was. Cheyenne lifted her chin and walked across the cavern.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The only sound now was the soft whisper of Cheyenne’s Vans across the stone floor and the steady trickle of more than one thin stream of water running down the stone walls of the cavern. From somewhere behind those thick bars, she heard the slow, steady breathing of the magical enclosed within them.
One of those cheap metal folding chairs sat several feet from the bars, but Cheyenne didn’t move to grab it. She wasn’t sure if she’d want to take a seat, or if she had enough time to pretend to make herself comfortable on this side of the giant cell. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t pause or slow on her way to the bars, and when she got about two yards from them, a shadow moved inside the cell.
A second later, L’zar Verdys stepped toward the bars and into the yellow glow of the lights mounted on the walls. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall, thin but still in good shape, with the same purple-gray skin Cheyenne had been seeing on herself for at least the last fifteen years. L’zar’s long, straight white hair was tied behind his head in a loose bun, some shorter pieces of it having come loose to fall down the sides of his forehead. The tips of his pointed drow ears rose from that bone-white hair, and glowing golden eyes stared at Cheyenne Summerlin from the other side of the bars. The drow wrapped his hands around the iron bars on either side of him, the long, slender fingers pressing into the metal one at a time. Then he leaned a little closer and smiled, almost in disbelief.
“Wow. You look just like her, you know that?”
His soft, low voice sent a shiver across Cheyenne’s shoulders and down her back. She wasn’t sure yet whether it was the good kind of shiver or the kind that would send her back across that cavern toward the booth at any minute. This is him. This is my dad.
Without knowing why, she stepped c
loser and spread her arms by her sides. Her drow magic burst to life at the base of her spine, and the transformation washed over her.
L’zar’s golden eyes widened, and he let out a soft chuckle. “Ah. Now you look like me. Even better.”
For a moment, they just stared at each other, father and daughter, both of them looking like full-blooded drow. L’zar sniffed at the air once, twice, and glanced at his daughter’s arm. “What happened to your shoulder?”
That’s the first question he wants to ask me?
“Acid burn. And something else put in there that had no business being there.”
L’zar’s smile widened into a dazzling grin, his white teeth flashing even in the dull light. “It’s not there anymore, is it?” She shook her head. “Not healing, either.”
“Doesn’t look like it, no.”
The drow’s golden eyes flicked over Cheyenne’s shoulder toward the booth on the other side of the cavern. Then he slid his hand through the bars and waved her toward him. “Come here. I wanna show you something.”
The halfling paused, but only for a second. She wasn’t trying to slip the man anything, and the guard behind her had said that everything else was fair game. If L’zar wanted to show her something, she couldn’t very well say no at this point. She probably couldn’t have said no to him about anything.
Slowly, Cheyenne moved forward until she stood close enough to touch L’zar’s hand without having to straighten her arm. But she didn’t.
He nodded at her shoulder again. “Let me see.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied his face, and she didn’t look away from him as she tugged the neck of her black shirt down over her shoulder. Then she peeled off the medical tape and one side of the folded gauze bandage that had been the best she could do and let it dangle down her arm from the last few pieces of tape.
L’zar tsked, eyes narrowed in disapproval. “These idiots don’t know the first thing about who they’re dealing with on a day-to-day basis, and I’m not just talking about me. Come on. Just a little closer.”
She took one more step, standing just inches away from the bars. There was no doubt now that the fresh-baked-bread smell came from L’zar, mixed with something like lemongrass. The warmth of his long, graceful hand touched her shoulder before his fingers did, and it was just the lightest touch. Cheyenne hardly felt the contact, but she most definitely felt what happened next.
A dull gold glow slowly came to life beneath L’zar’s fingers and sent an icy shock through Cheyenne’s shoulder and down into her fingertips. She sucked in a breath through her teeth but didn’t move.
Another chuckle escaped him as he looked up at her, his next smile just big enough to show a hint of those dazzling white teeth. “It gets better.”
Then he returned his attention to her shoulder, and the chill of his spell bloomed into a gentle warmth that was nothing like the pain she’d dealt with for days or the raging, sparking heat of her drow magic. A few seconds later, her father removed his hand and wrapped it around one of the bars again.
“That should feel a little better.”
The halfling finally looked away from him to glance down at her shoulder. Where there had once been two deep holes burned into her skin by Q’orr’s black-magic sludge, now there were two circular smudges of dried blood.
She flipped the gauze bandage back up and slipped her shirt over that. “Thanks.”
L’zar’s lips twitched in and out of another smile. “Any time.”
Without knowing what else to say or how to start the conversation she’d spent hours imagining in endless variations, Cheyenne just stood there and studied her father’s face. Apparently, L’zar didn’t have the same problem getting the ball rolling.
“Okay.” He looked away from her and nodded at the metal chair behind her. “Sit down, and let’s have a little chat. If you have the time.”
He’d healed her shoulder and hadn’t said a word about anything else. That didn’t mean Cheyenne could let herself trust the drow who’d left her and her mom with nothing but the memory of one night and a copper puzzle box covered in symbols she couldn’t read. But she did have time, as much time as the men running Chateau D’rahl saw fit to give her. She stared into those golden eyes a little longer, then stepped back and grabbed the metal chair. She set it down about two feet from the bars and lowered herself into the cold seat.
So far, the drow, who was studying her with curiosity and approval and something more like feral hunger, didn’t scare her one bit. The only thing that scared her was the thought that she might not get everything she wanted out of him in one visit. But she wouldn’t know until their time was up.
Cheyenne folded her arms and gave her father a small, secretive smile that wasn’t entirely friendly. “Yeah. Let’s chat.”
Cheyenne’s met her dad and now she has to come to terms with all of her family history. Come to find out, she has a war to end. Join her as she faces down new challenges in ONLY THE STRONG WEAR BLACK.
The Story Continues
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Assistant Notes - Grace Snoke
March 1, 2021
Thank you for reading this book and all the way to the author notes, or in this case, assistant notes.
You know, I swore I wasn’t going to wait until the last minute to write these.
I want to note: It’s not exactly last minute, but it’s later than I wanted, and I think I understand why I get grumbled at when I prod authors for author notes. At least the only one prodding me over these notes are me.
Spring is definitely on its way. We had a really early thunderstorm on Saturday. Thunder was strong enough to shake the house which is unusual at this time of year. Normally it’s still snow. I really expect another snowstorm in March and maybe one in April. We had snow one easter that coincided with April Fool’s Day, so there’s that.
Unlike Martha, who’s working on getting her garden planted and landscaped, I bought my house with a ton of landscaping already done. I have a gazebo that’s covered with honeysuckle and clemantis which grows like crazy every year. I haven’t trimmed it back for about 3 years and this year I need to trim it back before it starts going green.
Which may be sooner than I expect with all these warmer temperatures coming our way.
I also have a gigantic lilac bush, rose bushes, irises, tulips and more flowers than I can count or name as well as evergreen bushes and more.
It’s a lot of work. Thankfully, I have a couple of friends who are assisting me with maintenance in exchange for food, drinks and, of course, money. I refuse to not pay friends for work I can’t do myself.
This year, I plan to do a small garden again as well. I grow mostly in pots, but this time I’m going to try for some bigger containers that are elevated off the ground. I’m thinking tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and maybe some strawberries or something else if I can get them to grow. Gardening is fun, but rewarding when I have time for it.
Strawberries have been my bane twice now. They’re growing where I don’t want them to grow and the squirrels eat them all. Darn squirrels. They at least stay away from my tomatoes now courtesy of my neighbor’s dog, Brody. Let me tell you about Brody. He’s a loveable pup that’s no longer a pup. But he’ll always be a puppy as far as I’m concerned. He’s a German Shepherd-Husky mix who absolutely adores me. He brings me all of his toys when he sees me but I don’t get to play with them often with him. He just wants to show. And since he barks the squirrels away, I’m okay with that.
He’s a good boy.
He also learned how to howl from the tornado sirens. My neighbor,
his dad, absolutely hates it. I just get a laugh out of it. Sometimes you have to find humor in the situations you’re given. His howling is one of those.
While I’m planning for my spring, I should wrap these up and finish pulling all my tax paperwork together. Ewww. Taxes. And then get back to writing. I don’t have deadlines for my books, but I probably should.
See you all at the back of book 5!
Dark Is Her Nature
For Hire: Teachers for special school in Virginia countryside.
Must be able to handle teenagers with special abilities.
Cannot be afraid to discipline werewolves, wizards, elves and other assorted hormonal teens.
Apply at the School of Necessary Magic.
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