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She’d been drugged. A dart? A skin-absorbent poison on a cloth on his hand?
The dipsticks made to detect poisons were ancient, but she fished one from a clipped pocket and dabbed it inside the neck of the bottled drink. The rapid color change of one of the absorbent squares alarmed her. Antidote? Where could she find that anywhere here?
Drake, again.
While thinking through her old assassination lessons on how to avoid being made dead, she started walking again. No time to go back. She could find this guy.
Her feet began to run into each other. Head spinning, she stumbled into a doorway.
The face that appeared before her looked kindly, but the odds were good they’d kill her or steal everything.
She chanced it, mumbled Drake then the name of the poison and the antidote, as her eyes became difficult to keep open.
“Bring her,” someone said a few minutes later. “Be careful. Simkin’s collectors are chasing her. She looks valuable.”
Chapter Two
Guided by the elbow and mostly blind, she walked wherever she was directed, grateful no one had tied her hands or tried to knock her out completely. They paused at some point and pushed a pill into her mouth, telling her it was what she needed. She swallowed it with a swig of liquid. Down streets, through doors, down steps...
The dim room she was brought to brightened as lamps were lit and switched on. Having fallen to one knee and without her guides, she waited as her sight and strength returned. A long table took up much of the left side. Stone walls, no windows, and before her was a solid chair with armrests and carvings of fighting beasts. It looked throne-like.
Everything in here shuddered into perfect clarity—the rock, the walls, the high ceilings with the beams of timber, the smell of old feasts, the tick of a clock somewhere. Thank the gods, they’d given her a good and pure antidote. Surely, she must be among friends.
Not so fast, her suspicious side reminded her. Remember Mister Fenton’s lessons. Trust few, and only after you’ve sampled their blood. A gory saying that of course didn’t actually mean tasting people’s blood.
Someone entered the room through the door behind her and she knew instinctively that it would be best to stand. Less... vulnerable. They’d taken the pistols, knives, and her boots, even her jacket had been stripped from her while she’d been dizzy from the drug.
Calli thrust herself to her feet, set them shoulder-width apart, only to find she may as well have stayed sitting on the floor. The male creature passing her dominated her with his size, by almost a half again her height.
Male, and she knew this without seeing him properly, by his scent, which was currently ringing alarms.
He sat in the dark chair, lowering himself slowly, as if worried he might damage the seat with his immense weight. The flickering of the lamp to his left sporadically revealed his face.
The marks of a mauleon were there—the broadness of the cheekbones and jaw, the large nose, the tips of the upper canines denting his wide lips, and the claws where his hands cupped the ends of the armrests.
It was quiet in here and she whispered her question. “Are you Drake?” Though cinched at the back, his dark hair curled over his forehead, lazily draping across his eyes as he leaned forward.
