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A headache bloomed to life. The pain in my head throbbed with the road rash on my side. At this rate, I’d need Og to heal me, but that would make him vulnerable. I just wasn’t willing to do that.
Caoimhe walked in front of me. Unlike my stupid human vision, which couldn’t see shit in the pitch-dark caves, sheprobably had something closer, though not as good, as the dragons. The nymph occasionally warned me about thinner parts of the tunnel and rocks sticking out that could bump my injuries. Even weakened and scared, she was going out of her way to help me. Anger, not at her, licked through my body with Tyson’s fire.
Marduk was up to the same tricks he’d used a thousand years ago: making deals with people desperate for power in exchange for their unborn children. Despite my lack of tradable currency, aka, fertility. I couldn’t shake the fact that all of this somehow related to my current predicament.
I’d burned Marduk’s angular face into my brain, along with his high cheekbones and perfect silver-blue hair. When I first met him, he considered himself the god of Babylon, though the city had fallen thousands of years earlier. He’d been proud of his part in making it fall. More than twice my age, Marduk understood the world needed balance, good and bad. He claimed to be that balance for whatever side needed it, which was usually his own.
We paused at the next intersection. Rehan, still at our front, waited for me to give him directions. I confidently steered us right. If my mates questioned it, they did it silently.
“What kind of nymph are you?” I asked Caoimhe to keep all of us distracted.
A few seconds passed before Caoimhe answered. “Fire.”
“Full-blooded?” I asked.
Caoimhe huffed. “That’s rude to ask.”
I grunted, not really caring how rude it was. “Did you know I wasn’t human at the Social?”
Silence fell between us.
“No,” she eventually said. “Sorry, I was shaking my head, but you couldn’t see it. Did you know I wasn’t either?”
“I suspected but was too caught up in my own crap to care,” I said, maybe too honestly.
“Where are you taking us?” Caoimhe asked, her voice wavering.
I squeezed Lux, unwilling to answer her question. “Did you leave the island willingly?”
Caoimhe stumbled. “Yes…I didn’t understand. Marduk. He…”
“He tricked you,” I cut in, my voice bitter with my own experience. “I’m not judging you. But you found your mate. Why did you need off the island so badly?”
Our footsteps echoed in the cavern, swallowing any other sounds.
“Dragon shifters screen the human applicants to make sure supernaturals aren’t amongst them,” Caoimhe said quietly. “Only humans become dragon mates. You should know that. You had to sneak onto the island, too. The moment anyone besides Tenzin found out I was a nymph that would be it for us.” She sucked in a breath. “And I couldn’t leave my family. My parents and grandparents and my sisters. I live in a community. I wanted us to be a part of that.”
I didn’t have family. Not a soul in this world shared my bloodline. But I understood her desperation to be a part of something too well. I frowned. Knowing Marduk, Caoimhe was leaving out a significant piece of information.
Those in front of us rounded a sharp bend. I knew because I could see their faint outline in light that shouldn’t exist. Something flashed. A very unmanly scream came from someone toward the front before the sounds of scuffling bounced off the walls.
“What’s going on?” Og shouted from the back.
Someone grunted, and a blast of fire made me see spots before the blackness returned. A demon hissed, followed by a crash. The stone wall split to my left with a terrifying crack.
“There wasn’t a golem with these two,” Rehan said. “They must have demons canvasing the tunnels for you, Caoimhe.”
Caoimhe shook. “I can’t go back. He. I. I didn’t know what I was doing. He’ll…” her voice turned into a choked sob. I hardened my heart. We didn’t have a choice.
The sounds of running demons came from our back. Without any prompting, we booked it forward. The narrow tunnel spit us out into a large cave, maybe two stories tall, with three doors. Two smaller ones surrounded a massive metal contraption. Torches, lit with Marduk’s silver-blue magic, glowed in completely unnecessary but dramatic wrought iron sconces against the walls. It screamed evil magician's stronghold.
The dragons circled up around Caoimhe and me while the air filled with a choir of their angry growls in six-part harmony.
Behind us, demons swarmed out of the tunnel we exited. Marduk’s silver-blue magic flowed across their dark, rotting flesh and knit with the dry bone underneath. The small doors to either side of the larger one opened. A golem stepped out of each. Unlike the hastily erected golem in London, Marduk had taken his time carving these. Their bodies resembled Greek statues, and he’d etched runes, much like Ogs, into their stone skin. Burning silver-blue eyes watched us from lidless sockets.
This wasn’t just one of Marduk’s strongholds. This might be his main one.
Frick, feck, fuck.
