“Too hot,” I muttered before groaning when Alaric zapped me with a spark of lightning. Oh, he meant hell as in the sex club?
Goddess. I felt sorry for the poor sirens. I hoped Tomas paid them a hefty bonus for the trauma of seeing him naked.
“Hot?”
“Look, I’m in a hurry, Tommen. Move, yeah?” Alaric’s arrogant sneer was enough to remind the other ugly bastard who was in charge here. The fat fuck coughed and apologized profusely before shuffling past us with his crate of elkwine.
It hadn’t occurred to me that Tiberius would have a cellar full of expensive liquor.Good to know. Perhaps I could snag a few souvenirs while we were here.
Then I remembered the reason I was currently masquerading as the realm’s ugliest mage and sobered up. My pet needed me to get my shake on.
Alaric strode off, so I jogged after him. We reached a door adorned with glowing runes just as the kitsune blinked back into sight. He chittered loudly and then blinked away again.
“Wait here while I grab the brimstone powder.”
The storm mage pressed his palm to a pad on the left of the door. It glowed brightly for a few seconds before the door opened. I peered inside the room to see shelves upon shelves stacked with glass jars and crates.
Holy goddess, the mage had accumulated some seriously rare shit. My eyebrows shot up when I saw a dragon’s claw and a basket of fire gems. How the fuck had he gotten a dragon’s claw? The last dragon died two centuries ago. Or so the history books said.
Then my gaze snagged on the kitsune.
Alaric and I stared at each other in surprise. How the fuck did the kitsune get into a room protected by the strongest possible wards?
I knew the little shit had hidden abilities. I’d seen him in action several times, mostly at the sex clubs where the high-ranking mages hung out.
Mages like Tiberius Vane and Randall Malfus.
My lip curled in disgust as I thought about the twisted shit they got up to, before Alaric punched me in the arm.
“Focus, Zane,” he hissed. “We have to get in and out before Rink comes down here.”
“In and out, eh?” I smirked. Alaric rolled his eyes at my admittedly pathetic joke.
I scanned the contents of the room while the mage pulled down a box from a high shelf.
The kitsune was busy rooting around in an open basket on the floor. Using his teeth, he picked up a bunch of iridescent green scales tied together with gold thread. Dragon scales, impermeable to almost everything, including angel blades.
“Are you stealing shit again?” I asked the kitsune when he trotted over. “Good boy.” The look he threw could have frozen a volcano, but I just laughed.
“Got it,” the mage muttered from my left as he pulled out a carved wooden box inlaid with black markings. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”
He stopped dead when he spotted what the kitsune had in his mouth.
“You can’t take those! Dad will think I stole them!”
“Will he even notice?” There were so many items in the room I failed to see how he’d realize there was something missing.
“Oh, he’ll notice alright!”
The kitsune blinked out of view again as Alaric reached down to snatch the dragon scales back.
“That fucking creature!”
I heard a faint noise. “Not now. Someone’s coming.”
A familiar face turned the corner.Rink. The odious male who took care of Tiberius’s dirty work.
“Alaric?” His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I thought you’d left. Your father was cross you disappeared, by the way.” He grinned as if the memory pleased him, which, to be fair, it probably did. Anything that made the elder Vane angry pleased Rink because it increased the chances of him being let loose on a poor, unfortunate victim.
