“Don’t mind me. Just having a smoke,” he shrugged and took another drag of his cigarette. The cherry-red light illuminated his features. He was old. Dragons didn’t show their age with wrinkles or lines. They showed it in their eyes and the dragon shifter puffing on his cigarette looked like he’d seen some shit.
“Is he home?” I asked, because I was not in the mood to discuss whatever shit he’d seen.
“Yeah. They’re in there,” he said.
“They’re? Who’s in there with him?” I asked.
He stretched out a leg and slid the glass door open, “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”
I stepped through remembering the brief time Medwin and I had spent alone in his bedroom. It had been interrupted by Alrick’s assassination, but I still smiled at the thought of my omega’s naked flesh moving against mine. My dick started to harden, so I forced myself to think of all the blood and gore left behind at the castle.
“Clarence?” Medwin cracked the door and peeked inside. He came through and shut the door behind him before I could see who else might be out there. I opened my mouth full of a bounty of questions, but Medwin claimed my lips in a long, hard kiss that made them trivial for as long as his warm, moist tongue danced around mine.
“It’s so good to see you,” he said, holding my face in his hands when the kiss broke. His eyes raked over my features as if he checked for any signs of new trauma.
“You too. I couldn’t stay away. It’s like everyone disappeared after Alrick’s funeral. My friend is in the hospital---”
Medwin shook his head. I started to say that I knew what I was talking about but something on my mate’s scent told me I was as clueless as I felt.
“He’s someplace else,” Volex said, standing in the doorway, smelling like an ashtray, but no longer holding a cigarette. “Fortunately for him, he’s alive. Unlike his parents. Harder to kill people at hospital and they had to send him because the staff saw the aftermath. I moved him as soon as he was stable enough. The hospital won’t say anything because they’re terrified of informing you that they let one of your best friendsget kidnapped on their watch. He’s fine. He’s with better healers than Earthside could ever dream of. His parents weren’t so lucky. Our working theory is that Roster and Ferrick feared he had told them what really happened. The two medics who took him in have disappeared too along with three emergency department nurses. We didn’t take any of them,” Volex said and turned back to the dark.
“He’s going to smoke another cigarette. It can’t hurt him and I think he likes how it stokes his fire,” Medwin said.
“I.. Er… What happened that night?” I asked.
“Alrick misjudged his ability to take out Ferrick,” Pras said from the doorway that led out to the apartment. “Roster raped him, Clary. Then Ferrick finished off the eggs.”
Everything inside me ran cold. My hand found my stomach, fearing my fire had gone out. My carrier loved his brother. Hadn’t he? They’d always seemed so close.
“Nothing trumps his hold on Roster and holding onto your spot as heir,” Pras shrugged. “Haen and I are going hunting. I have to get him out of the flat for a while before he loses his mind, Smokey.”
Medwin moved across the room and gave my brother a one-armed hug. He whispered something to him that I didn’t hear and Pras nodded, a smirk pulling at the corners of his mouth. I sat down on the edge of Medwin’s bed to hide how badly my knees shook. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Not after what they had confessed to weeks ago on the night of my heir coronation.
“If you weren’t surprised, I’d be worried,”my dragon said into my thoughts.“If you ever act like them, I will kill you with spontaneous combustion, but it won’t be spontaneous.”
“Ditto,”I nodded to him.
After Pras was gone, Medwin shut both doors and sank down next to me on the bed. He took my hand in his and entwined our fingers. For a long moment we sat in the dark bedroom and said nothing. What could I say? That I was a naïve son of monsters who didn’t know he was born and reared inside the monster’s lair?
“Ferrick’s assassination was planned before we responded,” Medwin said. “I almost broke into the castle one night. My best friend, Hanmitch, killed himself after Roster hurt him. It’s personal for me too.”
“How can two men cause so much damage?” I sighed.
“It’s what happens when leaders run unchecked. We can’t count on someone to be on the side of good just because they should,” Medwin sighed. “It’s also not just them. It’s their friends and those who act like their friends to stay on their good side. Plus, it’s those who know and can’t or won’t do anything about it. It’s complicated but up until recently we thought cutting off the head of the snake would be enough. Now we know better. I have something to show you, but I don’t know if it’ll make you feel better or freak you out.”
“What is it?” I asked, unsure of what else could possibly go wrong.
“It’s easier to show you. It’s in the walk-in freezer,” he said, standing up and tugging my hand so that I followed him. Awoman napped on the sofa. She was vaguely familiar and it took walking all the way to the other side of the flat and through the kitchen before I realized her name was Emmagail and she worked as a barista at my favorite coffee shop.
“What I’m about to show you once belonged to the wizard who championed your carrier. Whatever magic Ferrick couldn’t do himself, Izin helped with. Volex brought it to me the day after Alrick died. He took Alrick’s death very personally. His mate and Alrick were friends years ago before he died.”
Medwin opened the freezer slowly before leading me inside. There in a clear storage tub was the head of a man I’d seen around the castle often during my childhood. My heart skipped a single beat and then I smiled. Something about knowing the head of the wizard meant one less ally for my carrier tickled something deep inside my dragon. For a second, I wanted to open the lid and lean over to lick it. I wanted to taste the victory the elder dragon hand delivered to my mate.
“Did my parents kill him too?” I asked, unable to look away from the open eyes of the severed head.
“No. He died of a scale-eating cancer. It was a nasty business as I understand it. Alrick was there for him right up until the end,” he said.
The eyes blinked and I startled back. Medwin laughed, a short quick burst of amusement, before silencing himself.
