Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(46)

We could stay and fight. Niko and Robin had been able to take one boggle. Niko and I could do the same. But there wasn't just one—there were eight. Seven were only half the size of what had spawned them, but that didn't change the fact that they were killers, or that from their stealthy sideways slither, they were already practiced ones.

Run or fight.

Live or die.

Or we could just give them a present.

I had to admit, I hadn't thought of that. As choices went, it had sailed cleanly under my radar. The result was that I was almost as mesmerized as the boggles by the dripping cascade of diamonds and rubies that hung from Niko's hand. The jewels blazed in the sun like rain-drenched poppies. My sunglasses dimmed the colors and sizzling glory by barely a fraction.

"Pretty." "Pretty." "Shiny." The boglets had stopped moving and were staring at the necklace with rounded eyes and unconsciously grasping claws. Mom wasn't as easily impressed. Her other foot hit the ground and she thrust her head closer with brutal force. The gems were reflected in the cold sheen of her eyes and she gnashed her teeth repetitively. Finally, the lethal weapon that was her hand was held out.

"Tiffany's?" The question oozed out with splintered shards of bone and more remnants of mud.

Niko stepped forward and deposited the necklace across her scaly palm. "Of course. We would not insult you with anything less."

She brought it closer to study it. Held it near to her eyes, up to the sun, let it dangle in the air, and then finally…she purred. Or maybe it was only the grinding of more bones caught in her throat. As sounds went, they were remarkably similar. "You have more?"

"Many more. Anything you can imagine." Nik looked up at her and added without hesitation, "You should be aware, however, that we did kill the other boggle here in the park."

There was no softening of the blow, no attempted explanation … no "He tried to kill us first. It was self-defense. Sorry for your loss and I'm positive he's in a better place." He simply gave her the information and waited to see what she would do with it. I think for every lie our mother had told in her fairly short life, Niko had racked up an equal number of truths…often in situations where deception would've been the easier and far safer choice. Considering how many years we'd spent on the run and literally living a lie, it was a peculiar dichotomy. Nik had done a lot of things to keep me alive that cut across the natural grain of who he was. He'd told the truth when he could. When he absolutely couldn't, he'd used lessons Sophia had unwittingly taught us to keep me from the hands of the Auphe, and he'd not once hinted he'd regretted what he'd done for me.

I did. I regretted the hell out of it, but right now? Wearing a fine spray of boggle mud on my jacket, smelling old blood and decomposing flesh, I honestly wished he'd picked this moment to lie like a f*cking dog.

"You." Transparent lids blinked over her eyes as the head began to weave slowly. "You killed him. You." Not a question, but a tasting of the words and the reality behind them. "My mate. Their sire."

I still had the .50 up and the trigger halfway home when she clacked her teeth again and said abruptly, "Opals. Black opals. Do you have black opals?"

And that was that. Boggles might mate for life, but apparently they didn't mourn for it.

Although I'd been dispatched to extend the invitation, Nik did most of the talking. I'd say he'd planned for that the entire time. I had certain talents and skills, but negotiation of the nonviolent kind wasn't one of them. So while the discussion of price went on, I played with the kiddies—which meant I hid in the trees while they tried to eat me. Fifteen minutes later, I was soaked with sweat, hanging in the lower limbs of an oak, and pistol-whipping two boglets who were about to take chunks out of my legs.

"Cal, playtime is over. Let's go."

The juvenile killers, who'd been shaking off what they considered love taps, moaned in disappointment and loped back toward the muck at their mother's beckoning snarl. I dropped to the ground and did some snarling of my own as I holstered the gun. "You know, Cyrano, as a therapist, you suck out the ass."

"It's a hit-or-miss process," he responded solemnly as we wove through the trees. "Constantly changing and developing. Jung once wrote…"

What I had to say about Jung wasn't hit or miss at all. It was very precise, graphic, and involved Niko's intestinal tract.

"You didn't enjoy yourself? Why not? Children are always enamored of you."

Yeah, kids loved me. Loved to eat me. Werecubs, boglets, I was walking milk and cookies for them all, but I wasn't thinking about that, and I wasn't concentrating on Niko's dry teasing either. Seeing boggles again had brought up some buried emotions all right, but not the one my brother had planned on. No, that wasn't true. It was the emotion…guilt…that he'd hoped to resolve, but this time the guilt was focused elsewhere. Niko and Robin hadn't ended up the casualties as intended a year ago, but someone else had.

"I miss Boggle," I said quietly. And I did in a way. Not for who he'd been, but for what he'd been. He'd been our informant and like Robin's tended to be, he was homicidal as hell, but he'd been a piece of our lives. When you lived life on the run you didn't have many constants. Boggle had been one for two years and I'd gotten him killed. He'd deserved it, no doubt, but I didn't have to like the fact it had been because of me.