Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(92)
“But we don’t get to talk,” Damyn interrupted.
“What is it, Damyn?” My voice came out impatient, and I regretted it immediately.
Damyn had taken both Jaik and me under his wing—literally—when we were just children taken onto the battlefield to prove our daring and worth. Our childhood had been brutal, pitting us against each other constantly.
When our father abandoned Jaik and me on the battlefield and soared away, Damyn had been the one who stayed with us in the fray, as Scourge raced toward us.
He’d been the one who’d bandaged our wounds, who taught us to hunt, and who banged our heads together when Jaik and I squabbled. For a while, I’d thought Jaik and I were actually friends. Brothers, in the ways that mattered.
“I’m worried about you,” Damyn admitted.
“Why?”
“Come on, Cal. We both know you’ve been finding one hundred and one ways to piss off your father—”
“If he’s mad, I assume he’ll send one of his henchmen to let me know.” My voice came out cool.
“You’ve got your own henchmen now, don’t you?”
“Why do you care?”
Damyn rubbed his stubble-covered jaw. “Cal. You’re not that angry at the world that you’ve turned stupid, are you?”
“I’m not angry, Damyn.” I walked backward along the street, forcing a grin to my face. “I’ve got a new life now, and I don’t hate it.”
Even when I turned my back to him, I could feel Damyn watching me.
But when I’d gotten to the end of the street, groaned, and swung around, intending to say something to him, maybe even to apologize, he was gone.
So I went on.
As I walked through the front door of the Twisted Pines, the wiggling disquiet running along my spine told me I was being watched. But then, I was almost always being watched.
I called hello to the barkeep, greeted my friends, drained my beer. Then when I’d cataloged who exactly was in the Twisted Pines, I melted into the back.
I walked down the hall that always smelled of spilled beer, passed the bright bustle of the kitchen glimpsed through an open door, then stepped into the stockroom. It was dimly lit, full of jars and bottles and shadows and Fitz.
Fitz melted out of the shadows. He didn’t greet me aloud in case someone was following me, but the quick nod of his head was enough.
Fitz bumped shoulders with me. The disquieting ripple over his face turned into my face. Then he was heading out into the hallway, and I darted around the shelves of pickles and moonshine to the secret entrance to the tunnels.
The Elders thought they could use these tunnels to keep the populace subdued.
They didn’t know how ready the populace was growing to become rowdy, and how much these tunnels would work against them one day in the future.
As soon as my feet hit the metal floor with a soft clang, a voice out of the shadows complained, “You’re late.”
I turned to find Nora, her pale face barely visible in the dim light, only her white teeth shining clearly.
“Is Morick here yet?”
“You know he’s not.”
“I can’t be late if Morick’s not here.”
“He’s always late.” That was Briden, melting out of the shadows. Even though he was a goat shifter, he somehow towered above me, an enormous man with messy red hair.
“I know you miss me,” Morick said as he appeared around the bend in the tunnel, “but you don’t need to grow so frenzied whenever I’m a little late.”
His walk had the half-swagger, half-stagger list that always made me wonder if he was drunk or if it were just his sea legs, as he claimed.
“We’re on a tight timeline tonight,” Nora reminded him.
“To meet my ship.” Morick pressed his hand to his chest with his usual dramatic flair.
“We have a few things to accomplish before there’s any reason to meet your ship.”
“Then why are you still wasting our time bantering with me, Nora, by all means, let’s get moving.”
Nora rolled her eyes in exasperation. The four of us moved quickly through the tunnels, heading for the outskirts of the city. The tunnels allowed us to move without ever having to go through the city gates, where the guards would’ve kept records of our movements.
Of course, if we encountered any of the kings’ or dukes’ men in the tunnel, we’d have to kill them.
I didn’t relish the idea, but it didn’t upset me that much either.
“You’re walking better now than you were the other day,” Nora said. “Did you finally stop punishing yourself and see the healer for that knee?”
“I was never punishing myself. I was just busy.”
“Does that sound convincing in your own head, or when you say it out loud, do you hear the bullshit as well as we do?”
When I was kicked out of the dragon royals, I’d made a new group of friends.
Equally questionable, equally sarcastic.
They were all criminals and rebels but then, so was I now.
The four of us started the climb out of the tunnel. Nora scrambled out then flopped onto her back, lying there for a moment; the moonlight revealed her dark hair and the mass of freckles scattered across her nose. “Finally. Every time we’re down there, I can’t shake the feeling we’re going to be trapped forever. Finally some moonlight on my face.”