Catastrophic Attraction - Eve Langlais Page 0,13
at the wardrobe.
Titan’s eyes widened if possible. “How did the princess get in there?”
“Escaping a mud golem.” Casey didn’t mince words. “There were two actually. I saved your king.”
“Golems.” Titan sighed and scrubbed his face. “Fuck me, why did I ever accept the job as captain?”
“I assumed it was because of the food. You never told me there’d be monsters,” Casey noted.
“Because I wasn’t aware we’d be dealing with any.” Titan glared at Roark. “How is this even possible?”
“Could be the work of a swamp mage.”
“You really think someone sent them here?” Casey mused aloud, only to answer her own question. “Has to be a targeted mission, because why else only attack those two rooms, not even the easiest to access?”
“Will you finally let me shutter the windows?” Titan pled.
“Bars, actually. And while that shaft makes an excellent escape for Charlotte, it occurs to me that a small miscreant could easily use them, too. I’m going to need alarms inside them.”
“While you’re making lists of improvements, how about doing something about that river?” She jerked a thumb at the window. “Surely you can drop a barrier at the mouth going through the city and then have someone watching to see if anything tries to swim over it.”
“We’ve tried to block it, even if only at night,” Roark replied. “There is river beast that takes offense when it comes across it and mangles it each time.”
“So kill it.”
“I am not killing a leviathan that hasn’t harmed anyone.”
Casey blinked at him. “That was an unexpected answer.”
He smiled. “But still the right one for your test.” He winked.
Titan exclaimed, “What test?”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s between me and Casey. Why don’t you get started on those modifications?”
“I’ll modify you,” Titan muttered.
“Did you say something?” Roark asked softly.
“I said right away, your bossy highness.” Titan stomped off, and for a moment, there was silence between him and Casey. Real silence without any of the mental interference he was used to. He took a moment to enjoy the quiet.
Sachi ruined it with a demanding meow. He scooped low enough to pick her up.
“She’s your pet?” Casey asked.
“I would say Sachi is mine, but she’s too independent for that.”
“Haven has a cat, too. Fluffy.” Casey wrinkled her nose. “Scruffy thing but Kylie loves her.”
“Kylie is one of the children, yes?” Titan had mentioned there were seven children in Haven under the age of ten. Including a baby.
“Yes. And before you ask, we make them the old-fashioned way. None of our kids come from a tank.”
His lips ghosted into a smile. “You’ll find the same in the Marshlands. Actually, I believe it is only Emerald and a few domes in Ruby that still fully resort to the Incubaii method of procreation. Every other place I know of has returned to doing so via a woman’s womb.”
“How would you know what other places do?” she asked.
“Because a king should always be aware of what his neighbors are doing.”
“Paranoid?”
“Realist. As you noted before, I have enemies.”
“Such as?”
“You expect me to name them?” He almost laughed. It would take a few pages to list them all.
“How about the most likely ones?”
“Most likely now that the Emerald queen is dead?” He arched a brow. “The Sapphire king and his royal court.”
“They’re the ones who attacked the outpost town Haven settled in.”
“Yes. Or so the perpetrators we caught would have us think.”
“You think they’re lying?”
“They might have. They died before we could question them deeply. I can’t help but think there is a very convenient trail being laid. The Sapphire king isn’t that stupid.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“Not in person. None of the Enclave will meet with me openly. The few who do are usually looking to jump courts.”
“Do you let them?”
“Depends on what I see inside their heads.”
“When you say it like that, you make it sound as if you peek literally.”
He turned his gaze on her and smiled as he said, “Because I do.”
Chapter 4
The king didn’t explain what he meant, and Casey didn’t ask, but she connected his words to rumors she’d heard since moving into the outpost. People passing through often stopped to eat and rest. It didn’t take more than a few bites of Benny’s cooking for them to start spilling what they knew of Eden.
The city of freedom with no Enclave overloads because of one man. Hammering out an existence and providing a safe place for people didn’t mean he didn’t possess tyrant tendencies, however. The stories told by the travelers also spoke of his power.
Magic.