power of far too many dimensions to sit in just one had required all of Maddox’s skills. Dragons kept their hoards in similar pockets, so he’d at least had a starting point.
Fin had been the one to confirm the vulnerability after Maddox located it. Maddox wasn’t in a rush, if Fin didn’t know better, he would suspect him of wanting the warden and his guards to pursue them here.
The prison might very well restore some of them. If they decided to follow, they wouldn’t recover so easily if at all.
“Well?” Maddox demanded.
“He’s blocking me at the moment.” As much as he didn’t want to admit it.
“Of course, he is. I made that woman a promise.” The last came out through gritted teeth.
“How do you think I feel?” Fin turned it back on him. “She was supposed to sleep with me tonight.” That, and she was hurting from lack of sustenance. The shadow addiction needed to be dealt with as well. Though Fin didn’t doubt for an instant that Rogue couldn’t handle her need to feed.
Conversation, on the other hand? Yeah, he wouldn’t place any bets on that.
“He’d take her to the keep.”
“No one goes to the keep anymore,” Maddox argued. “We abandoned it fifty years after I turned.”
“Which is why he would take her there.”
Maddox understood hunting others, but he’d never had to hunt the rest of them. Why would he? They’d been friends, allies, and occasionally competitors for centuries. Time wore away the harsher edge of their disagreements, and they learned to seek each other out when they wanted the company and to ignore each other when they didn’t. “Rogue always liked the keep. It’s defensible. High in the mountains. We still own all of the land and the territory. It’s never been developed. Urban expansionism won’t reach there. The villages on the other side of the mountain are well tended and looked after. They have no reason to come looking for us.”
There was another reason Rogue would have taken her there. If Maddox put away his rage for a few minutes, that would hit him, too.
“That’s halfway around the world,” he argued. “She was already weak.”
“And craving,” Fin confirmed. They were nearly a mile down the mountainside, and there was no sign of pursuit. A fact Maddox had obviously noticed as his agitation increased. “Rogue can feed her, deartháir. Even he understands how important it would be for a baby vamp to eat. His blood is older than ours.”
“Not by much,” Maddox snarled, but some of the heat drained from his tone, and the scorching air around them cooled. “If he took her there...”
“He did.” Of that much, Fin was certain.
“You think he’s going to try and wake Alfred.”
“I would,” Fin admitted, and Maddox glared at him. “Look, Alfred went to sleep because the world had worn him out. He’d tired of waiting. We were as safe as we could be, and we didn’t need him to look after us. But when he went to ground, Rogue...” Rogue turned away from them.
Even when Fin would try to lure him out, Rogue never stayed. He always came. He’d never let them down, not once. But when he finished his task, he vanished again. Try as he might, Fin hadn’t been able to keep him with them. Maddox no longer bothered and acted like it was a crime to even try and lure Rogue out of his self-imposed exile.
“She isn’t ready for Alfred.”
“I doubt she’s ready for any of us,” Fin said with a shrug. “It’s our job to protect her and make her ready. Besides, she’s got spunk. You’re already a little crazy about her, aren’t you?”
Never had he been so jealous of and thrilled for the dragon in equal measure. Fiona MacRieve was the answer to so much. All they had to do was save her from the insanity of vampire politics, keep the shadow demon away, and show her that being a hybrid was destiny.
“She’s a stubborn wench,” Maddox grunted. “Fierce, too. I could live without her need to fuck the stupid out of people.”
Eyebrows raised, Fin eyed him. “She needed to feed, and I don’t think she planned to hop on and ride the guys.”
“The shadow demon’s been fucking her.”
“Well, that was before she met us.” Fin kept it philosophical. They’d hardly been monks. Well, Maddox might have been, there was no telling with him. He didn’t share much, and Alfred probably wouldn’t know a date if it woke up and bit him. Rogue? Yeah, Fin