Now Mal could think instead of reacting solely due to his baser instincts. He would be able to formulate a plan to get Clayton away from his people so Mal could eat him, instead of having no plan and snatching him up and running.
The children watched on in horror, and Grampy made pleased noises as Mal scarfed down every bite on his plate, thenwent in for seconds. He was mid-bite when he heard a familiar, prissy voice exclaim, “ I told you I’mfine,Eira, you don’t need to fuss. I—What on earth areyoudoing here?”
Mal looked up from his feast to see Clayton glaring at Mal like he was an annoying rodent he’d had to toss out of his house and discovered it had somehow found its way back in.
The redhead was covered in spell patches on the right side of his body. At least, the parts Mal could see outside of Clayton’s silk robe.
“What happened?” Mal was on his feet, plate still in hand.
“You! You’re what happened, you annoying, arrogant… what the bloody hell are you eating?” Clayton backed away, nose scrunching in disgust the closer the plate came to him.
“Food,” Mal responded with a toothy grin before going for another bite. “Want some?”
“Why on earth would I want some? No one wants to be anywhere near it. Even Grampy won’t eat his own cooking. The man is a menace in the kitchen, and anyone with sense is terrified of his creations.”
“You said the quiet part out loud, Clayton,” Merry said with a pout. “You told us we aren’t allowed to do that.”
Mal cocked his head thoughtfully. Terrified, huh? Interesting. Terror, he could work with. Terror made a lot more sense than mushrooms. Maybe Grampy’s food was so horrible that it created its own fear energy?
Well, only one way to find out.
“Grampy, do you have anything else in the kitchen?” Mal asked. Hypotheses required testing, after all.
Grampy’s wrinkled face split into a glorious smile. “My boy, I never thought you’d ask. Follow me!”
Under the unbelieving gaze of everyone else in the room, Mal grabbed the pan of mushroom loaf and sprinted after Grampy.
It looked like Clayton might get to see another day after all.
Chapter
Fourteen
CLAYTON
If Clayton hadn’t been certain that Mal was completely insane after that ridiculous phone conversation earlier, he’d just had it confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt.
No one ate Grampy’s cooking.
Not his daughter Eira, not the kids, definitely not Clayton, and not even the man himself. Grampy might have the passion of a chef, but he had the innate skills of a master poison maker.
A person only made the mistake of eating Grampy’s cooking once, and if they were lucky, they lived not to make it again.
The stinging pain of the burns covering half of Clayton’s body was overshadowed by the shock and incredulity of seeing Mal practically skipping with excitement at the prospect of eating more of Grampy’s nightmarish cooking.
Clayton and Eira exchanged twin flummoxed expressions, and Merry broke in on their daze by asking, ”Is Mal going to die?” Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, like she fullybelieved it was curtains for Mal and only needed a trusted grown-up to confirm it for her.
Tommy punched his sister in the arm. “Mal’s a superhero. You can’t kill a superhero, stupid.”
Ugh. Not this again. Both kids had decided that Mal was the greatest thing ever and believed that he’d been the reason they’d all survived that day in the sewer, when anyone with a lick of sense would know that was absolute and complete horse shit.
Clayton had been with Merry and Tommy far longer than Mal had during that adventure. The kids had only seen Mal for a handful of minutes before he buggered off to be a mysterious loner. Not to mention that Mal had spent half the fight having a sweet little beauty nap while Clayton had done all the real work.
But it wasn’t Clayton they’d made an action figure of. It was an ugly little thing, and Clayton hated it.
And he had no idea why they didn’t make one for him, too.
It could have something to do with how Clayton was the one who made them wash their faces and hands before eating, or how he’d told them they couldn’t have dessert until they sneaked enough of Grampy’s food off their plates to make the old man happy. Or maybe it was because Clayton wasn’t an underground folk hero vigilante who had multiple songs written about him and his stupid, ugly face.
