Mal’s gaze went distant, and Clayton sensed a subtle tension in the energy around them. It was like Mal grabbed reality itself, pulled, and planned to continue until reality cried uncle and gave him what he wanted. There was a popping sensation, and Mal gave a small, triumphant smile.
Either Mal was getting stronger, or Clayton was becoming more attuned to him and could sense his magic better. Whatever the case may be, he was getting a fascinating front-row view of some of the coolest magic he’d ever witnessed.
“I don’t want your mate, nightmare. I only want my freedom.”
Mal’s eyes took on a cold gleam of calculation. “What are you willing to do to get it?”
“Nothing,” Clayton said, nipping Mal’s ideas in the bud. “You don’t have to do anything, Here. We’re going to get rid of all the bad guys, whether you help or not. You’ve done more than enough by reuniting me with my parents. If you want to help, you can, but it would be nice if you didn’t get in our way anymore.”
The misty figure smiled in a way that Clayton hoped to never see again. Since it didn’t have any distinct features, a hole opened up in the vaguely head-shaped area of its body, and it formed into a half crescent with the tips pointing up, but instead of stopping where a normal smile would, it continued to stretch well past the limits of its head.
Clayton’s eye twitched as he fought to contain the soul-deep horror the sight instilled in him.
“I was instructed by my master to place as many barriers against you as I could before I ran out of energy. You’ll have to face them before I can allow you to leave.”
“That doesn’t sound ideal,” Clayton said, mind churning away to create discussion points that might sway the creature to reconsider.
A tiny rectangle, the height of an index finger, appeared before Clayton. Behind it, another popped into existence, then another behind it. Then another. Within seconds, there were hundreds of tiny rectangles lined up like dominoes. In less than a minute, there were thousands. Shortly after, there were so many that they seemed to stretch out infinitely into the mist.
“Um… those look pretty flimsy.” Clayton gave the first one a poke, and it fell backward, hitting the one behind it, causing it to hit the one behind it, and so on in a domino effect. The little rectangles continued to fall over until they were out of sight, and he wondered how far the line extended.
“That was exhausting. You are a worthy foe, Clayton. I must rest now to recover my energy.”
“That was it?”
“Did you really want to face my real traps until I exhausted myself? Your mate might be able to slip past me effortlessly, but I sincerely doubt the rest of you could.”
“No, no, that was fine, thank you. Clever, too, actually. I’m impressed. If you ever want a job with the Guard—” Clayton realized that after today,hemight not have a job with the Guard, so he wasn’t in a position to give anyone else a leg up. “Actually, nevermind. They aren’t that great anyway.”
“They’re really not,” Mal agreed. “From my experience, they’re stupid, have an exaggerated sense of self-worth, no true fighting capabilities, and they’re not half as attractive as some people think they are.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’m not interested in Marshall, okay? You don’t need to stress about it. I only like my men scary beyond all reason.”
“Remember that.”
Here gave an awkward cough.“So… I’m just going to let you all go, and you can finish this conversation somewhere that isn’t directly inside my mind. Have fun, and don’t forget to kill the people who enslaved me.”
“We’re inside your mind? Like, physically?” Clayton got a massive thrill of excitement at the prospect of exploring the concept further, but the mist vanished and dropped them right in the middle of five bedraggled and exhausted fae hiding behind a rock wall, completely covered in misshapen crumpets and foul-smelling jam.
Clayton swallowed hard. “Oh. Well, then. I guess we’re fighting now. Mal?”
“On it, Red.” Mal gave him a feral grin, cracked his knuckles, and got to work.
Clayton backed up to give his man room to work, but he needn’t have bothered. Mal gestured with both hands, grabbing at something invisible, whispered “Dread,”lovingly,and pulled.
Before Clayton’s fascinated gaze, the life drained from all five fae, each one with an expression of abject horror. It was so fast, none of them had a chance to so much as peep.
“Don’t get sentimental; they had it coming to them. Trust me," Mal said, licking his lips with an obscenely long tongue as he savored his meal.
“Sentimental?” Elena spat. “They killed our friends and stole our children. If we had time, I’d make Naerith piss on their corpses.”
Naerith and Clayton both pointed at Elena and said, “What she said.”
Naerith gave Clayton a delighted, fatherly smile, but it transformed into something hard and sharp immediately. “They took too much from us, Mal. They deserve whatever they get. No mercy.”
“No mercy,” Clayton agreed.
Fuck them all. Clayton was getting his family back.
