“…there is nothing that says our One True Fated Mate isn’t in Arrhythmia,” I mocked.Yeah, I was a dick.It was a fact I’d never argued, and just to dot that particular ‘I’, I imitated the Dragon King’s deep, rumbling Scottish brogue to perfection.Yes, I knew it wasn’t going to end well.No, I didn’t give a shit.But that didn’t stop me from letting go of the tenuous grip I had on my own temper.
Slamming the palm of my right hand on the desk, I ground out through gritted teeth, “Nothing but the fact that this Goddess be damned place is a fuckin’ penal colony– one we have been stuck in for nine-hundred-ninety-nine years, five months, and eighteen hours for no good reason except the fact that Fogarty T.Petersen is a nasty bastard who has hated me and mine for longer than I’ve been alive.Fucking Necromancers!They live too damn long for their own good.They talk to the dead like the rest of us talk to our friends.It’s no wonder so many of them end up in padded rooms.But fuckin’ Fogarty is the worst.That asshole is rotten as well as crazy as a bedbug.”
“And while all that might be true,”Anluan, affectionately known as Lou on manyotheroccasions, agreed.“That has nothing to do with the subject at hand.”
Whoa…Something had changed.He was suddenly calm.It was like he’d flipped a switch and all was well again.It was weird, and that couldn’t be good for me.I needed to head this crap off at the pass.Sadly, I was forced to change course, shut down my inner bitching, and come up with what to say, while on the other hand, the Old Dragon King had his rebuttal locked and loaded.“I don’t think…”
But I couldn’t let him win this argument.He’d been preaching at me for too many days about my shitty attitude, and although he was right, I wasn’t in the mood.
It was time to get creative.And since I didn’t have a creative bone in my body, I decided to let my shitty attitude shine.
“Hold on just one second, Lou,” I cut him off.“In what stretch of your addled imagination would the Universe let the woman She made for me, my perfect complement in every way, the Light to my Darkness, get thrown into this hell hole?”
“For the same reason that you, one of the Universe’s Chosen Warriors, and I, King Anluan, who carried the great King Arthur into battle more times than even I can remember, are here.It can all be boiled down to two words: Shit.Happens.”
“Shit happens?”I was flabbergasted.For the briefest of moments, and for one of the only times in my life, I was speechless– except for those two words.
My mouth was trying to catch up with my mind, but anger was winning the race.The Old Man had gone too far this time.I went from having fun with him to madder than a wet hen in less than a heartbeat.It wasmyswitch that had been flipped this time, and not in a good way.
Jumping to my feet, the back of my knees hit the edge of the seat of the chair with so much force that it shot backward like a rock out of a slingshot.Bouncing off the wall just as quickly, the crooked wheel on the front right sent it veering wildly off course with extreme prejudice.Hitting the metal filing cabinet with a loud crash, not only did the top drawer of the rusted cupboard jut out like it was on a spring, but my hat went sailing through the air, hit the far wall, and landed on the dirty floor with a resounding echo.
Normally, I would’ve rushed to save one of my two prized possessions, but not this time.Nope, I was too mad.Well, not just mad, I was the stupid kind of pissed that makes a person do the dumbest things without a single thought of what will happen, or how idiotic they will look.
Stomping and stalking my way around the opposite side of the desk, my brain said, ‘Shut the hell up, Guy,’ while my mouth just kept running.Yes, I was poking the Dragon King.No, that was not a good thing.Hell no, I didn’t care.
“You, the great and wonderfulin your own mind, King Anluan of the Culloden Bronze Dragons just said, ‘Shit happens’ and expects me to take that as a reasonable answer?”
“Yes, I…”
“The best explanation the Dragon who’s been alive for more than two thousand years, the one who never misses an opportunity to tell anyone who will listen– namely me– how intelligent he is, can come up with is, ‘Shit happens’?”
“As I tried to…”
Doing an about face before I ran through the concrete wall, my mouth was still running no matter how hard my brain tried to stop it– and my little gray cells were working overtime to zip my flapping lips, but they were sorely outfoxed by the speed at which my irrational rage was fueling the words to fly from my lips.“What the fuck does ‘shit happens’ mean, Lou?What the fuck…?”
“SHUT.UP!”
His words exploded in my mind.They wrapped around my brain and squeezed as tight as they could.The dull ache of the headache I’d had for damn near a month, made worse by the bad decisions of the night before, spiked so high that my top lip was instantly wet with huge drops of cold sweat.It was all I could do not to throw up on my boots.I thought about plopping my butt down on the corner of my desk, putting my head between my knees, and taking a few deep breaths, but I wasn’t ready to give up the fight.”
“What hell…?”
“Keep your mouth shut and your ears open, or I will do it again.”
Doing as I was told, no matter how much I hated being bested because if he even came close to roaring again, I would most definitely lose my dinner, I worked up enough gumption to snap, “Get on with it,” and prayed he wouldn’t tease me about it later.
“I said what I said.You above most others know that shit happens.We are here, in Arrhythmia, because shit happens.Yes, we both ultimately hold Fogarty Petersen and his minions responsible for our current situation, but dare I say, shit happens.”
“Apparently, you can’t stop.”
Continuing as if I hadn’t spoken, Lou attested, “We all know that there are no coincidences.The Universe does not make mistakes.Fate will not be denied.Therefore…”
“Therefore, you want to take me back to school– to teach me what you fear I have forgotten.”
“No, that’s not…”
It was my turn to keep going, and I did just that.“You want to help me come to terms with why, now that I am in the homestretch of the bullshit punishment that was handed down by a corrupt branch of the Council, every day seems to be longer than the one before it.You expect me to find solace in the fact that I only have six months, six days, and six hours until I get out of the dustiest, dirtiest gaping pit of nothingness in the world, but every minute stretches before me like an hour.”
“Therefore,”the Dragon King cleared his throat so loudly that his voice reverberated off the inside of my skull.
