“Except he hasn’t slept in days. He’s probably just overtired,”Cas argues.
“Overtired?”Mac scoffs. “I poured a glass of ice water on him and he hasn’t even twitched. Are you sure he’s not dead?”
“Goddess above,”Cas mutters, and I can imagine him rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose with impatience at Mac’s question. “First of all, I can see his jugular pulsing. But setting that aside for those without the advantage of bloodlust, his chest is moving, his pupils react to the light when we lift his eyelids, and he’s still warm.”
Amusement at Cas’s “how to spot a corpse” lecture vibrates inside of me, and I can feel myself floating closer and closer to the surface of consciousness. The blackness isn’t clinging to me quite as hard, and little by little I start to feel my limbs again.
“Okay, but if he is cursed, we should probably tell Auri—”Roman starts to say.
“I’m not cursed,” I mumble, then yawn.
“Shit,” Mac gasps. “He’s alive.”
“Imagine that.” Sarcasm drips from Cas’s tone.
I struggle with my heavy eyelids for several seconds before I manage to pry them open. I expected it, but it’s still a little unnerving to wake up with four supernatural mercenaries standing over you.
“Cas lectured me to get some sleep, and as soon as I do, you all crowd into my bedroom and whisper over me. Fuck, can’t a guy get a couple hours of shut-eye?”
“A couple hours?” Drax repeats, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You’ve been asleep for sixteen hours.”
“Fuck,” I mutter. The witch said that the potion might not work as long on a gargoyle, so just to be on the safe side, I took two sips instead of one. I guess it must have been overkill. My stomach rumbles and my bladder screams for relief as my bodily awareness and all my senses fully kick back in. But I don’t have time for trivial bullshit. “I talked to Rune and I have a lead. The prison guard who’s been bringing him his food said something about a war.”
“A war?” Roman parrots.
“We don’t have time for you guys to repeat everything I say,” I grumble, throwing my covers off and marching over to the attached bathroom. I don’t bother closing the door behind me, whipping my dick out to empty my bladder while still talking to them. “Who would know about any wars brewing? None of you have heard any rumors, have you?”
I flush the toilet and stride back out, looking at them all expectantly.
They exchange looks and shrugs.
“Can we go back to the part where you said you talked to Rune?” Drax asks. “If you know where he is?—”
“I don’t. Long story I’ll tell you about soon, but we need to figure out what this war thing means.”
“That’s not much to go on,” Cassius says delicately. “A war between who? Demons and witches? Mages and fairies? Vampires and wolf shifters? Dragons and?—”
“I get your point. Okay, let’s think about this for a second.” I start to pace, running my fingers through my beard as I consider the little information we have. “He said that whoever has him hasn’t made any demands or even come to talk to him. They haven’t harmed him other than holding him hostage and limiting his power.”
“He’s powerful,” Mac points out.
“No shit,” I huff.
“What I mean is, if you’re at war or expecting a war, there’s two reasons to abduct someone as powerful as Rune. One, you want to use him as a weapon. Or two, you need him out of the way so no one can use him as a weaponagainstyou.”
I grunt. That makes sense, actually.
“So far it sounds like the latter,” Cassius says.
“Okay, so does that narrow things down at all? He didn’t seem to know anything about the war, so why would they think he would be against them?”
They all trade glances again, no one coming up with any new answers.
“We’re not exactly strategists here, man. If anyone would be able to wrap their head around all the strategic shit it would be Auri,” Roman says.
“We can’t tell Auri.” He’ll find out sooner or later that I bargained for the sleeping potion, but hopefully not until after Rune has been rescued. “I can’t risk him ordering us to stand down.”
“Yeah, alright,” Roman reluctantly agrees.
