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Dade
I kicked the fallen lad’s shoulder, toeing him to his back from the rock on which he’d died.
What remained of the captain’s face after landing on the rock was too bloody to make out. It mattered not. I crouched down and patted his pockets, sniffing, finding what I needed inside his coat.
“Captain Lesands,” I murmured so Scythe would hear, “was given minimal, basic orders.”
“I don’t understand.” He said what the rest of us, if we had half a brain, were thinking. “Where’s the gold, then?”
We were not after the gold woven from myself and my swan. No, we were here merely for the sport of it. Keeping the gold-embroidered clothing from leaving our shores was but a bonus.
A bonus that further kept the human king and queen from gathering foreign armies to our land.
We hadn’t been given misinformation. I’d heard it myself, and the wolves who’d eked out a living in the human villages and farms, glamoured to appear less than what they were—had backed that information up with their own findings.
Three ships were to enter the Royal Cove after sunrise. Only one had done as predicted, all its inhabitants now dying on the sand at our feet, dead, or swimming out to sea to take their chances with the ruthless beasts of the ocean instead.
I stomped toward the water where Scythe was holding a flailing man’s head beneath the surface, his eyes gleaming as the man came up for air, sputtering and coughing.
He growled into the gent’s face, “Where are the others?”
“Others?”
He shoved his head back underwater, then tore it out by his hair. “The other ships, you useless fuck.”
“I do not know of—”
His words were cut off as Scythe shoved him underwater once more. Though we didn’t need him to tell us what I’d already figured out.
A gull shrieked overhead, flapping away as eagles and crows began to swarm, lured by the scent of blood and dying flesh. Gazing up at them, then down at the parchment in my hand, I read over the meager contents again.
“So we have coordinates and one task.” Scythe released the man when he went limp, the sea swallowing his head and then his torso, and brushed his hands over his leathered vest. I squinted at the frothy bay, thinking out loud. “Collect the goods and set sail immediately. No goods, but we have two missing ships.”
“A decoy.” Scythe frowned at the harsh glow of the midday sun.
We’d arrived before sunrise, but we hadn’t attacked when the ship anchored in the cove. No, we’d waited for the king and queen’s regiment to arrive. When no one had, we’d watched the human sailors, listened to their lilted accents as they’d talked amongst themselves on board, then realized from their careful conversation that something was amiss, and they’d had no plans to leave their ship.
So we’d decided to remove them from it ourselves.
“Pile every single body and limb back on board,” I roared, scrunching the parchment in my hand, then setting it aflame. “Leave the ship in the harbor but set it on fire.”
“A message.” Scythe flicked blood from his cropped head of black hair. “I like it.”
“We’ve indeed been duped,” I said, a
Scythe followed my line of vision to the beach, the gray blurs of the seaside village that’d been vacated long ago, to the city beyond. “Should we head that way? We can cut them off as they leave.”
“It won’t work.” I was the only one amongst our legion who could fly. Vordane had three legions. Scythe commanded legion one, legion two belonged to Fang, and my uncle commanded legion three—the only legion with flyers.
I governed and outranked all, but not even I was riddled with enough wrath and greed to send my warriors over guarded land in hopes of reaching the sea and ships at the cliffs beyond. Such a task would require more than one legion unless accompanied by foot soldiers, maybe even some of the grunts still undergoing training.
Taking the cubs out for missions they were not yet equipped for would not only see many of them killed—such wasted potential—but it would enrage many.
I was never in the fucking mood to deal with disgruntled mothers.
“We return home,” I said at long last, tearing my eyes from the city of Errin and all the cretin that awaited me inside. Their deception rankled, and I was certain they’d hoped for just that as much as they’d hoped their stolen product made its way safely from our waters.
I wondered how they felt about their missing captive. Now my captive. My swan.
The thought made me feel a little better about being tricked, and many warriors gaped at me, perplexed as I waded through them all wearing a smirk.
Oh, those human royals would be mighty pissed. Why, I was willing to bet they hadn’t even alerted my swan’s dear mother. For it would reveal them to be the bumbling fools they were, as well as anger the grieving widow to the point of war.
I’d send an anonymous tip myself, knowing the gold queen would send every soldier, every able-bodied creature, to Errin—eliminating many from both kingdoms. Perfect. Far less work for me.
Alas, I’d come to learn my swan would most certainly not appreciate that.
Oh, how she fucking enraged me.
Stars, I loathed her and all she stood for. I loathed her nearly as much as I wanted her. I’d been cursed. I was sure of it. The bird was both my remedy and my affliction.
Fortunately for all, I’d never been afraid of hard work. The human royals could wait. The itch to lay eyes upon my feathered princess could not.
In a flare of bone-crunching flame, I shifted, the minor wounds I’d garnered on our hunt healing. While the warriors hefted and dumped body after body onto the ship, I leaped at the hillside, claws sinking inside soft sand and blades of grass, wings unfurling as I withheld a rumbling roar and shot into the sky.