Well, didn’t that just sound like an assface way to die.
Braxton joined in now. He’d been quietly observing until this point. “Jessa and Mischa go where we go, and right now our duties in Stratford don’t mean shit.” He leveled a glare at his fey brother. “Our focus is here.”
Jacob brushed Braxton’s glare aside. “You know I never meant we would leave without the girls. No responsibility trumps Jessa. But we still need to know the short to long term plan.”
“I admire and respect your loyalty,” Quale said as he started to move toward the doorway again. “It won’t be all bad here. You will learn about the marked and the abilities that your females will develop.” He gestured for us to proceed before him along the hall. “And you will all be safe. In here, you will only find others who have searched for security.”
Judging by the dirty looks we received as we entered, that wasn’t completely true. There were definitely some here who’d do anything to keep their sanctuary untainted by strangers.
The trip down in the elevator was as shittastic as going up. Two mystics were waiting for us outside, neither of them Gerard.
“How many of you are there?” I asked Quale.
He noticed the way I was eying the grays through the front glass. “There are twelve mystics. We spend our time in the different zones. There are about two thousand supernaturals in here.”
Wow, that was a lot, especially if most of them were dragon marked.
“We’ve recently added quite a few hundred to our ranks.”
My brain clicked on about the same time that Braxton spoke. “You mean those who were freed from the various prisons?”
The dragon shifter never missed a beat.
Quale leveled his stare on the black haired quad. While he didn’t look surprised, something told me he had not expected us to know of this. “Yes, the twins free them and then send them back here to us.”
Out the doors now, the two cloaks joined with Quale to lead us back through the town. At the mention of twins I ground to a halt.
My eyes narrowed on the three mystics. “The two women who have been breaking into the supernatural prisons and freeing the marked are twins?”
My voice might have risen a little louder than I’d intended.
Quale nodded. “Yes, we have quite a few twins here, but they are the oldest I know of.” He paused for a breath. “And you two are the youngest.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Anything that paralleled in life … well, there was always a reason. And that reason had better not be that the two oldest and two youngest dragon marked twins were the four needed to open the tomb of the king. If that was the case, they were going to be shit out of luck. I wasn’t freeing that crazy bastard … not in this lifetime.
The quads exchanged glances, doing that thing where I knew they were reading each other’s thoughts. I wondered if they were having the same panicked heart palpitations I was. Tyson reached out his long arm and snagged it around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. As the familiar wizard energy surrounded me, I calmed.
“Don’t stress that pretty face, you’ll get wrinkles,” Tyson jibed at me, his tone light.
I managed to free an arm and flip him off.
Maximus grinned. “He’s right, no need to stress. We’ll stop you and Misch from sticking your fingers where they don’t belong.”
I was too far away to retaliate, but thankfully Mischa got in a decent whack on his arm. Sure it was a girly, open palm slap, but still it was good to see some violence in her soul. Character building.
I wondered what was happening between Mischa and Maximus. Having spent most of my life with guys, I wasn’t one for girl gossip. I just accepted that supes had their own business and mostly I cared very little what it was. But my twin and the vamp had been all touchy, hot and heavy – well PG hot anyway – and now they seemed to be a little distanced again.
I reminded myself to ask Mischa tonight when we were back in our rooms.
There were less of the hardened supernaturals in the street now. Since food was a pretty huge part of our culture, most of them would be at lunch. We crossed through a paved section that had lots of diminutive stalls, like an open air farmers market. Scents were emerging, foods of many different flavors tantalizing my senses, and then as we left the market I almost squealed as I saw the next street.
Jacob leaned in close to where I was still under Tyson’s arm. “You’re drooling.”
I didn’t blink or remove my eyes from the scene in front of us, but I did lift my hand and wipe at my chin. Jacob was right, there had been a little drool.
But for reals … it was a street of food.
I mean the entire length, which was probably about a mile, was filled, both sides, with eateries. Each one seemed to represent different international foods. From my position I could see Chinese, Thai, Indian, and Turkish, and I was sure many more cultures filled the shop fronts.
We started to move again, and if it wasn’t for Tyson’s arm I’d probably have been running. Scents were hitting me hard from all directions, and actually … not all of them were pleasant. As we moved further through I understood the stench. Scattered amid the regular eateries were quite a few specialty cafes. The first I saw was a raw seafood center filled with the water loving demi-fey. Down the alley, beside the café, was a stream occupied by chattering mer-supes.
Nearby, another eatery advertised – in big letters and with disgusting graphics – that they catered to carnivores of the raw meat variety. Ogres, gargoyles and trolls looked to be the large – and I do mean large – majority of their clientele.