In the old language, Natalya said, "I recal ed something I'd heard about you. Aren't you supposed to have a kiss that drugs men?"
"So everyone says." Regin didn't actual y ... know. Aidan had sworn her lips were like a drug. And with each reincarnation, her kiss had triggered his memories. As soon as their lips touched, his past assailed him.
But the "drugging kiss" rep sounded cool, so Regin had run with it.
Natalya said, "You could kiss Fegley or Chase, then command him to free us!"
What was so bad? They were equal y unappealing.
Regin's ears twitched. "Speak of one of the devils." Fegley's cheap orthopedic lifts were squeaking closer.
When the warden appeared outside their cel , he ogled Regin's bared midriff. Gross. Whenever men leered at her, Regin tended to leer back. She canted her head on the floor, turning it one way, then the other. "I finally understand what a dickie-do is. Your gut does stick out more than your dickie do."
Natalya guffawed, slapping a hand over her mouth.
His beady eyes slitted, and he wal oped his nightstick against the glass directly beside Regin's head.
Which made Roomie Number Three's tempo speed up. She clenched her teeth, wrestling with her temper.
"Your time's running out, Valkyrie." Fegley gave another wal op before he squeaked off.
Regin narrowed her eyes, watching him til he was out of sight. "One day I'm going to make that little piggy cry all the way home." With a sigh, she rose and crossed to the boy.
The only thing that broke up this prison monotony was studying their curious fel ow inmate, trying to pinpoint what species he belonged to. So far, she'd determined only three things about him.
Since he didn't fit a single species' traits definitively, he must be a hybrid or halfling of some sort.
His gray athletic T-shirt indicated that he played footbal for the Harley High Tigers.
And he sure was cute.
He was over six feet tal , his build corded with muscle. His eyes were hazel with blue flecks, his brown hair thick and tousled.
The first time Regin had awkwardly patted his banging head to calm him, the fey had raised her brows.
To which Regin had eloquently replied, "Oh, eat me."
That night Natalya had wiped the blood from his hair, then covered him with her jacket when he'd slept.
After that, the two of them had started to view him as kind of a pet rock, almost like they were the de facto guardians of their very own sea monkey.
Kneeling before him, Regin murmured, "Don't let that Fegley worm get to you." still staring ahead, the kid slowed his banging. "There's a good ... male of indeterminate species." Over her shoulder, Regin said, "We've got to come up with a name for him."
"Why don't we cal him Tiger?" Natalya suggested.
"For his footbal team? Good idea."
"Not quite." At Regin's quirked brow, Natalya admitted, "He has a trouser tiger. A waistband topper. He might have no other bodily functions, but last night when he slept, he must've been dreaming really hard about cheerleaders."
"Nuh-uh."
Natalya raised her right hand. "Hand to goddess."
"Speaking of big cats. Cougar, he's a zygote. "
"Can I help if I notice him? I haven't been around available males in eons."
"How's that?"
"I was taken hostage at the Battle of Seven Hil s."
Regin snapped her fingers. "I remember now." She'd been pissed to miss that epic conflict between the fey and the centaurs. Nothing hurt Regin's feelings like not being invited to war. "We'd heard you died there."
Natalya shook her head. "Good old King Volos planned to ransom me, but failed to realize that I was ignoble and no one would pay. It took me a decade to escape."
"How'd you do it?"
"His nephew-and royal heir-took me out of my cel to make me his concubine. I acted receptive, right up until I ganked him with my poisonous claws, then decapitated him." Natalya said this dispassionately, but her eyes flickered. normally her irises were the color of plums, but with emotion, veins of black forked out. "At last I'd escaped. Then less than a week later, I was captured by these wanks. Your takeaway from this story: I need to get laid." She cast a keen glance at the kid.
"He's like six hundred years younger than you are." Regin pointed a finger at the ceiling and declared, "I refuse to be the moral compass of our cel ! Most weekends I have an intoxispel bong attached to my mouth like a respirator. I love scatological humor, and I list 'pranks involving nuclear waste' and 'making demons eat things' as my hobbies." Hubcaps, fire extinguishers, pizza boxes. Though she was friends with many of the demon species, she made the rest of them suffer.
"Valkyrie, if there was ever a cradle to be robbed ... Gods, just look at him."
Admittedly sigh-worthy. But Regin merely shrugged. "What are you going to do with him if he wakes?
Make p**n for the security cameras while I plug my ears and drone la-la-la? Besides, he's not ful y immortal yet. You claw him and he's dead."
Natalya glared at her claws.
"Face it, Nat, this is one tiger who will never be jumping through your flaming hoop-"
Regin caught the sound of Chase's nearing footsteps. She recognized his long-legged stride, the echo of his heavy combat boots. "Here comes the Blademan. ..."
Chapter NINE
Is anything wrong, Magister?" Dixon asked, fawning expression in place as they moved down the corridor, assessing new prisoners.
"No." His tone was brusque, his answer a lie.
Declan was having a shite day, and it wasn't even noon.
Tests on the vampire's ring had revealed nothing-which made Lothaire's interrogation this afternoon even more critical.
Declan still hadn't crushed his unnerving fascination with the Valkyrie; her cel was coming up fast.
And he'd found out that yet another magister's prisoners were on the way to his facility, though Declan hadn't even surveyed the ones brought in while he'd been away hunting.
Dixon had offered to bring him up to date on the recent arrivals. He'd accepted because she'd brought him the additional doses and because he'd assumed-rightly-that she wouldn't dare broach the subject of them anytime soon.
Now as they passed cel s newly fil ed with more creatures from "myth," she relayed details of their capture and backgrounds.
One cel contained Cerunnos, sentient creatures possessing the head of a ram and the body of a serpent. Another held a number of revenants-zombies con-trol ed by some unseen Sorceri master.