Page 88 of Renegade Kings
Tank moved straight for me, dipping his head and kissing me passionately. Considering that we were standing in a crowd and he was as naked as the day he was born, it probably wasn’t appropriate, and I heard a few soft snickers flow around the bystanders nearby.
Ryder and Maddox stayed flanking Damon, but I didn’t take it personally. They were finally reunited, and besides; they weren’t as used to walking around naked after a shift as Tank was. Dean seemed to have gone down the route of ignoring the whole thing, but from the blush touching Maddox’s cheeks, he wasn’t finding it as easy.
“We’re moving out,” Rhidian called out. “There’s far too many asses out around here for me to want to stay.”
More of the fighters laughed, and thankfully, my guys saw the funny side of it all as they joined in. Tank just shrugged, still not seeing what the big deal was. To be fair, the bear had absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in that department. Not that any of my other mates did, either.
It was an awkward walk back to the palace. I hadn’t realised how far out we’d run to meet our attackers until now. All it did was give me plenty of time to spiral out over how I’d break it to the others that Damon needed to go straight into a cage. At least for now. He might be their brother, but he wasn’t the same man they remembered from home. I was burned out, and without access to anything powerful, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t feel what was coming off him, and it was a magic I wasn’t familiar with. Which couldn’t be a good thing.
Somehow, I’d ended up in the middle of our procession back to the palace walls. Rhidian and Fizzle were leading the group, a small amount of the fighters and the former Endless following them. Maddox, Ryder and Dean had all fallen in around Damon. I could hear them chatting and laughing as we moved through the forest. Thankfully, none of them were talking about anything that had happened since they’d arrived in Nymeria. It seemed like they were reminiscing about the old days. Whether that was coincidence or by design, I couldn’t tell. But from an outsider’s perspective, the guys were enjoying having their brother back with them, and I really didn’t want to be the one to burst their bubble.
“I’d push you down for a burger right now,” Damon grumbled, both hands cradling his stomach as they walked. “Do you remember the ones from the diner on the corner? What was the name of that place? Damn, that was the best burger I’ve ever eaten in my life.”
“Stacey’s!” Ryder blurted out. “Oh my god, yes! And the fries. Oh, the fries.”
Tank’s hand slipped into mine, drawing my attention away from their group in front of us.
“You okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yes, just… we’ve got a lot to do and a lot of people to organise. It’s going to be a long night.”
Tank hummed in agreement, not quite sounding convinced that was what troubled me. He knew me far too well.
The palace wall came into view, and I heard the sighs of relief from the fighters that brought up the rear. You couldn’t blame them. The forest wasn’t a place any of them wanted to be.
A flap of wings heralded the arrival of Fizzle at the same time as Tank suddenly ducking.
“Don’t even think about it,” he blurted out, dodging away to stop Fizzle from landing on his shoulder.
Instead, I ended up with him on mine, much to Tank’s relief. “The perch is getting a bit too full of himself,” Fizzle grumbled as he made himself comfortable.
“Your claws are bad enough when I’ve got a shirt on!” Tank complained, and Fizzle snapped his beak in his direction before turning away and deciding to ignore him.
“We have the dungeons ready,” he said to me instead.
Brilliant, so we’re doing this now then. There was no avoiding it. I had to put the people here first, and for now, we didn’t know how much we could trust Damon. He hadn’t been controlled by Arik the same way that the Endless were and there was no denying that some kind of dark magic still clung to him. We had to be practical. This was the only way.
I needn’t have worried, though. As soon as our group came to a stop waiting to see what happened now, Dean kicked the back of Damon’s knees out from beneath him, forcing him down to the ground.
“Shall we cut the bullshit now?” he sneered.
Damon cried out as he fell forward onto his hands and knees. “What the fuck, Dean? That was completely unnecessary.”
Only as he tried to climb back to his feet, it was Maddox’s hand on his shoulder to shove him back down.
“Don’t insult me. I know my brother, and I haven’t been talking to him for the last five minutes,” Maddox spat.
I glanced at Tank, who looked just as surprised as I felt. I’d been right behind them, and I might not have been paying attention the whole way here, but I hadn’t seen or felt any change in the man in front of me. Perhaps my magic was more burned out than I first thought.
Damon’s face almost seemed to change as the sneer slowly moved across it, and he started to laugh. “Not as stupid as you used to be, dear brother.”
Maddox shoved him again, and it only made Damon, or whoever was in control right now, laugh harder.
“And here I was thinking you’d just let me straight into the communal bed.”
No one had time to stop Dean before he punched Damon straight in the face. He swiped the blood from his nose with a derisive laugh. “I remember you being so much more effective than that before. Not going soft on us, are you?”
I could see how much Dean wanted to lash out again, but before he had the chance, Rhidian slammed the hilt of his sword into the back of Damon’s head, knocking him out cold.