Page 33 of Bound and Tide

Xander devoured her mouth with a hunger he hadn’t even felt in his throbbing agony. She returned the kiss, grabbing hold of his face. Red’s tongue invaded his mouth, curling around his and taking it for her own.

The strength went all out of him then as he collapsed once more, this time on top of her. “Just stab me next time you want to punish me, all right?” he muttered into her hair.

Red’s throaty chuckle traveled up his spine, followed by her fluttering fingers. “Careful, I just might if you’re truly offering.”

“What kind of blood mage would I be if I didn’t find blood arousing?” He closed his eyes and sank into a very different darkness than he’d been suffering through. This darkness was warm, with a body pressed to his and fingers massaging his back, and he didn’t fear for even a moment that he would be left alone.

Chapter 16

BIG DUMB MEN WITH SWORDS

“Do either of you know Elvish?” Xander sat with legs crossed, watching from above as a water imp scuttled toward Bendcrest’s prison with its body transformed into a blue-shelled crab.

“Costa knows a little.”

The boy shrugged as if he wouldn’t have said anything if not for his sister. He was admiring the fabric of his new cloak, and Xander hoped he wouldn’t blurt out any more gratitude. The chattering of your teeth has been distracting, the blood mage had said to both of them when he handed over the thick coverings that morning, and that really should have been enough.

When no more grateful words came spewing out, Xander sucked his teeth. “What does cool tuh mean?”

Costa hummed. “Maybe small?”

“That’s definitely not it.” Most definitely not.

They were sat on the floor of a tiny balcony, the railing a somewhat helpful obstruction in the surprising brightness of the night with snow covering the roads and rooftops. Another uncomfortable situation the three were put into by Stavros and his debts.

“Well, your Elvish accent is the worst I’ve ever heard.” Maia huffed, throwing herself back against the stone wall of the warehouse.

“All right, shut it, I need to focus.” Xander closed his eyes, and the new vision behind his lids swam like he’d been thrust underwater again. Of course, everything was sideways too, which did not help, but that was what one got when one’s imp insisted on taking the form of a crab. When challenged with the task, though, the other two imps transformed into an octopus and a starfish, which were significantly less helpful in sneaking across a road and into a building undetected.

Xander expected Bendcrest’s small prison to be uncomplicated—there was no room for a basement in a river city, and the buildings in this part of town were all square to fit in along the waterway, but it was even simpler than his prediction. It opened into a rather normal-looking chamber with a set of desks and a barred door at the back, one man sitting there with his boots up and eyes closed.

The crab slipped between the bars, and through its limited vision, Xander at first thought the two-story building was empty, but as the imp scuttled in deeper, it came to an edge, and then peered over to find the prisoners.

The center of the space had been excavated into the rocky ground right up against the levee for the river, leaving an open pit that served as a single cell. The pit was structurally questionable with slick-looking walls and puddles dotting the earthen floor, and it was too deep to be climbed out of, though the chains probably helped to keep the criminals in place. Strategically bolted along the walls and floor were iron links, each cuffed to the ankle of a prisoner. The tethers were too short for the detainees to reach one another, but without cells, the entire thing seemed particularly threatening. Notably, there were no beds and only an occasional chamber pot.

Abyss, and Xander thought Red was good at torture. He shivered, and he was only half sure it had to do with the rapidly dropping temperature.

He counted nine prisoners in varying states of aggression and acquiescence before the imp scrambled away from the pit’s lip to assess the rest of the place. The building was fortified well enough with thick stone walls and only narrow windows near the ceiling, no other way in or out.

It would be messier than he’d planned, but at least if he got into trouble this time, he wouldn’t disappoint Red as she’d been warned he might disappear for a few days.

Xander popped back into his own mind when the imp dissolved and sloshed out through a crack at the back of the prison. “Have either of you seen the inside of that place?”

Maia and Costa shook their heads.

“Good—keep it that way.” Xander tensed his jaw, realizing this unlawful task wouldn’t help prevent the two from being arrested in the future, and, damn it, why would he care either way? He stood and slipped back into the warehouse, gesturing for the two to follow. “Listen, the only way in or out is the front gate which is being watched by an armored dolt inside and, for whatever reason, a holy knight just at the road’s entrance.” He sneered at the thought of the burly-chested man with a rising sun embroidered on his tabbard just like what was carved into the temple in the center of town.

“Most of the city guard are doing quarterly training in the wood, so they’re borrowing Valcord’s knights to keep watch over certain places.”

“That’s why you insisted we do this tonight.” Xander cocked a brow over his shoulder at Maia as they went down the stairs, keeping quiet despite that they’d seen the last laborer leave before nightfall. She had an instinct for strategy, he would give her that.

That morning he’d hated to leave the comfort of Red’s bedroom, afraid he might break whatever spell he’d managed to put her under that convinced her to let him spend the night, but he’d promised the two children he would help them pay back another of Stavros’s debts, and, well…something something promises, he supposed. He didn’t understand this particular debt, but he also hadn’t wanted the details. Stavros had been in deep with a crime family who needed a henchman broken out of prison, which was really all Xander needed to know.

“At least we only have to distract two men.”

“I know what we should do,” Maia said quickly, an excitable glint to her eye as she jumped in front of Xander at the foot of the stairs. “We get the imps to stack on top of one another’s shoulders and we throw a cloak over them. Then, they’ll look like one person, and—”

“Three imps in a cloak? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” Xander squashed the idea and all her misplaced eagerness by dropping his hand onto her head and turning her toward the back door of the warehouse. So much for that mind for strategy he thought she had. “I’ve already worked out what we’re doing anyway. I can manage a summons and a shadow entrapment, so that will take care of the guards, and then Costa’s going to break the target free with some focused water magery.”

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