Page 52 of Dragon Heir

The corners of my lips twitched upward. “Did you see his money when you tried to steal it?”

“I did steal it,” she corrected me as she scratched at a loose splinter in the wood with the tip of one finger.

I lifted an eyebrow. “But I thought you got caught in one of his traps.”

“I did but I got far enough to scoop up a handful before he found me there.”

“There?” I repeated.

She stopped her picking and rolled her eyes. “Hanging there. He put down a leg trap around the biggest chest and I stepped in it.” I couldn’t suppress a snort. Enna whipped her head about to face me and glared. “What’s so funny?”

I clamped my mouth shut and furiously shook my head. “Nothing. I was just. . .just imagining you-” I burst into laughter at the image of the stoic Enna hanging upside down with her face turning as red as a cherry.

Much like what it was doing as I continued to laugh. “It’s not funny!” she snapped as she pounded her fist against the mantel.

I got a hold of myself and wiped away the tears in my eyes with the back of one finger. “I’m sorry. I guess I just needed that laugh.”

Enna lifted her nose and turned her attention back to the fire. “Yeah, well, I’m glad somebody can laugh right now.”

There was a bitter tension in her voice that killed the rest of my humor. She looked worried. “Are you thinking about those two guys?” I asked her.

She shrugged. “Maybe I am. Those idiots would step in a lake if somebody didn’t warn them it was there.”

“But you trusted them enough to go searching for the girl,” I pointed out.

She heaved a great sigh. “Yeah, but I didn’t know they’d have some sort of monster running around turning people into black glop.”

That’s when I heard a soft rapping noise. Enna pushed off from the mantel and frowned. “What was that?”

I stood and shook my head. “I don’t-” Then I saw it. One of the Tenky stood outside the window atop their strange nut bike. The tyke rapped their small fist against the glass.

Enna wrinkled her nose at the creature. “What’s a Tenky doing here?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s the missing one.”

I moved over to the window to open the glass. Enna let out a sharp gasp and lunged forward. She grabbed my wrist just as I was about to lift the latch. “Wait!”

Enna had hardly shouted the word when the Tenky threw itself at the glass. It slammed its body and that of the walnut roughly against the window, so much so that a tiny crack appeared at the point of impact.

“Get back!” Enna shouted as she pushed me behind her.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I couldn’t understand any of what was going on until I noticed the Tenky’s skin. Its flesh had black putrid patches all over it. Boils of a very familiar and terrifying kind. The creature lifted its head and its eyes zeroed in on me. Its black, lifeless eyes.

My heart pounded in my chest and my eyes bulged out of my head. Enna drew out a dagger as the little monster slammed against the glass again and again, not heeding the harm to itself or its magical vehicle. I heard footsteps behind me and the bedroom door flew open. Will and Allard rushed into the room followed closely by Raines and our two other guests.

Will grasped my arms and looked me over. “What’s going-”

I stabbed my finger at the window. “That! The Tenky has the black stuff all over it!”

Will’s eyebrows crashed down and he whipped his head about to follow where I pointed. The Tenky took that moment to crash through the glass and fling itself onto the floor. Enna lunged at the tiny creature and tried to pin the coils to the floor but it dodged her attack with all the nimbleness of a mouse and steered toward me.

Will pulled me behind him and flames burst from his hands. He crossed his arms in front of himself and a huge wall of fire sprang up from floor to ceiling. The Tenky ran into the wall and I shut my eyes to avoid watching it burst into flames. Much was my surprise when I hardly heard a cry of pain. I peeked open an eye and beheld the creature’s walnut entwined in a mess of fire tendrils that had sprouted from the wall.

The Tenky yanked on the steering handles but the walnut pieces just spun in place. It gnashed its teeth before it threw itself off the vehicle and toward the wall, intent on a terrible end.

Enna grabbed it from behind and pulled it back from its suicide. The Tenky thrashed and snapped its sharp jaws.

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