Page 26 of On A Rift's Edge
Lyall snarled, leaping up on the wall, but he wasn’t fast enough. Teo pulled off another amazing jump, clung to the ceiling, then vanished through a broken window a moment later.
The stasis container was now a smoking heap of twisted metal and melted jelly. The trash scorpions, who had wisely faded into the background during the fight, came scurrying out. Their leader came up to Kat, and with a flourish of his claw, held up the thong.
Not knowing what else to do at this point, Kat took it.
Lyall altered himself back to human form, chest heaving. His eyes glowed an unholy red, and he raised his hand to sketch his sigils. The air next to them ripped open as if slashed by a knife, and a mini-hellmouth opened up.
Lyall seized Kat’s arm and pulled him toward the portal. “I’m getting you out of here. Now.”
10
Lyall hated Remi’s suggestion to invite Zale to their crisis meeting about the hopper attack. Even worse, he had to admit they needed to do it.
Lyall, Kat, Remi, and Kaveh were all sitting in the living room of the renovated second floor of Kaveh’s clinic. Lyall had dragged Kat into the hellmouth he had created and portaled both of them out of the military base and inside the monstertown’s outer defenses. That hadn’t gone over well with the guardians or Kaveh at first, but when a shaky Kat walked out holding onto to Lyall’s arm, everyone had settled down.
Except Lyall. He was furious at himself for putting Kat in danger—from a hopper, no less. The human had handled the situation well, granted, calmly distracting the killer frog and giving Lyall enough time to bust out of the stasis chamber. But Kat shouldn’t ever have been in that precarious position. That was Lyall’s fault.
At least Kaveh was taking this seriously. The Azdaha drakone sat across from Lyall on one of the vintage-trendy chairs Remi had bought for the apartment. It was hard to believe the commitment-phobic Remi was keeping a separate room at Jesse and José’s place to make sure he didn’t rush Kaveh into a serious relationship. Meanwhile, Kat had told Lyall that Kaveh was worried about the same thing.
If there was one thing the Matchmaker wasn’t, it was a casual dating service.
Not that Lyall was in any position to criticize how Remi and Kaveh were handling a haywire Matchmaker pairing that had set up a half-human ratkind from the Colony with a veterinarian who could turn into a killer dragon. Lyall’s own wildly inappropriate Matchmaker pick was sitting on the sofa next to him, close enough to assuage Lyall’s out-of-control need to protect Kat, but not as close as he should be.
Lyall wanted Kat on his lap, preferably, but that wasn’t reasonable. Instead, he tried and failed to use a non-confrontational tone with Remi. “Tell me again why we should invite your fucking cousin Zale to this house party. He’s a spy for the Colony.”
Remi was currently busying himself pouring drinks for everyone while Kaveh reorganized the black doctor bag he had opened in order to treat the minor injuries Lyall had taken in the fight.
“Zale thinks he was sent here to spy on us.” Remi looked up from behind the bar as he set up the drinks. “Knowing my father, Ari has a whole other ulterior motive for ordering my cousin to come here. Zale might have information about my father recruiting a hopper to take your place as his indentured servant, though. And I know how to get him to cooperate.”
“If the hoppers’ social structure revolves around military groups, why was Teo alone and desperate enough to agree to years of servitude to Arimanius?” Kat, bless his clueless human heart, was concerned that the vicious killer frog might have hurt feelings. Just thinking about Teo putting his slimy webbed hands on Kat made Lyall so furious he snarled without even realizing it.
The control object crackled in irritation, and Kaveh raised an eyebrow.
Right. Lyall was supposed to sit here next to Kat and pretend he wasn’t frantic for the young human’s safety. Part of him wanted to scoop Kat up and take him away whether he wanted to leave or not.
But he couldn’t. That was exactly the behavior Kat expected from a Riftworld person under the Matchmaker’s influence, and that was why Lyall couldn’t tell Kat the truth right now.
“It’s an interesting question, but I don’t know enough about hoppers to answer it.” Kaveh paused to give Remi a dazzling smile as the ratkind handed him a lemonade. That was cute and all, but Remi goddamn better be handing out a stronger drink than that to Lyall.
Remi gave Kat the other lemonade he had carried over before returning to the bar. He made his way back with a margarita in one hand and a tumbler in the other, which Lyall was pleased to discover was filled with scotch. He was even happier when Remi handed him a packet of the ranch’s famous beef jerky to go along with it.
Kaveh took a sip of his lemonade and continued. “I think we need to focus more on the connection to Arimanius, and Zale is our best option for information, as much as I dislike the idea.”
“I know Zale’s an idiot and a pain in the ass.” Remi perched on the arm of the chair Kaveh sat in, margarita in hand, and indicated the control object with a wave of his hand. “But he won’t pass up an invitation to come in here.”
The elongated egg gave a pulse of pink light in approval.
“Zale’s got a thing for the fucking control object?” Lyall asked. “Am I the only one they hate?”
“They dislike me as well.” Kaveh rested a hand on Remi’s thigh, a rather scandalous act of PDA given the drakone’s usual reserve. “I’m assuming Zale is able to join us on short notice?”
Remi tried to look abashed but couldn’t pull it off. “Okay, he’s waiting downstairs because I sent a message over as soon as we heard what happened. I can tell Bug to get him.”
“Fine.” Kaveh let out a sigh. “Let him know it’s okay to join us.”
Remi cocked his head at Lyall.
“I’ll try to restrain myself from throttling him.” Lyall knocked back a gulp of the scotch and turned to Kat. “Are you okay with this?”
