Page 13 of Chasing Tail
Taron grunted and nearly slid onto the floor again. The brothers picked up on that right away, but Beck knew better than to laugh. Either that or he’d hit his tipping point as to what he found amusing with us and now officially found us too strange for him. He just kept staring with this weird look on his face.
“That shipwreck theory is holding water,” Beck said. “They aren’t from our kingdom or anything nearby. The couch seems to be giving the big guy problems. We’re going to need to do way more than just teach them to speak. This is probably a huge culture shock. It also runs a bigger risk of Father finding them because they got curious about something.”
The druid king was clearly insane. I don’t even think his sons liked him. They seemed to think they were safe from him, but I saw the massacre he ordered in my home. It was only a matter of time before he turned on them too. They probably knew that, and I needed their help, not sending us away because they were afraid of him.
I regretted pretending I couldn’t speak for a minute, but I had other reasons for that. I needed help teaching Taron. Before I could get their attention and try to communicate in other ways, they dropped a tidbit that told me they were probably decent druids, and if I could just get one of them on the throne, my home would be safe again.
“We’ll need to be alert for shipwrecks,” Forrest said. “Father sent his best ship out, and he’s been secretive about it. He never sends one without a big announcement and massive amounts of fan fair. We only knew about it because we saw the ship leaving the dock before we could stop them and ask what they were doing. All Father would tell us when we asked was that he was exploring other options for a cure. If he weren’t planning something terrible and thought he might lose that ship, he’d be blowing out hot air to anyone that would listen about his genius finding the right magic to cure her.”
I started frantically waving my hands and making noises. Depending on the currents, they might only find the wreckage from one ship. My home was far into the ocean, so they wouldn’t get much of their supplies back. Still, I needed them on my side.
I wasn’t comfortable telling them what Taron and I were or the real reason we were here, but they needed to know that ship hurt people. I barely knew them. They might not care about a few sharks and a mermaid, but Taron and I did. They might not even think about who made their home in the ocean or the entire culture we had there, but Taron and I were right in front of them. They couldn’t ignore us, even if I were lying about so many things.
“I’m going to murder him!” Callum snapped. “Lucinda has lumps in her breast. If she had let the palace surgeon remove them as soon as she found it, it wouldn’t have grown and spread. She told anyone who would listen they were her best feature and the entire reason Father married her. He didn’t deny it and try to talk her into the surgery. Now, it’s too late, and they are doing crazy things to cure her.”
“This has gone too far,” Forrest said. “He couldn’t be reasoned with before Lucinda got sick. He wasn’t this insane when our mother died. He’s been doing this under the guise of cracking down on crime, so people still support him, but he’s sending ships in the dead of night to kidnap people now.”
“What exactly are we going to do about it, Forrest?” Beck snapped. “We’re druids, not shifters. It’s not acceptable for us to challenge him to a fight and kill him to take the throne. More people like him than hate him. They’d kill us before we could give them a bullet list of the things he’s done they don’t know about.”
They really just needed to get Taron and me close. We’d do all the work, then disappear back into the ocean. The three brothers could blame us and pretend like they never knew us. They were already primed for killing him, but I knew we couldn’t just spring that on them just yet.
Forrest had been nothing but sweet. He was the first brother who offered to help us, and when Chloe wanted to fight me for her clothes, he was the one that started taking his off first. That sweetness was gone. He was angry now.
“Then we do this the druid way—with our brains and magic. Unfortunately, father and Lucinda have broken several druid laws, even before she got sick. So we have to plan this carefully while helping these two.”
I was happy to let them plan this the druid way as long as it ended with sea vengeance—with an enchanted dagger in his gut while he bled out slowly.
