Free Dragons Realm by Tessa Dawn Page B

go?”
    Micah shrugged. “Like any other, I sup­pose. We cornered the girl and her mother in the forest. They were trav­el­ing alone by horse­back, so it took very little ef­fort to drive them off the path. Za­kor, my gar­goyle, jumped out at the child’s mare from be­hind a tree, and the horse reared up in a panic. The kid was thrown from the saddle, and Za­kor was able to snatch her by the arm be­fore she hit the ground. He dragged her into the thicket, kick­ing and scream­ing all the way, I might add, and handed her over to me.” He sniffed with some­thing akin to in­solence or pride, as if cap­tur­ing a ten-year-old girl was truly a great feat of prowess. “At that point, it was just a mat­ter of bind­ing her hands and feet, gag­ging her so she couldn’t scream, and then throw­ing her on the back of my horse.” He stared off into the dis­tance as if re­liv­ing the memory in nos­tal­gic de­tail. “Her mother fought like a crazed ban­shee, though. She screamed and cursed like a mad­wo­man, try­ing to charge after her daugh­ter.” He sniffed. “Hell, she must have given chase for a full five minutes be­cause I swear my horse was win­ded by the time we lost her, but, ul­ti­mately, her mare was too old, not up for the task. We left her in the dust some­where around Devil’s Bend.”
    Ra­fael frowned, un­im­pressed by the dis­pens­able de­tails of the sor­did tale. How hard was it to cleanly steal a little girl from her middle-aged mother? “And it didn’t oc­cur to you that the mother might re­port the in­cid­ent to the con­stable once she gets back to the com­mon­lands ? Did you not think to take care of the only sur­viv­ing wit­ness? That per­haps you should have seen to her dis­ap­pear­ance as well?”
    Micah glared at Ra­fael with un­con­cealed in­solence, his thin lips turned down in a scowl. Ap­par­ently, he was grow­ing weary of be­ing chal­lenged. “Two wo­men rid­ing alone through Forest Dragon on horse­back? As far as I’m con­cerned, they had it com­ing: They could’ve en­countered any­thing from ban­dits to a wild an­imal. By the time she gets back to the Com­mons Dis­trict, it’ll be too late for the con­stable to do any­thing about it. Oh sure; the guard will take down a re­port. They may even send a missive to the War­lo­chian sher­iff, since it happened in­side his ter­rit­ory, but they aren’t go­ing to mar­shal any troops or send out any search parties, not to re­trieve one lone, in­sig­ni­fic­ant girl. Raylea Louvet will be writ­ten off as a cas­u­alty of the Realm, just as so many other chil­dren are…every day.”
    Ra­fael took a seat across from Micah, ad­ded an­other log to the fire, and used a forked, gangly branch to stoke it into a ro­bust flame. “I sup­pose. But in the fu­ture, you need to take care of loose ends.” Un­will­ing to en­dure Micah Fiske a mo­ment longer, he turned his at­ten­tion to Robert Cross. The war­lock was star­ing into the fire like his long-lost love was perched on an em­blazoned log, the pu­pils of his witchy eyes dilated and dreamy. “And you, Sir Robert? Do you have a buyer for the child already?”
    Robert blinked sev­eral times as if com­ing out of a trance, and then he coughed, scrubbed his filthy hands over his already dirty face, and hawked some phlegm from his throat. Spit­ting it into the fire, he smiled. “I do. A shadow by the name of Syr­ileus Cain.” His tone was un­usu­ally af­fable. “He lives by him­self in a se­cluded cabin, far back in the Shadow Woods. I be­lieve he is look­ing for a house­keeper and a cook—even­tu­ally, a wife, of course. The girl will do well, and he’s will­ing to pay a hand­some price for an un­touched vir­gin: fif­teen cop­pers.”
    Ra­fael nod­ded in ap­pre­ci­ation. “Good. Good . The sooner we can turn the girl over to the shadow the bet­ter. We will need all his