The Puppeteer and The Poisoned Pawn (The Pawn and The Puppet series Book 3)

Dessin

It only takes me a few moments to become aware that the side of my face is being smashed against a cold, jagged surface.

I try to open my eyes, but it’s like my lids are sewn shut. My brain is filled with sludge. A sticky, syrupy sensation fills my mouth. And why can’t I open my eyes?

I force myself to access my surroundings with my other senses. I’m lying down, although everything feels unstable, swaying side to side. I’m either on a boat or have been drugged. Or both. The ground I’m on is rocky and a little sharp. I take a shallow breath through my nose. The smell is impossible to miss. It’s partially sweet, like buttered popcorn and candy apples, yet there’s an undying stench lingering underneath. Death. The inside of a garbage can. Decay.

What’s going on? I hear Kane ask, lingering near the front, but I can’t answer him until I figure this out.

I block out the sound of blood rushing in my head, tune out the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears, and listen closely for anything that can tell me where I am.

Music. Low like a broken toy. A distorted trumpet, the whistle of a horn, and the elongated piano notes of an old-fashioned organ.

But there’s one more sound I can’t quite name. A low humming. No, not humming. It’s feminine, soft, and sleepy. It’s the sound of… moaning.

It’s Skylenna.

My eyes break the spell, blasting through the debilitating haziness. I grunt as I use my arms to push myself upright, whipping my head around to see black bars separating me from her. She’s sleeping on the charcoal rocky floor. Moaning, as my girl fights to wake up. Her instincts flickering on just like mine.

The music cuts in and out with creepy white noise. It catches my attention for a single moment, long enough to tilt my head up to our surroundings. Huge black birdcages hold us hostage. The floors and walls are made of what looks like brimstone. The long dark hallway between the cages is lit up with glass bulbs of red and yellow, dim but glowing a visible path.

Dread breaks loose like a virus in my gut.

Ruth. Niles. Warrose. Marilynn. All in fucking cages.

“Skylenna,” I whisper. Jesus, what the hell happened to us? I see the ship in my head. I see Skylenna climbing up the chain behind me.

The oil. Saphrine oil. They drugged us before we even had a chance to take two steps onto their ship. Embarrassment, horror, and gnawing rage light my insides on fire. How could I have missed that? Ten steps ahead. I always have to be ten steps ahead. Fuck!

We’ll get out of this. Kalidus has moved slowly, undetected, to the front. He only comes this close when my confidence wanes. And since he is a god, there is never a shortage of that for him.

“Dessin,” Skylenna croaks, trying so damn hard to lift her head to look at me. My heart clenches up in a tight fist. What the fuck have I gotten us into? I should have gone alone. I should have—

“We’ve been captured.” But she doesn’t look afraid, pissed, or confused. She seems to have accepted this fate, ready to understand this next obstacle we’re about to face. Dammit, that makes me want to kiss her, hold her, tell her how hard that makes me.

I nod. “I don’t know if we’re still on the ship or not. But they got us with that damn oil.”

She scans the dark cages with her hazy green eyes.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I’ll get us out of this.” Self-hatred burns in the back of my throat. How the fuck did I miss this?

Even gods can be tricked. Kalidus floods my center with stoic confidence.

“We’ll get us out of this,” she corrects, gritting her teeth as she pushes herself to sit upright. “I could have prevented all of this if I didn’t ignore my instincts to look at the memories surrounding that chain.”

I rest my forehead against the cold bars separating us. I’m sorry, baby.

You don’t have to shield her from this. She’s so strong now, Dess.

I thank Kane quietly.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

I look through the cages to see Warrose sit up. His drugged expression is slack with exhaustion and tight with vigilance.

One by one, the rest wake up, too, Ruth being the last to open her eyes.

I pat down my pockets and belt and grimace over at Warrose. “And they took our weapons.”

He laughs darkly. “Good,” he rasps. “They’ll need a fair fight.”

Skylenna fills the others in on what we think happened. Although, we still don’t know a goddamn thing. Sitting ducks in a creepy hallway filled with sparkling circus lights and human birdcages.

“Now would be a great time to start picking locks, Niles,” Ruth says.

Niles crawls to the front of his cage, fumbling with the lock before he begins to sway like a drunk man.

“I think you’ll find lock picking rather difficult.” A deep, thundering voice knocks against the brimstone surfaces of this hellhole.

Although, that low, languid voice seems to sink its claws under my skin, making me sit up straighter.

Who is that? Kane asks, yet he steps away from the front cautiously.

I turn to Skylenna to see if she noticed it too. However, I’m even more surprised when I see an expression of wide eyes and open mouths mirrored from Skylenna all the way down to Marilynn. And they’re all staring at me.

I look down the hallway to try and find the source of that voice. Why are they freaking out? Do they know who it is?

“We put a type of magnet in your ears,” the voice drags on. “Any sign of disobedience and it will disrupt your equilibrium.”

Right on cue, Niles falls to the ground, reaching out his hands as if to keep the room from spinning.

“What in God’s name…” Skylenna utters, but something tells me she isn’t concerned about the most recent obstacle the faceless man has just presented us with.

“I bet you’re wondering who I am?” The voice sounds three steps closer.

I strain my eyes to find him.

“Although, Dessin seems more interested in learning where we are so he can begin making his ten-step-ahead plan on how to escape.”

I lock my jaw. “Only cowards hide in the shadows,” I growl.

“I wasn’t born here, you know…” His footsteps echo along the walls. “Sophia didn’t even get to hold me in her arms when the nurse took me away and brought me here.”

Kane has abandoned the front completely. Leaving Kalidus to remain close, quiet, and seething.

Ice fills my veins. Sophia. That—that has to be a coincidence.

But the look on Skylenna’s face says otherwise.

“You don’t recognize your own voice, do you?”

I flinch. No. I shake my head. No.

“Dessin?” Skylenna shifts her focus back to me with tears welling in her eyes.

The man steps into the dim red-and-yellow lights, revealing his face. White noise fills my ears, and every muscle is pumped full of adrenaline. My face. Only he has a full beard and is wearing black eyeliner.

“My name is Kaspias Valdawell. Welcome to the Vexamen Prison.”