Davido turned, glancing up into the canopy and glowering. “You mean the one up there?”
Malik glanced up at the large treehouse about fifty feet distant and nodded.
This time, Davido took hold of Malik’s arm and said, “Hold on.”
The next moment, Malik flew through some kind of space-time event. Only Davido and his wife Vojalie had the power to vanish and reappear in this way and this was the first time Malik had ever taken the trip himself.
He felt slightly disoriented as he arrived with Davido in the treehouse, a rec room he’d built just for his Guardsmen.
Davido looked around, still scowling. “A party pad for your Vampire Guard I see.”
“Yep.” Malik moved behind the bar and set out two glasses.
All the chairs were designed for big men and there was a pool table off to the side. A dozen stools lined the large bar.
He could hear splashing in the expansive pool below and the laughing of realm-women as they took advantage of the protected watering hole. The tree that housed the rec room had grown at the upper lip of the ravine through which a good sized stream flowed.
He’d had part of the stream dug out near the base of a twenty foot waterfall so that any females who wanted to partake could bathe freely without hindrance of clothes. Males of any species were forbidden to swim in the pool, but his Guardsmen had a view from above and could extend invitations to the women at will.
Malik turned and spun the combination to the safe that housed his liquor. Too many teenagers had taken advantage of the open nature of his treehouse and had pillaged his stock repeatedly.
Pouring out two glasses of Macallan and sliding one in Davido’s direction, he said, “The truth is, I can’t remember you ever having had a fight with your wife.”
Davido and Vojalie were the model of domestic bliss.
“It’s been a very long time since I felt her displeasure.” He downed the first glass and pushed it forward, demanding a refill.
Davido rarely drank like this.
Malik was so shocked that for a long moment the glass he’d brought to his lips just rested there. Finally, he took a sip, then frowned at the ancient troll. “Well, you must have done something?” He poured out another two fingers for Davido.
“I can’t think of a damn thing. All I know is that my wife had some sort of vision in which I did something she didn’t like, something she said was very crude, and she was all over my troll ass for it. I think it highly unfair that any man be held accountable for something in a vision until that ‘something’ happens. But she was breathing fire when I left to come here.”
Malik shook his head. “And is that why you’ve come?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake no. That’s not the reason. What do you take me for, a gremlin’s hind end?”
Malik threw back the rest of his drink and decided that given all that had happened, he needed another one. Pouring out his second, he then waggled the bottle at Davido. “Want another one, my friend?”
“Hell, yes. Three fingers, this time. I’m not going home until I’m blasted out of my head.”
Given that Malik had just learned that he now had a blood rose who he didn’t want, he joined Davido until the pair of them were seated in adjacent chairs with the bottle on the low table in front of them, and a whole lot of slurring going on.
Malik had his fifth drink in hand as he said, “Found two dead children earlier this evening. Just about lost my shit. And this lovely troll cleaned all the blood from my uniform while I stood there in shock.”
“Sweet Goddess,” Davido murmured. “I’m reminded of that human earth-saying that sometimes life just sucks.”
Davido continued to drink.
Malik kept the scotch flowing.
Finally, Davido said, “But I can’t forget why I came here …. which is … oh, shit. Now I’m remembering, and it’s bad, my friend. Bad.” He reached over and grabbed Malik’s arm. “I’m sorry to tell you this, but you have to bond with Willow. She’s your blood rose, which I sense you already know. But she’s more than that. She has a connection to the absolute heart of our world, and though I’m not given much to prophesying….” He hiccupped and worked a little harder at getting out what he wanted to say. “Right now the entire future of the Nine Realms depends on you getting into that woman’s sweet spot and staying there.”
Had Davido just said ‘sweet spot’?
Malik didn’t know how to respond, because he was completely torn between two powerful reactions. The first caused all his muscles to tense up since he was ready to beat the troll to a pulp for even mentioning Willow’s ‘sweet spot’. The other filled Malik with an absolute horror that the fate of the entire Nine Realms – not just Ashleaf, but all Nine – now sat on his already overburdened shoulders.
He decided that since Davido was fairly trashed, he’d let the comment slide about Willow’s female parts. “You have no idea what I’m dealing with here. The Society just killed another family, and I intend to start relocating every half-breed in my realm to Swanicott Isla