“I’ve begun to contemplate the pros and cons of tossing Vale under a heavily-laden wagon,” Rayne said in a bland voice.
Drayce had to replay that sentence in his head to fully comprehend it. Rayne’s tone could have just as perfectly suited a discussion of the weather. After choking briefly on air, Drayce cleared his throat and grinned up at his companion. He’d never seen anyone get under Rayne’s skin the way Vale had managed to. Sure, he’d annoyed Rayne on multiple occasions, but he was confident Rayne had never seriously contemplated his murder.
“I think she’s too quick to be taken out by a wagon.”
“If we were in Stormbreak, we could push her in front of a bus or truck and be done with the entire matter already,” Rayne continued in the same bored tone. His eyes never moved from Vale as she pointed at different things for the clerk to put in a paper bag.
“Rayne, you’re being extreme. Even if she is a homophobe, we’ll go our separate ways soon—”
“She’s had her eye on Eno since the day we met,” Rayne hissed.
Whoa. Okay, so he wasn’t the only one who thought Vale was a little too friendly when it came to Eno, but he’d just brushed it off. Most women did flirt with Eno. Hell, a lot of them threw themselves at Caelan’s feet, but that was because of the crown. Drayce had never worried about it since Caelan’s interest didn’t lie in that direction.
But Eno had dated a lot of women over the years.
Drayce’s gaze slid over to take in the tight muscles in Rayne’s jaw as he watched the potential threat to Rayne’s happily ever after. Could she tempt Eno away from Rayne?
Laughter burst from Drayce’s lips and he rocked back on his heels. “Dude, Eno is so fucking lost over you. He barely even notices Vale. You can’t possibly think—”
The rest of that sentence became lodged in Drayce’s throat and he swallowed hard against Rayne’s murderous look. Yep, he definitely thought that, and he was entertaining violent options to protect what was his.
“She almost killed Caelan with her betrayal as well,” Rayne added in a voice barely over a whisper.
The advisor knew how to fight dirty, and he was pressing hard on the one button that was sure to get Drayce’s more impulsive tendencies working in Rayne’s favor. Rubbing his hand across his forehead, Drayce tried to not think about whether Rayne’s suggestion of chucking Vale under a wagon would actually work. They weren’t thinking clearly.
“No, Rayne. It’s over. Yes, she made a mistake, but she never meant for us to get hurt. She’s trying to save her people and her plan went wrong. Shit happens. We’ve all had plans that went wrong, and we’ve forgiven each other for them. Caelan has forgiven her, right?”
Drayce felt a little better when he dropped his hand to his side and glanced up at Rayne. That had been a calm, rational argument. He was damn proud of himself. Unfortunately, the advisor wasn’t looking too convinced. He just grunted, his arms folded over his chest.
“You’re not going to lose Eno to her,” Drayce added softly.
Rayne’s eyes flared and his chin tipped up. “Of course not.”
Drayce was ready to throw in the towel, when Vale stepped out of the shop with her bag of candy. He didn’t want to talk to either of them any longer. The sooner they had their meeting done, the sooner they could return to the hotel and he could talk to Caelan—the one sane person he could rely on. Even if he did have two gods rattling around in his brain.
“How much farther to the brothel?” Drayce asked with a bit of a whine. He was beyond being weirded out that he was even asking that question of Vale and Rayne. The day had already been too strange for words.
Locating and getting a meeting with Yash Magar meant first finding one of his underlings, which was actually the easy part. There was plenty of people in Temit who specialized in smuggling goods in from outside of Zastrad. While imports from other countries weren’t necessarily illegal, they were frowned upon and apparently shops that carried them tended to suddenly burst into flames during the dead of the night.
But people being people, regardless of what country they were from, loved to get things they weren’t supposed to have. So, Yash and his people apparently smuggled Kiss of Death out of Zastrad to Caspagir and then brought in illegal goods such as different types of wine, alcohol, and drugs from other countries. Brothels sold most of those goods on the side while selling sex.
After some threats and bribes and talking to lots of people, they discovered that the person who could actually get them a meeting with Yash was working at the Fallen Leaf. If they could convince this person, they could finally get their interview with Yash.