Magnus was going to fucking kill him.
“Where is she?” he roared, only one thing on his mind.
“She’s safe. For now at least,” the man, who Magnus could only assume was Roscoe, said, unfazed by the enraged dragon.
Magnus wanted to rush forward and pluck the smug bastard out of his chair, but he needed to know where Lindy was first.
“What do you want? Tell me where she is, and I won’t disembowel you,” Magnus growled.
Roscoe just sat there. Magnus thought he could hear a quiet laugh, and the almost-noiseless sound in eerie silence was pissing him off. And giving him the creeps.
He couldn’t take it anymore and ran at Roscoe, plucking the bastard out of his chair and shaking him furiously.
“Fine, I’ll just squeeze it out of you, then,” Magnus snarled.
But as soon as he’d said it, Roscoe melted out of his hands like water, changing from solid human flesh in a liquid, silver-colored metal. Magnus stepped back in shock as the substance disappeared into the ground completely, leaving him alone.
A second later, he heard a laugh and whirled around to see Roscoe again, leaning on the wall, arms crossed, seemingly amused by what was going on.
In frustration, Magnus rushed at Roscoe again, picking him up and slamming him into the wall. But just as soon as he’d grabbed the man by his collar, he dissolved into the silvery substance and disappeared even more swiftly into nothingness.
What the hell kind of sorcery was this?
“Where’s my fucking mate? I know she’s here. Stop playing games with me, whoever… whatever you are!” Magnus yelled, furious and annoyed and desperate to find his mate.
This time, Magnus saw the silver liquid seeping through the wall in front of him, shaping into a large man before his very eyes. Only this time, it wasn’t Roscoe. He was tall, almost as tall as Magnus and his brothers, as well as muscled. His skin was pale, almost translucent, and he had long, grayish-silver hair that was swept to one side, almost covering his right eye.
His eyes glittered in dark silver, just the substance he’d reformed from, and his perfect white teeth were bared in a sinister grin. His robe was shimmering silver, lightly draped and tied with a belt, only adding to his unearthly appearance.
What. The. Hell?
“It’s so hilarious watching you get so worked up over something as inane as a fragile human,” the man before him spoke, his voice amused and menacing. “You’re all so gullible. So easily manipulated that way.”
“Who are you?” Magnus asked, wanting to pummel whoever this was into the ground.
“Don’t you know me? I’m one of your kind.”
“One of my kind? I don’t think so. My crew doesn’t kidnap innocents for fun.”
“Innocent,” Mercury said. “What a joke, thinking any of you is innocent. But I am indeed one of you. A dragon. Mercury is what I think humans would call it.”
“Poison,” Magnus snapped, scowling.
“Ah, still prejudiced,” Mercury said. “Regardless, I’d be careful. I’m the one with power now.”
“What do you want?” Magnus grated out.
Mercury clicked his tongue, watching with almond-shaped eyes beneath dark, furrowed eyebrows. “Such a dimwitted dragon to think I would reveal that. For now, let’s just say you and your so-called ‘brothers’ represent everything I hate about dragons and their kind. And you’re going to be the first to go.”
Like hell.
“I’m only going to ask one more time. Where. Is. Lindy?” Magnus said, fury growing stronger with each passing second.
“Well, since you asked…” Mercury said with a shrug, reaching his hand to the side and pulling the blinds of the darkened office open.
Light poured in, blinding Magnus for a second. But when his vision cleared, he saw outside into the center of the junkyard out back. A large crane was parked in the center of it, and lifted high above the ground was an old, beat-up car, perched precariously at least thirty feet above the ground.
Inside it was Lindy, pressed against the window, hands tied, mouth gagged.
Oh, this fucker was so dead.
12
“Makes you angry, doesn’t it?” Mercury asked with a snicker. “Beholding evidence of your failure to protect those you care about.” His eyes narrowed menacingly. “Again.”
Magnus charged forward, summoning his ancestral axe instantly and bringing the huge blade down at his enemy. Mercury slid to the side, and the ax sliced into the wall, cutting down the center with a loud crash that sent wood and drywall flying.
“Such anger. I love it,” Mercury said, stepping backward. In a flash of gray light, a sword appeared in his own hands, a long, curved blade with deep serrations that reminded him more of a giant saw than a sword.
Before Magnus even knew what hit him, Mercury flew toward him, springing off the ground and slashing with the horrific blade. Magnus held up his axe with both hands, blocking the strike as sparks flew in all directions from the impact.
Whatever else this Mercury guy was, he was definitely a dragon, judging by the way he fought and the sheer strength he possessed.
Magnus pushed off, slashing wide in the hope of catching Mercury. Mercury was surprisingly agile, though, and he jumped backward, then came back with a flurry of downward strikes, keeping Magnus on his toes as he struggled to block each attack, backing him into the opposite wall.
When their weapons clashed again, both struggling for the upper hand, Magnus reached out and grabbed the bastard by his neck, hoping to strangle the guy one-handed if he had to.
Mercury just smiled, and Magnus felt his hand slip through Mercury’s skin as if he’d been trying to grab water itself.
“Stupid dragon,” Mercury said as Magnus felt Mercury’s fist connect with his jaw, sending him reeling to the side.
How could someone who could take on a shapeless, liquid form punch so damn hard?
All Magnus knew was he had to end this so he could go save Lindy. Nothing else mattered right now.
Summoning his strength, Magnus raised his axe high above his head and brought it down in a crushing blow. Mercury tried to block the attack, but it came so swift, so hard that it knocked his sword to the side, slicing into Mercury’s arm in the process.
Mercury backed away, and Magnus noticed not blood, but a silvery substance seeping from his arm where he’d been wounded.
Mercury looked at the cut more with annoyance than pain, then shifted his gaze back to Magnus.
“I guess you’re not the emotional wreck I’d hoped, given that you practically killed all your precious ‘brothers’ all those years ago,” he said, thinly veiled contempt in his voice.
“How the hell do you know about that?” Magnus challenged.