Kady's Vengeance

Cooley and his friends circled around, riding through the clusters of evergreens along the hawthorn hedgerow heading for the rear gate as quiet as they could. They heard the groans and grunts of sex and glanced at each other. Rory slid off Glorygirl with a grin. Hamish followed. They tethered the horse to a tree.

"What are you doing?" Cooley whispered.

"Going to have a look." Rory slipped into the trees as quiet as a fox.

Cooley sighed. One of Rory's previous expeditions had nearly gotten the three of them killed, yet the cub's curiosity and general nosiness remained indefatigable. Cooley dismounted and reluctantly followed the Scott cubs as they stole from cover to cover among the evergreens.

Rory grinned. "I heard folks doing it before. I ain't never had a close look at it though."

"Haven't ever," Cooley corrected him. "I seen it plenty of times. There's not much to it."

Cooley, raised in a bordello, had known what sex looked like almost since he could walk. He had seen so much of it that he had wearied of the topic long before his first wet dream. Whereas, Rory and Hamish had only the vaguest notions from catching glimpses of domestic animals doing it.

"Bet you have." Rory stole closer to the sounds. "I always wanted to watch it."

"Don't go playing peeping john, it's rude." Kady and Cahira would be appalled if they learned what the cubs were doing. Cooley put a lot of effort into schooling his tongue and not doing or saying anything that might offend them.

Rory ignored Cooley, darting to the next cluster of trees. "It's Malthus."

Cooley caught a sharp breath and joined Rory crouching by the tree. His side twinged and he placed his hand on it. One of the village toughs, Rheu Lawson, had stabbed Cooley in the side. Cooley killed him. However, the blade had been coated with a blend of Devil's Silver, which had slowed the healing. Cooley's side remained tender and Mary Sinclair kept it bound tight.

For the first weeks of his stay in Wolffgard, Cooley had been stalked by Malthus, which left the cub so rattled that he quit his job working for Georgie Rogan in the stables. The fight with Rheu had given Cooley an edge that he did not have before. More and more he tried to act with the same courage his murdered father had always shown. He had begun to lose his fear of Malthus, but not his wariness.

He squinted through a parting in the branches. The flaxen hair spilling around the bitch's face was the wrong shade of blonde to be Malthus' wife Merissa. "Who's he poking?"

"Don't know." Rory's eyes remained locked on Malthus' buttocks. He darted to the closest cover he could find and squatted as low as possible, hoping for a flash of skin. A flush lit Rory's cheeks as Malthus reared back and he finally got a peek at the important parts. "Damn, that dog's big. He's stuffing her good."

Cooley glanced around and then dashed over to Rory. "Sonuva dirty mare," he muttered sotto voce. "It's Larena."

"Ginny, ginny cumtwig," Hamish murmured, watching fascinated alongside his brother.

For once, Cooley made all the possible connections first. Rory and Hamish were too caught up in their peeping to think about anything else. Cooley backed away, remembering Rory telling him that if Malthus wanted to poison Kynyr that he would get someone else to do it for him – and he had someone else to do it: Larena. Cooley withdrew silently, and the moment he was well out of sight, he bolted for his horse.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Kady's Vengeance