Descendant Read Online Free Page B

Mason asked, intrigued in spite of herself. She put a hand out, gingerly touching the rusted shackle that circled around the man’s wrist. The skin beneath it was raw and scored with the iron’s bite. He must have torn the skin every time the serpent dripped its poison. She wondered how often that happened. It reminded her of the scars that Fennrys carried. “Is that why you’re here?”
    “Because I was invasive? Or because I survived? Both, I suppose.” He sighed, and it was a sound that carried bone-deep, age-old weariness in it. “Why are you here, Mason?”
    She felt a frown creasing her forehead. “I keep telling people, I don’t even know where ‘here’ is.”
    “Oh. I see.” The blue eye filled with understanding. Sympathy. “They really don’t like to play fair.”
    “Who?”
    “The Powers That Be.” The shoulder lifted again in a shrug. “All of which is to say that isn’t saying much of anything definite. The board shifts and the players come and go. All of which means, I don’t know why you’re here either, Mason. Not exactly. But I do know you should probably be careful while you are.”
    “Careful of what?”
    “Everything,” he said wearily. “And everyone.”
    “Even you?”
    “Especially me. For I am the God of Lies.”

III
    “Y ou’re a liar and a thief.”
    Heather Palmerston had never heard a voice so cold sound so angry.
    “Get up.”
    She shrank back into the farthest corner of the leather banquette seat in the opulent confines of the train car. She’d been huddled there, numb, her head hidden in the crook of her arm ever since she’d seen Calum slam into the Hell Gate Bridge and plummet over the side.
    “I said . . . get up .”
    The command, issued in tones laden with heavy rage, wasn’t directed at her, and Heather had never been so glad to not be the center of attention in her entire life. Instead, the words were aimed at Rory Starling, who lay crumpled on the expensive Persian rug, his body folded protectively around his right arm, which was bloodied and bent at an awkward angle . . . in at least two places.Heather could see a jagged end of bone showing through his skin, and the sight made her stomach clench. Rory’s face was ashen where it wasn’t mottled with red splotches or bruising. He was wild-eyed, and there was a web of pinkish foam at the corners of his open, gasping mouth. He struggled to force himself up into a sitting position, in response to the man who’d spoken.
    Heather knew, even without having seen his face when he’d entered the train car, that it was Rory’s father—Gunnar Starling—one of the most powerful men in New York City. Maybe even the world. With his lion’s mane of silver hair and the cloaklike overcoat hanging from his broad muscled shoulders, he was unmistakable.
    Outside the windows, everything was dark. Much darker than it would be if they were still outside. They were in a tunnel. Somewhere beneath Queens, she figured, from the direction they’d been traveling. She still wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, beyond the fact that she had been kidnapped, along with Mason Starling—a fellow student at Gosforth who had recently become a friend—by Mason’s complete jerk-ass tool of a brother, Rory, and a meathead quarterback from the Columbia U football team named Taggert Overlea.
    Heather still had no idea why she and Mason had been kidnapped. At the moment, all she cared about was getting out of the train car alive. Because she’d gotten the distinct impression over the last hour or so that whatever it was that was going on, it went way beyond college fraternity prank territory and had crossed into deadly serious. The danger had been obvious even before Cal had . . . before he . . .
    Heather covered her mouth in silent agony.
    Cal’s gone.
    The thought made her feel like she’d been punched in the stomach. Mason, too, was gone, although whether she was alive or dead, Heather had no clue. She hoped like hell