Iron Night Read Free Page B

eyes, knowing what huge bodies and shiny teeth they were attached to, but I did my best not to hurry away. Clearly the monthly feeding was combined with a monthly intimidation routine, and I didn’t want to mess up all of Chivalry’s work. Particularly since I had suddenly been volunteered for two months of goat delivery.
    Given their reaction to the thought of getting a visit from Prudence, though, I probably didn’t have too much to worry about. Not that I blamed them. Chivalry can be pretty scary when he wants to be, but Prudence is a century older than he is and has a violent streak. Like the trolls, I avoided her as much as possible.
    Back where we’d parked the car, which I now recognized as the worst make-out spot ever chosen, Chivalry leaned down and silently unhitched the trailer. He motioned me to the car, and I hesitated.
    â€œYou’re just going to leave everything?” I asked.
    â€œI’ll send James down in a few hours to pick up the trailer.” James was one of my mother’s household staff. Like the rest of the staff, who were all human, he made great money and benefits from never asking any questions or showing any curiosity about any tasks he was asked to perform.
    I tried not to look at Titus as we drove off. As a vegetarian, I usually don’t have to deal with this kind of guilt.
    â€œSo . . .” I said as we drove through the streets of Newport. The sky had lightened to a very pale gray when we reached the car, but it was still too early for many other cars to be around. “Trolls, huh?”
    Chivalry nodded. “Norwegian imports. They like rocky shorelines, and bridges give them extra coverage. They’re big, and their skin folds work even better than a chameleon’s for blending in. Stealth hunters for the most part, but they can be about as fast as a running crocodile when they really need to move. They’re not very active, but at your age it wouldn’t be a good idea to get in a fight with them on your own, since they are almost always in a group.”
    â€œAnd the goat deal?” I’d spent almost all my life trying to pretend that I was a regular human guy, and that included not learning anything about trolls or other critters that crept around in the dark. There were a few things I hadn’t been able to completely ignore, like my need to feed off of my mother’s blood every few months, but I’d tried to treat those instances as flukes in my otherwise normal life of post–college graduation underemployment. But I’d had to give up my state of willful ignorance, and now I spent a lot of my time with Chivalry, trying to catch up on the things I should’ve been learning for years.
    â€œTheir low activity level and something kind of reptilian about their metabolism means that they don’t have to eat much. Most of the time they like to grab stray dogs and that kind of thing, but they won’t turn up their noses at the occasional wandering toddler or solitary boater. A lot of times humans are even easier to catch than animals, so when the troll colony first moved in there were a bunch of disappearances. All you need is one person to see a troll grab a kid and you get the kind of publicity that no one around here wants, so Mother sent Prudence down here to teach them some manners.” A lifted eyebrow was enough for Chivalry to convey the level of destruction Prudence probably delivered. “After she’d made an impression, I sorted out an agreement. We provide small farm animals every month, enough to keep them fed and content, and in return they control their predations and occasionally do a service for the family.”
    â€œThat sounded a little Mafia there,” I pointed out.
    Chivalry shrugged as he turned the Bentley off of Ocean Drive and down the long white gravel driveway that led to the mansion. With almost thirty acres of land, all of it immaculately landscaped by