“They’re so totalitarian,” he muttered. “Castle Lockes is meant for all. I truly do despise him.”
The stairways were empty as we descended into the castle’s depths, tracing our path back toward Lady Tina. I held out a small hope that she’d run away or been captured, or she’d simply been erased from existence, but that proved false when we rounded the corner and found her waiting where we’d left her.
Her eyes widened when she saw us, and specifically the King. “Where have you been?” she hissed at us. “There’s movement in the castle.”
“How astute your observational skills are,” I retorted.
“Who is this strange-looking man?” the King asked.
“Lady Tina,” Justin said.
The King’s lips twitched.
Randall groaned. “Sam.”
“What? I didn’t do anything! Oh. Wait. I did, but still. I think the punishment fits the crime.”
“Ha!” Lady Tina cried. “I knew you did this to me on purpose.”
“You’re damn right I did,” I said gleefully. “And if we’re lucky, maybe I’ll forget how to change you back, and you’ll forever be stuck as if one of your parents was actually a weasel.”
“At least he didn’t turn your nose into a penis,” Randall told her.
“Now Randall,” the King said. “That sounded dangerously close to fondly reminiscing.”
“I regret ever coming to rescue you,” Randall said.
“Can we move?” Justin snapped. “Now?”
Ryan was already at the door, ear pressed against the wood. “I don’t think the group of men Sam was going to slut around with and caused to run to church have come back yet.”
Randall and the King slowly turned to look at me.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like it sounds. Well. Actually. It is like it sounds, but I wasn’t actually going to do it. You know how Ryan gets when people want to put things in me.”
“Literally everything wants to sleep with him,” he muttered, pushing open the door a crack to peek through. “For once, I’d like to meet someone who doesn’t want have sex with my boyfriend.”
“I don’t,” Lady Tina said.
“I don’t,” Justin said.
“I don’t,” Randall said.
“I would,” the King said.
Everyone turned to gape at him.
He just shrugged. “What? He’s adorable. If I was thirty years younger—”
“Dad!”
“Oh my gods,” I whispered. “I knew I was irresistible! Justin, did you hear that? I could be your new stepfather and—nope. That was dangerously close to sounding like Kevin. Thanks, Your Highness, but I’m going to pass. Even if you are every daddy fantasy I’ve ever had.”
The King looked rather pleased at that.
“I’m so conflicted,” Ryan said through gritted teeth. “I mean, I know I have to protect him with my life, but I also want to challenge him to a duel.”
“We don’t have time for that,” I said, smacking him on the ass before I pushed on the door. “Everyone out so Randall can suck us through his—”
“I will leave you here,” Randall threatened.
They dutifully filed through the door out into the cool air, the night sky starting to fade in the east. I followed through and started to shut the door behind me— “Sam.”
I stopped.
Took a breath.
Glanced back down the hallway.
Myrin stood there, looking coolly amused.
And I exploded.
The green and gold came rushing around me, the air rippling as my magic burst from my chest, crawling along my scars, which felt like they were burning. The rage that simmered boiled over, and all I could think about was destroying everything around me, bringing Castle Lockes down upon him. This was as close to him as I’d been since he took Morgan from me, and he need to pay. For everything.
“Ah,” he said, a smile curling his lips, and for a moment, he looked so much like his brother that my breath hitched. “You are stronger than you were before. I’m impressed. I didn’t expect that.”
There were surges of light in my head, blue and red and black and white, and they said no and Sam and run run run, and the oldest of them, the white, was the loudest of all, and he said, I promised you that I would help you I promised I promised I promised but not now not now Sam it can’t be now you will die and I can’t have that you need to run.
“Sam!”
A strong hand wrapped around my arm, a chest pressed against my back, breath hot and ragged near my ear.
I tried to pull away, because Myrin was right there and— “No,” Randall whispered fiercely. “Not now. Not like this.”
A flicker of something crossed Myrin’s face at the sight of Randall at my side, and it almost looked like remorse, like pain, but it was gone before I could see it for what it was.
“Randall,” Myrin said. “I thought I’d felt… something. Pure. And bright. It was….” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
“No,” Randall said softly. “I don’t suppose it does. Not even I can save you now.”
The smile slid from Myrin’s face. “I never asked you to save me, dear heart.”
“I know. And I’ve never forgiven you for that. Or myself.”
Myrin flinched.
He flinched.
“Let me go,” I snarled at Randall, even as the dragon lights in my head pulsed as bright as they’d ever been.
“Sam!” a voice cried out behind us, and through the haze of green and gold, through the rage that roared through me, demanding revenge against this Dark wizard who had stolen Morgan away from me, I heard him. My cornerstone. He was calling for me, and he sounded terrified.
“This isn’t over,” I snapped at Myrin.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t expect it is.”
Randall jerked me through the door, raising his hand as it closed behind us. A rush of magic that felt achingly familiar shot from him, and the stone around the doorway collapsed, dust billowing up as the ground shook.
Randall threw me forward and I slammed into Ryan’s chest, his arms coming up around me. I looked up at him. His brow was furrowed, and he held me protectively against his chest as the others gathered around us.
The collapsed doorway began to rumble, and Randall bellowed, “Hold on!”
And then we were sucked through Randall’s magic hole and—
Chapter 12: Nuns Who Commit Armed Robbery Are the Best Kind of Nuns
—LANDED IN a pile of limbs and dirt outside the gates of Camp HaveHeart.
“Motherfucker,” I groaned. “Someone has their foot pressed way too far up my anus, and I am not that kind of man.”
“That’s a total lie,” someone mumbled. I thought it was Justin, and I would have been offended had there not been a little truth to it. Long story.
Shouts started going up inside Camp HaveHeart, but I ignored them in favor of trying to disentangle myself from the wannabe orgy. I started to push myself up but was pulled back down by a rather obstinate knight who didn’t seem willing to let me go.
“I’m okay,” I told him, even though I didn’t know if that was true.
“You’re an idiot,” he whispered, lips pressed against my forehead. “You don’t get to scare me like that. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Honestly? I don’t know if I was.”
“Fool.”
“Probably. But what can you do?”
“You can get off of me,” a voice said from beneath him.
Ryan looked suddenly fearful. “I think I’m lying on top of Randall.”
“You are,” Randall said. “And while this is not the first time that I’ve been on the bottom, my hips don’t move like they used to, and I’d appreciate it if you would get the hell off of me. I haven’t had this much flesh atop me since my days spent with the Luftian quadruplets. They were of a rather garrulous sort, feeling the need to narrate every single little thing they were doing to me—”
“Whyyyyy,” I moaned, even as Ryan shoved me off him with a choked-off scream that I was sure he’d later deny making. “Why must you say these things?”
There was a flap of great wings before the ground rumbled beneath us. A gigantic head peered down at us, dark eyes glittering. “Well now, what do we have here?” Kevin asked, a lecherous grin on his face. “And why was I not invited? Also, as a sidenote, Randall doesn’t appear to be wearing underpants.”