He rolled his eyes. “Maybe I’ve started to change my mind.”
I snorted. “Riiiiight. You’re telling me that you didn’t get a boner watching what we just did.”
He looked horrified as he started to blush. “Sam,” he hissed at me, eyes darting to Morgan and Randall. “Shut your gosh darn mouth.”
I grinned at him. “Dude, I love you so hard. You don’t even know.”
I could see him trying to remain stern, but then those little crinkles around his eyes appeared, as they always did when he was happy about something. “Yeah, yeah,” he said, even though we both knew that was bullshit.
“And I notice you didn’t deny the boner thing.”
“Sam!”
Mama stalked over to Feng’s prone remains, growled low in her throat, and gave a swift roundhouse kick to the side of his head. It exploded in a dark snowfall of soot and ash. “That’s what you get for fucking with Mama,” she spat down at headless Feng. “You bitch.” Then she squared her shoulders, brushed her hands down her corset, turned to me, and said, “Precious, we really need to talk about the things that seem to happen when you come here. My possessions certainly aren’t cheap. Though I suppose this is the perfect time to redecorate. Maybe something a little more modern.”
I gave her my most winsome of smiles. “I’m a trouble magnet. My bad. Sorry about that.”
But before she could say another word, there came the loud roar of a furious dragon that reverberated through the walls of the Tilted Cross.
I sighed. Of course it wasn’t over.
“That was Kevin!” Gary exclaimed, eyes wide. “Not that I care at all if he’s in trouble and possibly dying and crying out for me to come save him! But someone should probably help him. You know. Because it’s the right thing to do.”
I stared at him.
The skin under his right eye twitched.
I stared at him some more.
He took off down the hallway, bellowing loudly about how he had to do everything himself because he was surrounded by incompetent idiots, leaving a large trail of glitter behind him.
Tiggy ran after him, screaming his battle cry.
“Gods,” I said. “I love those assholes.”
I pushed myself up and ran after them, because I would follow them anywhere.
Ryan wasn’t far behind me.
Chapter 5: Getting Sucked Through a Hole
MOISHE RAN past us up the stairs, heading toward Mama’s office. I knew he’d keep her safe.
Tiggy and Gary had already burst through the doors of the brothel. Ryan and I followed behind them, skidding to a halt over the cobblestones, almost crashing into Tiggy’s back. The sunshine was warm and blinding after the low candlelight of the brothel. The people of Meridian City stood stock still, eyes trained toward the sky.
“What the fuck—” I started but was interrupted by another loud roar coming from somewhere above us.
I looked up in time to see Kevin flying over the walls of Meridian City, facing toward the Dark Woods. Bright lights burst around him, as if spells were being shot up from the ground below. They glanced off his scales, exploding like fireworks. He reared back in midair, his gigantic wings flapping, and I heard him take a deep, guttural breath.
“Uh-oh,” Tiggy said succinctly as people around us began to whimper.
A great blast of fire shot from Kevin’s gaping maw. It hurtled toward the ground on the other side of the wall, where it exploded in a fireball quickly chased by a black plume of smoke that began to rise toward the sky.
“I forget sometimes that he can do that,” Gary said faintly. “Do me a favor and please ignore my erection.”
“Gross,” I said. “And it’s hard to ignore when it’s right there.”
“Don’t look at it! You know I’m shy.”
“Bullshit.”
“Yeah, okay. That was a lie. Look at it all you want. Jealously, of course.”
“Maybe not the time,” Ryan pointed out.
“…he said jealously,” Gary muttered under his breath.
I took a deep breath and pulled my magic toward me, the green and gold skirting along the edges of my vision.
“Ungh,” Ryan said, eyes slightly glassy as he watched me. “I forget sometimes that you can do that. Do me a favor and please ignore my—”
“What the hell,” Gary snapped. “We’re obviously in the middle of a crisis, and you’re popping boners? Good gods, Ryan. Sam! Control your bitch!”
“I like all of you,” Tiggy said.
“Aww,” Gary and I said.
And then from above came an angry scream of pain. I looked in time to see arcs of blood falling from a ragged hole in Kevin’s left wing. I didn’t know how it’d happened, as dragons were impervious to most kinds of magic, but Kevin was struggling to stay in the air, his left wing folded against his side, his right one flapping strenuously. He was sinking lower and lower in the air, and I was pissed. I remembered his story about how men had come to try to take his blood, how a tattooed man had come for one of his hearts. He had been scared then, because he didn’t have anyone. He’d been alone.
But here he was, fighting for us, and he’d gotten hurt because of it.
That wasn’t okay. At all.
And apparently not for his ex-husband either, as Gary shrieked his name and took off down the streets of Meridian City, heading toward the front gates. Tiggy chased after him in wide strides, the cobblestones cracking beneath his feet.
Ryan had his sword drawn before Kevin sank out of sight on the other side of the wall. I was about to lead the way when Morgan and Randall came out of the Tilted Cross behind us.
“Kevin’s been hurt,” I told them. “Outside Meridian City. Gary and Tiggy are already headed that way. We have to—”
“Take Ryan,” Randall said to Morgan. “Make for the gate. Sam and I will flank them. Don’t tarry.”
“What?” I snapped. “We don’t have time to reach the back gates. It’ll take too long!”
“We won’t be going to the back gates,” Randall said.
“But we—”
“Sam.”
I shook my head, biting my tongue.
Ryan looked hesitant, but Morgan was already dragging him away before he could say anything. I waved him off before he could try to come back. He nodded at me, then turned and began to run through the city with Morgan. I liked seeing him go almost as much as I liked watching him come.
Randall was staring at me as I turned back toward him. “What?” I asked him, suddenly feeling defensive.
“We’re going to have a long talk, you and I,” he said ominously.
That… wasn’t good. “I didn’t do it, whatever it is.”
He cocked a massive eyebrow at me. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“And I’d rather not, if I’m being honest.”
“Sometimes we have to do the things we don’t want to do. I am going to hold your hand.”
“Um. Excuse me?”
Randall sighed and rolled his eyes toward the heavens. He said something under his breath that I couldn’t make out, but I told myself he was giving me the best of compliments and just didn’t want me to know. “I’m going to hold your hand.”
“Oh. Uh. Okay? Are you… scared?”