“I’ll do better,” I told the alpha out of habit, something I’d said to Granny after every call down. It seemed to appease her, the quickest way to get me out of her angry glare.
Weston didn’t move, the glimmer in his eyes dulling. He studied me for another moment, his hand coming out to rest on the horse’s rump. Without another word, he walked back to his stallion, bending to pick up the journal he’d dropped when hopping off, then pausing to retrieve another from a little sack he had on the side of his saddle.
I turned my face to the side and leaned against Hadriel again, not wanting to watch Weston read my innermost thoughts. I went back to tracing the dicks.
“Fucking hell,” Hadriel said softly as we got moving again. “Thanks for defending me, but I thought he might brain the both of us with how you did it.” He blew out a shaky breath. “Only you would be able to calm him down like that.”
“Because I’m a captive?”
“Something like that. And yes, you’re right, there are forty-two dicks on this jacket.”
“You said there were forty-three.”
“On my person, yes.”
I paused for a moment, watching the trees slowly drift by. Darkening shadows gathered near the bases and deep within the branches. The evening waned, the light bleeding from the sky, an issue for the horses as well as me. We’d have to stop soon. My aching butt and legs could sure use the reprieve.
“On your person,” I said slowly, mulling that over before leaning back and nearly yanking my hands away. “Gross. You mean you counted your actual dick in the forty-three?”
His laughter was loud and jubilant. People glanced back, making me slouch behind him again. He didn’t mind the contact at all. He’d never once flinched away or tightened up. I could’ve been his best friend for how comfortable he was with my touch. I found I liked it—the easy, friendly closeness.
“Usually I don’t spell it out so clearly,” he said, still chuckling. “If I’m flirting, the hint is sexual. If it’s a new person in the castle, I might be more lewd.”
“But with me?”
“I’m obvious and your reaction is priceless. Welcome to debauchery, my darling. We’re going to have a whole lot of fun. Now, quit stalling. It’s your turn for a story. I told you about myscary encounter with the Mighty Vagina that had teeth. You tell me something from your life.”
His stories were so insane that they all just seemed like crass fabrications of reality, like a never-ending party with unlimited product at his disposal. He’d take my concoctions in stride. I’d told him so. They might not even be enough to compete with his past.
Then he’d mentioned addiction and dying and we agreed to disagree. Because while maybe I would allow that people were getting addicted based on their desire for the effects, they werenotdying. We’d never had one fatality. Not one! It’s why I’d put in fail-safes. It’s why I’d designed the product a certain way. If people were taking hallucinogens and dying from them, they weren’t taking my product. End of story.
Hadriel hadn’t pushed like Weston always had. Instead, he listened to a story that didn’t at all relate to my village, Granny or my job. I told him about my mom finally scraping enough money together to buy a forever home for us, and how we’d created a vegetable garden and planted flowers.
“That sounds lovely,” Hadriel said when I’d finished. The light continued to decay around us. “I love flowers. I’m absolute shit at keeping them alive, but I love them.”
“I’m not great, either.”
“And where is your mom now?”
I leaned harder into him, resting my cheek on his shoulder, my fingers stilling in tracing the dicks on his jacket. “The townspeople didn’t like that we’d moved in. They used to throw things at us and call us names when we shopped. I remember someone standing on the other side of the lane from us as we walked home one day, yelling that we had no business in the shifter lands. We didn’t belong.”
“Why is that?”
“Because we had no magic.”
“Your mom was suppressed also?”
“I’m—we aren’t suppressed.Shewasn’t suppressed. She didn’t have magic. She was a dud. I’m sure you’ve heard the term.”
“Riiiight...” He drew out the word. “But many people call shifters duds when that shifter is just suppressed. A strong alpha can usually pull out the animal. It doesn’t even need to be the same shifter type. A dragon pulled out my wolf.”
He’d told me stories of his animal being suppressed by the demons, their whole kingdom cursed and living without the magic that made them shifters. I believed him when he said he knew what it was like not to feel an animal inside or have the benefits of healing and strength. Weston, too, it seemed, had lived for a time without his animal.
“She went to the strongest alphas she could find to try and pull out her animal. It didn’t work. They couldn’t even feel one inside her. The last alpha apparently made me, and when she’d told him she was with child, he banished her from the kingdom.”
“Wait.” Hadriel half turned to look back at me. I clutched onto him, worried I’d slide down the side of the horse. “Wait, wait, fucking stop. Stop. Everyone just calm the fuck down.”
“What?” I glanced around but no one so much as looked over. “Are you talking to me or the horse or...?”
