Titan sighed and set down the book. He bent his knees and folded his arms, flapping them like a chicken. “Mathlin,” he sang. There was no tune to accompany the song, so Titan made up his own. It sounded terrible. “You’re a chicken and I’m a fish. We’re both animals and we like to live. The way you’re so easy to love, it makes us go together like surf and turf.”
Mathlin clapped his hand over his mouth, but there was no hiding his loud snort.
Hamilton was all curled up and cackling, tears flowing down his cheeks.
Titan sighed. “I don’t owe you any more, right?”
“I don’t know,” Hamilton wheezed. “I’ll always take more pickup lines as payment.”
Mathlin perked up. “You owe me something too!”
“That’s right.” Titan frowned. Despite Mathlin’s claim, he hadn’t told Titan what it was he owed, even though Titan had scrounged through his own memories multiple times. “WhatdoI owe you?”
“Letting me ride you as a wolf!” Mathlin bounced on his heels. “You’d be the horse and I’d ride you on your back. Uh. I mean, you’d be on all fours—” Mathlin buried his face in his hands. “I would ride you like a pony—”
“There’s just no way to say it without it sounding weird, is there?” Titan said dryly.
“No,” Mathlin wailed. “I just want to ride you like a man rides a horse—”
Hamilton clutched his sides and howled.
Titan took pity on his omega. “Sweetheart, I get what you’re trying to say. It’s okay. Here, let me.”
He glanced around the bakery. It was almost closing time, so no one was pulling into the parking lot. Titan shrugged out of his clothes, basking in the way Mathlin’s eyes lit up and grew hazy, roving over his body.
Titan preened and flexed his muscles. Then he reached inward for the shift, so fur bristled across his skin and his face lengthened into a snout.
Mathlin shivered. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of seeing you as a wolf.”
Titan flicked his tail and stood taller. “Come ride me.”
Mathlin giggled. He threw his leg over Titan’s haunches and grasped fistfuls of his fur, yelping when Titan began to move. “Can Jannie ride on you too?”
Titan’s heart skipped. “Of course.”
He padded over to Jannie’s playpen; Mathlin scooped her out and set her in front of himself.
Having both of them on his back... It was amazing. It felt like something that was entirely Titan’s, his to hoard. Jannie patted Titan’s fur and tugged at it, her little feet kicking.
“Don’t kick Titan, hon,” Mathlin murmured, squeezing Titan with his legs. “Be nice, or the big bad wolf will bite you!”
“Hey, I don’t bite babies,” Titan said. “It’s fine. Her kicking doesn’t hurt.”
Mathlin’s voice was soft when he said, “If you say so.”
Titan carried them through the bakery. “One day, when I have a harness that we can put Jannie in, I’ll take you on a run through the forest. Don’t want you falling off.”
“I’ll look forward to that,” Mathlin said. “Do you want me riding you as a cat?”
“Cat or human, it doesn’t matter,” Titan rumbled. He wanted to have Mathlin as a cat curled up on his back, too. “If you want to shift into a cat now, I’d be honored to carry you.”
Mathlin set Jannie on the floor and shifted. Jannie copied him and shifted into a kitten; Mathlin picked her up by the scruff and hopped onto Titan’s back.
“How adorable,” Hamilton cooed. He had been recording videos on his phone for the past several minutes. Titan didn’t mind—he also wanted a copy of those videos.
Titan trotted around the bakery, before howling at the ceiling. Mathlin yowled; Jannie yowled too, her voice tiny and high-pitched.
“I could melt from all this cuteness,” Titan said.
