Mathlin spluttered.
Hamilton was unfazed. “Mathlin’shandsare magical. Why can’t the other parts of him be magical too?”
Titan dropped his gaze to the front of Mathlin’s pants.
Mathlin whimpered, covering his crotch with his free hand. “This is so embarrassing.”
“Have you performed feats of healing with your pointy bits, Mathlin?” said Hamilton’s disembodied voice.
Mathlin cringed. “Never!”
Hamilton popped out of the back door with a gleeful smile. “In that case, how can you possibly call yourself a healer, Bread Consort?”
“Breadwhat?” Mathlin squeaked.
Hamilton gave Mathlin a huge wink. “If I were still under Titan’s employ, I would be calling him Bread Master.”
“That soundsterrible,” Titan muttered. “Please don’t.”
“But since I’m not, then Titan is just Titan, butyoucan still be the Bread Consort,” Hamilton said to Mathlin.
Mathlin’s ears turned red. “I’m just here for the, uh.” He made a vague up-and-down gesture with his loose fist.
“Ah,” Hamilton said sagely. “TheBredConsort.”
Mathlin choked, rocking back and forth on his feet.
Titan tried not to remember Mathlin’s sounds from the restroom earlier. “No one will be bred here,” he hissed at Hamilton.
Hamilton gave him an indulgent smile. “Of course. All you do is put buns in ovens.”
Titan glowered. “Go away.”
“The contract is on your desk,” Hamilton said with a flutter of his fingers. “Have fun with the cream filling.”
Titan strode into the bakery without waiting for Hamilton to disappear. Except the insides of the bakery stopped him short.
Pink satin curtains had been tacked onto all the interior walls. Each curtain bore multiple printed pages—some with crude drawings of cocks, others with medical diagrams of reproductiveparts. But the most prominent additions were the long scrolls of paper printed with lines:
Bread Consort, my dough rises for you, and you alone. I want you. I knead you.
In case you haven’t heard, I specialize in BREADING. Breading YOU.
My heart is like an oven. It will make you warm and toasty. More importantly, it’s holding my big, long baguette that will fill you up inside.
Mathlin crashed into Titan’s back with a grunt. He recovered and stepped aside, then froze just like Titan had. “Um.” His gaze flitted from one printed page to the next, eyes growing wider with each passing moment.
“Hamilton,” Titan bellowed. “What the fuck!”
“Do you like it?” Hamilton yelled from somewhere out there. “I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to unleash these on you!”
“You’re fired like an oven!”
“Like a pizza oven? ‘Cause the joke’s on you, Titan, you don’t have one of those!”
Titan was about to snarl. Except Mathlin broke into helpless giggles next to him.
Stunned, he turned to stare at the omega.
