“I don’t want you to think like that, Samson. You’re important to me, too. I care about you, too. I hate everything about the idea of using you as a shield.”
He snuggles, nosing my pulse. “Then don’t put yourself in positions where you might need one. Simple.”
“I have a few more ambitions beyond tending farmland, Samson…”
“Being an adventurer sucks. Being a farmer is great. It’s only occasional that you get a testy rooster hellbent on trying to kill you.”
I let my lip jut, because if you pat all your animal’s heads once a day, they don’t do that.
Hopefully.
“I don’t want to adventure anywhere without you, but there are a whole bunch of cool things here in the Ridge that we’ll never get to see if we don’t leave our farms every so often. Like the rewards for defeating the Sky Dungeon—also known as, access to the Cosmic Mines and my future puppies.”
He sighs, and warm air coasts against me. “How dangerous are theCosmic Mines?”
“Their difficulty is scaled to a point where the first level is similar to level one hundred of the usual mines.”
Samson reels back, meeting my eyes. “There are one hundred levels in those mines?”
“Um.” I press my lips together and fix my askew glasses. “Yes? Two hundred total, actually.”
He cusses. “That’s gotta be far enough down to hit lava pockets.”
“It is, yes. You hit the lava region at around one-twenty.”
His eye twitches. “I don’t even know if Lia knows heat protection blessings.”
Heat protection.
Right.
Because standing near pools of twelve hundred degree magma spells realistic disaster.
Samson’s eyes narrow. “There was no heat protection in your game, was there?”
I chuckle. “Realism mod strikes again?”
He sighs before untangling one arm from around me and smoothing the calloused pad of his thumb down my cheek. Eyelids heavy, he traces my jaw, my chin…my bottom lip. “Let’s plan a trip to Amecrest,” he murmurs.
Dazed, I lift my hand to his wrist, let my touch slip down along his tattoos to rest at the base of his forearm. “Why?”
“Ines doesn’t make armor, and you need something lighter than what Austin can shape without the proper equipment.”
My eyes widen. “Armor? Isn’t that expensive?”
“Aren’t the drops in the Cosmic Mines great?” He distracts my brain when his thumb swipes across my lip. Again.
I’m leaning into his gravity, hypnotized. “I mean…yes?”
“Then it’ll be fine.” He runs a finger down my other cheek. “Although…you could also not worry about it and let me spoil you.”
I very much like the idea ofnot worryingabout something.
It is quite unfortunate that my astigmatism thus far has kept me from such pleasures.
Freeing a taut breath, he cups the back of my head and pulls me in. “Was I overcautious? Was everything painless today?”
I clear my throat as I tuck myself in the crook of his neck and let the torrents of peace consume me, one blinding wave at a time. “Slate laughed at me the whole time I was bonking the slimes.”
