I would be a dirty liar if I said they weren’t so freaking hot when angry. I would be all over them right now if Gandalf and Vex weren’t here.
Stellan rushes to me. “Are you okay?” He grabs my face with both hands after swinging the shotgun over his shoulder.
I nod and kiss him. “All good. We were just having a drink.” I mourn the the glass I just threw at the man’s face. The ice cubes are already melting in the dirt. But then I notice Vex’s full glass on the camping table in front of Gandalf, and I reach for it with a smile. “May I?” I ask her.
She nods. “Of course.”
“Lucky! It survived the fight.”
Stellan glares at me as I offer him a sip, but his face relaxes when he tastes the cold brew.
Alastair walks to us to give me a kiss, then he accepts Stellan’s help grudgingly to extract the bullets from his chest with the tip of a knife. They’ll come out, eventually, but it can sometimes take hours if they’re stuck in bones or organs. He’d bleed all over the truck.
“Thank you, Sunshine,” Alastair says, looking down fondly at Stellan.
“You could have avoided getting shot, dumbass,” Stellan grumbles.
“I love you, too.”
Stellan chuckles and says to me, “Distract him for me?”
“Sure.” I grin and grab Alastair by the crotch. I can feel his tentacles move under my hand.
His eyes widen and he licks his lips. “Hey, now you little—” Then he winces when Stellan stabs him particularly deep to extract a bullet.
Stellan pulls away. “All done.”
I kiss the corner of Alastair’s mouth. “Distraction successful.”
He shakes his head, white locs cascading over his broad shoulders, and smiles fondly.
Behind us, Gandalf is already putting all of his wares back into the hovercar with Vex’s help.
“Did you get the parts?” I ask.
Stellan nods. “Let’s get to work.”
It takes us three hours to finish the repairs on the hovercar. When at last, it turns on with a satisfying purr, Gandalf does a little jig, all bony elbows and legs.
The Traveling Market is a few hours away, and we agree to drive with him and make sure he gets back safely. We’ll do a full checkup of the hovercar in the upcoming days, before the old man can escape into the wilds again. Gandalf can never stay put for long.
We finally reach the Market a few hours after dark. The lookouts see us and the door to the hangar near the bottom of one of the RWE Baggers is already open, with the ramp down. We park the truck inside, followed by the hovercar, and we bid Gandalf goodnight before going home.
Homeis the place where the three of us live together. After our adventure north, Alastair started sleeping with us often, until we could no longer deny the truth: he was ours and we were his. We stopped pretending and we found room for his belongings. We built an extension—it’s funny how easy it is to claim more space when the King is your lover—and he gave up his royal lodgings to expand the hydroponic gardens at the top of the RWE Bagger.
Alastair was the one to bring up the question of marriage last month. I’ve never seen Stellan so dumbstruck. But when he finally recovered from his shock, we had the wildest sex, and his answer was pretty obvious. I was so happy I felt like my heart would stop.
When we came back from our rescue mission two years ago, wrapped around each other, some residents and merchants of the Market gave us the stink eye. Others whispered behind our backs that we were perverts, or that thisthingwe had going on wouldn’t last long. They called us adangerous distraction. As if Alastair was a feature of the Market and not a person.
Alastair broke a few jaws. People who had nothing good to say learned to keep their mouths shut. Our king isn’t to be trifled with. Once, he even threw a man who had insulted me over one of the rope bridges. He called it theStellan special. The man survived, but barely.
Now that we put a ring on it, most residents have gotten used to it.
Our happiness only grew over time, and two years later, I feel like I’m bursting at the seams.
We did a simple ceremony atGears and Giggles, surrounded by only family and a few friends. Helios teared up, and Jude gave him so much shit for it. Griffin and Oliver stood at opposite ends of the camp, but at least they didn’t try to kill each other, and we counted that as a win.
Vex made us tungsten rings. It’s apparently the strongest metal on earth, and we joked that it was needed considering how often Alastair gets shot, stabbed, or blown up. He’s still the Traveling Market’s first line of defense. Thankfully, we make a point of taking him away from the Market more often. He deserves some time off from his responsibilities. Anyone disagreeing usually find themselves at the receiving end of Stellan’s wrath.
