“Make it stop,” Hart drawls, rubbing his forehead.
“I wouldn’t bother,” Gwyneth advises. “It only gets worse if you try to contain her.”
“I’m uncontainable,” I declare. “A force of nature.”
“Now that, we can agree on,” Hart says as he rises and strides to his bedroom. “I’ll meet you in the stables in ten tempos, unless Calamity’s uncontainable force wrecks your life before then.”
I am not a life wrecker. What a poopfloof. The knights take their leave to pack whatever they deem necessary. I don’t have any possessions here, so I stay on the sofa with my sister. She turns to face me.
“So, orgasms? Multiple knights, or multiple orgasms?”
I grin. “Both.”
We fall back laughing, and my heart feels full and sure, ready for whatever the Idols are about to throw in my path. Be it grand or small, I am ready for it.
I’m an uncontainable force of nature. A calamity. A maiden from Strongfair here to turn the realm on its head and tickle its belly into submission.Take that, Idols. Or just ignore me—which is probably for the best.
Oh look, leftover sausage.
Chapter
Fourteen
It’s a realm-wide assertion that horses are evil. They are villains trapped inside equine bodies, just waiting for the chance to rule and eat everyone’s face. This one in particular seems to be the leader of the herd.
“Is he the boss of the horses?” I ask Nash, who has risked riding with me once again. This time, I’ve securely braided my hair to avoid mishaps.
“What makes you say that?” Nash asks. He presses his body against mine, an intimate reminder of everything he did last night. A shiver runs up my spine. These knights still treat me like I’m fragile. They tiptoe around, not taking what they want or giving me what I need.
I know it’s not conventional to be involved with four males, and brothers at that. But if they forced me to choose between them, I would have to walk away. Choosing would be like breaking my heart into four pieces. I don’t believe there are any documented fairy tales with this relationship dynamic, which makes sense, because everyone knows I don’t conform to any norms.
“Daphne?” Nash drawls as Hart and Malachi lead their own villainous creatures over.
“Yes?”
“Why do you think Damion is the boss?”
I snort. “The name screams a beast from Blazes. Plus, he looked at me.”
“That’s your gauge, Calamity?” Hart asks with a side-eye at me. “His name and that he looked at you?”
“Of course, not just that. He’s always at the front. That screams leader.”
Nash’s hand snakes beneath the heavy cloak he wrapped me up in, flattening it against my stomach. “The leader of a herd of horses is almost always a mare.”
“A girl?”
“That’s right.”
Maybe they aren’t evil after all. They are progressive creatures who understand the fairer sex is better suited to leadership roles. In a society where kings rule and queens take their place at the male’s side, the horses understand that if they don’t keep the females sweet, they will die out. Maybe I’m a horse.
A large white bird swoops high in the sky, casting a shadow against the blinding sun. I shield my eyes with my hand to watch it dance in the warm breeze, as if flirting with the orb that brings light and hope every diurnal.
“Where do you think the sun goes at night? Does it take a break? Like sleeping after a hard twelve turns? Is it friends with the moon? Are they sisters of the realm in an endless dance, never to meet? Perhaps the sun is female and the moon male, and they are lovers destined to always be apart?”
Hart shakes his head as Nash chuckles. “Calamity, you are taunting the celestial entities by contemplating their existence.”
I huff as I straighten my spine. “If you don’t know the answer, just say so. No need to be nasty.”
