My phone beeps, telling me it’s been charged back to life, and I notice that Imani has sent me a text that says: Did you make it back or are you still stranded?
Me: No thanks to you.
Imani: I’m kind of surprised you made it back at the speed you must have been going.
Me: What are you talking about?
I see she’s sent me a video from one of the short-form video platforms she enjoys watching. When we were on stakeouts, she’d tell me I was the only one who could properly watch out for us, and I’d then have to listen to her giggle and cackle while she watched shit and I suffered.
I click on the video and proceed to watch a short clip taken from inside a car as it passes two men, one—who is very naked—on all fours, the other on his back.
“What’s that?” Torin asks. “The look on your face tells me I must see it.”
“You know how I explained how videos work? How we can record real-life people and then play it back later?”
“Maybe.”
I aim the phone at him, press play, and watch the god nearly choke to death as he starts laughing.
“I’d put that old nag down if I was that person,” he says.
“I will snip your nuts while you sleep,” I whisper.
Torin grins at me. “I like this thing. Can I have this? I want to see it again. Make it work again. I want to be able to watch it whenever I’m feeling down.”
“Nope. It only plays once and then never again.”
“Then how did you play it for yourself before playing it for me?”
“It’ll only play once per person.”
“Then I want to show this person here,” he says as he waves at an older man sitting at the table next to us. “Good sir?—”
I pull the phone away before he can show this atrocity to anyone else.
Me: If you do not get that video taken down, I will raze this earth until I find the person who posted it.
Imani: I really thought you’d be the one riding the god, not the other way around.
Me: I will sacrifice every human to save my dignity.
Imani: I just have to know… why were you naked?
Me: I’m starting with you.
Imani: Did you take your own clothes off or did the god force them off before climbing on board?
Me: No! None of that! I accidentally borrowed a shifter’s magic. Not knowing what kind of animal she shifted into, I shifted into a… majestic mount, then shifted back just when this damn god was leaping onto me. I didn’t expect him to hop on board and he didn’t seem to expect I was going to shift back!
I look up at the “damn god,” and he beams at me before snapping a crab leg in half and looking perplexed when the meat is mangled in both ends of it. The look is still oddly sexy, though.
“Why’s your face scrunching up like that? Are you also disgruntled that it’s impossible for me to eat this damn thing?” He then just gnaws on the end, shell and all.
“Yes, that’s definitely why I was disgruntled,” I say sarcastically. “Don’t you have crustaceans like this?”
“We did, but I had a servant who’d crack them and feed me the meat.” Then he smiles at me and holds the crab leg out.
I sigh, crack the leg with the tools, and set to work. All the while, he watches me with an intent expression on his irritatingly handsome face and a good dose of glitter. If this ishow he stared at all of his crab crackers, I doubt any of them wandered off without getting laid first.
