I watch him for a moment before leaning back in my chair. “I guess that doesn’t sound all that bad.”
Chapter Sixteen
Riley
There’s a hammering on my apartment door right before it flies open.
“Sorry, we have no time to waste on knocking,” Imani says as I jerk awake and wave my arms around like I’m prepared to fireball her ass into next year. I don’t even have a fucking fireball spell in my arsenal, but my half-asleep brain seems to think I do.
I realize I’m wrapped around the god again, and even though we’re both fully clothed and did nothing, it doesn’t quite look like that with the way I’m spooning him. Getting Torin to understand we weren’t doing anything was a bit of a pain to get through that thick skull of his when I climbed intomybed and then he rolled into me, pressing that taunting dick against my side where I had to pull willpower from deep,deepin my soul to resist ordering him to suck my dick and fuck me into oblivion.
I press a hand on Torin’s face and shove myself out of bed before noticing I don’t have my gloves on. I discreetly grab them and pull them on while pretending I’m messing with my phone. “We did nothing!” I insist.
“From that video I saw of him riding on your back, you did something, alright,” Vinny says as he hurries in.
I reach for my pendant like I’m prepared to obliterate both of them so they’ll never speak of this again, and they both wave flags of surrender. “That’s what I thought. What’s going on?”
“A Door is opening,” Torin states, sitting up and looking around with his brow furrowed.
“It is, and we can’t find the location. This is really bad,” Imani says, as if I don’t already know that. “The Door is drawing magic from our world, and we’ve been alerted of the tendrils of it deep in the ley lines. We’ve also been informed by druids that the earth is suffering… this isn’t like the fractured Doors the person fought to open before. Riley, I know you’re into this whole retirement shit, but we can’t do this without you. We need your magic.”
And that’s just it. That’s what they need. Not me. My magic. And without my magic, what use am I? I’ll just get someone hurt again. I might even get someone killed because they’re going to expect me to do great things, and instead, I can’t even tell which way I’m going without Kit.
“You can’t tell me you don’t have someone else,” I say.
“We needyou.”
“Well, you don’t have me,” I snap. “Torin, go with them and see if you can figure out where the Door is opening like you did last time.”
And I storm off into the bathroom like a teenager who’s just been told I can’t go hang out with the cool kids. Kit rears up on my leg and bumps her head against my knee in an attempt to comfort me. I slide my fingers into her furry sides while I pick her up a moment before the door opens and Torin comes in. Since I’m standing at the sink, he steps up behind me and slides his fingers into my hair for some reason. Then he jerks my head back and glowers at me.
“What the hell is that for?” I demand as I prepare to sic my genet on him.
“I thought they were your friends.”
“They are.”
“So why lie to them?”
“I’m just… avoiding the truth. That’s not lying.”
“You told me the reason you refused to tell them is because you wouldn’t be able to rejoin the unit, but you claim you don’t want to anyway, so what does it hurt to tell them? Why do you fight so hard to keep it a secret from them?”
“We don’t have time for this. We need to find where the Door is opening and stop it.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m shy and don’t like being around new people, so I can’t go alone.”
“You’re a pain in my ass.”
“So I’ve heard,” he says, giving me a wink.
I growl at him as I smack his hand off my head and then quickly get ready. I stomp out so that everyone is well aware that I’m not pleased, and head out of the apartment. “Let’s go. But I’m putting this out there right now. You will not be relying on me to use my magic to save any of you, understand that? So don’t assume I’m going to save anyone’s ass.”
They stare at me in a way that very clearly shows that they don’t believe me.
“I’m being serious. Please just… don’t rely on me. I’m doing you a favor by guiding Torin around so he doesn’t get lost.”
“Alright,” Imani says. “Let us take you to the area we first noticed it.”
