Page 63 of The Gods Order

“That sounds like a challenge.”

He grips the back of my neck and dips me low, kissing me slow enough to be infuriating but deliberate enough to send heat crawling violently through my body.

He straightens me just as fast as he dipped me, and my head spins. He’s entirely too pleased with himself as he stares behind me.

“Fix your face, pops.” He giggles. “You look like you smelled a pile of taurnshit.”

I close my eyes and huff.

“You’re going to be a thorn in my side,” Val growls.

“I sure hope so. Funny enough, I called your daughter a thorn in my side when she got here. Now look at us—in love, saving the realm, married—”

“Married?” Val and Meridamus bark.

“Time for me to go. Give them hell, little burden.”

With a boop to my nose, he starshoots away, leaving a giggle on the wind. No part of me wants to turn around.

I’m going to kill him.

Slowly but surely, I finally suck it up and face the two Beginning Gods and their scowls.

“So.” I clear my throat. “We—”

“Are you married? Did you really marry the four of them?” Val asks, turning redder by the second.

My glare sharpens in warning.

“First off, it’s none of your business. Second, don’t ever say ‘the four of them’ like that again. There’s not a fucking thing wrong with them, and I won’t tolerate you acting like there is. Are we understood?”

After countless deep breaths and flexes of his fingers, he finally nods.

“Good. As I was saying, we definitely can’t train here in the open. Do you have a place in mind, or want us to pick?”

“Wherever you girls are comfortable will be fine,” Meridamus says with an amused smirk.

“Very well. Yemi, you ready?”

“Yeah.” She snickers.

The wink Kyzen gives me is no help as I spin on my heels and march toward the small gap between the houses. I won’t be taking them to the hot spring, although I’m sure their asses know all about it.

“V, care to carry all of us to where we like to train in the meadows so I don’t have to walk through the woods in awkward silence?”

He laughs in my mind immediately. “Sure.”

His familiar flash of white glows against my shoulder. His weight brings me comfort and settles the wings flapping in my belly—until he wordlessly whisks us away with no warning.

Once his power releases us, I’m back facing Val and Meridamus, who both wobble on their feet. For a moment, their eyes widen as they glance at one another. Then…they burst out laughing.

“Still as strange as it’s always been,” Meridamus says.

“I’ll never grow used to someone else moving me through the realm. It’s unnatural.”

I tilt my head, nostril curling into a small sneer as they fall apart together like teenage boys.

It’s weird.