Chapter 27 #2
“No… but we know that it connects to the Doors and the horsemen… or maybe the god beyond the Door. We know more than you did before you met me.”
Riley nods but doesn’t appear overly confident about any of that. It makes me unhappy that he’s upset.
“Mickey wanted to know when you woke up.”
“Kit, can you go to Mickey?” Riley asks. He reaches over and writes “I’m alive, don’t bother wasting energy getting out of bed” on a note and hands it to Kit. She takes it in her mouth and gallops off. “I have a bad feeling about all of this.”
“I want to keep you here. Keep you safe,” I admit.
He lifts his arm. “This proves I’m not safe from it even here.”
And I know that’s true. I’d originally hoped that even if his world fell to ruin, I could shield him here. I tell him, “It’s why I thought the Door might have opened here.”
“Did you check the spot where it opened previously?”
“No, but Quill did… I’ll check it more thoroughly once I feel safe leaving you.”
“We can go together.”
“You’d have to ride.”
Riley cringes but nods. “I’ll be fine. Let’s go. Should I borrow Mickey’s necromancy to pull up a horse or something?”
“Quill can handle us both.”
He grimaces at that. “Quill hates me.”
“He loves you.”
“I don’t think he does,” Riley says as he starts to pull from my arms, but I lock him in tight. He tips his head back. “We can accomplish nothing in this bed.”
“We can accomplish, and have accomplished, a whole lot in this bed.”
Riley grins at me and gives me a soft peck before slipping free. “Guide me to the bathroom so I don’t take myself out on the doorframe.”
I jump out of bed and scoop him up.
“I meant lead me! I’m not Mickey!”
“Ah, right,” I say, setting him down. I lean down a bit and wrap my body around him, chest against his back, dick against his ass while I walk him into the bathroom.
“This has to be the strangest way to guide someone.”
“Sexiest,” I assure him as I place a kiss on his cheek. By the time he’s finished in the bathroom and I’ve dressed him, Kit has returned with the note. She doesn’t wait for Riley to pick her up, just begins scaling him.
“Ow, Kit, dammit,” he curses.
“Kit was really anxious about you.”
He kisses her head and scratches under her chin. “I’m sorry I made you worry… but I’m still not sure I deserved to bleed over it,” he says as he looks down at his clothes now sporting little nail holes. He opens the note and looks at it.
“Oh, how sweet and caring is Mickey. He writes, ‘Yay! You’re alive! Don’t worry. If you die, I will take care of your god for you. Kisses. XOXO I guess I could bring you back from the dead to do stuff for me LOL. I’m going back to bed. PS. I saw a lot of Torin’s dick. I approve.’”
“In his defense, he came running when he sensed something was wrong.”
Riley’s eyebrow rises. “I’m sorry, Mickey ran?”
“Yep. And he was very concerned about you.”
He still seems caught up on that first part. “Mickey… ran?”
“Sure did.”
“I was in the academy with Mickey. He never ran. We had the meanest instructor who made me run out of fear of him, and still Mickey just shrugged off all of his verbal assaults without even a flinch. I think he impressed the guy, honestly. His athletic scores were so poor that they threatened to kick him out. The only reason they kept him was that he outsmarted all of us, including the teachers. His cumulative score was better than everyone in class but me. I didn’t have the smarts he did, but my athletics and fighting skills got me higher. ”
“You’re very smart. You know all about testicle-devouring cars and how your finger-tapper pad can show the same video of Kit doing something cute ten times but can only show the video of me riding on your back once.”
Riley just smiles at me. “Exactly. Common sense is all I need. And a gullible man.”
“Don’t know who that last one would be.”
“I don’t either,” he says as we head outside to where Quill is waiting. I discover a couple of new buds on a dead bush that I carefully touch. I’m trying not to get my hopes up that I’m gaining power, but this is a good sign, isn’t it?
Riley is too busy staring at Quill with an apprehensive expression to notice the buds. “Does this thing have a saddle or anything?”
I look at Quill and decide that I could be nice and put one on for Riley.
I don’t use it much since I’m just fine riding without it, but of course I have one.
It’s very handy for holding my weapons and connects to the armor Quill wears into battle.
All of which I’ve kept maintained… not that I thought I’d ever use any of it again.
“Wow, I haven’t been in here,” Riley says when I lead him into the palace stables which once held the most prized stock.
Not all horses, either… there were many different beasts that once called this place home.
Quill never really stayed in a stall, even though I did leave a door open and bedding available for him.
He enjoyed wandering… mostly into my palace where he caused mayhem wherever he went and slept wherever he felt like.
I’ve found him sleeping in the hot spring, in the kitchen, and one time I even found him on the roof where he cried at me like he expected me to carry his ass down.
After a very stern, “You got your ass up there, you can get your ass down,” he jumped back down onto the balcony he’d jumped up from.
“We usually need the blood of fifty-five non-virgins to fuel this, but this time I think it’ll be okay without it,” I tell Riley, who is trying not to grin.
“That’s fascinating.”
“Do not even ask what I have to feed this beast to keep him moving,” I say as I pat Quill’s neck.
“Does he eat meat? That… dragon-like head makes me feel like he’d eat meat.”
“He loves meat, but he can’t quite eat it when… there’s nothing here to eat… besides your familiar.”
“No! Not Kit,” Riley cries dramatically, squeezing Kit to himself.
Kit is too busy thwacking Quill with her paw while he wiggles his nose around in response.
She appears to find this thrilling. I toss a pad onto Quill’s back and then the saddle before cinching it.
The breastplate made of leather and blue metal slides around his chest and tightens.
I shorten the stirrups for Riley and then guide him over to Quill.
He immediately looks like he ate one of those lemons I tried eating when I first made it to his realm.
“On second thought, can we maybe… hook him to a sleigh? Like how Thor has a chariot pulled by goats.”
“That sounds like animal abuse. How’s a goat supposed to drag a god around?”
“They’re… magic goats. Hell if I know.”
I pick him up and put him on Quill’s back, and he immediately latches on to the saddle with his hands and thighs.
I give his thigh a light smack. “I might enjoy those muscular thighs squeezing me during sex, but they’re not needed here.”
“He’s going to throw me onto my face like last time. Or what if he jerks his head back and gouges out a chunk of my face with those antlers?”
“He’s only done that once to me in a thousand years.”
“So you’re saying it’s high time for it to happen again.”
“Do you want to ride behind me? But then you won’t have the saddle.”
Riley looks down to where his hands are wrapped tightly around the pommel of the saddle since it has no horn to hold on to—nothing for my armor or weapons to get caught on in the heat of battle.
I swing up onto the beast’s back behind Riley. “Quill, head for the destroyed Door.”
And Quill sets off at a leisurely walk and stops about five paces later in front of the destroyed door of a pen. Then he shakes his whole body like he’s just going to shake us off right here after a job well done. It makes Riley cling on tighter.
“I don’t think your beast understands what you’re saying. Maybe he doesn’t understand English?”
“Nah, he’s a godly beast. He understands everything I say. His stubbornness, on the other hand, is his downfall.”
Quill starts sharpening his antlers on the broken door.
“Look, he’s sharpening them to better gouge out my eyeball.”
“Ooh,” I purr.
“Are you thinking about my eyeball being gouged out?” Riley asks as he whips around to face me.
“No, just how sexy you’d be with an eyepatch.”
He threatens to shove me off while trying not to grin. “You’re the absolute worst.”
I only laugh as I give Quill a nudge with my heel and the obstinate creature walks outside. “You ready?”
“To ride this thing? No.”
“If we walk the whole way, it’ll take us a long time to reach it… he’s going to have to run.”
“I’m getting off,” Riley says, but I lock my arms around him and kiss the side of his face.
“I’m here.”
“Your kisses aren’t going to fix this,” he complains, tucking Kit into his shirt a moment before Quill breaks into a gentle lope. It’s none too fast, but Riley is still convinced he’s going to die.
“You’re fine, see? He’s going slow.”
“This is slow?”
“Sure is. He’s going to go a little bit faster once you’re settled.”
It soon becomes evident that Riley’s never going to get used to any part of this, so Quill speeds up to avoid this task taking all day.
“I will never trust you again,” Riley cries.
“Why? What did I lie about? Nothing.”
“Let’s see if one of Mickey’s undead can get a car out here.”
“Nah. This is fun,” I say, squeezing him tighter.
I’m not quite sure he has a joyous time, but I sure do.
Nothing is more fun than riding on Quill’s back with the sun shining down on me and Riley in my arms. When I reach the area where the final battle took place, I slow Quill down and swing off before helping Riley dismount.
It looks like such a normal area. We’re surrounded by rolling hills that were once covered in wildflowers that are now long dead, petrified in their last state.
I gaze out onto this field where I once stood among my companions, all now dead. The people I loved. The people I cared for and promised to protect.
Riley walks up and carefully reaches out to me. “Are you okay?”