Chapter 1 #3
I look up at the drop tower from hell that even I’m not sure I want to ride.
I went on one once and swore never to do it again, but I’d possibly suffer if that’s what Torin wants.
“Uh… you know that just drops you straight down, right? I’m not sure even Mickey could sleep through that one.
” The screams of those riding it seem to prove my point.
“No, not that… that,” he says as he points again, and I realize that he’s not pointing at any ride, but instead at a couple holding hands.
I stare, wondering whether I’m comprehending this correctly. “You… want to hold hands?”
“Yes, that.”
We’ve kind of held hands before, but I guess it was mostly just to lead each other places. Why is he acting like it’s something magical?
“Have you never held hands and just like… gone for a walk?” I ask curiously.
“Why would I? One hand goes on my weapon of choice and the other hand on my mount as I prepare for battle. Sometimes my one hand goes on my dick.”
“That just sounds creepy.”
Torin looks like he’s fighting to keep a straight face. “They like it.”
“I’m now envisioning you walking among your enemies cupping your dick,” I say with narrowed eyes. Kit seems to narrow her eyes as well, probably just because she sees me doing it.
He starts laughing. “No! Like… during an orgy. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
“Oh yeah, for sure. I have an orgy like every Monday night.”
Torin glances at me. “You’ve never had an orgy?”
“No! Of course not! And that is a normal thing not to have done. Let’s get back to the romantic hand holding.”
“Good. I don’t want others to have touched you.”
“You do know I’ve had sex with others, right?”
“Shhhh. Mine. Only mine.” He holds his hand out to me like he’s a queen expecting a kiss.
I stare at it, a little confused by this, then origami my hand around his so I can finally get to his fingers.
I slide my fingers between his, and when Kit looks up at his face, I see the happiest beaming expression on it.
He’s so fucking delighted after such a simple gesture.
And I’m over here feeling my cheeks heating up like we’re teenagers on our first date.
“I would like this to be my new daily routine. I will fuck you from eight to eleven in the morning. Then we will hold hands for an hour. Then we will eat. Then we will do our afternoon sex time, then we will eat again, and then I will fuck you until you fall asleep, and then we will repeat this.”
“You are ridiculous. We are not having sex for… what? Twelve hours a day? Do you plan to just murder me?”
“You’re too delectable to murder,” Torin says as he looks down at our intertwined hands. “We should have sex in that thing.” He points at the enclosed Ferris wheel.
“Absolutely not!”
He tsks like he really thinks that what he said was a brilliant idea. It’s obviously a horrible idea, but I’ve found that Torin seems to think any place is an appropriate place to have sex.
I pull him to a stop before the first food stall.
“What’s this?”
“Steak skewers. You want some? Mickey demanded some.”
“I will eat everything,” he says, sounding determined as he watches me order some.
The moment I’m done, he snatches up my hand again and then smiles happily.
Next, I get him some cotton candy, not because I think it’s good but because I feel like he needs to experience it.
From there, we continue down the row getting a few things here and there while he tries to juggle what he can in one hand so he can still hold my hand with the other.
Once we’re at our final stop, he finally submits to the reality that he needs two hands to carry everything.
“You know what you should do?” Torin asks.
“What’s that?”
“Find the unicorn shifter so you can shift into a unicorn again.”
I scowl at him for bringing up such a horrible memory.
“Isn’t it hard to walk around here?” he asks. “With all of these people constantly bumping into you, isn’t your magic switching just as quickly?”
“Honestly… it’s something I’ve kind of gotten used to over the years.
I just… expect that I’m going to get bumped into and tossed random magic along the way,” I say.
My magic mimics the magic of the last person I touched.
But now that I’ve learned that I’m not quite human…
I’m not sure I understand it as much as I once thought I did, especially since Conquest told me that it was caused by me touching each person’s soul.
It means that as I walk through a crowded place like this, I can go from having the magic of a shifter to having the magic of a mage within seconds.
The magic currently rippling through my body is some kind of earth elemental magic.
“As a kid, I loved this,” I tell him. “I thought it was thrilling to immediately try out different types of magic, but now that I don’t know if the magic will hurt me, it feels more like a curse.”
“We’ll fix it,” Torin assures me.
“I’m not ready for tomorrow,” I say. “I’m not ready to talk to anyone else from the Magical Interference Unit. Why did I ever agree to talk to them?”
“We could just torture them instead of talk to them, if you’d like?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Yes, torture is where I was planning on going with it,” I say with ample sarcasm. “Instead of just like… telling them not to come, I could trick them into arriving so we could torture them.”
“Tell them they are only allowed to enter my palace if they bring desserts. Use your tappy device to tell them.”
“My phone doesn’t work that way.”
“It’s weird that your tappy device works perfectly for things you want to do but never works for things I want to do.”
“I know, it’s sad, really,” I say as I return to the bench where Mickey was. He’s no longer there, but his undead have held the spot for us. “Where’s Mickey?”
Joy points at the children’s ride where Mickey looks like he’s dead while the ladybug he’s sitting inside bobs up and down.
“He said the soothing ride helps him sleep,” she tells us.
“I… never imagined he had trouble sleeping,” I say as the ride ends and I see Tommy dragging Mickey off. Mickey does perk up when he sees everything we’ve gotten and eagerly heads our way. He reaches us just in time to see Torin take a huge bite of his shaved ice.
“This is so good. I would like this for every meal,” Torin enthuses before an odd look crosses his face. “It has been poisoned! Do not eat it!” He tries to knock mine out of my hand in a move to “protect me” as I realize that the god of war and love… is suffering from a brain freeze.