Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Riley
Torin blocks my attempt to flee from the horse that looks like he’s going to eat me and then stomp out the parts he can’t consume.
“That thing looks evil. I don’t like horses, remember?” I ask.
“How the fuck can a horseman of the apocalypse not like horses?” Torin questions in disbelief. Did he think I was joking all the other times I said it?
“Because I can ride a subway!”
“This thing has protected you how many times now?” he asks, but that was when the horse was safely in the hourglass.
“Come on. He’s not going to hurt you.” Torin tries to convince me to get closer to the horse, but I stand my ground…
far… far away. He sighs and apparently decides he’ll bring the horse to me because he goes over to it.
“He just needs some gentle reassurance—”
The horse swings his head around and chomps down right on Torin’s bicep.
I gape in horror. “It’s an evil horse!”
“He’s not evil. He’s angry that I killed you. Of course he’d be mad,” Torin says, gently petting the horse’s face while the horse stays clamped to his arm. “It’s okay. You have to understand Riley was destroying—”
The horse throws Torin, and I watch as he crashes into a flowering bush that he flattens. The horse is obviously not satisfied since it charges Torin, who is doing nothing to defend himself besides slowly standing up and remaining far too calm.
“It’s okay, you’re okay. Riley is okay. I promise,” Torin says while the horse charges him.
I rush forward and jump in front of Torin, causing the horse to immediately stop. He throws his head, displeased he can’t flatten the man I love as Torin wraps me up in his arms. “Talk to him.”
“He’s a horse! He doesn’t understand!”
“Do you really think he doesn’t understand?
The connection between the two of you might have been nearly severed and has been strained, but you two have been together since you were created.
” Torin squeezes me tightly while the horse rears uneasily.
“He was still fighting to protect you from inside that hourglass. Think about how much you longed for him and how much comfort it brought. He’s finally free and you can begin repairing that rift in your bond. ”
I can hear him, and he’s making a whole lot of sense, but the horse rearing and striking out in front of me as it prepares to chuck my partner into the next realm makes me feel a bit less reassured.
Torin takes my hand and opens my palm before holding it out to the horse, literally aiming it directly at the mouth of the angry beast. He’s going to bite it right off, sever it from the wrist. I try to close my fingers, but Torin forces my hand flat and lays it right against the muzzle of the beast. The horse hesitates then presses against my black-stained fingers while I feel him breathing me in.
“See? It’s still your rider. He might be a bit sassier than the last time you saw him.
And he seems to have a very strange fear of horses, but I’m confident he’ll get over it,” Torin says, still talking to the horse like the monster could possibly understand what he’s going on about.
All I understand is that the horse is now sniffing me over, deciding which part would be best to eat first.
Torin seems to think being sniffed isn’t enough because he slides my hand up the beast’s face and over the large flat cheek.
“He’s not so bad, now is he?” Torin asks me.
“He’s pretty terrifying.”
“Nah, he’s just a sweet little horsey.”
“He threw you across the garden. He chomped down on you and prepared to rip out your flesh. Oh, and he was going to stomp you into a pancake.”
“Horses can feel fear,” Torin says.
“Well, I hope this one feasts on it because I have plenty to hand over,” I grumble.
“It’s not so scary, is it?” he asks, wrapping me up in one arm and using the other to draw my hand down the creature’s neck. “See? You’ve already calmed him right down.”
“He’s so cute!” Mickey exclaims as he comes rushing over without a care in the world. “Is this your horse, Riley? Oh my gosh. He’s adorable!”
He waltzes right up and starts hugging the thing while I watch in horror.
“He’ll eat you. He already threw Torin across the garden,” I say.
Mickey freezes mid-hug. “You probably could have mentioned that earlier, but ah well. He seems to like me. You do like me, don’t you?”
The horse pretends Mickey doesn’t even exist. He seems to think only two things exist: Torin for him to destroy, and me.
“You’re so dirty. You need a bath,” Mickey says. “I’ll send my crew off to get supplies to brush your new pony!”
I groan. “Please don’t.”
“On it,” Tommy says, and off he goes while I gawk at these traitors. Won’t they just let me suffer in peace? The horse is free to frolic and exist, and I should be free to hide from it.
“Come on,” Torin encourages, taking my hand. The horse immediately shoves between the two of us, separating us so it can eat me and then flatten Torin into a pancake.
I dash over to Torin as the horse stares at us like he’s confused why I would willingly go to such a villain.
“Torin, make it stop looking at me.”
“Refraining from calling him an ‘it’ would probably be the first step to forming a bond,” he says. He pulls me over to the stable, and of course the monster follows us.
Torin wanders around until he finds a bucket that he fills with water while I stare at the horse that hasn’t looked away from me.
It almost makes me feel guilty for not wanting to be near him.
Seeing that I’m staring at him, he steps up to me, and I have to force myself not to back away.
He seems to notice and stops walking. He lowers his head as he watches me, like he’s trying to appear less tall, but the instant Torin comes close, his head shoots back up and his ears flicker back.
“He wants you to pet him,” Torin explains as he grabs me and pulls me in close, using his hand to press mine against the horse’s neck. “See? Look how happy it makes him.”
“I see no change in his expression,” I say.
“Watch his ears, look at the way his face relaxes. Look at how his face softens.”
I gaze at the beast, picking up on none of this, before Mickey returns with Tommy who is laden down with stuff. “How the hell did you get that so fast?”
“It’s because Tommy is the best,” Mickey says, wandering over and setting an apple in my hand.
“Hold it out to him. Put your hand flat and set it on top,” Torin instructs, but I decide I’d rather keep my fingers and toss it to him like a dog. It smacks the horse in the face, and then I decide that I will run back to the palace and lock myself in a room before he exacts his revenge on me.
Torin just nonchalantly picks up the apple that had rolled between the horse’s feet and slaps it back down in my hand. The horse stomps his foot, displeased he missed Torin’s face.
“He’s not a dog.”
“I was just testing,” I say.
Torin forces my fingers flat and slides the apple beneath the horse’s nose.
The horse takes a small bite of it a second before Quill perks up and rushes over, his lips quivering. When he goes in to take it, my horse pins his ears and bites at him.
“SEE! He’s evil!” I declare.
“He’s not evil,” Torin tries to reassure me while Mickey has to console Quill with a different apple.
Tommy is busy mixing soap with the water that’s in the bucket when Vero comes out to observe what’s happening.
“Finally stepping up in the world, I see,” Vero says.
“You can have him,” I offer.
“Nah, Vero’s the horse in this situation. I get to ride him,” Mickey says with a grin.
“How dare you speak to a god in such an undignified manner?” Vero growls.
“I do it because the look on your face brings me absolute joy,” Mickey retorts. “It’s the little things in life that really do it for me.”
“The more pressing issue here isn’t whether or not you’ll ever con Vero into carrying you, it’s that this horse is going to kill us all in our sleep,” I say.
Mickey rolls his eyes. “And he thinks I’m dramatic. Riley, it’s kind of embarrassing at this point. He’s such a cute pony.”
Vero apparently wants to offer his own input on this. “Both of you are embarrassments. Mickey is an embarrassment to the human race, and Riley is an embarrassment to sacred beings.”
I scowl at the man and give him a very flat, “Thanks.”
Torin is busy pouring water down the horse’s back before he hurries over and drags me to the bucket of soapy water. He fits me up with a death glove and parades me over to the horse that he forces me to begin scrubbing.
“He’s not made of glass, you can scrub him harder than that,” Torin says. “You need to get the dirt out. He’s quite filthy.”
The horse stands as still as a statue for the assault.
“He hates it.”
Torin’s eyebrow lifts. “He doesn’t.”
“He clearly does.”
“He very much doesn’t,” Torin says as he helps me scrub and then rinses out the soap. After that, he examines all the stuff Tommy brought before spraying detangler in the beast’s matted mane and tail.
Once it’s had time to soak in, Torin makes me help him brush the mats out. The horse continues to stand completely still, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s aware that every time he moves it freaks me out.
“I really think you should go for a ride. The sooner you fix your bond, the better it’ll be for both of you,” Torin says. “Let me see what tack I still have.”
“Oh, no, that’s okay. I really don’t need to,” I tell him. “Our bond has actually been repaired.”
“You’ve ridden Quill. It’ll be no different.”
I point at Quill, who is busy flipping the latch to a door up and down and up and down. “That thing is not as scary as this horse is.”
“I love that you think the half dragon, half fireball, half horse, half something else creature is less scary than a horse,” Mickey says.
“How can it be four halves of something?” Vero asks. “And they claimed you were the intelligent one.”
“I will fuck you up and show you that I’m also the brutal one,” Mickey threatens as he takes a fighting stance.