“Fuck if I know. You have a mom?”
“I assume,” Riley says, and it occurs to me that he’s never spoken about his parents.
“You never met your parents?”
“No. I know nothing about them. I was raised in foster homes and group homes. I think my magic scared families that considered adopting me, especially when I was young because I didn’t know what I was doing. I’m told that I would just touch someone, borrow their magic, and create chaos with it. They kept me away from people after I demolished the group home we were staying in. No one was hurt, thankfully… but after that, they kind of kept me isolated. I was only allowed to be around people who either didn’t have magic or had very weak magic. I don’t blame them. I could have killed the other children… but I just didn’t understand. I was too young. I knew as I got older that I wasn’t allowed to be around other kids, and I hated the isolation so much.”
I pull him in close so his back is against my chest as I wrap my arms around him. “I’m sorry. That had to have been so hard.”
“It was really lonely. And it made me hate my magic for a long time. Then I met Mickey in a group home when I was about fifteen. Even at that age, I wasn’t allowed to interact with others much, but they also kept him separate from the others because he kept raising undead and freaking the other kids out. The other kids were terrified of him and called him creepy and a necrophiliac, so of course everyone thought he was weird. At that time, it was mostly just him and Tommy, so I don’t know why they were so hard on him. I guess when he was in middle school he was supposed to interview someone for career day, and since he’d decided that he was going to go to school to be a medical examiner, he raised a dead one to hear about it. It… didn’t go over well with the school, but Tommy’s been with him since. I think Mickey and I bonded over being lonely… Sadly, he was tossed somewhere else after he raised our asshole manager’s undead grandpa to berate him. Then I didn’t see him again until the academy.”
“What happened to Mickey’s parents?”
“He doesn’t talk about them,” Riley says. “He’s always kept that part of his life very quiet. He’ll make jokes about bringing them back from the dead, so I know they’ve passed. It wasn’t a good time for either of us. I just know that I’m really lucky to have found you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I squeeze my arms tighter around him and kiss his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.” I run my fingers down his arm as he sighs with pleasure and closes his eyes.
“It feels so good,” he murmurs. I run kisses down to his neck, nibbling it a little while a smile plays at his lips.
“You’ll never be alone again,” I promise him. “I’m right here and Mickey is here… and hopefully Vero won’t stick around for long.”
Riley’s grin widens. “I’m glad you’re making friends.”
“Possibly with Mickey,” I say. “I will not be friends with another god who laid his hands upon your precious body.”
“That sounds sexual when instead he simply murdered me.”
I growl and try not to remember any bit of doing it myself. Instead, I try to soothe my soul by running my hand up and down his naked body. He’s quite pleased as he closes his eyes and sighs contentedly. I smile at him right before he sits up, eyes opening wide, even though Kit doesn’t seem quite sure what he’s sensing.
“What’s wrong?” I ask when he leaps out of the water, scrambling on his hands and knees on the wet surface while he pats around for a towel he can’t find. Kit rushes over to see what’s going on as Riley snatches his clothes, grabs his genet, and just zooms off before I even get out of the hot spring.
“Riley, what the hell!” I shout while I grab my pants and say fuck it to the rest. I race after him, dripping water everywhere, but the man is fast when he wants to be.
I catch just a glimpse of him as he dashes out into the garden and skids to a halt. I finally catch up to him and see what he’s so fixated on.
There’s a pale horse standing in the middle of the garden, his white mane hanging in mats. His eyes are wild as he throws his head and paws at the dirt. A strange white mist is swirling off the ground where he stands with his attention on us.
“Riley, I think you got your horse.”
He stares at him for a long moment before he says, “Oh fuck no,” and tries running for the palace.
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 apocalypsenot 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!”
