“Then why are you still touching him?”
He looks over to where his hand is pressed against the horse’s neck and hastily pulls it back.
“To be like, ‘Whoa, horse, don’t eat me,’ kind of thing. Or like, ‘You have to go through this hand to try.’”
“Sure, sure.”
I pull him in for a soft kiss. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You’re going to give me too big of a head, saying shit like that,” he warns me.
I give him another kiss and he smiles at me. “Soooo… about nailing you in the corner… that still available?”
Riley laughs. “How about somewhere in the palace? This area seems a bit too open to the public.”
“Deal,” I say as I decide to unsaddle the horse as fast as I can, planning to show Riley how to do it himself later when there aren’t pressing matters to attend to.
Chapter Thirty
Riley
I’m sitting in what seems to be town square, having a stare-off with the horse.
He’s not planning on backing down and neither am I.
“What do you think about just handing over my powers without me riding you? We could walk around just like… touching. Like my hand on your neck, presto,” I say. “My butt is sore; my back is sore.”
“I wasn’t that rough with you last night,” Torin teases from where he sits next to me.
“The damn horse is painful to ride.”
“Not sure how. He moves so slow I can’t even tell if he’s moving sometimes,” Torin says as he also stares at the horse. Sigma flicks his ears back and clearly glowers at Torin before turning his happy face back to me.
This is the third day Torin’s made me ride the horse. Every time I do, I canfeelthe connection, but it’s like there’s something missing that should link us.
“Do you think the connection between us has been permanently severed?” I ask. “I guess at least the stain hasstopped spreading, and I can use my magic for significantly longer before the tremors start.”
Torin leans into me, his shoulder pressed against mine. “I wish I knew the answer to that, but for now, all you can do is keep trying to mend it. It sounds like at some point you were stronger than Aemon. Let’s hope that means you can fix whatever he did to you.”
I nod as I reach out and slide my fingers between his, squeezing them gently. It’s nice to just sit and relax for a while. Since the Obsian people came here, we’ve spent every moment helping rebuild the town. We couldn’t have done it so quickly without the help of the undead, but quite a few of the houses are already livable. But what’s surprised me the most is that only a handful of those from the capital have chosen to leave for my world. The rest have stayed.
Torin holds up a bracelet made of some kind of fiber and beads. “Story threatened to make a shrine for me if I refused to take their ‘offering.’”
“That’s really neat.” I pick it up and immediately feel magic rushing through it. “What magic is this?”
“He said it had a protection spell on it,” Torin says as he slides it over my wrist.
“Why would I wear it? They made it for you.”
“I told them that it was very kind, but if they didn’t mind, I wanted to put it on the person most precious to me so that it could protect them. Which is quite obviously you.”
I can’t help but smile when I hear that. “You’re too sweet sometimes.”
“‘Sometimes’?”
His reaction turns my smile into a grin. “Yes! Last night you were not sweet. I was all, ‘I’m tired,’ and you were all, ‘But look at my naked flesh.’”
“I wasn’t even trying to seduce you! I literally just stepped out of the bathroom and you jumped me.”
