A Wish Upon the Stars (Tales From Verania 4)

“What are you doing?”

“I didn’t expect to be meeting dragons,” he said. “I need to look presentable.”

“Oh my gods.”

“I have sex hair. Sex hair, Sam. I am literally about to meet the Great White for the first time, and he’s going to be able to tell that you seduced me.”

“Seduced you? Hey, in case you forgot, you were the one that jumped me because you get a boner every time I do magic!”

“How uncouth,” Dimitri said as the fairies buzzed behind him.

I snorted. “You legit have no room to talk about kinks, dude. Your whole existence is essentially a kink.”

“One of these days, you’re going to start a war just by talking,” Justin told me.

“Your hair looks fine,” I told Ryan, knocking his hand away before he made it worse. “I mean, no offense, but GW isn’t going to care what your hair looks like.”

“GW?” Dimitri asked. “Do you dare insult him by not referring to him as you should? He is a dragon.”

“Sam is a disrespectful little shit,” Kevin said. “Lord Dragon, they call me. The Beast from the East. But does Sam ever refer to me like that? Noooo. Of course not. It’s always Kevin this or Kevin that or Kevin, please put your tongue up my butt so far that you can taste what I had for dinner.”

“Kevin, what the hell!”

“See?” Kevin told Dimitri. “No respect.”

“Like I would sleep with Kevin,” I said to Ryan. “It was only a year. Besides, you saw how tight I was last night. If Kevin had really stuck his tongue up my ass, you would have been able to stick your whole face in there when you did it to me last night.”

“Sam,” Ryan hissed. “Everyone can hear you!”

“Wow,” Gary said. “I need to go masturbate—I mean, I need to go jerk off right now. Oops. That was the same thing. Shit.”

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Dimitri said, flying up in front of Justin’s face. “About… unifying our two kingdoms. What do you say, my Prince? Do you want to be… unified with me?”

“What an offer,” Justin said. “I need to take time to think about it.”

“Of course.”

“I’ve taken enough time. I must respectfully decline your offer.”

Suddenly the sky blackened with clouds and lightning flashed. Randall thundered, “Enough.”

We all stopped talking.

The sun came out again as the clouds dissipated.

“Huh,” I said. “That storm front came out of nowhere perfectly timed with you being angry and—oh. Yeah. Okay, I get it. Related.”

Randall’s eyes were blazing. “You need to take this seriously.”

“Yeah, you guys,” I said, glaring at the others. “Be serious.”

“Sam,” Ryan whispered. “He’s looking at you.”

“That’s because he’s silently asking for me to be his backup while he chews the rest of you out for acting ridiculous.”

“How are you still alive?” Dimitri asked me.

“Sheer force of will,” I said cheerfully. “Anyway, Randall thinks you all suck and you guys should shut up because we’re trying to be for real right now, okay?” I smiled at Randall. “Go ahead. I’ve got you, dude. You don’t need to—are you okay? Like, your face is really red. Are you feeling ill? Are you dying? Man, talk about terrible timing. You can’t die yet. We have some villain ass to kick before your body can collapse in on itself since you are so old.”