The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

It was then I remembered I was on the back of a dragon, a knight’s arms around my waist, a half-giant’s arms around both of us, and an apparently grumpy unicorn clutched in the dragon’s claws, held tightly against his chest.

“Sam,” Gary said, “I am talking to you. The least you can do is acknowledge me when I’m bitching about something. You know I don’t like being ignored, and when I don’t like something, I tend to make sure everyone knows about it.”

“You don’t say,” Kevin growled. “Because you haven’t been going on and on like this since you woke up an hour ago.”

“Excuse you?” Gary said, outraged. “I’ll have you know that there are many people who would just die to be able to hear me speak about anything. Everyone knows that words from a unicorn are like being touched by the gods.”

“Bad-touched, maybe.”

“Do you want me to throw up all over you again? Because I can. I’ll make you look like a motherfucking rainbow by the time we land, you overgrown sex lizard.”

“This has been going on for quite a while,” Knight Commander Ryan Foxheart—the dreamiest dream that had ever been dreamed—whispered in my ear. “I never thought I’d say this, but I really wish they get over this and go back to having disgustingly inappropriate sex.”

“We’re doomed either way,” I muttered as Ryan kissed my cheek.

“So doomed,” Tiggy agreed from behind us. “Good sleep?”

I laid my head back on Ryan’s shoulder so I could look up at my friend. He grinned down at me. He had bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept a wink since we’d left the gypsy city of Mashallaha the day before. Knowing Tiggy, he probably stayed awake all night just to make sure Ryan and I didn’t fall off Kevin’s back in our sleep. We seemed secure, but I knew Tiggy probably wouldn’t have trusted even that, given that we’d never done something like this before. “It was okay,” I said, and Tiggy leaned down to press a wet and messy kiss against my forehead.

Leathery black wings rose up and then fell back down before they stretched wide, coasting on air. The wind whipped around us, but I’d grown used to the sound of it, so much so that I’d been able to at least get a few hours of sleep. I was stiff and sore, but I thought it had more to do with the fact that a dickbag named Myrin had kicked my ass until I’d essentially exploded the both of us by filling an entire lake with lightning. I could feel the scars from the lightning across my chest. The scars themselves didn’t hurt—not like most of the rest of me—but I was aware of them, the way they pulled against my skin every time I shifted my weight. The scars felt warm, almost like they were heated just underneath my chest. But even I could admit they made me look super badass, so I wasn’t too worried about them.

“How much longer?” I asked no one in particular.

“I’m hungry,” Gary said, his scarf flapping around his head to keep his mane from suffering the effects of wind-rape.

“I offered to fly over a lake and hold you near the water so you could scoop up fish in your mouth,” Kevin said. “But you to

ld me that was the stupidest idea you’d ever heard.”

“Well, yeah. You expected me to hold my head underwater with my mouth open and hope that something just came right inside.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened.”

“Ha,” Tiggy said. “Yuck.”

“We’re still over the Dark Woods,” Ryan said. “We probably won’t reach Meridian City until sometime this afternoon.”

“I’m fast as shit,” Kevin said proudly.

“You okay to keep going?” I asked him. “You’ve been going all night.”

He turned his head back toward us, a wide, lecherous grin on his face. “Obviously you know nothing about the virility of dragons. You don’t need to worry about me, pretty. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve gone all night. And it won’t be the last.”

“I set myself up for that one,” I admitted. “I have no one to blame but myself. Sorry. Sorry, everyone. I made Kevin gross again. My bad.”

“It’s not like it’s that hard,” Gary said. “He’s gross all the time.”

“You literally have no room to talk,” I said. “Do I need to remind you that you incorporated my name into your sexual perversions? Not to mention that none of us will ever be able to eat muffins again, much less ever step inside a bakery. Do you understand what you’ve done? You’ve ruined pastries. And my name.”

“Whatever,” Gary said. “I am a free and single independent unicorn who don’t need no mens. I’ve sown my oats, settled down in a semimonogamous relationship, got my heart shattered into a billion pieces, put said heart back together, and now will unsow the aforementioned oats so that I may find new ways to sow them all over again.”

“And that’s what I’m paying you alimony and child support for?” Kevin said, sounding horribly affronted. “So you can sow some young new thing? For shame, Gary. For. Shame. And let’s not even begin to discuss how it was you that broke my heart. And the heart of our son.”

“Nope,” I said. “Still not even involved. Also, you don’t pay alimony or child support because I am not your child.”

“It’s okay, champ,” Kevin said, glancing back at me distractedly. “I promise I’ll try and make it to your sportsball game next weekend, assuming I don’t get called into the office. We’re working on a big project, though, so I might have to take a rain check. Your stepdaddy is a very important dragon with many responsibilities.”

“You know,” Ryan said, “with everything that’s gone down—evil wizards, villains, sand mermaids, bad-touching grandmas, jerks named Ruv who never put on clothes like they’re supposed to—I think the fact that Kevin and Gary getting together somehow made them think they’re your parents is still the one thing that baffles me the most.”