Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

The strange woman crossed her arms and tapped her foot as she looked down at the lump of evil mage on the floor. “Release him,” she ordered Brendon.

Brendon looked at me, like I had any idea what to do in this situation. Since the mage seemed subdued, I shrugged and nodded. Brendon released him and came to me on the bed, wincing as he examined my bleeding cuts. Thankfully the blast had shattered the windows outward, so only a few shards were scattered around the room and the only wounds I had were from the sword.

“Are you alright?” he asked, gently cupping my face.

I gazed up at him, wishing he’d close the short distance between us and kiss me.

The mage’s flailing interrupted the heated moment. It took him time to untangle himself from his cloak, then he looked up at the woman with wide, worried eyes. “Darling, what are you doing here?”

The woman pursed her lips and said, “You’ve been gone all day.”

The mage stayed on the floor, not-quite prostrating himself but the lower position did have a touch of appeasement to it. “I told you I would be,” he said, sounding a little wounded. “And even left a note, in case you didn’t remember our conversation.”

The woman continued to stare down at him, her eyes narrowed in anger. And then her lip wobbled.

Oh no.

“You left me,” she began, voice trembling, eyes wet, “all alone on our vacation.”

Cereal scrambled to his feet. “Honey, I didn’t mean to—”

A light flush touched her cheeks and tears dotted her sooty eyelashes, somehow making her blue eyes look wider and brighter. “Is your work more important than me?”

“Darling, no, never!” the mage wrapped her in his arms, stroking her back and hair soothingly. “I’m so sorry, dearest. I should never have left you alone. But the wedding … well …”

Franny gasped. “You were trying to ruin it, weren’t you?” she asked, plunking her hands on her pink-clad hips. “So you could—”

“No, Franny, don’t!” I shouted, creating an X with my arms to signal: stop fucking talking!

“—disrupt the Kingdom Defense Spell and allow evil to freely enter our lands again!”

Cereal briefly pulled away from his wife. “The what?”

I put my head in my hands and groaned, “Franny, he didn’t know about the spell.”

“A defense spell, you say.”

When I looked up again, the mage was rubbing his beard in a classical evil-thought gesture, eyes gleaming with the possibilities.

His diabolical plotting was interrupted when his wife burst into noisy tears. “Five seconds! You can’t even go five seconds without thinking about work! You care more about your work than you do me!”

“Oh, no, honey, no, I don’t.” He fumbled over his words and pulled her back into a tighter hug. Glowering over his shoulder, he mouthed ‘move it.’

Brendon and I quickly vacated the bed. His hand slipped into mine, clutching it like he didn’t want to risk me somehow slipping away.

Cereal settled on the bed, cradling his wife in his lap, and cooed soothing words at her.

“You p-p-promised,” she kept saying.

“I know, I know, I made a mistake.”

Brendon, Franny, and I silently backed away from the room, closing the door to give them some privacy.

Downstairs we found the imp rubbing his head and sulking in one corner. A flash of light drew my attention outside, where Kit chased around a much-diminished shadow figure with a torch, cackling like a wild thing.

“Kit, stop tormenting the evil minion and come inside,” I called.

Kit paused and turned to me with a furrowed brow. “But Rick—” She blinked and exclaimed, “Oh! Rick! You’re alright!”

“Your boss is currently comforting his wife,” I told the shadow. “I think you’re off the clock.”

The minion disappeared in a blink. I don’t know if it actually left, or if it just blended with the other shadows around it. Either way it was gone, and that meant Kit could stop chasing it and join us.

“Got a few scratches on you,” she noted as she entered the tower.

“I’ll bandage him up,” Brendon assured her, leading me into the bathroom. “If the mage and his wife come down, don’t let them leave.”

Kit saluted him and closed the door, which was really all anyone needed to do, then sat on the couch with Franny.

Brendon closed the door to the bathroom, leaving us alone in the small space. His eyes roamed over me. At first, I thought he was cataloging my potential wounds, but he spent the longest time looking at my face.

Gods, if he kept looking at me like that—

We moved at the same time. He cupped my face, probably afraid to put his hands anywhere else, and I clutched the front of his shirt as our lips met in a fierce clash. He slowed down, treating me delicately, like he was afraid too much pressure would break me.

Since he didn’t look wounded, I had no such worries. I explored his mouth with lips and tongue while my hands roamed under his shirt to feel his tense muscles and soft, warm skin. The pain from my own wounds faded to background noise compared to the strain of my erection against my too-tight pants.

Brendon pulled away from me and groaned my name, clasping one of my wrists, leaving the other free to unbutton his pants. “We should talk,” he panted.

I hesitated because dammit, he was right. Plus there was the whole ‘my sister is just outside the door and an evil mage is still upstairs’ issue. Talking was more important than kissing.

We spoke at the same time.

“I don’t want to—”

“—marry you.”

I blinked up at him, confused. I couldn’t tell what he’d actually said, but the words jumbled together sounded like, “I don’t want to marry you.”

I tried again.

“I want to—”

“—stop the wedding.”

Gods dammit. I reached up and covered his mouth to prevent any other overlapping sentences. “Brendon, this is probably the worst proposal ever”—locked in a bathroom in the magic tower where I’d kept him for a week right after an evil mage almost killed us—“but will you marry me?”

He grinned against my palm. Still holding onto one wrist, he grabbed the other one and pinned them above my head. “I thought you’d never ask,” he murmured before kissing me again, deeper this time.

Which would have been perfect if he hadn’t accidentally pressed against my wound, sending a bolt of completely non-pleasurable pain through my chest. I made an involuntary sound—I wouldn’t have stopped that kiss for anything less in the world—and he immediately pulled away.

“Let’s treat your wound first,” he said, putting a few feet between us and searching for the first-aid kit.

“Alright,” I grumbled, “but I’m not waiting for the fucking wedding to consummate it.”

He looked at me oddly and said, “It’s tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, that’s hours away.”

He chuckled, the sound deep and delicious, and kissed me again—just a peck on the lips, not nearly enough to satisfy me. “I can’t argue with that. Now, hold still, this is going to sting.”