Page 52 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
“Can I just say how utterly divine it is that youandDionysus can portal? We’realla lot safer and if I ever freak out and accidentally poof myself somewhere, you can follow me and bring me home.”
“Does that happen a lot?”
Maybe there were downsides to this new portalling ability. Because as much as I tried to have my shit together, sometimes I very much didn’t. I was a hot mess sometimes. My fight-or-flight instincts were completely unreliable. Sometimes, I wanted to fight, sometimes, I needed to run. Other times, I just completely shut down and couldn’t move. It was a toss-up which one it was going to be.
“Oh, not in ages. Pax and Cas know my birthday is always the worst because the Coalition crashed my birthday and took us so they break into my bedroom and comfort me so I don’t. Oh, don’t worry. You’ve basically been able to portal this entire time, even if you didn’t know it. If you haven’t accidentally ended up somewhere when your brain is in the middle of a shit storm and you don’t know if you want to stay or go, it’s probably not going to happen.”
“Did you just Glinda the Good Witch me?”
“Man, fuck that. Glinda was morally reprehensible. She was a fuckingwitch.She could have done everything herself, but she exploited a child. I get child labor laws are probably different in magical fairy tale lands, but who was therealvillain of that story? The Wicked Witch of the West just wanted a family heirloom back after her sister got murdered and was the wizard really doing anything wrong if everyone thought he could help them? I was hoping in one of the sequels, the Munchkins rose up at ate Glinda, but it never happened. It was so disappointing.”
“You have some strong opinions about it.”
“My mom read me the books when I was little. The movie wasn’t out yet, and I missed it while the Coalition had me. My mom was a big bibliophile. She read to me constantly. I got my love of books from her. I’ve devoured everything from the classics to Chuck Tingle. It’s a good thing when I have a deep, visceral reaction like that, even if it’s not what the author intended. It means it made me feel something.”
“You’re going to have to give me your favorite book so I can read it.”
“Girl, I can’t pick. I like different things about them. I like romances with relationships like ours. I used tohatereading books with two love interests and she picked in the end because she never picked the one I liked. But there are books now with relationships just like ours.
“Sometimes, little random things will trigger memories about my time at the Coalition or make me miss my parents. My mom wore Egyptian Musk perfume. She got it at this corner shop run by a family of immigrants. Some of the Egyptian Musk perfumes available now don’t smell the same, but sometimes I’ll smell it and desperately want my mom. Reading brings me back to when I was little and she used to cuddle me while reading to me.”
“Maybe we could snuggle up and read together sometime while we’re looking for your parents.”
“I’d like that, little monster. What are you making anyway?”
“Well, breakfast was usually simple when I was younger. We had bread with figs, but there’s a kind of pancake called Tiganites. They came from this Greek physician who wrote a lot about gladiators’ diets and farting.
“They aren’t like the pancakes you’re used to. It was always my favorite and Dionysus adores them. I make some savory and some sweet because you can do both. Luckily, there’s feta in thefridge for the savory and I can improvise on the sweet, but you top them with honey.”
“Oh, the feta is from a family of demons that has a massive sheep farm. They sell the wool to the people who make clothes. They are old as fuck and obsessed with cheese. They’ve learned to make it in several different countries. They have a barter system going with people who have babies and kids who are lactose intolerant because they are shitty with computers. People help run their website and resets their password when they need it and they get free sheep’s milk for their kids.”
“That’s actually awesome. I still need to see most of the village.”
“We can do that after breakfast. I’m still waiting to hear back from our mystery woman.”
“Awesome.”
Because I really did want to see their village. Well, our village. I could call this place home. There weren’t a lot of supernatural places left in the world.
I felt settled here. I just needed to take out the Coalition and some angels.
We stayed up late talking, plotting, and getting to know each other. We didn’t do anything other than fall asleep snuggling. I felt Benji get up, but he did that sometimes. Since we found our center, I could feel he wasn’t upset. He was going to sit outside with his cats and then come inside and drink an entire pot of coffee.
I slept a little later than I intended, but I checked my bonds. Everyone was content and in the process of waking up. Something smelledfantastic.Dionysus groaned.
“Fuck me. Medusa made Tiganites. You’re in for a treat.”
“She cooked?”
My bear was in overdrive, needing to feed her because of what the Coalition did. I was barely reining him in from puttingher on our lap and hand feeding her because even I knew that was too much. Dionysus chuckled.
“You aren’t going to be able to stop her. She’s like you in that regard. She stress bakes and she’s an amazing little cook. You can see and feel she’s skinny and isn’t okay sometimes, so you’re trying to feed her and comfort her. Butshenotices we’re doing all that and she can feel we’re all stressing about the Coalition and worried about her.
Medusa might be really thin and traumatized right now, but she’s going to be worried about who’s taking care of us while we’re caring for her. Just let her. It makes her feel just as good as it makes you feel to care for your mates.”
“Quick question, do we make a big deal about this?”
“She’s not going to react like Benji. Tell her it’s good if you like it, but don’t go overboard. This is going to be a regular thing.”
