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Aiden looked appalled. “How does someone die walking backward? And… really? A donkey…?”

Aiden’s neck was pinking, and I couldn’t hold back a giggle at his expense.

“You walk backward off a cliff,” E.Z. deadpanned.

“Why would I be walking backward off a cliff?”

“For fun.” E.Z. grinned. “I’m pretty sure it was a tale they made up to scare kids from going onto the Fire Pass.”

“Right. And I don’t want to know about the donkey rumor.”

“I do! I didn’t hear that one,” I egged E.Z. on. I had heard it but wanted to see E.Z.'s presentation and Aiden's reaction. I was trying my hardest not to smile.

“Your death rumor was different?” Aiden asked quietly, leaning in so only I could hear.

“Oh yeah.” I cringed.

“Well, then, you still owe me the story.” Aiden winked and looked back to E.Z., missing my smile.

“So, Aiden read that unicorns were real.”

“How is this now a unicorn story?” Aiden sighed.

E.Z. plastered on his signature grin and kept going. “Someone, somewhere, somehow created a unicorn by allegedly giving a horse elemental magic during conception, creating the first and only unicorn. They couldn’t reproduce the experiment. Aiden thought he may have figured out the solution.”

Aiden groaned, clearly not looking forward to E.Z. finishing.

I couldn’t wait to hear more.

“Aiden read anything he could on the topic.” E.Z. barreled forward, his arms splayed and gesturing every which way while he talked. “Then he learned that male donkeys can mate with female horses to make mules. He figured mating a donkey himself would create another species entirely, sure that his magic would automatically transfer to the young.” E.Z. mimed the motion of sex, holding his arms in the air like he had a mule in his lap. “He did it for science.”

I was pretty certain E.Z. was ad-libbing this whole story.

“Why did he choose a donkey?” I asked, smiling broadly. “You said it was a female horse that makes the mule.”

“It was there.” E.Z. shrugged. “He didn’t have a horse.”

“Right,” Aiden drawled.

E.Z. exaggeratedly cringed. “Goddess, it has to hurt to have your cock chomped off by dull teeth.”

I choked on my own spit. “Aiden died from having his penis bitten off?”

“It’s hard to say. A series of events did lead to Aiden having his penis bitten off, but I can’t say if that was the cause of death. The donkey wasn’t happy about the union. The donkey’s owner also wasn’t happy about the union.” Leaning back on his arms, E.Z. continued, “Could be blood loss. Could be when the owner shot him. Could be the shame of trying to mount a donkey and losing your cock. Who knows?”

“So, I was apparently castrated and then shot?” Aiden drawled, not finding humor in this rumor like E.Z. and I did.

That rumor tickled me pink, and I laughed along with E.Z. with little shame. But by the end, Aiden was chuckling right along with us.

Chapter17

Kaia

“We need to talk,” Griffin murmured when I approached the fire.

The food smelled so good. I hadn’t eaten since morning, which consisted of nibbling on a breakfast bar while we rode and giving most of it to E.Z..

“I know it’s important that we have a conversation about this. And not just us, the whole team,” I said. Griffin didn’t need to tell me what he wanted to talk about. It could only be one thing. My power.