Page 6

Zac

“Should have taken the psychedelic confetti when I had the chance,” my mate utters before sitting up slowly. She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes, then frantically looks around the room. “Where is he?”

“Depends on who you're looking for,” Adam tells her as he squats near her. He pulls her into the V of his legs, wrapping an arm around her shoulders until her back is resting against his chest.

“The… you know. Unicorn guy. Salad something or other.” She raises her arm like that explains everything.

“You must have been dreaming, my lady,” Leo tells her as he crawls toward her. It escapes nobody's notice that the demon’s eyes are locked in on Leo’s backside as he does so.

Delaney frowns and looks down at her arm, then holds it up for us all to see. “Then why do I have a new mark? It might have been a dream, but it was also real. She said…I think I'm losing my mind.”

Jackson reaches a hand down to help her up, letting Delaney stand slowly as he braces her hips with his hands. “Let's not do that particular trust exercise again, hmm? The one where we throw out crazy numbers about potential mates?”

“I mean, it was worth a shot. Can't blame a girl for being curious about how many men she’ll have to make fall irrevocably in love with her.”

“You going to tell us what happened in this dream of yours?”

Delaney stops mid-step and turns to me, surprised I’m there.

“Oh. That's right. We’re a thing now, aren’t we?

Good news, I know where your parents are.

Bad news, I'm gonna have to deal with a megalomaniac goddess for us to have access to them.

You know, kind of par for the course for my family, I think.

Really this could have been so much worse.

I don't think anybody's going to expect me to eat her at the very least, so things are looking way up versus my mom’s quest.”

“Quest?” I ask, trying not to be too shocked that she's so casually mentioned she knows where my parents are. I pull up my collar, my hands start getting clammy, and I can feel my snake trying to get out. That's probably a terrible idea in this dorm room.

“Hey, hey, hey, let's just take it easy, okay? Take a breath for me there, Zacky. Here, you want to put your face in my tits while you do it? That always helps August when he's upset.”

“It's true, it does,” he calls from across the room. He's sitting on one of the armchairs in the living room, ankle crossed over his knee as he taps on it with a finger. Apparently, he's past the phase where all the crazy things that happen to this woman surprise him.

It's magical though because my face gets shoved into that glorious cleavage and I do calm down. “Umph cjjkoekkk sdu?”

She pulls my face away from her so that I can speak clearly. “Try that again for me?”

“What do you mean you got a quest? And why does it seem like you expected this to happen?”

“ Expect is probably not the right word.

I guess I'm just not surprised, that's all.

Maybe it's because I grew up hearing my mother's tales of defeating monsters, or about the trials my uncle and his cute poly group had to go through before they could settle down, or maybe my family is just really unlucky.” She shrugs.

“Either way, apparently the fact that I have this many mates from this realm isn't more than I can handle, because Fairyunicorn Goddess—”

“Okay, back up,” Cory interrupts, putting a hand in the air. “Did you say... unicorn ?”

Delaney nods. “Pretty standard quest stuff. The realm is dying, I’m their only hope, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Oh, I’m supposed to make him happy... that would probably be easier to do if I knew where he went.

Maybe he didn't get sent over here with me?

No, she said that she was sending him. Why wouldn't she send him to my living room?”

“My love? I think I found this unicorn of yours.” We all walk toward where Leo is peeking out of the blinds, afraid to actually go outside though, it seems. He takes a few steps back when we're all close so he's not pressed against the glass. Sure enough, from what we can see anyway, there’s a big, magnificent unicorn grazing on the grass right in front of Delaney’s dorm.

He's got a light blue sheen to his coat, horn, and mane, which matches the color on Delaney’s new mate mark perfectly.

I already feel lost in this mate group, and now we're adding more. Perfect.

There's a flock of female students surrounding the unicorn, pouring out of the dorm room as we continue to stare, and if this is the shifter unicorn that she's supposed to be mated to, he seems to have zero qualms about getting female attention.

In fact, he’s throwing his mane back like he’s in a shampoo commercial as he makes eye contact with her window, no doubt knowing Delaney can see, and then he's putting his head into the sea of bodies around him, completely loving everything about the situation.

“How dare he!” Leo exclaims, clutching nonexistent pearls.

“Do you want me to smite him, Delaney? We don't have unicorns in Hell, would be a big hit in the never-ending carnival section. We’ve got this great fun house full of all you can eat stale chips and mostly-melted ice cream he’d be perfect next to.”

Delaney sighs in exasperation, counts backward from 10, and then raids the fridge and comes out with a bag of carrots.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask to get a mate that actually likes me from the start? One that isn’t stuck on the side of a building?

” she says as she throws a kiss over her shoulder to Leo.

“If you're going to confront him, know that we're all coming with you.” I stay close to her just in case she tries to fight me on that.

Jackson puts an arm around my shoulders, patting me. “That's the spirit. It's mate bonding weekend anyway. We'll get this guy under control Delaney, don't you worry.”

“Honestly, that's what I'm afraid of.”

And with that cryptic comment, we're marching down the endless stairs to get outside, making me wonder why we've never upgraded this dorm. My joints hate the fact I'm going to be using these stairs so much from here on out. Could I convince her to move into the headmaster's house with me?

Maybe it's best that I wait longer and get in her good graces first.

The troop of women all surrounding this unicorn is almost deafening when we walk out of the front doors of the dorm hall; squealing, taking selfies, some even attempting to climb on his back for a ride.

Delaney nips that in the bud, though. “Thanks ladies, you can go now. That's very kind of you to keep my mate occupied while I got him a snack.”

“Gross, we're mating animals now?”

I bite my tongue; it wouldn't be good to go around insulting my students. Probably.

Thankfully, Adam has no issue doing that.

“It's a shifter, you dumbass. You guys are sitting here rubbing your bodies all over him, and you attend a magical university. Not one of you thought for a second ‘hmm, we have other shifters, and a magical unicorn that just came out of nowhere. Maybe they have the ability to turn into a human, too?’”

Delaney backhands Adam on the chest lightly. “Be nice,” she tells him while definitely not laughing at the abundant lack of common sense around us.

“Where did he come from, though?” one of the girls asks, still riveted by the light blue beast in front of her.

In their defense, I didn't know unicorn shifters were real. I'm half tempted myself to run my chest all over him and inhale to see if he smells like swirly lollipops.

That’s likely another thing that would be frowned upon to do in front of my students.

I get closer to Delaney, resting a hand on her hip. I'm trying not to feel the heat of the students’ eyes around me at the gesture. “Did you say his name was Salad ?”

The pony snorts, making blue glitter fall out of his nostrils, but I'm thinking it's a display of anger. Still beautiful. Then he transforms back into a human, hands on his hips and wearing something that looks very toga-like. “It’s Saladriel . Not Salad. Why would I be named after a leafy vegetable? That’s just offensive. Even more offensive than being sent here, to your stupid, non-cloud world where I have to play nice with her . Figures. Just when I was about to get called up for my spot in line to sort out the recycling we import for fun. You ruined everything!”

Saladriel tries to stomp off, but quickly realizes he doesn't know where anything is, has no belongings, no money, no shelter, no nothing.

So, he ends up just sitting on the grass and then plopping backwards to tantrum some more.

He even kicks his legs for a bit of dramatic flair. “This is so the opposite of fun!”

“I should probably mention,” Delaney says as we sit there and watch him act like a defiant toddler, “that apparently where he's from, this cloud city—”

“It's called Glittertopia!”

Delaney points at him and laughs, accepting the interjection and yelling a thank you to the manchild.

“The goddess said they are all very... unhappy there.

The race is failing because unicorns need to be happy to thrive.

I'm supposed to... make him happy? I don't really know, she didn't give me any details.

She said something about games, too. But like, I have no idea what kind?

Also, I think there're more unicorns there she's going to mate to me, so we should be prepared for that.

Really, let's just be prepared for anything and everything, and we won't get thrown off.

Okay? Okay. Who has questions? Put your hands down, I can't answer them.”

A lot of people are still staring, but the crowd is dispersing now that they realize that their magnificently magical unicorn is actually just a man who can't handle the situation he's been thrust into.

Which, fair. I'm sure it's very confusing to go from the great time he was apparently having where he came from, to sitting on our lawn.

I walk towards him and sit down cautiously, trying not to spook him.

“Hello, I'm Zac Aspis. I’m the headmaster here.

Can't say I know anything about your species, but I'm sure we can get things sorted out for you.

I imagine you're feeling very... disoriented. I want to make sure you get taken care of, alright Saladriel?”

He grunts, but his posture softens a bit. “You can call me Salad. What's the deal with the woman?” I can feel the glare and the suppressed laughter from everyone behind me, because after the big fuss he actually does go by Salad, but whatever. I digress.

“Delaney? She's a student here. Also, my mate. All of us are mated to her, actually.”

“Awesome possum, so we can all be confused together,” he says grumpily. He leans close, like he's going to whisper a secret to me. “I have no idea what to do with a woman. Dating isn't fun, so we don't really do it.”

“What do you like to do for fun, then?”

Delaney and everybody else continue to give us some room, which seems to be helping Salad— nope can't call him that. How about Drew? Yes, I will call him Drew. At least in my head. Drew seems to relax so I give him a little bit of space.

“My favorite activity lately has been painting my wall two square feet at a time and watching it dry.

It's fascinating the way that the color shifts as it goes through its various stages of curing.

Sometimes we'll get really wild and do it at sunset, so that the colors change even more as the light glows a whole rainbow of colors outside my window.”

I look to my new group of found family for help.

But what do I do with that? If this is what the unicorns are doing for fun, it's no wonder they need some outside help.

The problem is, I fear that their goddess may have gone too far in recruiting Delaney, because she's so wild that they’re going to be terrified every time she so much as speaks. It's pure system overwhelm.

“That sounds like... fun. We could do that here, too.”

His eyes light up as he spins to me. “We could? Truly, you mean it?”

I look to my people again, and they’re very pointedly not looking at me; Delaney is doing her best not to pull out her hair, but I can tell she's in over her head as well.

Hey, if the guy wants to watch paint dry, who am I to stop him? “Yes. As a matter of fact, we were talking about wanting to paint Delaney’s room. Would you like to see it? If you're one of her mates, you’ll be staying there, too. Maybe you could help us… pick a paint color?”

He springs up immediately, clapping his hands in glee. “I knew that goddess wouldn't do me dirty. This is wonderful! Oh, I hope you have beige 2.1. If I have to, I'll go with khaki, but that's always been a bit dark for my tastes. We're not here to do anything crazy you, know.”

“Right. I guess we’re... painting the room, then. Great.”