Gary was trotting toward us, followed by Tiggy, who carried a person under either arm as carefully as he could.
Rosemary and Joshua Haversford.
My mother and father.
“Do you hear this ruckus?” Gary said, standing in front of me, nostrils flaring. “There I was, partway through my beauty bedtime regimen, which you know I don’t need because I am beautiful and always have been, when what should I hear? Alarms, Sam. Alarms. And I would say that my first thought would have been for you or the safety of the King, but that would be a lie. No, my first thought was about me. How this would affect me. Sam. Sam. I have come to the startling realization that I am a self-centered bitch and even better, that I would do nothing to change it.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Whose idea was it to grab my parents and make sure they were safe?”
“Mine, of course,” Gary said.
“Ah. Not as self-centered as you might think, then.”
Gary frowned at that. “Godsdammit. I care too much. It is my gift. It is my curse.”
“I helped,” Tiggy said. “I have feelings too. Many, many feelings.” He squeezed my parents tighter to him. “I have feelings right now.”
“He does,” my mother said, patting an olive-skinned hand against his chest. “He told us that he would smash anything that would try and hurt us.”
My father looked grumpy. “I don’t see why I had to be carried. Especially in front of all the knights. This is so embarrassing. I can smash things too. I’m almost as big as Tiggy.” Which really wasn’t too much of a stretch. My father’s people came from the snowy North, and it showed by the sheer bulk my father carried with him.
“I love you, tiny human,” Tiggy told my father.
“Gah,” Dad said. “I can’t even with your face right now. It’s unfair. I’m trying to be cross and you’re just sitting here looking like you do. I don’t even care if the boys saw this now. You can carry me all you want to.”
Tiggy looked inordinately pleased at such a prospect.
&
nbsp; “Where’s Kevin?” I asked.
Gary rolled his eyes. “Said something about defending my honor and blah, blah, blah. He’s probably circling above the castle right now, snapping at nothing and calling it a success. I love him with a fire that burns within me. Now, are you going to tell me what’s going on, or do I have to choke the life out of you?”
“That escalated quickly,” Pete said.
“It usually does with them,” Ryan said. “Let’s just be thankful Gary isn’t glittering yet.”
“Do I need to glitter?” Gary asked him, narrowing his eyes. “Does Gary need to bring the—”
“Nope,” Ryan said. “Absolutely not. Everything is fine. There’s nothing—”
And since I felt just awful about this whole thing (and was probably not the most sensible person to have existed), I blurted, “A strange woman broke into the castle and bad-touched me and I had a vision about a white dragon in the middle of the Dark Woods and then Ryan domestically violenced me back to reality and now we think there’s an assassin trying to murder all of our faces.”
It was rather quiet after this pronouncement.
Then:
“You got to third base with a woman?” Gary screeched.
“I didn’t domestically violence you. Stop saying that,” Ryan snapped.
“I smash Knight Delicious Face?” Tiggy said, frowning at Ryan.
“Assassins?” Dad asked. “I hope they don’t try and assassinate anyone I know. Why, that would just be rude and uncalled-for. And cool, because I’ve never seen an assassin before.”
“Visions of white dragons?” Mom repeated. “That’s not ominous or anything. And why can’t you have visions of white weddings like I want you to have? You would look so good in white.”
“What woman?” Pete asked, and since he was the only sane one out of the bunch (mostly), I turned to him.