Chapter Six
Darak
“And then the judge will say, ‘Do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife to have and to hold, blah, blah, blah,’ and you say…” The female directing Lexi’s sister’s wedding cued me to speak.
“No. She’s not my mate. That’s my mate.” I pointed to Lexi who watched from the field of chairs. Arranged in rows, most of the two hundred chairs were vacant, but I’d been told that tomorrow they would be filled with guests who would witness the mating ceremony. There would be more people at the ceremony than populated some of the tribes on Dakon.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake! This is just for practice.” The wedding planner rolled her eyes and sighed. “Not for real.”
“It’s okay,” Toni said. “He doesn’t need to say anything. He’s not the one who needs the rehearsal anyway.”
On my planet, there was no such thing as a practice mating. If you asked a female to be your mate, and she said yes, you were bonded. No matter how slight the chance, I couldn’t risk getting mated to the wrong female. When Toni’s future mate, Phillip, had been delayed and hadn’t arrived in time for the rehearsal, she’d asked me if I’d take his place during the practice. I’d assumed I would only have to stand in front of the roundish, open structure called a gazebo—not recite special words to my mate’s sister.
I sought out Lexi. Heat flared across the distance, and arousal purred within me. As my horns tingled, I wished she stood here with me, and this was for real. I’d recognized she was my true intended the instant I met her, but she’d been slower to acknowledge the special feelings between us. The physical aspect had always been there, but her heart had taken longer to open. Ever since yesterday, I’d sensed the change in her, evidenced by her soft, bemused gaze, her warm smiles, the way she found little ways to touch me.
One day soon, when the time was right, I would ask her to be my mate in the Dakonian way, and we would seal the commitment in the Terran way.
“All right, then. After Phillip says, ‘I will,’ the judge will say, ‘Do you, Toni, take Phillip to be your lawfully wedded husband, blah, blah, blah.’ You say…”
“I will,” Toni said.
“Then the judge says a few words about the circle symbolizing eternity. The ring bearer steps forward—ring bearer, where are you?” The wedding helper sighed in exasperation and scanned the garden area.
“Jaxon? Get your butt over here!” shouted one of Toni’s female attendants. Her son was supposed to carry the mating rings on a pillow. Presently, the kit chased a flower girl through the rows of chairs. I had a hunch he had picked out his future mate.
At his mother’s shout, he darted to the gazebo and waited.
His mother glared at him. “Sorry, Toni. He’ll behave better tomorrow. Won’t you?”
He nodded.
“No problem,” Toni said.
“Then you hand your bouquet to your maid of honor so you can exchange rings,” the planner instructed.
Toni mimed handing flowers to the female next to her. They giggled.
“The judge will have you place the rings on each other’s fingers then pronounce you husband and wife. Okay, everybody. Let’s walk through this once more, this time with music. Flower girls, I want you to practice gently tossing the petals on the ground.” She demonstrated with a graceful twist of her hand. “Don’t wind up your arm and pitch them like a fastball.”
Her phone chirped, she stared at the screen and then spoke into it. “Yes? Oh, wonderful! Hold on a sec.” She looked at Toni. “We got the original flowers for the gazebo. I need to take this call and finalize the arrangements. Take five, everybody—Er, make it ten, but be back on time! Don’t everybody scatter.”
The bridal attendants and the men who would represent the groom stepped down to the chairs. Lexi and Toni’s father came over. “I still can’t believe my little girl is getting married. It seems like you were only this high yesterday.” He held his hand at hip level. “I love you, honey.”
“Love you, too, Dad. Thanks for taking off work today to be here.”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss my little girl’s wedding—or the rehearsal.”
He squinted at my head through lenses perched on his nose. “Your horns are fascinating. I’ll bet they’re enervated with a good blood supply. Stronger than cartilage, but not bone, either. I’d like to examine them sometime, if you wouldn’t mind. Maybe run some tests and do an analysis of your DNA.”
“Absolutely not!” Lexi bounded up the stairs to slip her arm around my waist. “He’s not a lab animal, Dad. He’s a person. He’s my boyfriend!”
“It’s all right,” I said. Boyfriend? She’d never called me that before. The word had special significance on Earth. Not quite the same as mate, but closer than friend. I hid a grin of pleasure.
“No, it’s not all right.” She steamed.
“Sorry, honey, I apologize. I got carried away.” Her father kissed her. “I haven’t had the opportunity to study aliens, and finding out what their horns are made of could potentially help my patients. But, I promise, hands off.” He shrugged at me apologetically. “Sorry.”
“It really is all right.” I liked Lexi and Toni’s father. He often seemed distracted, but appeared to care for both his daughters.
Lexi scowled. “The only person who puts their hands on Darak is me.” She colored. “Okay, that might be too much information.”
Her father laughed and hugged her. “It’s so good to see you. You haven’t been home for a while, and I missed you. Don’t be such a stranger. It shouldn’t take a wedding to bring you home.”
“I know…and you know why.” Her gaze shifted to her mother instructing a helper in the proper way to tie bows to a chair.
“Let’s talk for a minute, okay?” he said.
Lexi glanced at me.
“I’ll take good care of him,” Toni said.
Lexi moved away with her father, her posture stiff, wary. This family reminded me of a deep pool—an unperturbed surface concealing swift, dangerous undercurrents.
“She’ll be okay,” Toni said. “You really care about her, don’t you?”
“I love her,” I said emphatically. “She’s my mate.”
“You haven’t known each other long. How can you be sure?”
“I recognize in her the other half of me. We are two pieces of a whole. Neither the shortness of time nor a length of it can change what we are. I may need to learn about her, but I do not need to learn to love her.”
The more I did discover about her, the deeper my devotion grew. She was smart and funny and beautiful and brave. She acted tough to protect her soft and vulnerable side. I intended to show her how wonderful she was so she never faltered in her belief in herself. If I could, I would protect her from everything that would hurt her, like doubt, insecurity, muggers, and even her own family.
I watched her now with her father, their heads bent together. Lexi reached up and brushed her face as if she was crying, but she was smiling, too, and then she and her father hugged.
Her mother paused in instructing the helper to eye Lexi and her father and then me. Her calm, poised expression never wavered, but I could sense the enmity from across the distance.
“Your mother doesn’t like me,” I commented.
Toni pressed her lips together. “What has she said to you?”
“Nothing. She has been very polite.” There was no behavior or comment I could call out and address, yet the disapproval felt as solid as stone.
“That’s Mother.” Toni twisted her mouth. “I’m sorry. It’s not you. She wouldn’t like anyone either of her daughters chose unless she had picked him out and preapproved him.”
My heart gladdened at her words. “So, you think Lexi has chosen me?”
Toni looked surprised for a moment, but then said, “Yeah. She brought you home to meet the family—she’s never done that before—and she stares at you, touches you all the time.”
“Okay, everyone. Let’s begin again at the top. Attendants, groomsmen, father of the bride, groom’s stand-in…” The wedding planner motioned at us to return to the house so we could walk again.
I headed back, but Lexi intercepted me. Her eyes were bright. “You doing okay?” she said.
“Fine. How are you?” I asked. “Your talk with your father went…all right?”
She smiled and nodded. “Yes.” She rose up on tiptoe and kissed my cheek. Her sister was right. Lexi did touch me all the time. Obah! That was a positive sign. “Thanks for being here with me,” she said, and swatted my buttocks. “You’d better get inside. You have a job to do.”
I did have a job to do: make her happy and bring a smile to her face. I glanced at her mother. And nobody was going to stop me.