Chapter 22

A bath in the sonic shower. Food. Another message to Tisha, the Earther mated to Luc’s cousin, a drakling incongruously named Honey. Amy ticked through her to-do list on autopilot like she was back in the bathroom at Mr. Even’s Odds & Ends Shop.

She was by herself, Luc having slipped out after telling her he wanted to look around. She would’ve liked to have gone with him, to see another new planet and all the drakling shapeshifters, but she understood his need to reacquaint himself with his home and his family.

His brothers, whew, what a handful. Well, with twelve of them, it was more than two handfuls. So loud, so big, and the way they’d swarmed him had been alarming at first. And sort of made her wonder about the stories he’d told of being the unwanted runt. Because, really, they seemed to be genuinely excited about him coming home.

She didn’t have anyone waiting that eagerly for her. And she wouldn’t even be able to tell anyone about her adventures. She’d be just little Amy Long, part-time dreamer and full-time toilet cleaner, again.

Tisha had told her that since Earth was a closed world, kept clueless about the sentient, spacefaring beings beyond the immediate solar system, her memories would be wiped upon her return.

But she didn’t want to lose these memories, not ever. This adventure had made her who she was now.

When Luc hadn’t returned by the time the daylight faded, her heart sank as if drowning in icy water. Maybe he’d forgotten about her. After all, he’d gotten what he’d wanted when they plucked the last gemstone from the whirlpool. They weren’t teammates anymore, and he didn’t need her for anything…

But even as the old, useless thoughts of insignificance flooded her, she rejected them. He wouldn’t abandon her. He was just catching up. Unless… Another uneasy thought. What if his brothers were a little too eager about keeping him? Worse yet, what if Rickster had found a way to come after them?

Tension zipped through her, tightening all the places that had gone momentarily slack with dejection. She wasn’t wait-around-and-worry girl anymore. Yann hadn’t been kidding about the cottage being fully supplied; she found an array of colorful, beautifully adorned outfits clearly intended for the ceremony. And clearly intended for shapeshifters—the belted robes were stylish but cut for easy removal for anyone who suddenly turned into a dragon. She found a pale lavender one that wasn’t too long and dressed quickly, adding her own arm and leg wraps and tucking the blaster in the sheath.

If Luc was in trouble, she’d get him out.

When she peered out of the cottage, the row was empty. A melody drifted toward her, flirting over the ripple of the small creek. Although night had fallen, a different kind of light filtered over the courtyard as she followed the sounds of singing. Three moons were rising in conjunction. All were larger than Earth’s moon, one reddish, one pale green, and one tinted violet. No wonder the draklings loved their color.

Hundreds of draklings and other beings filled the courtyard, their rich robes glowing with surreal tints under the multicolored light of the following moons. Some were in their dragon shapes, although those seemed more for the pageantry than anything; there wasn’t room for everyone to be a giant dinosaur creature.

She slipped along the outside of the crowd, scanning the faces. She recognized a few of the brothers she been introduced to, although their names had almost immediately escaped her. And her gradeschool classmates had thought Chinese names were hard to remember. If Luc was being held by his brothers, it wasn’t all of them.

Amy watched a moment as Yann caught a curvy, statuesque woman in his arms and swung her around, laughing. She slapped his shoulders with both hands and tilted her blond head back with an answering laugh. Amy glanced away. Corrosive doubt etched at her determination like mite acid. Maybe Luc had simply decided not to return to the cottage.

At least she was getting the chance to see the mating ceremony. The joy rising from the crowd was as velvety warm as the night air, and the singing—guided by a quintet near the center of the courtyard but echoed randomly by other draklings as they joined in—was a vibrant thread guiding her through the party. Of course draklings would like music, considering how much they liked poetry. Finding Luc was going to be impossible in this throng, especially since there was no light except the moons and a few low, shielded lanterns tucked into the darkest corners.

Two drakling youngsters toting trays laden with crystal tumblers bumped up against her. With their chubby legs revealed by short togas, they seemed too small to be carrying such a burden, but she supposed all the draklings were stronger than they looked, even the children.

“Pixberry punch?” The tow-headed one with silvery scales hefted her tray. “Or pixberry wine?” The other lifted his offerings.

Amy took a cup of the wine and sipped the sparkling sweetness. “Thank you.”

“There’ll be caw-vee later, I bet, after we younglings go to bed.” The girl giggled.

Coffee for the drakling party. Amy smiled. “Why do I get the sense you’re going to try to sneak back?”

The little boy boggled at her in oops-we’ve-been-discovered horror, but the girl giggled again. “I have to try, even if I get caught,” she crowed. “Cuz I’m going to train to be a warrior someday.”

The little boy sniffed. “You’re going to be a wife someday.”

Balancing the tray deftly on one palm, the girl smacked him, making his glasses chime alarmingly. “That’s warrior-wife to you, cousin,” she said, her childishly high-pitched voice not quite a growl. They trundled onward, still arguing.

“Amy.” The low, familiar voice whipped her around.

“Luc.” She squinted to find his dark shape in the shadows. “Why are you lurking back there?”

“Why are you here?” One long arm snaked out of the night to grab her elbow and haul her under the trailing branches of a willow-like tree.

“Well,” she drawled, after taking another unhurried sip of her wine. “I accidentally activated a trans-dimensional portal and then—”

He groaned out a breath. “You shouldn’t be here.”

She stiffened. “Is the ceremony private? I see other non-draklings here. And your brother said—”

“Yann’s the reason you shouldn’t be here.” In the shadows, Luc’s eyes gleamed more golden than jade, as if he’d partially shifted to his dragon shape. “He thinks I’ve claimed you.” When she just stared at him uncomprehendingly, he groaned again. “He thinks we’re going to be part of the ceremony too. That we’re going to be mated.”

“But why…” She swallowed down the rest of the plaintive question, not quite sure how she’d meant to finish it. Why did Yann think they should be mated?

Or why did Luc think they shouldn’t?

She bit her lip. “Do you mean he’d force us?”

“No.” Luc recoiled deeper into the shadows, releasing her. “He would never. But it’s…not him. I told you the claiming season is a special time for draklings. What I didn’t explain is that it can be overpowering. More so for me now that the fire spirit has awakened in me. I’m feeling…urges.”

A slow beat started in her blood. Not just in her blood. She realized the jovial singing had been joined by a deeper note, an insistent drumming as the moons rose higher. “I felt those urges too,” she said in a low voice. “That’s why we slept together.”

“Claiming is not just mating.” The lamplight in his eyes winked out as he looked away. “It’s meant for eternity. Like the prism.”

She lifted her chin. “And that’s not the urge you feel for me.”

Those golden-jade glow flared again, and for a heartbeat, she thought he might roar into his dragon shape.

Instead he took her hand gently. “Dance with me?”

At the intensity of his stare, her pulse accelerated beyond the drumbeat, but he led her out with gentlemanly grace. For all their bulk, the draklings moved with a sinuous elegance that hinted at the powerful beasts inside them. A meandering line of dark stones wandered through the courtyard—she’d noticed some draklings scattering the stones earlier—but the dancers followed a path adjacent to the line.

After she set aside her wine, Luc dropped his big hands on her hips. “In case you hadn’t noticed, draklings don’t care much for rules. So you don’t have to know any particular steps. Just follow the music.”

She cupped her palms over his shoulders although a sidelong glance at the other dancers showed any number of postures and configurations, including same gender pairings, some threesomes, and what appeared to be family groups with youngsters in tow, all parading along the line of black stones as if it was a very random walking labyrinth.

Unlike the other draklings and her, Luc was still in the dour black of the ships fatigues, and the vest left his shoulders bare under her fingertips. She resisted the urge to caress him. Since he apparently didn’t have the same urges.

The pain of that realization ripped through her and she stumbled a step. But his grasp steadied her.

“Too much wine,” she excused herself.

“Were you able to rest a bit? Do you have everything you need in the cottage?”

She nodded. “It’s great. Although…”

“Yes?”

“It feels very big”—and empty—“after being on the Blissed.”

For a second, his fingers clamped on her hips. “That isn’t nice, after being trapped with me for so long?”

Trapped? Is that what he still thought? She scowled. “I wasn’t trapped. I traveled a whole new galaxy.”

“With all the guests tonight, since there are no other rooms, we’d be stuck sharing.” His shoulders tensed under her hands. “So I took the prism to the council of elders and I paid off Idrin.” He shook his head, the black coils of his hair bobbing. “I thought you’d want your space.”

“I had space,” she reminded him. She stared up at him boldly. The pain of rejection was nothing compared to her fear of falling back into the quiet, scared, little creature she’d been. “And I wanted to be with you.”

“Amy—”

With a sudden resounding thud of the drums, the singers fell silent, and all the dancers stopped. The drums crescendoed and then faded out into expectant silence.

A wizened drakling appeared at the end of the black stone path, her great age apparent in her stooped stance and the ragged edges of the wings that spread from her shoulders. Amy blinked at the half-shifted form made hazy by the softly frilled fabric of her robe that glimmered in the flickering light of the torch she carried.

“Loved ones,” she called.

“Grandmother,” several voices called back merrily.

“Put down the wine,” she scolded. Once the laughter quieted, she lifted the torch. “We come together here for the days when we gather the harvest that our hot suns have enticed from the ground, and also for the nights under the triple moons when we claim a greater treasure that our spirits have called to us from the universe’s solitude. A treasure of passion, of companionship. Of love.”

As if music still played, the throng swayed, enraptured by her words, and tears prickled in Amy’s eyes at their pure emotion.

“And for this claiming season,” the old drakling continued, “and all the seasons to come, we are watched from beyond by the ancient Firestorm Queen and her blacksmith, whose ardor and devotion still resound in the bonfire of our hearts.”

The crowd murmured in awe as the two drakling children who had carried the pixberries earlier trotted forward bearing the prism mounted atop a metal staff. The light of the three moons glowed softly in the conjoined gemstones, radiating iridescent sparkles in all directions.

“Our everlasting thanks to our just returned child and his kyapa who found the prism and brought it home.” She smiled down the line to where Luc and Amy stood, and the draklings around them glanced toward them with approval as the children thrust the staff into the soil at the end of the stony path before stepping back.

As the old drakling continued, Amy hissed at Luc. “What is a kyapa? How is that different from kyapa-sho?”

He shushed her. And fair enough, since the ceremony was moving on. She wracked her brain to remember the translation of kyapa-sho. Yes, it was essentially a peppercorn, but her universal translator hadn’t quite known the significance of the actual words, and he’d said…

A fire in the heart. That was what he’d told her.

But did kyapa mean fire, just a rush of lust…

Or did it mean heart?

“Now the mating moons are at their peak,” the old drakling intoned. She lowered the torch in front of her, and the glow poured over the shining stones, glinting brightly in the prism. “Let all who would walk together—for the first time or to renew the rhythm of their steps—join us on the path of hush-kuh—the upwelling wind that never falters.”

She spread her ragged wings and took a deep breath.

And exhaled a fountain of fire.

Amy gasped in shock. The fire hit the prism, and brilliant rainbow light blossomed like the grand finale of all fireworks in one. The gemstone’s pure tones rang above the many-throated roar from the gathered draklings, while sparks fell and ignited the black stones of the path. That fire traced the labyrinth, turning the courtyard into a spiraling galaxy of light.

Just down the path, Yann took the blond woman in his arms and stepped onto the glowing coals. A moment later, Luc’s other brothers, bearing their mates proudly, joined him. The crowd cheered as their footsteps raised gouts of flame. Amy clamped her hand over her mouth, but of course the draklings didn’t mind the fire.

All down the meandering way, other mates renewed their claims. Mostly males carried the females, but some females hefted their men, which brought more cheers, as did the sight of two males carrying their claimed mate between them in the linked clasp of their hands.

From the darkness, the singers resumed, a low chant that somehow echoed the hungry whisper of the flames and the sigh of the night wind. From the prism, the vivid harmonics split into notes to follow the singers. As the rising heat of the embers reached the sheaves of kyapa-sho overhead, the beads burst in a golden rain that shimmered in the scintillating luminosity of the prism.

When she gasped again, in delight this time, the sweet taste of the spice teased her tongue. “Oh, Luc, it’s so beautiful.” She spun to face him. “You gave them this.”

“We both did,” he said. “But the hush-kuh—the claiming season—doesn’t really need all this spectacle.” He averted his face, the flex of his jaw emphasizing the amethyst edge of scales at his temple. “It’s an instinct in our blood, that doesn’t require the outside fire.”

She flattened her hand on his chest and ached at the fierce pounding of his heart. He might downplay the pageantry, but it affected him nonetheless. “Just admit you love it,” she said softly. “Like you love your brothers even though they are too much.”

He clamped his hand over hers, the gold flecks in his eyes brightened by the falling kyapa-sho when he twisted back to face her. “I love it,” he said roughly. “And it is too much. But none of it—not all the fire in all the suns in all the galaxies we crossed—compare to what I feel for you.”

Her own heart hammered as hard as the drums, and her jaw slackened as she stared up at him. “Luc…”

“It’s not my drakling calling for you—at least not just that. It’s not the urges of the hush-kuh moons compelling me to say this.” He laced his fingers through hers and raised her knuckles to his lips. “Amy of the Long Clan, I love you.”

The melody and rhythm flowed into a song that cajoled the claimed couples to dance through the flames.

“The universe brought us together,” he said, “but we found the Firestorm Queen’s Prism because we were a good team, you and me. I don’t want you to go home to your closed world. Amy, I’m asking you to stay with me, to be this drakling’s mate.”

She spread her fingertips along his cheek, brushing the amethyst scales that glimmered under the triple moons. “You want to claim me?”

His lips curved sensuously under the brush of her thumb. “If you’ll claim me back. I swore I’d bring a priceless treasure back here—and I have: you.”

Her eyes prickled with tears, and she slid her hand to his nape to pull him down to her kiss. Their mouths eased together, and the gentle tease of his tongue across her lips was sweet with kyapa-sho and fiery with his own desire. He feathered his fingers through her hair, cupping her head to slant their kiss just so, sending a shivery sensation down her spine that ignited a demanding pulse in her heart and a hunger for him that would outlast the stars.

When he lifted his head, she fisted her hand in the front of his vest to keep him from going too far. If she was taking a risk, so be it. She would hold onto this feeling forever, fiercely, knowing it would mark her to the depths of her soul. “I love you, Luc.”

With eyes brighter than the moons behind him, he stared down at her. “We went into the cave together, into the void, into the frozen whirlpool. Will you walk into fire with me?”

“Every time,” she whispered.

As he swung her into his arms and took their first step onto the blazing path, she held tight.

This adventure would never end.