Page 2 of Meet Me in the Stars

Entwining her now bony fingers in my hair she pulled me in for a long, hard kiss. I reveled in her tongue twirling around my mouth. She was perfect. She’d always been perfect to me. When the kiss ended, she pressed her forehead against mine and tucked a blonde lock of hair behind her ear out of the way.

“There are things you have to let me tell you,” Lotus said, her voice serious despite the smile still tugging on the corners of her mouth. “You can’t let my parents take over the funeral arrangements. You can’t let them keep people out. I’m not worried about how I’ll feel about it, Freddie. It has nothing to do with me. The funeral will be for the living. Don’t let them keep my friends out.”

I opened my mouth to say that her father couldn’t keep a gnat out of his own shitter these days, but instead promised her I’d ensure every person who wanted to be at her funeral would have a seat there. She tightened her grip on my face as if she feared I’d pull away.

“There’s a video already with the attorney. It’s basically the reading of my will. It should take some of the heat off you for keeping my secret.”

“Outside of our kids I don’t give a fuck who’s mad about not knowing,” I admitted.

“Well, I do,” she said, pouting for a second before shaking her head and speaking again. “But you’re right. Don’t worry about them too much. You – don’t worry about them. Let them worry about you. You’ll have to. I’ve talked to Medwin and he’s okay with sending cleaners and a chef over if you need it. I’ve told Relik to have the good pot too – the sort that can get even you high, in case you need it.”

I tried to pull away, to roll over and look up at the ceiling, but she kept her grip on my face.

“No, keep looking at me. This is how I want to remember you. I want to remember you this close and this warm and this --- just this much us, Freddie. So much us. You’ve been my whole life – the best part of my whole life.”

“I love---”

“I know. I’ve known since the moment you first clutched me to your chest in the face of a wolf pack with arrows. I love you too. There’s so much I still need to say. No, keep looking at me. Just keep looking at me,” she said. “Don’t let your parents keep Duke away from the funeral. If someone has to not come it should be them. He’s such a good kid. Don’t forget about him in family stuff. I know you don’t actually forget about him, but once you feel better work on fixing things with him. He loves you so much. They all love you so much.”

Tears were running down both of our cheeks now and we didn’t bother to wipe them away. My chest ached. Her eyes flickered to the other side of the room, but the edges of her fingers blocked me from seeing what she glanced at. I didn’t need to see the door to know it was there. My dragon roared but I swallowed down the sound and the fire that tried to follow it.

“Don’t let them lock me in that fucking creepy mausoleum either,” she shook her head.

“You won’t be,” I shook my head.

We’d already talked about this.

“You’re going to get cremated. I’ll light up the pyre myself if I have to. They don’t get to do anything to you that you don’t want done. That’s one promise I can keep, my little flower. You’ll be free.”

“One more kiss,” she nodded, and I swallowed hard. “One more kiss and then we have to call in the kids.”

“Okay,” I nodded.

Our lips hovered barely apart as if we could put off the inevitable. Two years ago, when Relik Stonner advised us to start focusing on the things Lotus wanted to do before her door of life and death showed up, we told the kids. Her parents already knew, but we told them too. Everyone else had been kept in the dark and that hadn’t always been easy, but Lotus didn’t want to spend her last days with pitying looks.

I kissed her hard. I had to kiss her hard enough to last her all the way until she crossed so far in the Other World she forgot about me. I hated to think about her all alone over there, probably able to see and hear us, but unable to come back to us. I kissed her hard and held her as close to me as I dared.

Lotus put on her favorite dress while I went to tell the kids it was time to say goodbye. I would’ve stayed and watched her dress for her door, but couldn’t stay too long around the door. Inside me, my dragon slammed against my ribs, determined that he could burn that bloody door to cinders and reverse death itself. If I stood still too long or thought about it too much, I might’ve said ‘fuck it’, thrown my arms up, and let him have a go at it. That’s not how I wanted to see my wife, my mate, out of this life. So, instead, she changed into her favorite yellow sundress, and I went to get the kids.

Teddy, Daliah, and Sequin filed into the room together behind me. Despite her literally being on death’s doorstep, she’d made the bed and sat in the center of it with the pillows piled around her. We sat like that a lot with the egg brats when they were younger.

Daliah and Sequin inherited all their mother’s poise. Teddy forever like me, was a blubbering mess. Daliah and Sequin sank onto the bed whispering to her and I pulled Teddy into a hug. I tried to count how many times in his childhood I pulled him away from my parents for telling him to man up. I silently swore that if anyone used those words while he grieved, I’d burn them and their fucking house down. Even my own bloody parents at this point.

“You can do this,” I whispered in his ear instead. “You can say goodbye. She’s still your mama. She’s your mama now and forever.”

He hugged me tight before letting go and joining his brother and sister with their mother on the bed. Lotus looked tiny in his arms when he hugged her. She whispered something in Teddy’s ear that I didn’t hear as I sank onto the edge of the bed with them. I didn’t try to make out the words. The egg brats deserved their private goodbyes more than anyone else.

We stayed like that on the bed for a long time. The door glowed brighter and brighter, but we ignored it. We had to. Lotus was tucking in the kids for one more nap and it took them all awhile to fall asleep. I breathed and watched her stroke their hair, kiss their foreheads, and whisper to them over and over. How could we have ever prepared them for this?

My dragon had stopped bum rushing my ribs and was curled around Lotus’s fox in our joint inner sanctum. They whispered too. None of it did anything to stop the aching inside my bones. When this endless moment faded, I’d have to keep it together. I had to get her wishes and the kids taken care of and then I could burn down whole cities before jumping into a volcano or flying into the sun.

“None of that,” Lotus said over our mating link. “None of that at all. The kids are going to need you for a long time. So, you’re just going to have to learn to live without me for a while. Just a while, Freddie. I’ll come back as soon as I can. I left a box of stuff in the safe for my future self, my next incarnation. I left letters and tapes hoping whoever I am then will recognize and believe me. We’ll be the same, just a bit of a different memory. But Freddie, if you find someone to ease the ache between now and then, we’ll make it work when I get back. I want you to be happy. I don’t want this to be some fucked up fairy tale where the princess dies, and the prince turns into a monster. I love you and I know you’re strong enough to handle this. I hate that you have to be strong enough, but you are.”

Lotus wiggled out from under the egg brats and pulled the curtains closed around the bed. She opened the double doors that led to the balcony and turned on the record player. It was one of her favorite old songs composed by another fox shifter.

“What you thought my last dance would be to a Grim Howlers’ song?” she teased. “Nah, they lost their appeal the moment I met you.”

We stepped out on the balcony hand-in-hand for our last slow dance. I held her close and tried to memorize everything about her. Her hair smelled like coconuts and lemons from her favorite shampoo. Her eyelashes glittered in the sunlight. Her lips curled up in a little smile every time I twirled her around. She hummed along with the song as she pressed her cheek to my chest.

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