Page 21 of Meet Me in the Stars

“Hey now,” Teddy shot him a dirty look.

“Stop it,” Castor said, sounding bored. “No fighting in front of the Starscales. I mean it. We’re to present a united front. All Freddie did was make everyone wait a few more minutes. It’s nothing in the grand scheme of things. I know we’re all stir crazy, but we have to approach cautiously. No breath of real fresh air is worth dying over when the oxygen on the Medwin 2 will keep us alive for decades. Speaking of air. Izora is ninety-five percent sure that we can breathe their air.”

“A dragon’s a dragon,” Izora shrugged.

“Casimir? Freddie? You guys ready to greet the future?” Castor asked, glancing around at us.

I almost hugged Teddy before nodding my consent but didn’t want to embarrass him in front of the other guys. I was beyond anything shaking me up, but he was young and from the smell of it heading into that phase of life where he felt like he had something to prove. Old Man Cromwell would’ve been proud.

“The rest of you back up,” Castor ordered, slipping into his pilot’s voice.

The other guys backed up and Casimir stepped up next to me. He nodded, still smelling irritated that I held things up. Whoever wanted us out of the ship knocked again and my dragon rolled his eyes and made a comment about turning into a slot machine before we made it back to Earthside.

Stepping behind the shield wall on the left side of the door, Castor pulled the handle. I glanced at Teddy peeking around the doorway of the room the others had been banished to before stepping forward. My dragon reared up on his hind legs ready to pounce before the new scent hit me. Sweet and metallic and not Lotus at all. I took a step back stumbling into Casimir who shoved me forward laughing.

“Quit fucking around, glitter man,” he said, but I pushed back against him, my mouth opening and a fire ball tingling in the back of my throat. I knew this feeling. It wasn’t anything new to me, but the man hovering midair in front of the door to the Medwin 2 wasn’t Lotus. Reincarnation didn’t consider gender all that much, but I’d know my little flower anywhere and this definitely wasn’t her.

I touched the spot on my shoulder where Lotus had once claimed me. The gland lay as flat as it had since that day. This wasn’t her. He wasn’t her. This was trickery and--- My thoughts derailed as my dragon breathed in and let the fireball out. It gushed from my mouth, molten over my tongue as the flames sprayed through the air. He roared and growled as the fire kept coming. I couldn’t see the floater through the flames. Maybe they weren’t there at all. No one impersonated our true-mate and used magic to make us respond to them and lived to tell the tale.

“Freddie! Frost damn you!” Castor swore trying to pull the lever down to shut the door, but it was too hot to move. “Damn you! I did not say to go out blazing! We don’t know if they’re a hostile or not! What in the name of Frost’s swinging balls were you thinking?”

Nothing. Everything. Lotus. Liar. Another spray of flames washed out of my mouth as my dragon took over. His wings broke through my flesh, shredding my shirt. It was a small price to pay to fly out and turn this whole lying world into ash and cinder.

Chapter Twelve

Elio

“He definitely doesn’t remember,” my dragon chuckled into my head as I lay face down on the landing field.

The scales on my back rose to the occasion to protect me from the heat and flames. I had hoped to talk to Fred before he lost his temper, but it seemed it had a shorter fuse than even Lotus had remembered. He was ready to cook me alive. The flames fell silent but their heat lingered in the air. I sucked in a deep breath, thankful that smoke was as good as oxygen if you were a Starscale. My heart pounded in my ears as wings swooshed through the air. I rolled onto my back. Fred was midair and swooping down toward me. I didn’t want to fight him, but needs fucking must and it was turning out to be that sort of day.

“No old magic goes unpunished,” my dragon murmured into my thoughts.

The orange asshole was fucking amused by my current predicament. The only one who might try to help me as the alpha dragon tried to roast me alive was Marsin. Even then, he was more of a computer dragon than the fighting sort. What had I done so terrible in a past that one of my true-mates wanted to roast me alive before even saying hello?

“He doesn’t know he has us too!” my dragon’s laughter echoed around my skull as I covered my face and rolled out of the way of another line of spitfire.

“DAD! WHAT THE HELL!?” Someone bellowed from inside the ship.

I didn’t have time to wonder which of the kids he brought with him before another line of flame scorched away the purple star grass beside my head. The flames were hotter and coming faster. I couldn’t see through the smoke and debris, but I was pretty damn sure he shifted when rage took over. How did I stop an enraged dragon who thought I bespelled him?

“Lotus sent me!” I tried shouting over the noise, but the flames kept coming.

How full of hot air was this guy to keep spitting out fire like that?

“She really did! Come on now! We’re all civilized dragon’s here, man!” I shouted.

I wasn’t even sure he heard me over the roar of his own blaze. I crawled in the direction the fire was coming from. What the hell happened to alphas not going after their true-mates in this fashion? I’d rather he have ripped my pants off and claimed me in front of the whole Starscale Ruling Council than pull this shit. Embarrassment was more easily recovered from than being scorched alive.

The air shifted. Another dragon had joined him in the air. This one was shifted too, enough to block out the purple fog our sun let out to protect us from the lack of atmosphere outer space provided. Friend or foe? And to who? I didn’t know. Whatever transpired between the flying dragons gave me enough time to roll onto my belly and shift. I roared as my star scale burnt even hotter in the new form. Taking a deep breath of smoke, I launched myself into the sky ready to fight or talk, whichever way the hot head decided to blow the wind.

“LOTUS SENT ME!” I bellowed through the smoke at the other two dragons.

The larger one knocked the smaller one behind him with his tail and let out another stream of fire. I dodged the stream, sniffing. The bigger dragon was definitely Fred, but I wasn’t sure if the younger one was his kid or one of the other crew members of the Medwin 2.

“LIAR!” He roared back at me.

“DAD!” The other dragon tried to grab Fred’s tail with his mouth and pull him away. He managed to latch on, but Fred didn’t budge.

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