Page 48 of Meet Me in the Stars

I stood up and kissed Fred on the cheek before crossing the cavern to grab some plates from the cabinets. He sat down at the table, glancing around the kitchen for the coffee maker.

“I’ll put some on,” I laughed. “They probably have some sugar. I’m sure someone here has to like being poisoned with their coffee.”

“Sugar is in everything,” Fred laughed, rubbing his eyes and yawning again.

“Not here, mate,” I shook my head. “We have it, but we don’t use a cake’s worth in our coffee. We’ll have to start stealing sugar from other worlds.”

“That’s really why you want the gateways, huh?” he teased.

“Yep. I need to form a raiding party and steal you sugar.”

“Or you could come over here and give me some.”

He laughed. He knew it was cheesy before it ever left his mouth. Still it hit right somehow. I crossed the cavern and he scooted his chair back from the table and patted his lap for me to sit on. I straddle his legs and pressed my forehead against his. It was the first time we were alone together and both awake and neither of us calling the other a liar. Fred pushed a stray blonde lock behind my ear.

“I don’t think I have the words to talk about it,” Fred said.

“It’s okay. We don’t have to. Seeing was enough. It was enough, right?” I asked, hating that I had to double-check even now.

“It was,” he nodded and pulled away to kiss my forehead.

“I get why it’s so hard to believe. Even here having two true-mates isn’t that common. Though, I think it might become more common. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Poly people have always existed,” he nodded. “I wasn’t mad because Lotus went and fell in love with you, you know that right.”

“You were mad because you thought I was an evil witch who bespelled you to be in love with me,” I laughed, but it was the truth.

“I did.”

“Did? In the past tense, right?” I teased him.

“Yeah,” Fred nodded and captured my lips in a soft, quick kiss.

“You need coffee,” I laughed. “I think I’m getting secondhand caffeine withdrawal over our link.”

“That’s the price of being my mate,” he teased and slid his hands down to squeeze my ass. “And you need to eat. You’re ravenous. It’s like you’ve never taken a real nap before.”

“Well, I don’t see any reason to sleep so many days away.”

“I hope you never do,” he said and stole another kiss before I slid off his lap.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Fred

The walk back to the Medwin 2 was a lot shorter than the walk to the Star Room. It probably helped that the mistrust and tension between me and Elio had evaporated during our nap. My life was stranger than ever now, but strange I could handle. I opened Glitter Bomb up for the love of Frost’s holy balls. I could handle a bit of strange and unusual. On the way back, Elio explained how it wasn’t just Teddy who grew the star scales that marked members of the flight. It was the whole crew. I chuckled. At least now, they wouldn’t be in a huge hurry to get back to Earthside. They could stick around and help me help these dragons figure out how to contact those damn elves or whatever needed to be done to add at least one of the three Starscale planets to the Other World gateway network.

“I’m hungry again already,” Elio said when we were almost back to the ship.

“You missed out on a few days of eating so that might be normal,” I said, lacing my fingers through his and giving his hand a reassuring squeeze.

“Might be?” he arched both brows at me.

“Well, it could be something else. It’s probably a coin flip.”

“There’s not a lot of illnesses here, alpha,” he hip bumped me as we walked. “None that I’ve heard of that makes you ravenous.”

“I think this one is here,” I shrugged.

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