Page 36 of Meet Me in the Stars

“Yes, he did!” I managed to croak out laughing despite how hard my heart hammered against my ribs. “He made me do it!”

“Are you two okay in there?” Izora, the ship’s doctor asked.

“We are. A dragon got a bit too happy!” Fred called back, a blush dotting his cheeks.

“Good work, Fred! Just don’t burn down the bloody ship, okay? Some of us want to see Earthside again.”

“I think all of us do,” Fred sighed when the smoke alarm fell silent accepting that it was a false alarm.

When Izora stopped listening through the door, Fred sank onto the bed with me. I rolled onto my side, still grinning like a fool. Not only had I left a puddle of arousal on the sheets and blankets, I set off the fire alarm. No one ever warned me that mating would rattle everything inside me.

Fred pushed my hair away from my face and kissed my forehead. He glanced around the room, looking for a scrunchy. I laughed, surprised he’d know what one was.

“I don’t think Castor is a scrunchy guy,” I shrugged and stole a kiss.

His gaze fell on mine, and he grinned.

“I forgot how simple everything was when someone could read my thoughts,” he settled his head against the pillow, the tip of his nose, brushing against mine.

The light left his eyes for a second before he recovered from whatever he hid from me.

“I miss her too,” I took a lucky guess.

“It’s strange to feel this without her here.”

“She’ll be back. I don’t know who or where she’ll be, but she’ll be back. Maybe I should say they since no one knows if/when/how gender is decided by a soul. Maybe souls don’t have them at all or maybe some just switch it up all the time. We have proof of that happening in the Star Room. So many dragons come and speak out from beyond the doors. She’s okay. I know that much. She was okay when I left her, and I have no reason to think she’s not now.” I rambled on trying to find the right combination of reassurances to make him feel better.

“I know,” Fred nodded. “We talked a lot about death and what we knew before she died. I know she’s okay. She’s Lotus. Somehow, she always managed to be okay. She’s tough. I kept telling Teddy and them that it was normal to be sad forever. We’re all sort of sad all the time when you think about it. It doesn’t matter how long we live, we know that most of us will probably die someday. Dragons live a long time. Even longer now that human governments are gone from Earthside, but we still know that even if we don’t think about it in the front of our minds. It’s there in the back of them. Losing her changed everything. I want to tell you that I’ll protect you from everything under any sun, but we both know that’s not possible. I can protect you from people and the wilderness. Hell, I can protect you from bad drivers even, but some things are what they are. I couldn’t punch or work around Vulpine Degenerative disease.”

I let out a long, slow breath and traced his jawline.

“And knowing that changes everything. Changes how this moment feels. It’s so fucking fleeting, Elio. I know you’re young and it seems like forever is held in every breath, but it’s the biggest illusion we sell ourselves. We have to sell it to ourselves, or we’d never get out of bed.”

“I’ll protect you from all that,” I whispered back, ignoring how young he made me sound. “I’ll be the hopeful voice inside your head. I don’t think it’s death that’s getting to you, but the fact everything will forever change. I know we can’t hold onto anything or anyone. I’m young, but I’m not that naive. Everything and everyone leaves in the end, whether they want to or not. We just have to stay in the moment – we have to be with each other now. Five minutes from now might not be promised, but this second is because it’s already unfolding.”

“That’s a sweet sentiment,” Fred said and kissed me before I could say anything else about life, death, or how everyone left us in the end.

I kissed him hard and lost myself to his body losing itself to me. That’s how we spent the next three days. Each day the scale over Fred’s heart looked a bit more like a scale and a bit less like scarred human flesh. Three mornings later, my heart leapt into my chest when a big red star marked him. It was the first thing I saw when I opened my eyes. I swallowed hard and said a tiny prayer to the ancestors that what I had to show him helped him move on and didn’t leave him stuck in the past even more.

Chapter Nineteen

Fred

I woke up with Elio’s head on my chest. It had been his thoughts creeping into my mind that woke me. They sparkled with excitement.

“That sort of morning, huh?” I let out a sleepy chuckle and moved my hand down to his ass.

It had been that sort of morning since the first time we woke up next to each other. I started to turn to my side, but Elio put a hand on my chest. I glanced down, blinking at the red smudge of color next to it. The tip of the shape touched the edge of my nipple. I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision.

“It’s your scale” Elio yawned, a grin still pulling at the corners of his soft, kissable lips.

“My scale?” I blinked.

Of course. The star scale. The scale that linked all the members of the Starscale Dragon Flight. I’d forgotten for a moment that’s what we were waiting on while we were shut away in the tiny bedroom for our mating moon. My heart sank into my stomach for a second. This meant things had to get moving. I had to find out what the Star Room was and figure out if Elio really knew Lotus. He didn’t feel like a liar. Our relationship felt real and solid, but this wasn’t ordinary. How did I grow a second claiming gland for him?

“By magic,” Elio sighed, pulling away. “We’ve spent days together in her – together, together, mating and romping and---” he sighed again, reaching for his sweatpants. “You still don’t believe me?”

“I want to. I do, but that’s part of what worries me. That sometimes I forget I’m waiting on proof.”

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