Page 6 of Stripped to the Scales

“I couldn’t smell you,” Castor said, stepping closer to me. “I didn’t know what was going on. Yeah, yeah. Learn the ways you guys communicate over your flight link. I try not to listen in too hard to it. I feel like an intruder.”

“You’re my mate. That makes you part of the flight,” I told him, running my finger along his jawline.

“And you’re a Moonscale too now,” I said. “Well, once we exchange the claiming vows, you will be.”

“Too bad you guys don’t have those crescents on your foreheads anymore. I bet the folks downstairs would eat that the fuck up,” I smirked.

“I’m glad you enjoy your job,” Castor said, his lips hanging parted when he finished speaking.

“Do you?”

“I enjoyed what I saw of it,” Castor teased avoiding the question until I forced myself not to smile at him like a lovesick hatchling.

“I do enjoy my job. I love it. The ship, the travel, the crew. They’re all great. We just got the Medwin 2 cleared for flights between the planets. Though, it’s anchored down now to be a house. If we need to fly around, we can without stirring up trouble.”

“What was the mission you guys were talking about out there?” I asked him, wrapping an arm around his waist.

He let me pull him in against my body. He was warm even through his clothes and thankfully just as smitten as I was. Castor didn’t lecture me for eavesdropping.

“You don’t know about the project?” he asked me.

“What project?” I blinked.

“Are you in the dark or lost in my eyes?”

“Can’t I be both, mate?” I asked and stole a kiss.

I could’ve kissed Castor forever. His lips were soft and plump. He surrendered under my kisses despite his feisty scent. His fingers dug into my shoulders as our tongues lapped at each other between our open mouths. He tasted sweet and salty all at once. My mate really was the best of all worlds.

“Now, I forgot,” Castor laughed when the kiss broke.

He leaned his forehead against my collarbone, and I kissed the top of his head while he gathered his thoughts back up.

“Let’s sit down, huh?” I pulled away from him to move some of my costumes off the sofa.

I led him to sit down and settled in right next to him. Not touching him was self-inflicted torture. I wasn’t that sort of masochist. So I couldn’t resist putting my hand on his knee even if that meant his thoughts stayed jumbled up like scribbles on a page.

“You were telling me about your mission. No, I really don’t know what the three of you were talking about. Leadership affairs aren’t my job. I don’t pay attention unless they change something big and that doesn’t happen often. Our systems work. So nothing gets changed that often.”

“You know about why we came, right?”

“Something about Hush’s nephew remembering something from a past life and summoning his true-mate or at least sending out an invite. No one knows how he did it, but the fucker did and I should fucking hunt him down a whole fucking deer herd for doing that.”

“I don’t think Elio wants a deer herd,” I laughed. “He did it with a spell that once belonged to elves in the Other World.”

“The place where dead guys go?” I asked him.

“Yes and no. It’s so much more than that. Sure, the dead go there between lives, but some people live there too. It’s complicated. The Other World is whatever it wants to be. Anyway, there are these gateways all over Earthside and some other planets too. They connect us all, but not the three Starscale worlds. I think that’s because they were dragon built and not naturally occurring, but Elio wants to change that. He wants to set up gateways here so more Starscale dragons meet their true-mates.”

“I’ll sign if there’s a petition or something going around,” I shrugged.

“It’s not that simple. We have to figure out how to do that,” Castor sighed.

“How did Elio toss messages through those gateways if we don’t have them?” I asked.

His job was a lot more interesting than I thought it was.

“Your flight used to steal what they needed from Earthside and other worlds. Somewhere along the way the elven spell was stolen. Elio found it in his uncle’s stuff and Hush didn’t care what he did with it,” Castor explained.

---