Page 30 of Mated in the Stars

I lifted Nelum onto the counter to catch his breath and find his wits and held out a hand to help Elio to his feet. I pulled him in for a long, slow kiss enjoying the feeling of his lips pressed against mine and his tongue tasting of our new mate’s pleasure. Turning, I stood between Nelum’s legs, rubbing my hands up and down his soft, slightly hairy thighs. I drew circles on them with my thumbs as he leaned his head back against one of the cabinets. Elio opened the fridge to grab out some water bottles for everyone and I made sure Nelum finished his. He smelled like he was in heat now and that was a road paved for dehydration if we weren’t careful.

Once the water bottle was out of the way, I held his face in my hands and stared into his eyes. My dragon shifted mine to his and gazed inside Nelum looking at his slightly furry dragon. My inner beast brushed against my ribs, letting out a purr that rattled my ribcage. Elio started and then both my omegas laughed as Elio hugged me from behind.

“You’re a human vibrator,” he teased me.

“You already knew that,” I laughed before giving Nelum a long kiss.

I lost myself to his mouth for a moment. His legs wrapped around me or tried to. They ended up sorta wrapping around me and Elio as if we were all desperate to touch as much of each other as was possible. Elio’s hands dropped from my stomach to my crotch, grabbing my dick through my pajama pants. My nostrils flared and a ring of smoke escaped my nose. We were all dragons. So we let it be and it rose toward the ceiling as Elio gave me a few teasing strokes before grabbing Nelum’s hand andputting it on my dick. Nelum froze in place, and I almost backed away to give him space thinking things had gone too far or too fast for him. Then he sucked my bottom lip into his mouth and stroked my dick.

“It’s alright,” Elio whispered against my shoulder.

And it was alright. I was there with both of them. Nelum was back with me. He was here in the flesh, kissing and stroking me. His other hand rested on my back, his nails grazing against my flesh as they always did when he was really worked up before. Death could interrupt time itself, but it didn’t interrupt us. It couldn’t interrupt love.

Nelum’s scent filled my head and I broke the kiss long enough to nuzzle into the shoulder that held one of his claiming glands. There on the left, where I had marked Lotus, so long ago. The mark wasn’t there of course. Some things had zero chance of surviving reincarnation, but I’d put it there again soon. I’d have him all the way back inside my head again soon.

“Do you two want to move to the bedroom or are you okay in the kitchen?” I asked them.

“Take him to the bedroom. I’ll straighten up and be there in a few minutes,” Elio said, patting me on the butt.

I turned and stole a kiss before I whisked Nelum away into the bedroom. He was a dragon and not a fox this time around, but he was light as ever in my arms, just like a little flower.

“Little flower, huh?” Nelum chuckled as I toed open the heavy bedroom door and flipped on the light with my elbow.

“That flight link is gonna get me into so much trouble,” I chuckled.

“You called her—me that, didn’t you?” he asked, as I laid him out on the bed before crawling in next to him.

“I did,” I nodded, running a finger up and down the center of his chest just to keep touching him. “But it’s not somethingI have to carry on. I think my brain is just recalibrating things, trying to push past everything that feels surreal.”

“Is that why you cooked so much?” Nelum asked.

“I was hungry. I wanted a feast for you and Elio, but I didn’t want anyone else around you two either. That’s not even really my call to make but I made it at the time,” I admitted.

“I don’t want to be around anyone but you and Elio right now. I’m naked, probably in heat, and I don’t want to think about the rest of the world. I don’t want to think about the farm or what anyone else is up to.”

“If they need help on the farm, I’ll find someone to go help them,” I said. “It probably wouldn’t even be hard.”

“They’ll be okay. They’ll send me a letter if they need help.”

“If not for the egg, I’d drag you all back to Earthside with me. I’ve known a lot of writers, poets, musicians, and the like in my life. I usually have words for most things but not this feeling. It’s something like the past and the present coming together to make things upside down but in the most spectacular way. I want you and Elio all to myself, but I also want to drag every one of my kids back together too. That’s not even fair to you because I don’t know how they’ll react and you’re not her. I don’t have words in any language that would do justice to all these things mingling together.”

“I am, though,” Nelum flashed me a sad smile. “I was the one you missed, and they missed too. I’m not saying I don’t want to be in their lives. I just can’t be her again. I can’t turn back time or turn back into her.”

“No one expects you to. Teddy---” I sighed. “Bad time to bring him up, huh?”

“Go ahead,” Nelum nodded.

“Teddy has big emotions. He adored Lotus. He still does. It’ll take him time for the surreal to wear off too. He’ll probablyalways be extra protective over you but that extended to Elio once Minter hatched. So, it’s just who he is.”

“He sounds like a great guy and one day I do want to meet the rest of them. I want to know all about your life and Elio’s. I want to know the people you care about because I’ll shoot someone over them already. You should know that. I once shot someone straight through the hand for groping my best friend at the market. He wasn’t into it and when the guy yelled about my friend kicking him in the shin – I just had to do it.”

“Good,” I laughed. “Next time Darian sets his hounds loose on me, I’ll have backup of my own.”

“Who’s Darian and why did he set dogs on you?”

“He’s the patriarch of a wolf pack and they were wolves who could shoot arrows. It was over my eldest. He has a different carrier than Teddy and them. He was unconscious in some vampyric thing, and I went to get my kid because what else was I supposed to do? I’d only recently found out about him anyway. But they didn’t shoot me. They ended up shooting some famous boyband guy. It turned out okay. Boyband guy turned out to be an okay stepdad for Duke – my eldest – too.”

“How many people have you had babies with?” Nelum arched a brow.

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