Page 7 of Mated in the Stars

“My hope got you here.”

“That was the Medwin 2,” I teased him.

“I’m going to get Castor to build me a ship and name it Elio’s Hope so I can send your ass to a moon!” he growled.

“Promises, promises,” I said, pulling him on top of me. “Again?”

“Again and again,” he nodded before our lips met for another long kiss.

Chapter Four

Elio

For a few days, Fred and I went back and forth on when to tell Liatris and the others we were ready for the permanent Other World gateway. Fred wanted to wait until after our hatchling was here, but some dragon eggs took years to be laid and hatched. Then he wanted to wait until I laid our egg but that was still longer than I was comfortable making my whole flight wait. Of course, Fred was Fred and making the flight wait didn’t weigh on his mind like it did mine.

“What if Lime --- I mean Liam --- has told Teddy’s mate about him the way he told Teddy?” I asked him about a week after we found out I was with egg. “What if he’s over there waiting for the door to show up so he can meet him? What if your kids have been told by some seer it will happen soon? What if you dick around so long that Duke becomes a great grandfather instead of just a grandfather?”

Fred rubbed the bridge of his nose for a long, silent moment. I leaned back in my chair taking in his expression. That’s when it hit me that Fred was a great-grandparent before I was ever a parent. Was there something I wasn’t seeing or understanding about the doors being here? Had I overlooked something?

“Only that I’m overprotective of you and the babies. That murdering someone in every life they live from here on out wouldn’t be good enough revenge if they harmed you or our eggs.”

“Oh, that,” I sighed, and he let out a chuckle. “You said it’d be fine.”

“And it probably will,” he nodded. “You’re right. It’s not fair for me to keep the kids waiting. It’s not fair for me to take Minter’s chance away from meeting the rest of his siblingssooner rather than later if they’re willing to make the trip here. Sunny misses his parents and I’m sure everyone misses someone.”

“Are you afraid that something will remind you of Lotus and you’ll pass back out?” I asked before I had time to stop the words from tumbling off my tongue.

“No,” Fred shook his head. “Teddy reminds me of her every day. Breathing reminds me of her. The color yellow reminds me of her. You’re right,” he said again, changing the subject. “We’ll call Liatris and the others after dinner and let them know we’re ready for them to go ahead whenever they want to. They’ll still have to get with Hush and the others. So, we’ll have time.”

Fred was right.

We did have time.

We had three months of time wherein Hush and the others argued over where the gateway should go. In the end, it was Starscale 1 that received the honor of hosting the permanent gateway. Progress was delayed again when the perfect location wasn’t close enough to home for Liatris’s liking. He and Selt had to move, and another house had to be built, and the land had to be prepared for such magic. It took nearly six months all together but eventually the land was ready, and a feast was held on each of the three worlds the day before the ceremony. Liatris told everyone who would listen that such things were overkill. The actual casting wasn’t much of a ritual, and he’d rather not have all eyes on him but the whole flight wanted to know what was going on.

I nodded along as I ate my fill of a bit of this dish and that. Like all our feasts all the dishes were prepared in the homes and restaurants that belonged to the flight. Everyone brought something and most brought a lot to share. Such a large-scale feast would throw off the food points system for months – givingeveryone more points than they’d actually eat through until it self-regulated over time.

I still hadn’t laid my egg. It grew inside me barely showing from the outside. Fred still ate with one of his big hands covering my stomach. His dragon hadn’t quite settled down yet and I wasn’t sure he was going to any time soon. Telling him I was momentarily afraid that there would be no one to save me during a hypothetical emergency had set his dragon on edge. Guilt tickled the back of my throat, and I swallowed it down. We’d talked that in circles already. I knew I had nothing to feel bad about but hated seeing him so on edge.

“He’s not on edge,” Teddy laughed. “This isn’t the first time he’s done this. Mom loved to talk about how he got like that sometimes.”

Everyone fell quiet. No one ever knew what to say when Teddy brought up Lotus. Everyone on world who lost a parent since the completion of Starscale 1 lost them to old age. It was so rare for anyone to perish of illness here that no one knew what to say to him. Hell, I didn’t know what to say to him.

“You just wait,” Fred pointed his fork at his son. “You’re gonna be worse than me about it. You’re going to do something dumb and Moonscale like jump in front of the sonic because your dragon doesn’t trust it.”

“If we’re pregnant here, we’ll go to Izora because you’re right. He doesn’t like them,” Teddy laughed. “Looks too much like a gun.”

“He’s definitely yours,” I teased Fred, squeezing his knee under the table.

Fred had used guns plenty of times before. He made a point of never keeping them in his Earthside house while the kids were growing up. I wasn’t sure if Teddy knew how to shoot a gun or not but apparently his dragon didn’t like the healers here totingthem around even if they were medical devices not hot metal projectiles.

“Never doubted it,” Fred laughed.

“How are you going to be watching someone grow your grandchild?” Teddy shot back. “You missed it before, but I’ll make sure my mate lays around all pregnant everywhere he goes just to keep you on your toes.”

“Egg brat, no one can magically stop being pregnant in one place. He will be pregnant everywhere he goes,” Fred laughed, face flushed from the spiced dragon wine he drank with dinner.

“Egg brat,” Liatris laughed.

---