Page 31 of Star Bright
By the time he’d handed out the mugs to his fledglings—and was met with mumbled thanks and a cry of delight distributed predictably—Darcy had returned with a small bottle and a pointed implement.
He gazed dubiously at the mugs. “If that is for additional cocoa embellishment, I’m afraid I didn’t leave room.”
“No, this is for Yadira. She said I could take a stab—literally—at her curls.” Darcy brandished the poking implement. “Mine causes me trouble too sometimes.”
They clustered around the fireplace, the draped clothing around them making another sort of fort and still smelling of the dark wilds beyond the window. Vash closed his eyes as he drank from the cocoa. He couldn’t hold back a soft noise of pleasure.
“Good?” Darcy was watching him even as she settled behind his daughter.
Yadira echoed his movements, and her green eyes flashed wide. “So good.” The confession sounded wrenched from her, and Vash wasn’t sure whether to be amused or despairing.
He’d only wanted to show his fledglings that despite their loss and sorrow, the universe held wonders.
Darcy took a drink, and when she lowered the mug, a white puff dotted her upper lip.
The sight of it sent a surge through Vash’s loins, unwanted and inappropriate in this situation. He cleared his throat. “Ah, Darcy…”
She glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised. “Yes? Do you want me to do you next?”
She would let him leave his cream upon her mouth?
Another surge, nearly as devastating as a spaceship crash, left him without not just memories but any functioning thoughtsat all. It had been a hundred years since he read the IDA handbooks on Earther sexuality, but some memories rushed back with the right stimulus.
“Your hair doesn’t have quite the same curls,” she continued. “If the outpost salon was open, you could at least get those ragged ends trimmed up.”
She thought he was talking about his hair. He wrenched his gaze off her mouth.
“It looks like someone hit you in the face with a snowball,” Atsu said. He dunked his lips in the small amount of whipped cream remaining in his mug to demonstrate.
A flush of color, almost as bright as the dancing flames, chased across her cheeks in cheery contrast to the white dot of cream. She hastily licked at her lip, then passed a napkin to Atsu.
Vash wished she had not been so thorough with her tongue. Then he might have helped.
Awkwardly hefting his mug, he tried to swallow down the inappropriate thoughts, memories of his risqué readings, the urge to discover what other wonders this Earth possessed.
For her part, Darcy seemed oblivious to his impossible desires. She spoke quietly with Yadira—nothing he could hear over Atsu’s snowball-by-snowball recounting of their epic battle—as she worked the single-toothed comb through the knots. Yadira kept her head down, as if the mug in her hands was the most crucial point in her universe, and each strand of dark hair newly freed fell forward around her face to hide her in a disguising curtain.
But as the fire warmed and dried, the strands coiled up into a cloud of ringlets, each one shining auburn as Darcy ran them through her oily fingers.
By the time they were done, Atsu had gone through two more cocoas and a cider, announced they were both his favorite thingever, and fell over sideways with a contented sigh, his eyes closing.
Darcy glanced at him and chuckled. “I guess he finally ran out of words.”
“Daily snowball fights and cocoa feasts for all,” Vash prescribed.
Darcy groaned, a sound that sent another instinctive surge through him. “I don’t think my metabolism can take it, not the running around or the whipped cream.”
He wanted to give her more than that.
Grimly, he squelched his beast’s relentless refocusing on something that couldn’t happen. Yes, they had come to Earth for an alien bride, but with everything that had happened and his new insights into his fledglings’ needs, it was clear this wasn’t the right time. When his message got through to Skyearth and the rescue ship came, he would take his offspring and go.
But the snow was still falling.
Darcy put her hands at Yadira’s temples, gently smoothing up, over, and down the length of her hair one more time. The gesture lifted the fledgling’s head. Her eyes were closed, and there was a peaceful stillness to her that reminded Vash of the time when she’d been still in the egg and he’d sneaked into the nest box to press his ear to the tough-fragile shell, holding his breath, listening for her heartbeat, his beast whispering to hers of the joy of wind and light and touch.
Her beast might be still nestled within her, but his daughter wasn’t a fledgling anymore, he realized with a pang. Maybe it would’ve been easier to acknowledge that if Shanya had been beside him to mark the years, if they hadn’t all been trapped in their sorrow.
But he needed to help her free her beast.
