Page 54 of Star Bright
“I’m sorry you had to come back to such a disaster.”
Brin laughed. “Love is messy sometimes. There’s a chapter in the employee manual that goes over that. See you at brunch.”
When everyone else had gone, Darcy glanced toward the fireplace where Yadira cuddled under the bandage on her father’s wing. Quietly, she made three hot cocoas—two that were half extra whip, and one in a bucket.
She handed the smaller of the extra whips to the girl. “Happy first shift,” she said. “You were so brave and beautiful.”
Yadira straightened. “I was? I guess I was.” She guzzled the cocoa. “I can’t wait to do it again.” Then she blinked at Darcy. “But I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Oh. I think you would’ve. I’m glad I could be there with you anyways.”
The girl glanced at her father then back at Darcy. “And now I’m going to bed where I will sleep very hard and not hear anything.” With that Atsu-level subtlety, she rolled to her feet and padded off to her fort, tugging the sheet closed behind her.
Vash cleaned out the bucket of cocoa with one mighty drakling tongue swipe.
Darcy sipped at her own. Yeah, she wasnotgoing to compare tongue sizes…
“That was all very intense,” she said quietly. “When I said holidays can be complicated, I totally wasn’t thinkinganyof that.”
Vash lowered his head to the floor beside her with a sigh that blew back her hair.
“Yeah. I bet you’re exhausted, even with all that sugar. I should probably go—”
Huffing again, he snaked his tail around to tangle between her legs. Apparently she wasn’t going anywhere.
The rings of fire in his eyes seemed to fill her vision too when she settled within the loops of his tail, half reclining as if he were the perfect lounge chair. and the soft drape of his outstretched wing was as warm as a sunny day.
He was practically a Caribbean beach vacation made flesh.
“I was so scared when I saw you,” she whispered. “I felt terrible when Christopher left me behind. But the thought of losing you…” She let out a shuddering breath. “I don’t know if I can do it.”
He rumbled somewhere so deep inside she felt rather than heard it, and the smallest loop of his tail loosened as if he meant to pull away.
But she grabbed him. “No. I said that wrong. I don’t knowhowto do it. But I think it’s like climbing a wall, just without a safety rope, or maybe it’s more like flying. I’m scared, but with you… Vash, I think with you I could fly.”
+ + +
At the stroke of her hand along the tip of his tail, Vash shimmered along every nerve—and shifted.
Her eyes widened, then darkened when she realized she was entangled with a drakling male in his naked shape.
All the shifting and partial shifting and near exploding had worn him out, but her touch was the sweetness of cocoa and the richness of cream—and the wildness of caffeine, except he knew he’d remember every moment of this night.
She clung to him though her tone was softly scolding. “The medic said you should stay in one shape for the night.”
“I hear it’s after midnight. And as much as my beast wants to stay wrapped around you, I think we need to talk first.”
Her wide brown eyes narrowed. “Talk about…what?”
“Oh, dating, mating, preferred planet, if you really think you might want to hash out how to entangle your life with a fledgling and a just shifted drakling and a broken old male—”
“You’re not that old,” she protested.
“More than a hundred years,” he reminded her solemnly, though the fire glinted in his eyes. “Would you sign such a contract?”
“It’s not a contract. You’re a gift.” She wrapped her good arm around his neck. “You fell out of the sky basically at my feet just in time for Christmas. And if you’re not all gift wrapped and ribboned…” She tweaked the end of the bandage still danglingover his neck. “Well, a little ribboned, but I don’t mind that at all.”
When she slid her hand down his bare chest, his heart leapt to follow. He pulled her close, careful of her arm in the sling between them. “I thought I’d find out what’s left for me on Skyearth and then come back for you, to see if there was a still a chance for something between us. But now I think we shouldn’t wait. Whatever comes next, whatever I have, I would share it with you.”
