Page 165 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

165

Let’s Christen the Bed

V alor

My cock is hard as stone for my little Earther. When she reached up to kiss me a moment ago, I had to stifle my urge to take her right here on the stone path to our rental cottage.

I’ve been quiet since we flew away from Blanterra. There have been a lot of deep thoughts drifting through my mind.

My way of coping throughout my life has been to shut off my strong psychic powers and hide inside my mind. I kept my thoughts together during The Game in order to keep my new family alive.

I’ve never fully shared with either of them the excruciating pain of keeping my psy powers open. Sometimes it feels like the agony of the galaxy assaults me when my throttle is wide open. Necessity forced me to manage during The Game , but my psychological recovery has been far more difficult than my physical one. Hearing the death screams of all our competitors, feeling their terror to the marrow of my bones, took a toll on me.

My mates’ love has supported me and mended me. I’m ready to start our new life together.

“I love you two,” I say as we approach the threshold. When both their heads whip toward me, I feel a touch of sadness. My silence has affected them. They’ve missed me. “I won’t shut you out again,” I promise. Then I force myself to add, “Your love has made me whole.”

Willow smiles that open smile she has that reminds me her life was happy before her abduction. She knows how to feel and express that emotion better than I do.

“I vow to show you how much you both mean to me. Part of that will be to explore the happiness you bring me,” I tell them solemnly.

Willow clutches me tighter, and Braveheart slings his arm around my shoulder.

“Carry me inside,” Willow orders. “It’s an Earth thing. But wait! You two figure out how to both carry me in.”

Braveheart and I have a few missteps before we improvise a method to both carry her inside. It’s graceless but fitting as we face each other with one arm supporting her back and the other under her knees. It signifies not just our affection and bond with her, but our commitment to work together on her behalf.

To get through the doorway, it takes us a moment, like a comedy routine.

“Valor. I’ve never seen you laugh before,” Willow says, a wide smile on her face, “and I’ve certainly never heard you giggle .”

I put my face on lockdown and protest, “I did not giggle.” Then I lean down, kiss her, and laugh.

“That was a giggle,” Braveheart insists.

I punch his shoulder.

I love this. We’re a family. I’m almost afraid to think it, but we’re a happy family.

Willow

We take a moment to look around the cottage. It’s quaint. Well, not exactly quaint, more like something out of Mother Goose. Old-fashioned and painted in inviting pastels.

Hearing Valor laugh cracked something apart inside me. I love him with all my heart, but I’ve felt the remnants of a barrier surrounding him, like he still needed protection, even from Braveheart and me.

Although we shared deep thoughts and feelings through our psy link, I felt like there was an invisible wall inside him. That’s changing, though, and maybe by the time we’re flying back to planet Marentine to start our new lives as free people, all our barriers will be destroyed.

I open the cold box and see a bottle of liquor with a bow on it and a plate of cheeses, then glance out the window to see the ocean in front of me and the mountains the planet is famous for looming off to the right.

When the three of us explore farther into the cottage and see the wide bed, covered in a cobalt blue bedspread, I stop in my tracks.

Although I’ve never been an impulsive person, I can’t control myself from saying, “Do we have to wait until later, or can the three of us christen the bed now?”