Page 18

The knock on the door froze both ladies in place.

Tiera looked up at Ziggy, and her friend since grade school smiled. “At least you know what you are getting into. I am learning more about Rothaway’s ways with every day, but it is still an adjustment. It will be nice to have another Gaian to share the fun with and even better to have my best friend with me in this new world.”

“I will always be there for you, Ziggy, even if we are worlds apart.”

Tiera reached up and squeezed Ziggy’s hand the moment that her friend finished the hairstyle of the People of the Air.

“Same here, Tiera. You can come to me with any questions. You know that I can find the answers.”

They laughed and hugged before walking to the door and greeting their men.

The attendant at the entrance of the bonding garden took in Tonos’s wild appearance and handed Rothaway the privacy lock.

They walked quietly to the gardens, and Tiera threw cautious glances to Tonos. He seemed under control, but his wings had their blade-like appearance, and his eyes were rimmed with red once again.

As they reached the edge of the gardens, Rothaway pressed a soft kiss on her forehead, and Ziggy kissed her cheek.

Tonos led her into the gardens and following Ziggy’s earlier direction when they were putting on the three silk under dresses, the heavy silk over dress and the corset, she breathed deeply of the flowers that seemed to be always in bloom on this part of the ship.

“Tonos, are you sure that you want this?”

They were approaching the altar with the hilt of a knife sticking out of it.

“I am sure. While I found Signy fascinating when I met her, I believe now it was because you were imprinted on her mind, and it bled out into the air around her.”

His fangs made his speech precise and slow. They had grown a quarter of an inch since she had seen him earlier in the day.

They stood in front of the altar, and he turned to face her.

She shivered as she realised that if a woman could stand in front of one of the Nine in rut and manage not to scream and run, it must be love.

“Take the dagger from the stone.”

His voice was a low rumble.

She followed his direction and hefted the knife that had a rough surface on the handle to catch her genetic code.

“Cut my wrist, here.”

He showed her the point and helped her line up the dagger for the quick slice.

When blood beaded and coursed down his wrist, he lifted her hand and the dagger it clutched, and he bit down sharply.

She inhaled, the floral scent swept through her in a wave, allowing her to calmly watch as he connected their wounds so that her blood became his and his hers.

Dizziness washed through her, and she buckled as details of his life flicked into her mind. Memories that were not hers started to work through her, and she saw the elegant home with its tall spires on an alien world, rich clothing and a formal court filled with elaborately clothed women and men with huge, fluttering wings.

“Tiera, Tiera, are you all right?”

He was holding her, and the red was still in his eyes but concern was overriding his lust.

“I am fine. I was just unprepared for your memories. They overwhelmed me.”

He frowned but spoke gently. “Put the dagger back in the stone and we are officially wed.”

It took her two tries, but when the dagger slipped into the stone and it lowered beyond her sight, she sighed with relief. Her body was still weak and tingling from the wash of memories, and when he lifted her in his arms, she smiled as the feeling of being secure and protected surrounded her.

He walked to the edge of the shielded area, and when Rothaway saw them coming, he opened the barrier.

He tried to block Tonos’s progress, but to Tiera’s shock, Tonos’s wings hummed, and they lifted into the air.

The feeling of security kept her calm as he flew them across the gardens that filled the centre of the ship, and they approached the zone of the People of the Air. They flew down halls and past startled occupants as they flattened themselves against the walls to allow him to pass.

Tiera was afraid of distracting him, and his intense face was far too grim for her to interrupt him while he flew.

He settled lightly in front of a door that had a strange glyph on it. “Open the lock.”

She blinked and smiled as it came to her that he had put her biometrics in his rooms already.

The door slid open, and he walked inside with a long stride. The interior was a mix of soft gold, greys and blues. They were the same colours that were active in her gown.

He set her on her feet, and she looked around quickly, taking in the location and the view of the gardens from the wide balcony windows.

“You could have just flown here.”

He chuckled and came up behind her, pressing his hands to her shoulders and kissing her neck. “I could have, but then you wouldn’t know where we lived, and that would make your knowledge of the area incomplete.”

A tear came to her eye as she realised that his courtship, the tour, it had all been part of easing her into knowledge of the mother ship.

As his lips trailed up her neck, and he turned her in his arms, she looked up into his green eyes rimmed with the red of his rut and smiled, “Now, Tonos, you can answer a question for me.”

He smiled down at her, and his gaze heated as she moved close to him, rocking her hips against him and sliding her arms up his back, stroking the base of his wings lightly.

“What can I answer for you, bondmate?”

She blushed and leaned up to whisper against his neck, “How many ways can a man with wings have sex? I have to admit that it has been a pressing question for me.”

His body went rigid for a moment before he lifted her up to meet his gaze eye to eye. “I will do the work, you keep count. Fair enough?”

She laughed, and he carried her into his bedroom, demonstrating that he was far more familiar with the clothing that she was wearing than she was.

When the final layer of silk was all that stood between her skin and his, he slowed down and caressed, touched and kissed each inch of her that was exposed while removing the final obstacle.

She shivered with heat by the time he moved over her and joined their bodies. They rocked, twisted and writhed together, and he held her arms over her head when her caresses on his wings became too much for him.

Her mind spun as she started to come back to herself after leaving her body and whirling through the stars. The best part had been that Tonos was with her, and when he looked into her eyes with his own clear, green ones, she leaned up, kissed him and whispered, “One.”

His grin ceased before he pinned her to the bed and rolled her to her side. As he lifted her leg and entered her again, she shivered at the intensity that rolled through her.

By morning, the count was up to five, and it only stayed there because she was not willing to have him with her in the lav. Having a seat on the vanity to allow him in was tempting, but she was sore, sticky and as she told him, “There are so many more days before us.”

When she tiptoed out of the lav with a sheet covering her, Tonos smiled and gestured to the delivery slot. “There is a new dress for you as well as some shoes.”

With a little help from him, she managed to get herself dressed as a woman of the People of the Air, or Air Folk if she was feeling casual.

“How do I look?”

He grinned, pulled her in for a kiss and said, “You look like mine.”

She laughed. “I am glad that you think so, because we are going to have to go to Gaia to prove to my family that you are mine. Ziggy may be held her as the Potential, but I am not, and my mom is a little confused as to why I would fall for a man I had just met.”

His normally cocky behaviour wobbled. “You want your family to meet me?”

She started to laugh and slowly trailed her fingers down his chest. “We can live here, work here, do whatever you want to here, but they have to see us, to see us happy.”

“Are you happy?”

There was vulnerability in his eyes that caused an ache in her heart.

“I cannot imagine me feeling more for anyone in the universe. If that is not happy, I don’t know what is.”

He chuckled and spun her around in his arms, and despite the discomfort, they managed to get up to six.

“Are you happy that she is here, Signy?”

Rothaway caressed his mate’s creamy shoulder in the early light of the ship’s dawn.

She smiled up at him, and the glow of happiness coming from her features nearly blinded him. “I am so very happy that she is here. Will there be a problem with the People of the Air for having one of their princes taking a Gaian to wife?”

“If there are, Tonos will handle it. He has always known what he wanted and that it did not reside on his home world. Perhaps coming out here was fate, destiny or just good planning on his part. All I know is that now that she is wed to him, my mate has more time for me, and so in that case, I wish them all the love in the worlds . . . that we are not using.”

Signy reached up to him and pulled him to her with her rapidly increasing strength. It may be coincidence, but she had more Wilder characteristics with every passing day, and to be honest with himself, Rothaway couldn’t be happier.