Page 177 of Starborn Husbands

“My heart hurts too much.” Using a stargate requires heart alignment.

“I’m right here, and we’re never going to be parted again.” I’m going to make damn sure. From now on, I’m going to be a paranoid lunatic.

With him attached to my body, I dig through every Godsforsaken shoe in his closet. Who needs this many shoes? I cycle through the same three pairs of boots until they die. “Which damn shoe is it, Gem?Gemini.”

“Boots. My boots,” he says.

I sigh into his ear and kiss the top of his head. “You have at least fifty pairs of boots, baby.” I have to calm the fuck down. One of us has to have a head on his shoulders, and it ain’t gonna be him.

I saw boots by his bed. Does he mean those?

The stargate clatters to the floor as soon as I dump the boot upside down. “C’mon, Gem. C’mon.”

His face is buried into my neck, and his lungs pull in gulps of my scent. He shakes his head. “Too dangerous, Atlanta. I’m not myself. Why don’t you try?”

“Because I’ll trap us in a black hole. I’m not trained for it.”

“It’s a lot like when you fly a ship.”

It’s not at all like that. This is a case of Gem having way too much faith in me. The ship has preset vibrations. It takes little effort to tune into those. “I don’t have the training, but you’ll teach me. You’ll have lots of time in our forever.”

He nods this time. Please let him come around.

“Let’s put your boots on,” I say, setting him on the bed. He whimpers, but lets go, watching me slide his pretty feet into his sturdiest boots. Ah! These are hisbootsboots. That’s what he meant when he said “boots”. The others are for fancy times. Got it. I love learning his language and even after all this time, there’s still more to learn. I’ll never stop learning about him.

I let the stargate secure itself around his wrist.

“Am I carrying you out of here, Gem?”

Fucking hell, though. I don’t have a weapon. Stealth is a lot harder to maintain with a person on your back.

Solution, not the problem, Atlanta. That’s Father’s voice in my head. The same father who was about to rail the king earlier. What are the chances they’re finished by now? “My father has sex with your father,” I tell Gem.

Gem’s fists clench. “They do? They can be together, and we can’t?”

“We are together,” I correct him. “And I don’t think they’re together. Pretty sure it was hate sex.”

“Gemini.” The deep voice comes from the other side of the door. “What did you do? This was supposed to be locked from the outside.”

Gem’s face twists. The voice is familiar, but I can’t quite place it.

“Who is that?” I whisper.

“My husband-to-be.”

“He’s here? How’s that possible?”

“Stargate. Father wanted him here as soon as possible. He was going to take me away during your judgment hearing.”

I almost didn’t make it. “You don’t happen to have a weapon in here?”

“No.”

Great. The door slides open, and the Prince of Caimia steps through, his pale blue skin sparkling away. Even his deep blue hair shines like it’s just been waxed. His meaty fists are clamped around the handle of his large ax, and he doesn’t like seeing me holding onto his prize, that’s for sure.

Welp, fighting it is. “Gem, I’m gonna need you to work on that stargate.”

The blue prince bares his teeth and slices his way into the room. I duck, and dodge, evading the sharp edge of his ax, but the furniture doesn’t. Wood and stone explode into pieces on the floor.