Page 181 of Starborn Husbands

Yeah, you and me both, little buddy.

A torpedo of white feathers and gold streaks across the sky, colliding with Merrick. Several Boone men swarm, prying the angel from Merrick, spinning, and tossing him off toward the temple somewhere.

Enormous blue light has built around Daniel who’s recovered from his son’s stab wound. He sends successive lightning bolts, wailing toward the ground toward Merrick and Zhang.

“No!”

The putrid smell of charred skin permeates the air, and my men fall lifeless to the ground.

A sharp gust of wind belts from Daniel’s wings, his stone-like grip catches me under my arms, and we lift into the sky. “No. You asshole!” I twist and kick, his fingers press bruises into my armpits.

All I can think about are my men lying at odd angles, seared with lightning, on the ground. They could die. I didn’t get to tell either one of them that … fuck.

The energy trips and trills beneath my skin, trying to tell me something. The place where my star lives glows on the inside, and I reach for it, desperately hoping to seize a chunk of it. At least I can still feel them. Zhang through our marriage rune, and Merrick through the handprint he scorched into my skin. But for how much longer? Their energy is faint.

“We have to go back for them. They’ll die. At least save your son.”

“My son won’t die. Your husband might, but then you’ll be free of the marriage contract, and living in the Garrison won’t be an issue.”

He wouldn’t feel that way if his mate died. I bet he’d beg God to end his existence. There’s no point bringing that up now. If he were rational, we wouldn’t be here.

The light beneath my skin won’t give up, filling my skin this time, begging to be set free.Sorry little fella, you’re trapped in there.We’re higher in the sky now, and his wings beat heavy wind through my hair. If he were taking me back to the Garrison, he would have used his wings like a stargate, but he’s not. Wherever he’s bringing me can’t be good.

Releasing the light becomes a need. I push, trying to expel it out of me, but nothing happens. It’s just as trapped as it ever was. Where the fuck is my Godly power when I need it?

But … was that … yeah. There’s a pulsing through my marriage rune. It beats stronger, and in time with the beating through Merrick’s handprint. They’re alive. There’s still time.

My heart fills.

The light under my skin sucks into my heart like it’s a bottomless pit. Time freezes. The world freezes. I’m no longer in the sky with Daniel. My mind shuffles the thousands of memories I’d lost, filling them into the empty slots quickly until I get to her.

“Mama,” I gasp.

Mama has black hair like mine. She’s Anya. She’s a schoolteacher. She’s happy. We listen to her playing the violin at night. Pa builds her the house she wanted when I move out, from trees he cut down with his bare hands. It’s modest, but it’s theirs. I’m an only child because they couldn’t have more children after me, so I make it my mission to fill my house with grandchildren for her.

I meet Zhang who’s not Zhang, but Cam. We’re both on the run. Him from his prim and proper family, and me from local law enforcement. I think he’ll turn me in for sure, but his smile says it all. He’s smitten and he’ll go down with my ship.

I initiate him into life as a miscreant by teaching him how to hunt and skin an animal using a technique I just seemed to know. Pa had taught me some other way, but I came up with a more efficient way of quartering an animal.

We make love for the first time in a barn, and after that, I refuse to live without him.

Mama got sick.

Okay enough.

Cholera, they said. Oh Gods, how can she be destined to die that way in more than one universe?

Enough.

I pray my ass off for God to save her, but my prayer is never answered. I remember things from my star life. Just bits. Not everything. Enough to know that I’m a star from the Pleiades star cluster. Cam/Zhang thinks I’m crazy, I start to think so too. Even then, he doesn’t leave me and our growing family of adopted lost children.

Boone finds me, or do I find Boone? The details are fuzzy there. Either way, his stargate isn’t working. He’s stranded on Earth in the time we’re existing in. He’s sure his family will find him … eventually.

They had to escape their planet. He’s from way into the future where life on Earth has been extinguished forever in all but one timeline. This is that timeline. He wants a place for him and his family to hide until they can build a large enough resistance to take out a thing called Ryker Corp.

Mama. Mama dies.

Her death triggers power in me that I never knew existed. Because of the powers, I can go with Boone, with Major Boone Ryker, but Cam/Zhang can’t. He’s only human, but I’m not. I’m a demigod. I want to help Major Ryker, so I leave with him, promising I’ll return. I help him start his rebellion, wanting to bury myself in anything else, trying to forget Mama. But in the process, I forget something just as important.