Page 14 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
Lishelle snickered. “Yeah, a littletoofar from everything, huh? Like, how many lightyears?”
The other two laughed, and she was glad the second sampling of cake—which was awful—distracted them.
Everything she’d wanted back then—leaving her hometown, getting a prestigious job and a husband, makingsomething of herself—had already been crumblingbeforeBlackworm abducted her in Sunset Falls. So what did she want now?
“A glass of milk,” she muttered.
On their third sampling—a chocolate buttercream which was actually pretty close considering that the Thorkon baker had been genteelly horrified at their explanation of cow milking—Lishelle sat back casually, as if she were reviewing the checkliston her dat-pad. “So, I met the officiant for your wedding after I left you guys last night.”
Rayna mumbled around her mouth full of cake. “Hmmm. I’m not sure who that is.”
Trixie tsked at her. “You haven’t met the cleric who’s going to bless your vows? That’s like the most important part.”
Rayna shook her head. “I already have the most important part: Raz.”
“True, true,” Trixie said.
Lishelleswallowed her own mouth full of cake. Nope, it wasn’t cake, it was a lump in her throat, but it tasted of sweetness and bittersweetness and wistfulness and happiness for her friend. “Yeah, what you say to each other matters more than anything other people promise.”
Rayna smiled at her. “Exactly. I guess that’s why I haven’t been paying as much attention to the details as I should, when it seemslike what’s happening now was always meant to be.”
Lishelle remembered those feelings from the early days of her own marriage. Right up until she’d caught him cheating and he’d told her if she’d worked half as hard at their relationship as she did at the rest of her obligations, he wouldn’t’ve had to take his love elsewhere. And she’d screamed at him that his love wasthe one thingin her lifeshe shouldn’t have to work for, shouldn’t have to prove.
She’d been wrong, though. Like one of the Thorkon topiaries, a marriage needed tending. Of course, he’d been the one to dump crap all over it, and everybody knew chicken shit was too hot for compost and would burn even the toughest plantings.
But she wasn’t going to tell Rayna any of that. “You and the duke are perfect together,” she saidinstead. And she meant it.
Not that perfection was always enough, or lasted, but might as well start there.
“Did you like the priest?” Rayna asked. “The dowager said she’d take care of that part since she has all the social connections.”
“He seemed…nice,” Lishelle hedged. When they both shot her suspicious stares at her hesitation, she added quickly to cover her fumble, “Maybe…he seemed a littleyoung for a priest?”
“Not a priest. Thorkon religious people are more like clerics,” Trixie said. “Nor told me about their theory of the Lightlands—that’s their version of the afterlife or heaven—because of Blackworm…” She looked down at her cake.
Rayna patted her hand. Trixie had been the only one of them to face Blackworm in person. He’d believed if he explained his nefarious plans, he’dgain her consent to be sent into black hole in search of love. All because he’d thought a desperate little Earther girl had signed up for the Intergalactic Dating Agency to find a mate. His delusion that the Thorkon gods lived on the other end of a warm hole and were holding his dead consort hostage was like something out of a mythological tale, except Trixie had almost died because of it.
“Well,anyway, they can answer their religious calling at any age, male or female, noble or commoner.” Trixie shrugged, as if sloughing the bad memories. “I think they don’t get too picky since having so many gods is a lot of upkeep. In a Thorkon wedding, there might be several officiants, each one representing gods important to the bride and groom and their families, but one will always be the Avatarof the Tynan, God of Beloveds—”
Lishelle stiffened. “Who?”
“The God of Beloveds,” Trixie repeated.
“Tynan,” Lishelle said flatly.
Plenty of cultures took the names of their religious figures, she reminded herself. Look at all the Jesuses and Marys on Earth. Or maybe Tynan had been called something else and taken on the avatar’s name when he became a holy man.
“So the story goes,” Trixie continued,“Tynan was a Thorkon warlord with a hundred wanna-be brides vying for his attention.”
“How lord-like,” Lishelle muttered. She knew all about what happened to males who attracted too much feminine attention. She wasn’t even sure it was worth blaming them; their dicks just weren’t capable of handling too much handling.
Trixie clicked her tongue. “But he would not have a one of them unless theycould prove their true love.”
Suddenly, Lishelle was annoyed on the would-be brides’ behalf. “Let me guess. He made them duel to the death.”
Rayna practically snorted buttercream out her nose.
Trixie rolled her eyes. “No. There were three invocations…”