Chapter Eight
Starla walked along the flower pathway, marveling at the beauty of the Fey Realm.
She remembered the forest where she and Aurora had found safety that fateful day ten years ago.
The trees were enormous. When she tried to think of the flowers or colors, the only thing she could picture was green leaves and lots of brown.
“Why are you frowning, halfling?”
She stumbled, catching herself on the pillar holding a vine of more flowers. “Hey, Lula. For a dragon, you sure do walk quietly.”
Lula, the pink dragon she’d met during her first week on Fey, shifted into a gorgeous woman with long pink hair. It still amazed her to see her shift from a towering beast to a tiny woman.
“I’m good like that. Besides, how do you sneak up on your enemy or two mates if you aren’t quiet?” Lula asked.
“Good point. How are your bears?” Starla asked. Lula had two mates who were alphas of a bear clan. They were huge and loved Lula to distraction, which was a good thing because Lula was wild and sometimes a little crazy, in a good way.
“They are being male. I have left them to their own devices to...realize why I’m right.” Lula huffed, smoke escaping her very human nose.
Starla waved her hand to billow the fumes away, settling herself onto the large swing. She patted the space next to her. “Would you like to talk about it?” she asked.
Lula sat next to her. She fluffed out her hair and began to braid it.
Starla watched, loving the beautiful color.
Her own blonde tresses had grown a lot in the time she’d been there.
While she didn’t understand how Fey time worked, Jenna tried to explain the two suns and moons made their world similar to Earth in the sense she and others of her kind could live there without harm.
However, Starla aged faster. When she’d been frightened of becoming old and ultimately dying long before returning to Earth, Jenna reassured her the Fey Realm only sped up time in the soul and body to heal what needed healing in those who were not from there.
Starla didn’t understand until she’d woken one day, and her heart didn’t ache so much it hurt to get out of bed.
“Why the sigh, young Starla?” Lula turned to face her.
“You just reminded me why I have no mate. The reason my male rejected me was that I was too young. He decided I was too young for him without giving us a chance.” She rubbed her brow, hating the memory of his face as he glared at her. The distaste he didn’t bother to hide was like a physical blow.
Lula nodded. “Males, especially ones as old as a male vampire who has seen much in his life, would have a visceral response to finding out his bonded mate hasn’t had a life lived. He wouldn’t be a good male if he decided to take you before you were fully grown.”
Starla jumped to her feet. “Not you, too. How would you have felt if your mates rejected you if they thought you were a child and...” She sucked in a breath.
“I’m sorry. I’m not mad at you. Hell, I’m not mad at him any longer.
I get it. It was for the best. The hurt is still there.
Especially knowing I may never have another Truemate unless our Goddess sees fit to gift me one. ”
Lula flowed to her feet, showing Starla just how smoothly the female can move. She placed her hands on Starla’s shoulders. The way she looked at her made Starla feel as if she could see into her soul.
“Our Goddess is very good. She will give you a male of worth. Maybe two or three.”
Starla choked on her own spit. “Good Goddess, I hope not. One mate would be fine, better than fine with me. I don’t know how you do it.
” She held her hand up, stopping Lula from explaining the details of her sex life.
“I mean, how do you put up with more than one male on the daily. You and Jenna are seriously super women.”
Lula smiled. “We really are. Saving women kind by—”
Starla covered her friend's mouth with her hand. She’d listened to the birds and the bees, or rather dragon and bears, plural, sex talk from Lula.
She couldn’t erase the screenshots from her mind, no matter how much she tried.
Of course, Lula replaced the images, so it wasn’t Lula and her bears.
The ones she sent Starla looked more like fake fairies, but still, Starla told her she never wanted to get sex ed from Lula ever again.
“You’ve grown in age as well as maturity. When you return to Earth, things will be different for you. Of course, you’re welcome to stay here. You will stop aging so rapidly, and at a point, your body will no longer show the age outwardly.”
She blinked, thinking about never returning to Earth made her stomach flip.
While staying on Fey sounded amazing, she missed her sister every day.
Sure, she could call her and even see her thanks to magic.
Starla hadn’t realized what it meant to leave Earth when she’d escaped, and yes, that’s what she’d done.
She’d run away from her own pain, and in doing so, she’d left her one constant, her sister Aurora.
The fact that Aurora and Savage were happily mated gave her a bit of peace.
“You’re doing it again. It must be a human thing,” Lula said.
She’d given up trying to figure out how Lula’s mind worked. Luckily, the dragon and Jenna had shown her how to build a wall in her mind. She didn’t want to worry about them reading her thoughts.
“Hmm, you never know unless you try. Besides, we females have several holes,” Lula laughed as she shifted to her massive pink dragon.
Starla flipped her hair out of her face, which the current of wind from the other woman’s wingspan caused. “See you later,” she called upward.
“I see Lula is still causing trouble.” Damien, one of Jenna’s mates, came to stand beside her.
She looked up at the large and somewhat scary male. “I can see why she needs two mates to keep her in line,” she mumbled.
Damien nodded. “I suppose. That must be why our mate does as well. Those two females are like two fairies in a pod.”
Starla raised her brows. “I think the saying is two peas in a pod.”
He lifted one brow back at her. “There is nothing at all similar about a pea and my female or Lula. In fact, I’d wager an entire kingdom that they’d squash anyone who’d claim it so.
Anyhoo, how are you doing? Do you need any medical advice, or would you like me to check you over as a doctor of human medicine?
My brother and I are actually board-certified through the human system twice over. ”
“Can you dumb that down for little ol’ me, please?
” Starla rubbed her temple after she asked Damien to repeat his question.
Jenna’s two mates tended to speak in riddles or in an old-fashioned sort of way that bewildered her.
She was sure they did it to keep her off kilter, although Jenna assured her they meant no harm.
“Well, we are older than we look, as you’ve probably come to realize.
Like most other supernatural beings, we live for a very long time.
Because human lifespans are shorter than ours, we learned long ago how to work around their systems. However, Lucas and I were both drawn to the medical fields.
Throughout our lives, we’ve attended medical school twice and earned our doctorates.
Of course, we had to change our names each time and start over each time, but you get the idea. ”
“I do, but you’re not really starting over because you still have the knowledge in your brain. Right?” Starla couldn’t imagine retaining so much information. It would be akin to information overload. Her brain would surely implode.
Damien chuckled. “Ah, you’re correct. I do not sense any illness within you. How are you feeling, though?”
She stiffened. “You can sense illness, like a drug sniffing dog?”
He tossed his head back and laughed. “Now that is a great way to describe my abilities. I suppose that is one way to explain it. Come, I’ll walk with you to the main house. Dinner is almost ready. By the time we get there, I think we shall have all your questions ironed out.”
Starla barely controlled the eye roll, knowing he wouldn’t appreciate her expression. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye as if he knew what she was thinking.
“How did you know Jenna was the one created for you and your brother? How were you sure you didn’t have a female out there that you didn’t have to share?
What if you weren’t meant to share but thought you were, and now you’ve left some poor woman mateless because you mated with your brother's female? Like, how do you truly know?” She spoke her questions so fast, knowing if she didn’t, she’d chicken out.
For Jenna and Lula, having two men at their beck and call was a no-brainer.
However, what did the two males get, except for having to share a female?
That meant they didn’t get the complete package, right?