Chapter 21 #2
I shake my head. “She’s not upset, I think it’s relief.
I think she sees Ria as a sister and was the only family she had left from her world.
She went missing and I think she has been more worried about her than she let on.
Knowing she’s safe, she’s able to release all those pent up fears about her. ”
When she finally calms down, Brax helps wipe her face before she turns in his lap to face the rest of us. “Sorry I got so emotional there. It’s just… you have no idea what it’s been like. Ria vanished into thin air, and nobody cared. We were all each other had after my parents…”
“After your parents what, Sweetheart?” Silver asks, my eyebrows rising at the use of the nickname.
She glances at Brax and Ryker before speaking. “I guess I haven’t told you about my parents yet.”
“You told us about your twin brother you lost, but nothing about your parents,” Ryker says, kneeling at her side as he runs a hand over her knee. She had a twin brother too? I wonder how she lost him, that must have been devastating.
“I told you I lost Charlie when we were sixteen. Two years later my parents died in a car accident… uhh… A car is a high-speed vehicle that you drive.” She glances at our slightly confused faces before adding, “It’s similar to a boat accident, I suppose.”
“Baby, you lost your whole family within two years?” Brax asks, sounding pained. She nods as she sniffles.
“Well, you have us now, and Ria.”
She looks up to Silver with hope in her eyes.
“You’re sure she’s okay? She’s happy?”
“I actually just saw her recently, when I met you I’d just returned from a visit to the east coast. She’s very happy, I promise. She lives on the ship, but I can take you to a town she will eventually visit, if you like?”
“You’d do that? You’d come with us?” she asks hopefully.
“Of course, if you want me to. But I can just give the others directions if you’d prefer.”
“No! I mean, if you don’t mind, I’d love you to come too, you can tell me stories about what she’s been doing here.” He nods, and she lets out a sigh of relief. “I can’t believe she’s here, and she’s okay. I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”
“Well, that sounds like the perfect time to sneak you away for our date, Sugar,” I tell her with a smile.
She beams at me as she climbs out of Braxton’s lap and stands. “I’d love that.” She turns and kisses her mates, thanking the dressmaker and Silver, before taking my hand as I lead her out of the store.
The festival is in full bloom when we arrive, and I lead her straight to the dance floor. “I don’t know the steps, Indy,” she confesses.
“Just follow my lead and don’t worry about it, just relax and have fun, alright?”
“Yes, sir,” she says with a heated stare as she bites her lip. I pull her against me with my hand in hers, and the other on the small of her back. I start guiding her around the dance floor and she does an excellent job of letting me lead.
“You’re doing wonderful, Sugar.”
“You’re a great dancer, Indiana.”
“It’s all you,” I tell her honestly. We smile at each other as we dance from song to song, occasionally talking when the music is a slower beat. After a while, she asks for a break.
“Would you like to have dinner now? There is somewhere we can sit and have a meal over there.” I point to a patio surrounded by the firebug lights she loved from her wedding.
“Yes, now you mention it, I’m starving.” I lead her to the patio and we’re seated beside each other, with a view of the festival in front of us.
“Tell me about yourself, Indy. I know you take care of horses, but tell me more about it,” she asks, biting into her chicken.
“I train horses as they get old enough to be ridden, or help train ones that aren’t working well for their owners.”
“You don’t raise them?”
“No, I never really had the space to do that. Nor have I ever felt settled enough somewhere to call it home and set down roots.”
“So, I guess you do for horses what Ryker does for skyreachers?” she asks.
“Yes, exactly. Sometimes I do care for them if their owners can’t for a while, but yeah, training is the main part.”
“If you had a home and space for it, would you want to raise some yourself?”
“I don’t think I’d like to raise them just to give them away. But I’d love to raise my own, you know, for my own family. I wouldn’t mind having a small farm to work on.”
“I love that idea, and I imagine it would be important to grow your own food here, where possible.”
“It’s not like that where you’re from?” I ask curiously.
“Well, there are farmers, and some people grow some of their own vegetables, but pretty much everyone goes to the store to purchase their food.”
“Well, lonelings like me who don’t have our own home, we have to purchase our food from a store as well, so I suppose it’s not that different.”
“Is there somewhere you’d like to live in Dyconia? Like a specific village or area?”
I think about it for a moment before answering. “No, I don’t think so, but I’d hope that wherever it is, you’d be there.”
She gives me a soft smile and I see her eyes move to my lips.
I lick them as I press my palm to her cheek, using my hand to tilt her face towards mine, and as my lips press to hers I swear I feel sparks throughout my entire body and I’m instantly hard.
I softly bite her lower lip, causing her to open her mouth, and I take the opportunity to press my tongue to hers.
I’ve never been able to imagine what kissing would feel like.
I never thought I’d get to experience it myself, and I find the feeling indescribable.
Somehow, I feel it through my entire body and straight to my cock.
Her tiny fingers dig into my chest, and I use my free arm to wrap around her back, holding her to me, afraid for this moment to end.
Finally, we pull back, panting, as she whispers my name, “Indy…”
I lick my lips, savoring the taste of her there before I tell her, “Thank you, Sugar.”
“For what?” she whispers, staring up at me with her beautiful green eyes.
“For giving the most amazing first kiss a man could ever even imagine.”
“Your first kiss… ever?” I nod. “You’re a thirty-nine year old virgin… wow.”
“That’s surprising?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty much unheard of in my world. Men, in particular, tend to start having sex early, normally in their teens. They’ll pretty much sleep with anything at that point.”
“That’s hard to imagine. Even women don’t act like that here, and they would likely have a fleet or men willing to do it.”
“I think that’s the difference. In my world, people have sex for fun most of the time, and not because they want something serious or even feel a connection.”
“And what about you, Sugar?” I ask her.
“Me? I slept with a few men before I came here. For me, it wasn’t so much as for fun, but because I did see a future with the men. Unfortunately, I found out too late that they didn’t feel the same way.”
“The men in your world sound rather wretched.”
She laughs at my description. “You aren’t wrong.” After a minute of us eating, she speaks up again. “I’m glad I came to this world. It can be a bit unpredictable and scary, but I know I belong here.”
“I’m pleased you came here, too,” I admit, as we continue eating.
Eventually we decide to head back to the tavern where she’s staying and we walk hand in hand down the street.
After a minute I ask, “How are you feeling, Sugar? Really? After everything you found out earlier.”
“Honestly? I feel relieved. As much as I’ve been trying to not let my search for Ria stop me from finding my own way in this world, it’s been the driving force.
And now I know she has three husbands to keep her safe, and she’s happy, I don’t have to stress about what’s happening to her, or finding her before something bad happens.
I still really want to see her, but it’s like the burden of her safety has been lifted from me, you know? ”
“I do. You mentioned a twin brother, will you tell me about him?”
“Yeah, Charlie. He was killed by someone when we were sixteen. Losing him was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through.
Losing my parents was also hard, I loved them and we got along great.
When they died, it left me alone, besides Ria.
But Charlie was my twin, our connection was unique. It’s hard to explain.”
“No, I understand perfectly. I have a twin, too.”
“You do?!” she asks, stopping in her tracks to turn and look up at me.
“But I thought brothers stuck together in this world, did you lose him too?” Her eyes grow concerned as she stares at me.
“In a way. He’s not dead, at least I don’t think he is.”
“What happened? If you don’t mind me asking?”
“No, of course not, Sugar. It’s just a little hard to talk about, I’m sure you understand.” She nods as she gives me a tight-lipped smile.
“You see, Apollo was born with magic.” She gasps as her eyes go wide.
“Our parents, they hated magic, they didn’t even want the word mentioned.
They told him to not use it and never speak of it.
But the way he explained it to me, it was as natural to him as breathing, he felt it under his skin.
Denying it would be like denying air. He did his best to hide it, and for years our parents saw nothing.
“When we were thirty, we met this woman, Caroline. Somehow, the two of us had managed to get her attention, which was pretty rare with their only being two of us. We thought we must be the luckiest men in the world. We courted her for a week.” I don’t want Penny to think I did anything with that woman so I rush to reassure her.
“We just spent time together, we didn’t even hold hands,” I tell her, giving her hand a squeeze, making her smile softly up at me.
“A fire somehow started in the barn on her family’s property.
Apollo and I saw the smoke and rushed there.
Her parents were screaming that they would lose their horses who were trapped inside.
Apollo decided to use his magic and dosed the fire in water, it stopped it dead in its tracks and saved the animals. ”
She gasps, placing her free hand over her mouth before speaking. “He was a hero! Caroline must have been so happy! Did she choose just to be with him after that?”
I shake my head. “Sadly, no. That would have been better than what actually happened. She screamed at him for using magic, calling him terrible names, saying she wanted nothing to do with us.”
“But he saved her family’s animals and their barn!”
“She didn’t care. After that, Apollo blamed himself and said I would never be able to get a mate with him weighing me down.
I told him I’d rather have him as my brother than a woman like her as a mate.
But he didn’t care. He took off in the middle of the night and I haven’t seen him since.
” I look at her and see tears slowly falling down her cheeks, so I wipe them away gently. “Don’t cry, Sugar.”
“That’s just the saddest story. I feel horrible for your brother. You really don’t know where he is?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’ve looked for him, but I haven’t seen him in nine years.”
“I’m sorry, I know what it’s like to lose a twin. We’ll look for him after we find Ria, okay?”
My head reels back in shock. “What?”
“After I see with my own eyes that Ria is okay, we’ll look for your brother. Even if it’s just so that you can see he’s okay.”
I stare at her shock, she was willing to do that, for me? I wasn’t even her mate yet. “What did I do to deserve you in my life?” I ask her as I move to cup her face in my hands. “Marry me?”
She sucks in a sharp breath of surprise, her eyes darting back and forth between mine before a smile spreads across her face.
“Yes!” she says excitedly, throwing her arms around me as she presses her lips to mine.
I bend down to lift her by her ass, placing her head slightly above mine and her arms around my neck, holding me close as we lose ourselves in our kiss.
Finally, we break for air and I set her back on her feet as I kiss the top of her nose. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow?” she asks, confused.
“Yes, we’ll marry tomorrow,” I tell her with the nod of my head.
“So soon?”
“I don’t want to risk you changing your mind, I want to make you mine as soon as possible. If it wasn’t so late already, I’d suggest today.”
“No, tomorrow is perfect, you don’t think Ryker and Brax will mind, do you?” she asks nervously.
“No, Sugar. I promise they won’t mind.”
She gives me a small smile. “Shall we go tell them, then?” she asks with excitement. It makes me happy to know she’s proud to call me her mate, excited for the rest of our friends to find out.
“Yes, let’s go tell them the good news.”