10. Doran
DORAN
The lack of scales, tail, and wings did not diminish her beauty in the slightest. In fact, she was the most beautiful being I’d ever seen.
My feet had hurried towards her as soon as I’d entered the customs area and spotted her, as if drawn by a magnetic force.
That pull only became stronger as traces of her scent filtered through all the dust, oil, and metallic smells that filled the area.
She was most definitely my star-granted mate, and I was determined to make her the happiest female alive.
“I hope the bots got everything right,” I said nervously as I drove the short distance to our new home.
My gums were tingling and I probed them with my tongue.
My venom sacs felt tender to the touch, the glands that fed them swelling in preparation.
Soon they’d be full of mating venom, and wouldn’t go down until I’d claimed her.
She glanced up from where she’d been staring at the canine in her lap.
She’d done that since the moment I’d handed her the animal, her flushed cheeks slowly fading.
Had it been embarrassment over some imagined slight to me over refusing the priestess?
Or merely shyness at finally meeting the stranger she found her and her kits’ future suddenly tied to?
Our kits, I corrected myself.
Her mouth hung slightly open now, her eyes shining as the smile that suddenly wreathed her face made it to her eyes.
Her beautiful, beautiful brown eyes, which got the most adorable little crinkles in the corner when she smiled like that.
I found myself wanting to see her do more, just so I could stroke her face and trace every single one of them.
Now was not the time for that, however. We’d only just met and it was far too soon, despite our week being nearly half over.
I was willing to wait to the very last hour if that’s what it took to make her comfortable.
I’d have agreed to wait past that and let everyone assume we’d consummated our mating, but biologically speaking, that was a bad idea.
Not only because of the primal mating urges I’d started experiencing, but our scents would give us away to anyone who came within an arm’s reach of us, other than perhaps a human.
“It’s better than,” she breathed as we came to a stop. “Oh, just look at it! And it even has a darling little sign over the porch with the name of it, shaped like two dragon wings!”
“Or Dragonii wings,” I offered, letting mine free with a grin as I alighted from the flitter.
“Oh, wow,” she replied, looking at my wings in what could only be awe. “Seeing Prince Johree’s on the TV was one thing, but up close, they look even more magnificent.”
I preened. My mate had just said my wings were more magnificent than a royal’s, despite their smaller size as being non-royal, mine were only made for gliding like the rest of the common Dragonii.
A few males I recognized and a couple more that I didn't came out of the house.
One of them was my brother Kaelor, and the rest of those I knew were space dock workers who’d probably had the day off.
“Ho, brother, mine!” Kaelor called out, beaming at us as I came around to Sarah's side of the flitter. “I gathered up a few males to help you unload all that and get everything set up.”
Sarah held out the canine to me. Sweetie. That was her name. I needed to remember it. I took Sweetie and held the leash in one hand as I held out my other to her.
Her cheeks turned pink once more, and she looked slightly past me as she took my hand and clambered down. Definitely shy, then. Could she be any more adorable?
“That was mighty nice of you,” she said, letting go of my hand and addressing my brother. Him, she had no problem meeting eyes with him. Her shyness was entirely with me, I quickly realized as the other males hurriedly introduced themselves.
Oh. That extra sweetness that I’d smelled suddenly made sense.
Kaelor would tell me I was an idiot if he knew I’d not recognized that slightly musky scent for what it was.
She’d felt a sense of definite attraction to me, and knowing I could probably tell, as could any Dragonii close enough, had made her feel embarrassed.
My tail sprang up, and my wings fluttered with pride before I got my cocky display under control and folded them back out of the way.
“It’s entirely our pleasure,” one of the males I didn’t know but who’d given his name as Guriff replied.
Kaelor strode down the steps and began helping me undo the straps holding things down.
“There’s another load’s worth waiting for me to go pick it up still,” I told him. “She brought everything they owned.”
“I’ll get someone to drive it over. Where are the kits?”
I quickly explained about them coming later.
“That’s too bad, but by the time it was apparent everything would be ready, it was too late for her to change her mind anyway if she’d known,” he said.
I nodded. “True. And the first week is half over, so it won’t be that much longer.”
“Perhaps she can get Bob to speak to Xeranos and see about arranging an earlier flight,” he suggested.
“That’s a wonderful idea!” I felt like a double idiot for not having thought of this myself. “She wants to arrange a very small wedding as soon as possible. Just us and the kits and our sister and both of our parents. No priestess.”
“I’ll comm Johree and make the arrangements. You can be the one to comm our sister and parents, and Bob can try to get it so everyone arrives at the same time.”
“If they can’t make it the day after her parents and our kits arrive, they can watch it over a comm link,” I said firmly.
It wasn’t that I didn't get along with our sister and parents per se, but rather that Kaelor and I had always come last the moment our sister had been born. Genuinely last, even after their jobs and social calendar with friends. It was as if we'd become an afterthought. They’d had a precious Dragonii female, which admittedly was far less common than a male, and we’d become, well, surplus. Or at least, it usually felt that way.
“They will come,” Kaelor reassured me. “Two of your kits are female.”
I glared at him. “That should not matter.”
He held his hands up placatingly. “As Jesse would say, you’re preaching to the choir. That means to someone who already knows.”
I filed the idiom away in case I was able to make use of it later, to sound more knowledgeable about humans.
“There, we can start unloading now. You should go in with her and find out what she wants where. I’ll comm Hrikit and get him to send a driver with the rest. I left him in charge to supervise the unloading, so he’ll know who’s there and which trailer is yours.
We’re not expecting anyone else to arrive in-system today, so if someone shows up and he and Bob can’t handle it, he can just comm me. ”
I nodded, hurrying up the steps to the porch, slipping in through the front door a few moments behind her.