Chapter 7 #2
Auro was already rising, his hand extended. Celyze’s wings fluttered with something like anticipation, and Luwyn laughed—a warm, rolling sound—as the four of them moved away from the table toward the open space near the windows.
They didn’t dance like Aldawi or Circuli. They danced like humans and the males who loved them—close, playful, spinning each other through steps that had no formal name. Tori’s laughter rang out as Auro dipped her, her hair sweeping the floor before he pulled her back up into Celyze’s waiting arms.
Something loosened in the room. The cubs giggled, pointing at the spinning figures. Even Oeta’s severe expression softened at the edges.
Then Kaede moved.
Odelm almost missed it—the assassin was so rarely anything but stillness and controlled violence. But Kaede rose from his seat with liquid grace and extended his hand, palm up to their nestqueen.
Selena’s spots flared pink. “Kaede—”
“One dance.” His voice was low, rough in a way Odelm rarely heard. “Before everything changes. Let me have this.”
She took his hand.
Kaede drew her up carefully, mindful of her belly, and led her toward where Tori’s clan still swayed. His movements were precise—of course they were, everything about Kaede was precise—but there was tenderness in the way he held her. In the way his neon green eyes never left her face.
Selena melted into him, one hand on his shoulder, the other cradled in his grip. They moved together like they’d done this a thousand times, though Odelm knew they hadn’t. Kaede fought. Kaede protected. Kaede killed with elegant efficiency.
But tonight, Kaede danced.
And he looked at Selena like she was the only light in a universe of darkness.
Odelm’s fingers found a softer melody, something to carry them. His heart ached in his chest—the good kind of ache, the kind that came from witnessing something precious.
Movement caught his eye. Zirene had risen too, his massive shadow-wrapped form cutting through the warm light. But he didn’t approach Selena.
He stopped in front of Meti.
The eldest cub looked up at her father—at the Sovereign of the Aldawi Empire—with those too-knowing eyes. Zirene dropped to one knee, bringing himself closer to her level, and held out a clawed hand.
“May I have this dance, little star?”
Meti’s guardedness cracked. Just for a moment. Just enough for the child beneath to peek through.
“You’re too big,” she said, but she was already putting her hand in his.
“Then I’ll be careful.”
He lifted her, settling her feet on top of his own, and began to move. The Sovereign of the Aldawi Empire, dancing with his daughter while war waited at the borders. His shadow curled around them both, protective even now, and Meti—serious, watchful Meti—giggled.
Actually giggled.
The sound hit Odelm like a physical blow. He blinked hard against the sudden burn in his eyes.
Around the room, the rest of the clan had stopped to watch.
V’dim’s tentacles had stilled mid-gesture, his conversation with Z’fir forgotten.
Xylo’s expression had gone soft in a way he rarely allowed.
Zyxel’s tongue flicked out repeatedly, tasting the emotional shift in the air, his chartreuse eyes wide with something like wonder.
Even Ryzen had looked up from his hollow staring. His runes flickered—once, twice—as if the sight had sparked something in the void.
The younger cubs clamored to join, and suddenly V’dim was scooping up Nocrez while Z’fir caught Neazzos in a tangle of vines that made them shriek with laughter. The formal dining hall had transformed into something else entirely.
Family, Odelm thought. This is what family looks like.
He played until his fingers ached. Played through Tori’s breathless laughter and Kaede’s rare almost-smile and Meti’s precious giggles. Played through the sight of his nestqueen glowing pink and violet, surrounded by her mates, her cubs, her chosen people.
Eventually, the music slowed. The dancers drifted back to their seats or settled onto cushions, flushed and warm. The cubs curled against their parents, energy finally spent. The room gentled into that soft space between activity and rest.
This was usually when they scattered. When duties called them to different wings, different tasks, different orbits around their shared center.
Tonight, no one moved.
Odelm’s fingers slowed on the strings. The light melody faded, leaving silence that felt heavier than sound.
Now.
The thought rose unbidden, certain in a way his emotions rarely were. This was the moment. The one he’d been waiting for without knowing it.
He’d written a song, once.
During the dark months. When Selena had been taken—ripped from their bonds so violently that the absence had felt like open wounds.
When he’d spent endless nights staring at instruments he couldn’t play properly.
His tentacles gone, too newly regenerating to even break from his skin, making him incapable to manage the precision his music demanded.
He’d written the song anyway. Clumsy. Imperfect. Full of all the grief and desperate hope he couldn’t speak aloud.
He’d never played it for her.
It had felt too raw. Too revealing of the depths of his need—the obsessive fixation that his clanbrothers whispered about when they thought he couldn’t hear.
Playing it meant admitting how close to the edge her disappearance had pushed him.
How much of his sanity had hinged on the belief that she would return.
But tonight was the last night.
Tomorrow, Zirene would board the ShadowClaw and fly toward a war that might kill him. V’dim and Z’fir would follow within days, commanding fleets instead of sharing meals. The constellation Selena had built so carefully—woven bond by bond, thread by thread—would fracture across light-years.
They might never all be together again. Not like this. Not with the warmth of shared food and the sounds of cubs and the comfort of walls that had witnessed their best and worst moments.
If he didn’t play it now, when would he?
His fingers shifted position.
The dining hall seemed to hold its breath.
The first notes emerged low. Tentative. A single thread of sound that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than music usually lived.
Around the table, conversation stilled.
The melody climbed slowly, finding its footing. It wasn’t perfect—his regenerating appendages stumbled over passages that once flowed like water—but the imperfection made it honest. Real in a way polished performance could never be.
This was what grief sounded like when you couldn’t hold it anymore. When the words I thought I lost you weren’t enough.
He played the endless nights. The weight of bonds gone quiet. The way hope had felt like a psyblade pressed against his throat—cutting if he held it too tight, killing him if he let it go.
He played the fear that never quite left. The knowledge that the galaxy kept trying to take her, and one day it might succeed.
He played love.
Not the comfortable love of settled bonds and easy rhythms. The sharp, desperate kind. The kind that woke him in the dark with her name on his lips and terror in his chest. The kind he’d promised to temper, to control, to make smaller so it didn’t overwhelm her—
But music didn’t lie.
The clan sat frozen. Zirene’s shadow had gone still, no longer rippling with its usual restless energy.
Kaede’s hands remained steady, his piece of wood and psydagger clutched tightly in his grip.
The princes had leaned together, V’dim’s tentacles intertwined with Z’fir’s vines in unconscious unity.
Xylo’s thread pressed against Odelm’s shields—wordless understanding, the solidarity of a bondbrother who knew exactly what this cost him.
Even Ryzen had looked up. Something flickered behind his hollow gaze. Recognition, maybe. The acknowledgment of one grief touching another.
But Odelm’s attention was on Selena.
Her spots had shifted.
Deep violet bled through the softer colors, the bioluminescence responding to emotion too powerful to contain. Tears tracked silently down her cheeks, catching the light, and she made no move to wipe them away.
Through their bond, her feelings crashed into him.
You kept me alive.
The thought wasn’t words—just raw understanding, the shape of what his music had given her without either of them knowing.
He’d poured his grief into song while she was gone, and somehow that grief had become a tether.
A promise that someone was waiting. Someone would keep holding on no matter how long the dark lasted.
The final notes faded into silence.
For a long moment, no one breathed.
Then Selena moved.
She rose from her chair with a grace that belied her exhaustion, small belly curving beneath the soft fabric of her dress. She didn’t speak. Didn’t look at anyone else. Just crossed the space between them with steps that felt inevitable.
Odelm barely had time to set aside his velishra before she was there.
Her forehead pressed against his. Her hands cupped his face, thumbs brushing his cheeks with a tenderness that made his throat close.
Her breath was warm, her presence overwhelming, her scent—exotic flowers under starlight and home—wrapping around him until he couldn’t remember what loneliness felt like.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Her voice cracked at the edges. He felt the words vibrate against his skin, felt them sink into his bones and take root.
“For keeping me alive in your music when I couldn’t be here.”
His eyes burned.
All the promises he’d made—to be stronger, to be better, to need her less—crumbled under the weight of what she was giving him. She wasn’t asking him to be smaller. She was thanking him for the very thing he’d tried to hide.
His arms came up to wrap around her, careful of her belly, careful of everything precious she carried. She folded into him like she belonged there. Like his embrace was just another kind of sanctuary.
Through their bond, her love washed over him.
It was vast. Encompassing. The love of a nestqueen for her clan, for the males who’d chosen her against all odds and kept choosing her every day. It touched every thread in her web—Xylo’s teal, Z’fir’s emerald, V’dim’s turquoise, Kaede’s neon green, and Zyxel’s fresh crimson.
And beneath it, woven so deep into the fabric of her feelings that it might have been there from the beginning—
Stay.
The request was quiet. Almost afraid to be spoken.
“All of you. Stay with me tonight.”
Odelm felt the others receive it. Felt the answering surge through the bonds—Zirene’s fierce agreement, the Sovereign already rising from his seat to move closer.
Kaede’s immediate protective response, his presence shifting to flank Selena’s other side.
The princes’ steady commitment, their intertwined appendages finally loosening as they stood together.
Xylo’s quiet acceptance, the scholar already calculating what his nestqueen needed and how to provide it.
Even Zyxel, still learning the shape of this family, felt the pull. His uncertainty gave way to something like wonder—the realization that this invitation included him too. That he wasn’t an outsider anymore.
“Yes,” Odelm pathed back, his mental voice rough with emotion. “Always. Whatever you need. However long you need it.”
He held her tighter.
Around them, the clan began to move. Not away—closer.
Zirene’s shadow wrapped around both Odelm and Selena, a living cocoon of darkness that somehow felt like comfort.
Kaede’s hand landed on Odelm’s shoulder, a rare gesture of solidarity between males who usually showed their bond through action rather than touch.
The princes’ vines and tentacles reached toward their nestqueen, adding to the embrace.
Even the cubs sensed the shift. The younger ones migrated toward their mother, small bodies pressing against whatever adult was closest. Meti stayed where she was for a moment longer—watching, assessing, making sure it was safe to feel.
Then she crossed to Selena’s side and slipped her hand into her mother’s.
Family.
The word rose through the bonds, felt rather than spoken. This was what they were. What they’d built against impossible odds, from broken pieces and lost souls and love that refused to yield.
Tomorrow, the constellation would fracture. War would scatter them across the galaxy, and fear would become the constant companion of everyone left behind. There would be goodbyes that might be permanent. Departures that ripped pieces of their hearts out and carried them into the void.
But that was tomorrow.
Tonight, they had this.
His nestqueen in his arms. His clanbrothers gathered close. The warm light of home and love fierce enough to make the darkness feel smaller.
Odelm pressed his forehead harder against Selena’s, breathing her in.
Not clingy, he reminded himself.
But when she held on like he was the only solid ground in a storm—when the whole clan held on, circled around her like planets around their sun—maybe holding on wasn’t the same as clinging.
Maybe it was just love, refusing to let go.
And maybe that was exactly what all of them needed tonight.