Gillian
“Are you really sure I need to wear this?” I ask as Scarlett cinches the dress tighter around my bodice.
Admittedly it’s a very pretty dress, made out of the lightest, floatiest fabric in the most gorgeous of deep red colors.
“No, you don’t need to wear it, but believe me, you’ll be happy you did,” she says.
“So, tell me again about this ceremony,” I say.
Dyris looks up from licking her fingers clean of the sticky sweet sauce on the meat strips everyone’s been tucking into.
“Males like to dance for their females. It proves their claim in the eyes of the ancestors and of their clan. In Dalox’s case, his warriors. It means, even if he hasn’t filled your belly yet, his rut is his claim, and no other male will touch you.”
“I don’t want to be touched by any other male,” I huff.
“I still need you to teach me more moves,” Maggie says. “It’ll come in handy on Driok on occasion.”
“Maggie!” Kerra snorts.
“What can I say? He can still be insufferably smug,” Maggie says, her hand over her rounded stomach. “It’ll be fun watching him go down.”
“Basically it’s a sort of marriage ceremony,” Lydia says. “I presume he asked you if you wanted him to dance for you.”
“He did.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said if he wanted to.”
“Trust Dalox to take that as a yes.” Rosalie laughs.
“There you go.” Scarlett taps me gently on the shoulder. “All done. Go and have a look at yourself.” She points me in the direction of the bathroom.
I make my way over, but before I get there, I hear a commotion at the door. Turning, I see an agitated Dalox who is pushing past Dyris and Dyoti.
“My mate,” he says. “I needed to see you.”
“You will see her at the ceremony!” Dyris exclaims.
Dalox stops in front of me, his eyes trailing over my dress, his jaw slackening.
“I wish to see my mate, now,” he murmurs.
Dyris growls deep in her chest and turns to the others, flapping her hands at them. My new human friends wave at me as they exit the room, but Dyoti has to be dragged out by Dyris.
The door closes behind them.
“What is it?” I ask. “Because if you didn’t want this, if you were only doing what is expected of you, I really don’t mind not going ahead with it.”
“On the contrary.” Dalox moves closer to me, until I can smell his smokey, spicy scent, his scales glittering in the lights of our quarters. “I want this more than anything. I want you to know how much you mean to me.”
“I already know.” I put my hand on his warm chest.
His hips twitch.
“You will know harder,” he says. “The dance is within all Sarkarnii males. If I don’t dance for you now, I will dance for you in the future.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Dalox strokes down my cheek, placing the knuckle of his forefinger under my chin to tilt my face to his. He presses his lips to mine.
“This,” he says. “Because I won’t get to kizz you for hours after the ceremony, and I want you to know how much it means to me, how much you mean to me. I know you wanted to go back to your planet, and yet you are prepared to stay here with me.”
“I thought it was what I wanted.” I cup his jaw with my hand. “I thought it was what my mum would have wanted me to do. But she wanted me to be happy, and I’m happy, here with you. Plus, you’ve got an influx of new females to deal with, and I figured you’d need the help.”
“With females?” Dalox snorts some smoke.
“Absolutely with females. Things are going to change around here, for the better, but I doubt you’re ready for it.”
He contemplates me, running his claws through my hair.
“I would be honored to have your help, little spark. Vorostor is about to get a lot more interesting with you around.”
“Don’t you mean all the Sarkarnii females you thought you’d lost?”
“Absolutely not,” Dalox says. “I mean you, Gillian. I mean us. I was a shadow before I met you, now I am more. Now I am better because you are here.”
“My mum would have loved you,” I say, tears pricking the back of my eyes, but I am not ashamed, not at all. “She would have loved putting you on the floor too.”
“Oh, would she?” Dalox grins. “I doubt you’ll ever manage that…”
I look down at him, on the floor.
“You were saying?”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be, little spark, than at your feet, gazing up at your beauty.”
I hold out my hand to him, once more helping him to his feet.
“But having you by my side is the best feeling in the universe,” he adds. “Shall we go? I have a dance to do for a beautiful female to call my own.”
I slip my arm in his. He looks down at where we are joined.
“You’ve persuaded me.” I put my hand over his clawed one. “And there’s nothing I would like to do more.”
“Then let me dance for you, my spark, my mate. Let me dance for you and show the ancestors we belong together, now and for eternity.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Sounds like I finally have your heart.”
“Always.”
The door opens, and we walk out past everyone into the large, open atrium of Dalox’s ship, where cheers raise the roof and drums thump out a beat no one could resist.
Especially my big, bad Sarkarnii warlord.
Book 6: Craved by the Dragon Warlord - Deus and Lydia’s story.