Chapter Twenty-One

Fred

The Star Room was built directly into the side of a mountain. In that way it reminded me of Hemlock Mountain and all the caverns my first Earthside ancestors lived in. I still couldn't imagine myself with a crescent shaped scale showing on my forehead all the time. I pushed the thought away and focused on the not-temple in front of me. The building itself looked to be plated or perhaps space-painted in gold.

"Those are little gold nuggets. Each one had to be slapped into place," my dragon observed, shifting my eyes to his for a better look at the building's exterior.

"Let me guess, Starscale Mountain? Mount Starscale?" I teased.

"Huh?" Elio glanced at me. "No, it's the Star Room. Are you okay? The doctor on the ship said the oxygen levels and air composition would be fine for you guys, but if it's not---"

"I was making fun of how some Earthside mountains were named, mate," I laughed, the sound vibrating through my bones like it hadn't since before Lotus had to leave.

"Oh. It's the Star Room," Elio nodded again, once I pulled myself together.

"It wasn't that funny, I know," I shrugged.

"It was sorta funny. Once you explained it to me."

"What is the name of the mountain?" I asked more clearly this time.

"Uhh… You'd have to ask it," Elio shrugged. "The building is the Star Room, and the mountain is a mountain. Do they name everything where you come from?"

"Just about," I shrugged again. "Maybe not every mountain individually, but the mountain ranges at least."

"Oh, the mountains are called the mountains here. They run all the way around the world in a nice wavy line. They were built that way."

"Maybe you guys don't name them because they didn't have to be discovered."

"Uhhhh…. Just because you stumble upon something doesn't mean it belongs to you. Don't go naming our mountains," Elio gave me a serious look.

"What?" I blinked.

"Look," Elio grabbed my arm and pulled me off the beaten path into a copse of trees. "There are whispers that the leaders put off connecting to everywhere else because they're worried who might try to take our worlds and to be fair, the Moonscales took a lot from a lot of people back in the day. Your flight wasn't the only group snatching shit up, but you were part of it. So, stop it. Stop trying to be that guy who discovers things. These mountains," he pointed up, "are the Mountains of Starscale 1. They were planned and grown and loved and lived in. They don't need you or anyone else to name them. They were not discovered. If they were, it was by the first generation born in their foothills. Love them, admire them, or whatever, but don't do that."

I blinked and let out a long, slow breath before speaking because I knew anything I said would be wrong. It was just one of those situations. Though, if Clarence bugged me into outer space because he wanted someone knew to fight with, his heir, Cade Moonscale, better be ready, willing, and able because Sunny's dad or not, Teddy's friend or not, I'd take his head and take my own chances with Medwin descaling me.

"That was the right answer," Elio nodded, picking up on my confused thoughts over our mating link.

"What if I was going to name them after you?" I teased, sliding a hand onto his hip and stepping closer to him.

"They're not yours or mine. They're mountains. They belong to everyone," Elio grinned, still standing his ground.

"I won't let Clarence or anyone else steal the mountains of Starscale 1," I said, tilting his chin up.

"You better not invite them to either," Elio's grin widened.

"At this rate, I'll be here forever. It's such a strange thing to think about."

"The mountains? Clarence? Being here? What's strange to think about, Alpha?" Elio asked, his gaze meeting mine.

"All of it. Somewhere between magic and space engineering, we're standing here in front of a temple about to look between lives."

"I keep forgetting that's not the usual case where you come from," Elio bit his lip.

"We have seers and stuff. Most of them are omegas, but not all of them."

"I don't believe that. I think most alphas probably just shrug off ghosts. Like a fully formed man is talking to me. Either he was alive, or he was a brain tumor. He couldn't have been a ghost."

"Is that what you were when I met you between lives?" I asked.

"I was a spirit."

"What's the difference?"

"It depends on who you ask. I was still me, though. Well, the old me. The me from before. The me that was a beta. Only beta isn't the right word, I don't think. It is on your world. Here, we don't use it as much anymore. It just means someone who hasn't chosen yet or doesn't want to choose, maybe. Unchosen would probably be the best term."

"Oh, so until you met my Lotus you were indecisive," I teased him, trailing my hands down to his ass.

"I'm not having that debate, even playfully," he shook his head, but let me pull him in so that our hips were pressed together. He was starting to get as hard as I already was.

"Don't worry," I whispered, "before her, I was fickle too. Not the poly thing. Just in the direction of my life. It was easier to turn around in a circle and go wherever I wanted than to pick a direction and stay on track."

"That doesn't sound bad. You followed the things you really cared about," Elio said.

"What's the punishment for romping with the leader's nephew in the woods?"

"Ummm… The woods belong to everyone too," Elio said, a hot blush spreading across his face.

"I love when you're flustered," I said, claiming his soft, kissable lips with my own.

I stepped forward intending to walk him backward deep into the woods for a bit of privacy. I wasn't modest, but would guess no one wanted to see what we were about to do by accident.

"Hey, wait," he said, and I almost let him go, but didn't want him to fall.

"You okay?" I asked, glancing around for unwanted company.

"Are you doing this because you can't stand to keep your hands off me or because you're putting off what you might see?"

"Both," I admitted. "You're the one who stopped walking and pulled me into the trees. I don't know what you'll show me, but I know what we can do here. What I want to do here. What I wanted to do as soon as you pulled me into the wilderness."

Elio rose up on his tiptoes and kissed me hard. He was already shirtless like most of the dragons on Starscale 1. I ran my hands over his lean, muscular body as he walked me deeper into the woods. Our tongues danced between our mouths, and I lost myself to him. I gave him who I was and what I was, letting the rest of my life drift away for the hour or so we spent alone with only the trees and forest creatures to bear witness.

We made love in the grass and fallen leaves and I kept my hand under Elio's head to protect him from anything sharp or blunt. He wrapped himself around me as we let everything go. The truth and the past had a way of changing everything and we were a couple hundred steps away from both. We needed one more moment that was just ours. Everything inside me craved – not in the ways I craved Lotus, but just as much. When our relationship was open, we did so much work and therapy to understand all love wasn't the same, but the quantity or quality of it could be. I wanted to open my mouth and promise Elio the world, but that wasn't a promise you made when you were balls deep in someone. They hardly ever took you seriously in that position. All I could do was hope that everything we felt and everything that grew between us was real.

After our passion was spent, we lay in the grass with his head on my chest. His ear pressed against the new red scale over my heart. I was a Starscale now. That much was true. If I believed that's how someone was inducted to his flight then I had to believe that it was our magic – our choice – that brought us together and not some dark, sinister motive.

Elio dozed as I let my thoughts line themselves out. In the quiet of the strange woods, surrounded by plants I'd never beheld before, it wasn't so difficult to believe Lotus would fall in love with someone even if she were dead. It wasn't hard to believe that if she called to me while I was conked out that I'd go to her anywhere. I still would. Then again, everything's easy to believe when the sex blows your mind, and your balls are empty. That's how Duke's carrier once emptied my wallet while he was searching for his brother. That was so fucking long ago. We were older now. Older but I wasn't sure if any of us were any wiser.

"Wisdom is flexible and easily forgettable while you're living," my dragon yawned into my thoughts. "It's always there, but that doesn't mean you glance in its direction. The priest or guide or whatever they're called here will tell you this too, probably, but I'll say it now. As far as I know there is not nor has there ever been a way to fake a true-mate response. It's like faking life magic, itself. Elio is ours. I'm not sure I understand the how, but then again, I barely remember the how of Lotus, but she was ours. Is ours."

I let his words lull me to sleep and when I woke to Elio stirring the purple sun was gone, sucked up by its purple fog. At least, that's what it looked like through the tall, skinny trees.

"I'm glad I brought water," Elio yawned, sitting up. "They'll be plenty of supplies at the Star Room, but I'm so thirsty. I don't remember the last time I slept like this during the day."

"Nice, isn't it?" I grinned.

"Almost perfect," he smiled.

"Almost?" I arched a brow.

"Well, we still have the Star Room to get through. I dreamed the guide lied about having my memory and you ate me and not in the nice bury your face in my ass way, either."

"Babe," I sighed, pushing myself upright and grabbing my pants. "I'm not going to make you into dinner."

"Even if I lied?"

"Did you?" I asked.

"No," he shook his head.

"I don't know that I'd ever forgive you for lying about meeting Lotus or how we became true-mates too, but we'd work around it. Maybe not in a romantic relationship, but I couldn't hurt you."

"Not what you said that first night," Elio shrugged.

"Things change."

"That quickly?"

"Eh, ask me that in a hundred years," I shrugged back at him. "You'll realize how quickly the world moves, but also how quickly everything about our lives changed once we met. I'm sorry you're nervous. I'm sorry you had a nightmare too."

"Thanks," Elio said, handing me the water bottle while he got dressed. "I know it's just a nightmare, but it wasn't you hurting me that was scary. It was you not wanting me – not wanting this," he motioned to the empty air between us.

"I didn't at first," I admitted. "There's no denying that."

"And now?" he asked again for reassurance.

"I want you, Elio. I want whatever this is. I also want my little flower back. I want to hear her laugh and wake up to her ripping into a bag of beef jerky at two in the morning because her fox is insistent on a late-night protein snack. Both things are true."

"I miss her too," Elio nodded.

"Good. Let's go get this settled then. Wait. Did we sleep through the Star Room closing?" I asked, glancing up at the mountain. Lights burnt in the building's windows, casting a golden hue over the world, but that didn't mean it was still open to the public.

"The Star Room never closes," Elio grinned, slipping his hand into mine. "Let's go face the past. Then we can figure out what comes nest, I mean next."

Out of habit, I glanced down at his stomach. It was still bare and flat with its thin lines carving out his muscles. Still, we'd gone at it without any thoughts of birth control. I hadn't been that lost to safe sex since I first responded to Lotus.

"I don't think it was that sort of slip up," Elio teased, picking up on my thoughts over our mating link.

"We should've had that talk before you rode me in bondage," I teased.

"I didn't tie you up," Elio laughed.

"You didn't mind me tied up."

"I was surprised you didn't mind it."

"I didn't mind it because I could get out whenever I wanted to," I shrugged. "Though, have you thought about hatchlings."

"I have. A lot. Before you. After meeting you. I want children. I'm not against the whole build a nest and settle down thing. I just want my children to have the option of finding their true-mates too. I don't want them to live cut off from most of the possibilities like dragons here have for generations."

"We will figure that out."

"What about your Earthside children?" Elio asked when we reached the steps of the Star Room.

"I've been in contact with them. I talked to all three of them on video call before we set out."

"Will you want to move back?"

"I don't know. Hell, two of them may want to move over here. Not my eldest. He's mated off with kids. Hell, Lotus died. I took a nap and woke up a great grandfather. Like how in the name of Frost's swinging balls does that happen?"

"Was he mad at you? Were any of them?"

"No," I shook my head. "They understood. It was a lot for them to lose her and then for me to conk out, but they decided they had enough of my help and my dragon gave into everything we were dealing with."

"I'm sorry she had to leave you," Elio frowned.

"Me too," I nodded. "It's just the way life is. All the best things are water, they slip through our fingers, and we ache for them even once our hands dry."

"Are you sure you want to see what's inside? The memory, I mean," Elio stopped outside of the open doorway.

"No. It'll hurt, but then again, life hurts, huh? I want to see her again. Will it be good for me? I don't know. Then again, before Lotus I never paid attention to what was good for me. She's gone now. So she can't give that dirty look of hers when I'm about to do a dragon whiskey keg stand."

"I can, though," he laughed. "If we're nesting down, don't be that drunk."

"Are we nesting down?" I asked, glancing down at his belly.

"I'm sure we'll find out if we're expecting soon enough," he said, glancing down too.