“Zia, baby, talk to me.” I ask as she is fully coiled around me on our circular pile of pillows positioned on a wildly inconvenient pile of wealth. The pillows were expensive silk too, or she wouldn’t have accepted them. I feel that was just a cheap tactic to get me to sleep full on top of her. Warm Dragon is warm though.

  “Kimber, it’s pretty stupid, but it’s, like, GUH! I hate that family drama is making me want to just elope with you, even knowing my Elf side CAN’T DO IT!”

  “Zi. I bet an extended tenure as Justicar, that Penny would give us a small and immediate wedding if she knew it was hurting you. Two minutes and she’d be here talking about ways to do this.”

  She licks my face in a way that has become familiar. Reptiles taste the air to get a sense of things, but they taste a being to reassure themselves—and the way she flicks my cheek with her tongue tells me she is insecure as all get out right now.

  I wriggle out of her aggressive hug and lie on her dorsal ridge and settle into a position where I can wrap my arms around her neck and scratch the scales at the upper edge of her chest plate. She purrs and pulls the joint of her wings to cover my legs in our favorite compromise snuggle.

  “It’s okay to let it out you know, Pinkie. Just you and me and our hoard.”

  She puffs some smoke out of her nostrils and then rolls slowly to her back while moving me to her super warm and surprisingly soft belly. “I hated a little that you called me out on thinking you as a part of the hoard, but guh, you were right. I know you’re not a possession, but as the most prized thing in my life, how do I reconcile you as a treasure versus Treasure!?”

  “Don’t make me boop your snoot. I will resort to blowing air into your nose holes, missy.” The whole scaly beast of my fiancée shudders at my threat.

  “Andromeda, was that uncomfortable. Please never do that again.” I glare into her vertical slit of an eye, telling her that I will absolutely do it again if necessary. “FINE! Okay, I surrender. I’ll talk, just don’t . . . there is no version of my response that is acceptable.” She grabs onto my torso with her lizard maw and proceeds to tickle me into a laughing, yelling, and desperately bargaining mess. Dragon tickles are serious business.

  “You’re giving off some much more comforting vibes. Dish, Pinkie.” I breathe heavily from the epic struggle I just survived.

  “It’s Dad. She finds out about our wedding and decides she wants to be involved! Since Mom is a dick sometimes, she’s been taunting, and now I have both of them trying to use me as a dig to each other! Kimmie, I love and kind of hate them both, what do I do-hoo-hoo.” She starts crying and my panic response immediately triggers.

  I start stroking her snout and humming with my whole body. “Zizi, hey. Honey, I’m here okay? Your dad is kind of a selfish prick. She spends one day with you a year on her terms? And she can’t respect a day on your terms? Baby, please take a solid look at this relationship and see if you think it’s something you want, truly. It’s unquestionably unhealthy as is, though.”

  She bites my leg in a light, worrying nibble. “I still want her approval though, is that wrong?”

  “No, Zi, it’s not. But I still low-key want Jamie and Belle’s approval too, I know it’s not good for me, but it’s still there. Same with my aversion to men. There’s some trauma remnant that I don’t remember the source of that still effects me. Just think about it, okay? Your dad doesn’t deserve a daughter like you, and she has showed that consistently. Not to say that Penny’s not a space cadet, but when you get her attention, she slathers her affection—your dad does not.”

  “Mom just loves you, it’s not the same, Kimber.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Sure, but don’t excuse both of them to their natures. Your dad does not want to see you for you. She wants to fight Penny, plain and simple. Penny’s a flake, but she’s planning a whole wedding just to prove that she wants to be a part of your life.”

  “Kimber . . . you know what this is don’t you?”

  I scratch her snout and kiss her eye ridge, “I do, love, mate of mine. Your mom is absolutely trying to buy your affection, but I tell you that she would absolutely put all of it down if you couldn’t wait three months. I know because I would explain it to her in such a way that she knew that she would lose you to me completely and I would never let a single piece of you go. No doubloon unaccounted for in my crate of Zia treasure.” She blows smoke in my face and nibbles me in a way I’ve come to know is . . . pleasantly claimed.

  “Does that mean if I make an emergency trip to Astoria, you’d come with me?” The hope in her eyes and maw are heartbreaking. As if I would do anything but sacrifice all of me for this Pinkie dragon. I bite her ear ridge to convey my displeasure.

  “Zizi. You doubt my devotion? As a draconid mate I have fire of my own!” She chuckles and licks me.

  “Calm little ember, I know you are fierce. By being here you help me immeasurably with my trauma. I will still need a visit to Astoria and I wish that you would accompany me.”

  I flush with love and affection that she would include me instinctively. Does she feel the inseparable tie as I do? Gods, she must. “Say the word, love, and we will confront the Forum itself.”

  She giggles in a way that makes my middles jelly and I can’t help but want to fall into a puddle of emotion and never leave.

  ***

  When you love and care for someone more than anything else, sometimes you have to blindly accept when you wake up in space.

  “ZIA! You got some ‘splainin’ to do MATE!” Maybe not blindly. I have my own trauma that she should understand. I hear scrambling feet running down a corridor. Feet?

  Elvish Zia barrels around the corner and slams into me with hugs and questions. I am continuoiusly surprised at the dexterity of a hug. They can convey so many emotions.

  “Did you abduct me? And Aria, did you let her?”

  “Kimber,” Aria says in an even tone, “Your very distraught mate,” Zia coughs but Aria ignores her, “was insistent. You left very specific standing orders that if she was having an emergency, and you were incapacitated, to help her.”

  “I was asleep!” I protest.

  “Can you make decisions while asleep?” Zia counters.

  I stand up and grab her chin. “I don’t appreciate the manipulation. If I hadn’t already agreed to go to Astoria with you, I’d be very upset.” She avoids looking into my eyes while I stare at her, but before she starts to squirm, I tilt her head up for a kiss.

  I step aside and move past her toward the cockpit area. “So what’s the plan, Zi? We going to a wedding meeting or something, or were you just planning to wing it?”

  She stutters for a moment and then follows after me. “Well, I messaged them both that I wanted to meet them for lunch at the Palisade Café tomorrow.”

  I nod at that: Lunch in public is a good plan, but I don’t think it will keep Katelynn from yelling.

  “Okay, I get that, smart, but what are your limits? When do you cut your dad out, when do you tell your mom that we’re doing a small thing in the Jungles of Elysium?”

  She huffs, waits until I settle into a Pilot’s seat, then climbs into my lap. I wrap my arms around her and know that this is the position of honesty. If you’re vulnerable enough to cuddle, you’re comfortable enough to tell the truth.

  “I don’t want thresholds, Kimber, I just want my family at my wedding. Is that so wrong?”

  “No, baby, but you have to be realistic. There is a real possibility that your Dad will not mesh with me or Penny. She’s already proven she doesn’t like me, and that she can’t handle the tarnished love that she and your Mother used to share.” I huff, pausing to see if she’s going to say anything but I can see that she’s all up in her head.

  “Zizi, this is your day. You get to be the boss so take charge of it and make it as much ‘yourself’ as you possibly can.”

  “What about you? This is your day too, Kimber.” She has an accusatory glare that freezes my feet to the spot, “Or do you not want this anymore?” He voice is more sad than accusatory, and It breaks my heart with how ridiculous it is.

  “Zia. Love, Light of my life. I only desire to be with you for all time. Our mating with your dragon and our lair, saw to that. Knowing what I do, it would take an act of a deity to split us. The drive you have for this elf thing, is not one that I personally share, so It can be whatever you want it to be baby.”

  “How can you reduce complicated feelings to something so simple? You know it’s not that easy.” She burrows her head further into my shoulder and wraps her arms around me and we sit there in silence while I consider an answer that doesn’t sound like a placation or banality.

  I stroke my fingers through her hair and smooch her head. “It can be, but you have to be willing to lose to set yourself free.”