Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Somewhere behind them Lisa was cheering, Cody was whooping, and Lucy was undoubtedly crying again, but Terra barely heard any of it. She was absolutely lost in the kiss with her new Monstrum husband.
When Taurex finally lifted his mouth from hers, he kept her close and leaned in to whisper in her ear.
“Now I may call you mine,” he murmured, “And you may call me yours. Not because we own each other, but because the Goddess brought us together and we will never be parted again.”
Terra felt joy filling her like sunshine. There was no fear in the words anymore—not because their meaning had changed but because she finally understood them.
Taurex wasn’t saying she belonged to him like property—he was saying he belonged to her too, completely and forever.
“I like the sound of that,” she whispered back.
Taurex tightened his arms around her.
“I will love you forever, lovely one,” he rumbled.
Terra looked up into his golden eyes and felt her own fill with happy tears again.
And as her husband bent to kiss her once more beneath the golden-green light of the Monstrum Mother Ship, Terra knew she had finally gotten the wedding she had always wanted.
But more importantly, she had gotten the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life loving.
EPILOGUE
TERRA
The honeymoon suite was unlike anything Terra had ever seen, which was saying quite a lot considering she was spending her wedding night aboard an enormous living alien spaceship orbiting Mars.
Before leaving the reception, she had checked on Cody, Lisa and Lucy one last time, despite her mother repeatedly assuring her that they were perfectly capable of surviving a single night without her hovering. The three of them had been given a spacious guest domicile near the Market district, complete with two sleeping chambers, a little sitting area, and one of the living kitchens the children had already become fascinated with.
Terra had personally inspected every inch of the place before agreeing to let them stay there, however, and she had made Taurex promise—twice—that there were absolutely, positively, under no circumstances any pleasure blooms growing anywhere in the vicinity.
When he pointed out that the guest suites were nowhere near the private bathing gardens where such plants normally grew, Terra had informed him that she didn’t care if the nearest pleasure bloom was on the opposite side of the Mother Ship—she wanted confirmation anyway. Only after Taurex had promised her that her children and mother wouldn’t be anywhere near the sneaky blossoms, did she feel comfortable leaving them alone.
“You know, they only reacted the way they did because of the mating scents we were putting out,” he told her. “They pay no attention whatsoever to children or the elderly because they do not smell sexually active.”
“I don’t care about any of that,” Terra said. “I just don’t want them near my babies—or my mom, for that matter.”
“They won’t be,” he said. “I swear it on my life.”
“Good.” Terra had nodded in satisfaction.
Tomorrow they would all spend the day together. Taurex had promised Cody and Lisa another trip to the Market to find more “space souvenirs.” Lisa was already planning to find additional charms for her mood-bloom bracelet and Cody wanted to look for a more complicated living puzzle.
After that, the big Monstrum intended to take them riding on the wole trains or wole-a-coaster, as Terra called it—an announcement that had caused both children to start cheering. Lucy, of course, asked whether the giant centipede-like creatures had safety restraints and Terra reminded her mother that she had ridden one before and survived.
So tomorrow would belong to the family…but tonight belonged to Terra and Taurex.
The honeymoon domicile had been grown high in the branches of one of the enormous silver-barked trees that formed the inner forest of the Mother Ship, and reaching it required stepping onto a circular living platform nestled against the tree’s trunk. The platform rose silently through the branches when Taurex placed his palm against the bark, carrying them upward past glowing flowers, curtains of trailing vines and tiny winged creatures that flashed like fireflies beneath the artificial night sky.
Terra stood beside her new husband with one hand tucked into his enormous palm, still wearing her wedding dress, and watched the forest fall away beneath them until the pathways below became ribbons of soft golden light.
“This is incredible,” she whispered.
Taurex looked down at her.
“You have not seen the suite yet.”
She smiled up at him.
“I’m sure it’s gorgeous, but I’m not sure how you’re going to top a flying tree elevator.”
“It is not technically flying,” he explained. “The platform is grown from the tree and moves through controlled muscular contraction of the supporting vines.”
Terra laughed.
“You really know how to keep the romance alive.”
His ears twitched.
“I was attempting to explain.”
“I know, baby.”
She squeezed his hand and Taurex’s mouth curved into a smile. Terra loved that she knew his expressions now…loved that she could tell the difference between amusement and embarrassment by the angle of his ears and the slight change in his golden eyes. There had once been so much about him that seemed strange and intimidating, but now even the alien details felt familiar.