The Melier: Home World (Women of Dor Nye Book 2) (29 page)

Epilogue

1 year and 7 Dor Nye months later…

A giggle escaped Lucia as she directed Zun where to hang the colorful painting Beela’Su sent her. The Trepnil princess had been successfully hidden, as the Intergalactic Coalition promised, and she often sent little gifts from her travels, and comm’d whenever she could. Her security detail moved her every couple months, much to Beela’Su’s pleasure. It gave her a chance to experience new cultures, new worlds, and various forms of artistic expression, like she had always wanted.

“Not there,” Lu waved her hands in a
stop
motion.

“
A’Drast’s mane
,” Zun growled, scrubbing a hand over his forehead in frustration. “Make up my mind, Loo-Sha.”

They were in the newly constructed nursery in her, well
their
, wing of the Herana residence.

“How am I supposed to make up
your
mind when I can’t even make up
my
mind?”

“That is my point.” He looked over his shoulder to glare at her, and she grinned cheekily, rubbing her protruding belly.

“Don’t be such a grump,” she told him, just as Soren entered the room with a glass of water for her.

“But he always a grump, mama,” Lenny said from Gi’Ren’s arms.

“He
is
always a grump,” Val’Koy corrected.

Gi’Ren grunted, and then grinned as Zun growled at the lot of them whilst struggling to not drop the large painting.

Soren wrapped his arms around her, nuzzling the side of her neck as he rumbled a purr of amusement.

“I will cut off your tail,” he threatened. “Both of you.”

“I would like to see you try,” Gi’Ren scowled.

“Imbeciles,” Val’Koy muttered.

“What an imba’seal?”

“What
is
an imbe
cile
,” he corrected Lenny again. “A princess must be well spoken, Re’Len.”

“She’s only two,” Lu tickled Lenny under her chin, and like Soren, she began to purr. “
Imbecile
is uncle Koy’s nickname.”

Zun, Ren, and Soren snorted with laughter, but Koy didn’t think it was funny.

Lucia grinned at Lenny, taking in the youngling who had surpassed any expectations they’d all had for her. Being half human, they and the doctors assumed she would grow at the normal rate of a human child, but she most definitely did not.

After Re’Len’s initial growth spurt, she continued to grow and develop at an accelerated rate even after they left Melierun. She skipped the baby babble and began saying whole words by eight months. Just after her first birthday, she began to string words together, in both English and the Melier language, and it only got better after that. She was still learning, and often said things incorrectly, though she was easily understandable.

She was now over the stage where she wanted to climb everything, and scratch up the furniture. At least, for the moment. And as the months passed, her skin continued to get darker until it was only a shade or two lighter than a full blooded Melier of the royal family.

It gave Lu a bittersweet emotion. She was overjoyed to watch the changes in her youngling, but a little sad she barely showed any resemblance to her, or a human. Aside from her curly hair and amber eyes, she looked like Soren.

Lucia assured herself that it was better like that. The less different she looked, the easier it would be for the people to accept her when she became queen one day.

“Now go on,” she shooed Gi’Ren. “Go get cleaned up for third meal. You’re filthy!” Ren, Koy, and Lenny still had streaks of mud and sand upon their arms and faces from digging in the garden with Grams earlier.

Grams didn’t know what to do with all the help, but Ren, and Koy sure did love the jaw rubs she gave.

Lu grinned to herself as she watched them leave.

“We need to find them both a partner,” she whispered so they wouldn’t hear. The grumbling from the hallway told her it was futile though.

They had heard.

Once she knew they were gone from their wing of the residence, she continued on.

“Soren, where did Ren get that scar? And why doesn’t he have a mate?”

She stood closer to one of the cooling vents, letting it tent her dress as she sighed while the icey air flitted up over her skin.

Soren rolled a shoulder, shaking his head. “He has not told anyone. All that is known, he received it early on in the first war.”

A troubled shadow passed over his face before it disappeared.

“He does not talk about that time in his life.”

“Do you suppose that’s why he doesn’t have a mate?”

Soren and Zun shared a glance.

“Perhaps,” he finally answered, and Lu narrowed her eyes at the exchange.

“One day,” Zun said, and then grunted as he nearly lost his grip on the painting. “He will find someone who he cannot scare away with his ugly mug.”

He and Soren chuckled.

“Don’t be mean,” she said, even though she smiled.

Lu watched on as Soren finally decided to help Zun situate the painting on the wall while she directed them. It involved a lot of contemplation on her part, and annoyance on theirs. She wanted it to be
perfect
though, as she would be in there plenty once she gave birth to their second youngling.

This one belonged to Val’Zun. She learned her lesson on giving spirits to Meliers. They had a low tolerance for it, and while it had dulled Zun enough to allow him to make love to her without fear of losing control, it completely threw his timing out the window.

Being stuck in another
implantation hold
had not been fun, especially with
two
drunk Melier’s. Soren sleep-grumbled in her face, while Zun sleep-grumbled at her back as she was rendered immobile, and trapped within a prison of limbs.

And they complained about
her
snoring.

Pfft.

Val’Zun had definitely gotten better though, in his control. He wasn’t a statue any longer when they were together. He engaged her, touched, and moved with her. It was still slow, and deliberate, but she enjoyed it. She needed that, just as she needed Soren’s take charge demeanor.

Luckily, Re’Len the Sanruki healer was able to ship a basket of seetkut to them so Dr. Trex and his team wouldn’t have to synthesize the cell her body would need.

Of course, with the pregnancy, the
pheromones
came out in full force. They purred all through the night as they lay on either side of her, basking in the
fishy
aroma.

Lu shivered imagining what she must smell like to non-Melier.

Her family once again tried to keep a ten foot radius from her, though MoMo and Dezzy didn’t treat her any differently. Even with the odor comments, she was happy to be home and among her family.

She and her partners had decided to spend half of the Dor Nye year in Curra, and the other half on Melierun. She liked that immensely, as she got to spend time with her family, and her mates got to spend time with theirs.

Soren continued to serve on the Assembly, and while he was still missing bits and pieces of his memory, he carried on the retrieval therapy sessions with Dr. Nimka. It seemed to be helping unlock little things here and there.

Val’Zun had taken up a new job with the Dor Nye military, training recruits just as he would on Melierun. The application was different, since humans weren’t as strong and stealthy as Melier, but the principles were the same.

He grouched about their
weak
bodies, but Lu knew he enjoyed the challenge.

When they were on Melierun, Lenny was constantly being groomed for her future. Lu worried it was too soon, but her partners had assured her it was
normal
, as every queen before her had begun training from the moment they could walk.

When they had come back to Dor Nye this time, Val’Koy had ventured with. Ever since Gi’Calla’s treason, he had been more serious with his duties, his attitude, and general demeanor. It had changed him, even though Gi’Calla had not been executed.

Lucia urged the queen to reconsider her decision by pointing out she had not been a princess during the initial attempts on her life. Not technically, as she had not marked Soren or Zun until just before the final attack. By their law, she had not been a princess, despite the insistence she was.

But Lu couldn’t just stand by and allow Gi’Calla to be killed, even though a part of her wanted
revenge
. It just wasn’t in her being to
want
someone’s life to come to an end.

Instead, she had been imprisoned in a remote residence in a sparsely populated region.

Gi’Calla would grow old there, alone. She would not have a mate. She would never have younglings. She would never be queen, nor ever see the palace again.

Val’Koy was the only one who had visited her regularly, but that slowly began to fade. He went there less and less, until one day six months had passed and still he had not visited.

She wasn’t sure if it was because he finally had closure, and accepted what was, or if he, like his brothers, now viewed her as a traitor.

She had an inkling it was acceptance, and him moving on with his life.

“Yes! That’s perfect! Right there,” she waved her hands as she urged them to not move the painting any further. Her head tilted this way and that, and then she gave one last nod. “Yes, that’s where it looks best.”

“Are you sure?” Soren asked skeptically.

“Yes.”

“Are you positive?” Zun asked, scowling like he thought she was going to change her mind again.

“Yes!” she growled.

Her mates looked at each other.

“You should step away before I change my mind,” she warned cheekily, and twittered as they quickly backed away from the wall.

On they went, walking her to the den where the rest of the family waited. They slowed down, sticking beside her as she waddled, the boulder around her middle throwing off her center of gravity. Lu idly wondered if the babe would be as big as Lenny had been, and secretly hoped the little girl wasn’t.

Her lips twitched as she remembered how ecstatic Zun had been to learn they would have
another
female. He was not excited, however, to
catch
the babe during labor.

Soren agreed to standby just in case Zun actually passed out this time.

Lu smirked.

“It took you long enough,” Frellie complained when they finally entered the den. “We’re all wasting away, starving.”

Lu waved her off, already beginning to sweat now that she no longer stood in the freezing temperature of her wing.

“So,” she clapped her hands together and rubbed. “Who’s up for poshka tentacles?”

A collective groan-gag could be heard round the room, causing her to snicker.

“Me! Me! I am!” Lenny said excitedly, running up to Soren, as Lu would have a hard time trying to pick her up.

“I’m no longer hungry,” Frellie and Nova said at nearly the same time, and the others chuckled.

She grinned, brushing her fingers along Lenny’s soft blue cheek. Her mates caressed their tails appreciatively along her arms while they purred, and as her family began to filter out of the front entrance to the waiting transport, she sighed. Laying a hand upon her chest to touch her treasured lome claw necklace, she took it all in.

Two years ago, when she had stolen that cargo ship, she would have never guessed the scarily huge alien would change her life so much.

“Loo-Sha?” Soren said from the doorway as he held Lenny in his arms, Zun standing beside him. All three looked at her expectantly. “Those poshka tentacles will not eat themselves.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she waved a hand and smiled to herself.

Lucia knew then, at that moment, if she could go back… she wouldn’t change a thing.

THE END