Star Bright (Big Sky Alien Mail Order Brides #22)

Chapter 9

He’d made a terrible mistake.

After Darcy had departed to her own room for the night, he’d settled to sleep in the fortress of fabric that she’d made for his little family. Despite his exhaustion, he lain awake, staring at the unmoving white shroud above him. The memory of Shanya’s motionless wings made him squeeze his eyes shut, and eventually exhaustion must have claimed him.

But he’d been jolted out a restless sleep by Atsu’s screams. His fledgling claimed to not remember the nightmares that had plagued him, and since Vash had admitted to them his own failed memory, he couldn’t exactly call out his son. By the time he’d calmed the youngling and quieted Yadira’s grumbling, a wan morning light was filling the lobby. So he thought it best to feed his fledglings before their hungry beasts started biting indiscriminately.

In less time than it took to crash a spaceship, almost every package that Darcy had brought from the commissary was open on the bar, most only half eaten. Atsu complained it was all strange, and Yadira refused to try any of it. Not even the options that Atsu had proclaimed inedible, a challenge that usually would have made her eat rocks if only to prove her brother wrong. While Vash was glad to have finally regained most of his memories, he was perturbed by the realization that the dynamic had grown so toxic since Shanya’s death.

Not only had she been lost to them, they seemed lost to each other. And he’d believed dragging them across the galaxies would change that?

Mistakes indeed. He wished he could bite his hundred-years-ago self.

“I’m still hungry,” Atsu whined.

“You’ve opened everything,” Yadira snapped. “Don’t be wasteful, and just eat one of those.”

“But they smell funny.”

“So do you. Just hold your nose. That’s what I do when you’re around.”

“Yadira,” Vash warned in as gentle a voice as he could manage. “Atsu, you’ve had enough for now. Let your stomach get used to real food after being asleep.” He looked at his daughter. “Yadira, you need to eat something, to regain your strength.”

“I’m not hungry,” she muttered. “Probably because my stomach has been asleep for a hundred sols. If I’m not strong, maybe that’s the reason.”

She stabbed him with truths that hurt more than insults. But he was supposed to be the patient adult, and he would not respond to her gibes as Atsu did. “Just try something,” he cajoled. “You used to say you wanted to be an exobotanist. Here’s your trance chance to try some alien plants.”

“That is what Ammi wanted me to be, but she’s dead now,” his daughter said savagely. “Maybe I’ll try crashing a spaceship instead.”

“To crash, you first have to fly,” Atsu said in a tone of sweet innocence. “But you can’t seem to find your beast.”

With the strangled gasp of rage, Yadira pounced from her stool onto her brother. Both went down in a tangle of scrawny fledgling limbs and brittle stool legs. Something snapped—hopefully just a stool—and someone howled. Reaching into the fray, Vash took a vicious gash to his forearm. Hopefully from the shattered stool and not one of his biting children.

He wanted to roar, not physical pain or even outrage, just the brutal reality that he was alone with his feral offspring. But the beast swallowed the sound. He caught one child in each arm, spinning them away from each other.

Yadira growled, anger, fury, and probably the smell of blood adding depth to the sound. Maybe he hadn’t needed to find a new mate; he would’ve willingly opened a vein for his child. “Let me go,” she snarled.

He reeled her tight against his chest and closed his eyes, kissing the back of her head where the knots were even worse than before. “Never,” he whispered. “My mountain tempest. I will never let you go.”

For a long moment, she strained away, then went limp, all that furious power leaving her slim body.

When he opened his eyes it was to meet Darcy’s querying glance. “Sorry,” she murmured. “Got a report of a…disturbance.”

“I will pay for any damages, of course,” he said. He would’ve preferred to put the children down as he explained, but he wasn’t convinced they wouldn’t go after each other again.

“I’m sure the IDA has a budget for party mishaps,” she said. “And it’s probably worth a note to management that there should be other amusements for beings of different age ranges.”

From Vash’s other arm, Atsu piped up. “You need more kinds of eggs,” he ordered. “And you need a playground.” He glanced around at the mess he and his sister had made. “These toys are not very sturdy. Someone could get hurt.”

Darcy let out a little cough that Vash suspected was hiding an Earther laugh. But she whipped out a datpad and dutifully tapped a note. “More kinds of eggs. Better toys.” She glanced at Vash. “I believe there is a gymnasium. Maybe that would be worth trying?”

Though still clad in her soft uniform of stretchy, fuzzy fabric, with her datpad, Darcy looked very much the part of the brisk, efficient IDA staffer distracting patrons from their grievances. She’d only known about aliens for three days while he’d been parenting alone for five sols, and she was already much better at her temporary job than he was at his lifetime appointment. He’d be more jealous if he wasn’t so grateful.

“Post-cryo exercise is so important.” Kong rolled out from behind the bar where the droid had retreated after Atsu had loudly objected to the eggs being too white and too yellow. “There are a variety of physical diversions available in the gymnasium, and there are also outdoor physical activities if the weather were not so inclement.” Probably desperate to get them out.

“I want to see the playground,” Atsu demanded, perilously close to a wail.

“I’ll have Ug meet us there.” Darcy tapped more at the datpad. “He is very good at welcoming and comforting.”

“I want to stay here,” Yadira countered. With more vigor than even his beast would’ve guessed she possessed, she wrenched free of his grasp, whirling around to face them all as if they were enemies she must fight off single-handedly.

His arm ached—and yes, those were definitely teeth marks—but not as much as his heart. “We will stay together.”

Though he did not mean it as a command or threat, his own beast was in his voice. She lifted her chin as if she might challenge him, but then she folded into herself again. But she was with their little group as they headed out.

The gymnasium was large and well appointed, although he noted it was subtly geared to facilitate intimate connection, with smaller, sequestered areas emphasizing interaction and cooperation rather than solo play. Which made sense for a dating agency. It even had a pool, which made Atsu whoop—whining forgotten for the moment, for which Vash wanted to thank Darcy profusely.

“Ah, he knows how to swim?” Darcy asked as the fledgling ran for the edge.

“For creatures half of the air, we are very buoyant,” Vash assured her.

“That explains why I was able to help Ug carry you away from the crash.”

Keeping one eye on the young drakling, Vash glanced at her. “You carried me?”

“Helped,” she repeated. “You were kinda out of it.”

He grimaced. “You have been an excellent host, and I have been a terrible guest.”

“You had a good excuse. A bunch of them, actually.”

Looking around to check on Yadira, he found his daughter glowering at him. Or not him, actually, at Darcy, who was leaning down to say something to Ug. The toothy quadruped padded toward the pool where Atsu was stripping down.

Caught between watching his fractious son and wondering at his daughter’s hostility, Vash wished he might reverse the astronavigator, rewind the chronometer, anything to just have another chance.

“Yaya? Do you want to swim with me?” Atsu hopped around on one leg as he stripped off his pants.

“No.” She went around the far side of the pool to throw herself into one of the lounge chairs half-hidden under a broad-leafed plant. “I don’t want to get my hair wet.”

“That might get some of the knots out.” When she started to rise, fury on her face again, her brother threw himself into the pool.

Vash swallowed a groan.

Darcy slanted a look at him. “I take it you don’t have siblings of your own?” Amusement lightened her voice.

“Not anymore, I suppose.”

Her humor vanished. “Vash…”

“That was unnecessary of me, I apologize.” He let out a short breath. “I was a surprise late hatch, so my siblings were much older than me. If anything, they were even more kind and indulgent than my parents.” He gazed at his two. “They were not always so…troublesome.” He glanced at Darcy. “That too is my failing. They loved Shanya and sought always to bask in her approval.”

“I’m sure they love you too,” she said.

“But not the same.”

She followed his gaze to where Atsu and Ug were frolicking in the water, and past them to Yadira, determinedly not frolicking. “Just because it isn’t the same doesn’t mean it isn’t good and nurturing and worth basking in,” she said quietly. “That’s basically one of the guiding tenets of the Intergalactic Dating Agency, right?”

“Maybe that is one reason I chose to do this,” he mused. “After a meeting with their therapist, I remember thinking if I could show the fledglings that the family would continue, that there were others who would care for us, love us…” He winced a little at the desperation and selfishness in his words. “That we could find a way to go on, to share the love we had still, even with Shanya gone.”

“Just because you all aren’t quite ready now doesn’t mean you’ll never be. Maybe give yourselves some more patience and grace.”

In the pool, Atsu jumped from the edge, spreading his arms and legs wide into a horrendous bellyflop, and Ug made a crowing noise of approval.

“Or you can skip the grace part,” Darcy drawled. Her gaze angled past the pool to Yadira, still brooding on the lounge chair. “You keep an eye on your son.” She took a step around the pool.

“Darcy.” Vash was going to caution her about his own daughter? That seemed wrong.

So he just watched with a faint twinge of concern as Darcy approached the fledgling. Yadira seemed not to notice, not moving even when it was clear that Darcy was speaking to her. While Yadira owed no one her friendship, he might have at least hoped for courtesy. Then, to his surprise and gratification, Yadira straightened, pointing at the artificial cliff wall rising on the other end of the gym. Darcy shifted from foot to foot, then nodded, somewhat hesitantly, it seemed to him. They went over to the wall, and a holographic display flickered around them with some sort of explanation, demonstration, and safety review.

The two donned head protection and a harness around their bodies. Then Yadira began to climb. Drowning or falling, these were their choices? Watching his fledglings’ “diversions” was going to kill him.

If Yadira’s beast had risen, he’d have no worries at all. But he only bit his tongue in helpless worry as she scaled the fake cliff. She was a drakling child, he reminded himself, and she and her friends had been clambering around their cliffside aeries from before they were Atsu’s size. And still, every muscle in his body strained twice as hard as Yadira’s as she maneuvered from handhold to foothold, ever higher. He could see how the safety device kept a careful tension on the rope that would prevent any fatal fall.

At the top of the wall, Yadira clanged a large bell, and Darcy’s cheer was almost lost in the victory chime.

Yadira descended on a different path, her earlier slack insolence gone in the pure joy of movement and the challenge of her strength. Pride swelled in him though he held back the cheer of his own, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it.

Still a ways from the bottom, she pushed away from the wall in an agile backward leap, and he choked down the yelp of fear the same way he’d done the cheer. She landed lightly, rising with all the elegance her brother had ignored. For a heartbeat, Vash almost saw an outline of wings around her. He blinked and let out a calming breath.

Yadira gestured for Darcy to approach the wall. After only a moment’s hesitation, Darcy stepped up, hooking her harness into the safety apparatus. Although the device did most of the work, he saw how the interaction was meant to build rapport and trust as the partners spotted each other’s ascent.

Darcy did not have a drakling fledgling’s innate fearlessness and strength, but she tackled an easier section with what seemed like enthusiasm. Yadira watched from the ground, and though Vash couldn’t hear what she said, her commanding finger was clear enough, gesturing Darcy back to the more demanding route.

For a moment, Darcy dangled from one hand, her own gestures vigorous enough that Vash wanted to call a reminder to focus on her task. It might be just a game, but as Darcy herself had noted, everything had risks.

But she seemed eager to push her limits and started her traverse across the wall toward the harder route.

As she changed direction, slack appeared in the rope. Vash frowned. While he’d never seen this sort of wall climbing, the rope was obviously meant to sustain enough tension that any harms would be mitigated.

Just as he was rising to his feet, she fell.