“What madness is this?” Lynx hissed. “How did you do it?”
“What in the worlds are you talking about?” Lyrica asked, clearly baffled.
“Her!” He whisper-shouted. “She’s mine.”
Her eyes widened in surprise. “Chloe is your soulmate?”
“Chloe,” Lynx whispered reverently, then he stalked away like a male on a mission.
Gabriel chuckled. “This is going to be good. He looks like fate just kicked him in the nuts.”
“You don’t have to sound so cheerful about that.”
“You know what this means? I think you really do have some of that mate-matching magic.”
“Fate brought them together. Not me,” she denied.
“Hey, weird stuff keeps happening to me, so it wouldn’t be that surprising if you developed some strange new magic, too.”
Before she could protest again, the sound of applause filled the cavern. They turned in time to see Harris and Alden kiss, and Gabriel felt guilty that he’d completely missed their exchange of vows.
“This worries me, Gabriel.”
“If you do have a new kind of magic, you’ll just be helping people be as happy as we are.”
Resting her head against his chest, she switched to speaking out loud since most of their guests were already headed back to the great hall for the celebration. “No one could possibly be as happy as we are.”
That made him smile. “That’s true. Speaking of, we have a celebration to go enjoy. Suddenly, I’m starving.”
“It’s the magic coursing through your body. Just like after your transformation, you are filled with magic, and your body needs time to acclimate.”
“Let’s go eat, then we can have our own private celebration upstairs in our bedchamber,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.
“That sounds perfect. And now that you have complete control of your wings…I think we should try making love in the air. You know, for research purposes.”
And with the sound of his laughter echoing through the cavern, they walked out to join the celebration.
Epilogue
A few weeks later…
Lyrica hurried out onto the rooftop garden of the palace, and her heart broke a little when she found it empty. Walking through the natural arbor that led into the center of the circle of weeping Ahavanni trees, she took a seat on one of the stone benches and reached up to touch the magical pedant around her neck to center herself.
Xenon flowers in every color imaginable lined the beds the trees had been planted in, and the beauty of the setting never ceased to soothe the small part of her that always seemed to miss home. She had chosen the beautiful space their friends and Gabriel’s family had helped create as the location for the first symposium to discuss unifying the races through friendship, love, and mating bonds.
But no one had come.
Over the last few weeks, Gabriel had introduced her to countless people who had seemed interested in what she was planning. There were several mated couples who had agreed to speak about some of the difficulties they had experienced in the beginning of their relationships. Sharing those experiences could help others from suffering through similar situations, though every mating was different.
A perfect example of that was her brother and Chloe Deeks.
Lyrica had been so happy her brother had made it to her bonding ceremony. It had been quite a shock when he had found Chloe on the day he arrived on Earth, the same way Lyrica had found Gabriel. While she and Gabriel had experienced their share of surprises, Chloe’s empathic abilities had created a whole new set of issues that she and Lynx had to deal with.
Lynx and Chloe had spent the last few weeks with them at the palace, which had been a lot longer than he had originally planned. During their stay, Gabriel and Lynx had become close friends. It had made her heart swell with love to see her mate laughing and talking with her brother. Being around Gabriel, Harris, and Alden had been a huge help for Lynx when he had gone through his transition. Because he had been forewarned, Lynx hadn’t been as freaked out when he had hulked out a few hours after he had met Chloe.
When Lynx and Chloe had left a few days ago, Gabriel had held Lyrica while she had wept. While she would miss them terribly, she knew they had to return to Xenthian. She would have loved to go with them to show her mate her home world, but there was no need for them to return to Xenthian so soon now that they’d had their bonding ceremony.
They still didn’t know exactly what the mix of magic had done to the stone in her necklace, but her magical pendant had been powerful enough to fully bond them. Now, Gabriel had access to her magic. Before their bonding ceremony, his wings had been tied to his emotions, but after, he’d gained complete control of them. It was as if her magic had provided a missing link he had needed, and she loved seeing the shimmering blue markings on his wings every time he released them.
While other Xenon had mated people from different races before Lyrica, she and Gabriel were the most visible couple since they lived on Earth. Everywhere they went, people were fascinated by them. More than that, the curiosity about the Xenon seemed to increase every time one of them left the palace. When one of the new guards assigned to them had met his Krytos mate during an outing to a bar, it reinforced her theory that many Xenon soulmates would be found amongst the other races.
That made it even more essential for her to continue
