Her challenge is punctuated by the opening melody of a boisterous pentozali folk dance song, dating back to ancient Greece.
A great cheer goes up from the Lukos wolves. And soon everyone begins dancing folk reels that haven’t been popular in centuries in the rest of Greece but are somehow still known by one and all hailing from the island I acquired. Thalia and Agda clasp Ola by the shoulders and teach her how to do the lively steps of the pentozali through demonstration. And perhaps inspired by Ola’s threats, the other drakkon join in the merriment, breaking into folk dances from their parts of the world.
Ao Quong, the Lead Field Engineer who received the region now called China when we split up the world into territories, and Kunnu, the Team Geneticist who settled in the region now referred to as Mongolia, break into a remarkably similar series of split jumps. It is a dance they could have only learned from the inhabitants of their chosen regions. For they leap with the utter joy and abandon of peasants.
Seeing this causes yet another previously conceived assumption to fall away. With an inner jolt, I realize that they have not spent their time on this planet in completely miserable exile. They appear to have more than abided these millennia away from our much more advanced civilization.
A new jealous feeling crackles through my flame. I am certain of only one thing as watch my she-wolf make merry with my drakkon. Tonight she had proven herself a better queen to my subjects than I have been a king. She has entertained them and given them hope for a brighter future, whereas I only commissioned the gate project in the hopes that it would serve me.
But if they were able to secure mates as I have done with Ola, my drakkon could be happy here on this now near-quantum planet.
However, in order for that to happen, I would have to forgive the males who slew my father and the Betrayer King. For make no mistake, there will be no matches once my revenge is done. No more convivial parties. In fact, Ola would never forgive me if I follow through with my ultimate plan. All of her and all of her promises would be broken
It matters not. It shouldn’t matter.
I have only known Ola intimately for four months, but I knew my father for thousands of the time units the anthros call years. And as Ola said herself last eve…he raised me, guided me as my only parent. I would not be the King of Drakkon if not for him.
How can I not avenge his death?
And even if I found a way to do as she wished, to make the most dishonorable decision to forgive her fathers and the Betrayer King in exchange for this happy ending she proposed, there is the matter of her fathers.
How could she believe this beef as she called it could ever be squashed. Did she not see the hate burning in their eyes before we flew away?
With these thoughts heavy on my mind, I quietly abandon the festivities that should have been a wedding. Leaving the she-wolf who refused to join with me in union behind.
Chapter Twenty-Five
By tradition, male and female drakkon do not share a room as the mates on this planet do. After our intimate time together at the North Dakota kingdom house, I’d been tempted to follow along with this convention of Ola’s species instead of mine. The idea of falling asleep next to her had been…oddly intriguing.
But as I storm into my room, I am glad I was too stubborn to show any sign of indulgence or weakness when I brought her here…was it truly only a week ago? In any case, it is for the best her room is on a separate floor from mine. It feels right that I should be alone with these thoughts.
Just as I have been for the long millennia since we lost the battle against the North Wolves. Being so far away also means I do not have to attend to the constant business of muting our mate bond.
Still, a strange bereft feeling rides me as I remove my tailcoat and white tie. And despite being many floors away from my mate, the same sad disappointment she felt in the throne room’s antechamber continues to linger inside of me. As if it is my own. But these feelings aren’t my own. They couldn’t be?
Could they?
Once I am naked, I consider unshelling. Yes, a flight around the keep followed by a plunge into the deep. That is what I need.
But what I want—
My reflection in the beveled full-length dressing mirror snags me on the way to the window. Without my contacts in I can see the longing ache radiating throughout my flame. Not just above my male works but also in my chest.