names, and who each one was mated to.
That’s something else I guess I’m getting used to, isn’t it? Thinking of them as mates. Not wives and husbands. There is no gender term. Mate encompasses all that, and more. It’s as powerful as marriage, and yet deeper, thanks to the dragons.
Laura wondered if one day she would sit around, sharing her own stories about her and Rakell. Of how they’d met. Talking about him to reassure herself that he would come home okay.
“Hey,” Meghan said, leaning forward, resting a hand on her shoulder. “They’re going to be okay. Blede’s team is the best. They regularly beat all the other clans when the teams get together to train. They’ll come back in one piece. You’ll see.”
Laura smiled tightly. “It’s actually not that,” she said with a shrug. “Though it was that, a few minutes ago. So thank you. That’s good to hear that they’re so highly rated, or whatever.”
The focus of the entire room shifted to her all at once. Laura felt small under the intense gazes of not only Meghan and Kristin, but also Ellyn—Vlad’s mate and an impressive woman all around. The three of them made her feel very tiny indeed.
“What’s wrong?” Ellyn, the former cat burglar turned dragon vault expert asked, taking charge.
“Wrong?” Laura said quietly. “I don’t know if anything is wrong.”
“She’s doing what I did,” Kristin said, speaking up. “She’s trying to figure out where she belongs. I can see it on her face. We’re all here, madly in love, bragging about our mates. She’s still trying to figure it all out. Aren’t you Laura?”
Leave it to Kristin to understand. It helped that the other woman had known Laura before…everything. That they were going through things somewhat together.
“How?” Laura asked, focusing on Kristin. “How did you come to just accept it like this? You were so unsure, and now you don’t seem to have a doubt in the world. I don’t get it.”
“Oh man, that’s a loaded question,” Kristin said, leaning back into her chair.
Beside them a fire flickered slowly in the gas fireplace, providing warmth, but also a feeling of intimacy and closeness between the women. It probably helped them feel better about being together while their men were putting themselves in harm’s way. Laura had found her attention wandering to the flames more than once already, so she couldn’t blame them.
“It all just seems so…”
“Quick?” Ellyn offered.
“Even though it’s been twenty years and two monsters of kids, I still remember it,” Meghan said, chiming in. “One day I was single, flirting with whoever, wondering if I’d get hit on the next time we went out to the bar. I secretly hoped I would, but of course outwardly I’d brush it off. Had to make sure none of them thought I was easy.”
The woman laughed in understanding.
“Then Pierce came along,” Meghan said, smiling at some private memory. “He swept me off my feet. It just sort of…happened. I stopped worrying and fearing, and realized then, when I did that, that I just knew. I’d felt it before, but I didn’t let myself believe. It felt—”
“Too good to be true,” Ellyn finished in a whisper. “It often still does if I think back on it. Like now. But Vlad is the only man for me. It’s so obvious now, I kick myself for taking so long to come around.”
“Long,” Kristin said with a snort. “It was maybe two weeks.”
Ellyn laughed. “Yeah I guess it was, wasn’t it? Crazy. It feels like an eternity ago, the life before him. It changes so fast, but everything just feels right.”
“Maybe,” Laura said into the silence that followed as all the other women nodded their agreement.
Maybe.
It wasn’t hard to acknowledge she felt something for Rakell, but forever after? That seemed a stretch. How could she know that, after such a short period of time?
The distinct thuds of objects landing on the roof reached the room. The women, already quiet, went still, glancing around at one another.
“What do we do?” Laura asked when none of them moved.
“We wait,” Meghan said. “Let them get down and inside. We don’t know what they might have brought back with them. Or who.”
Laura chewed on her lower lip, nervous energy filling her body. Had they found what they were looking for? The Cado base? A clue? What was it?
The sound of voices echoed down the hallway as the team entered. Laura heard the footsteps as they approached. She looked over her shoulder.
Pierce was the first to