She bounds up to me as the group files out of the auditorium and outside. “Can you show me some of those places that the questions were about? I’d love to see a nebula or visit another world.”
“Whatever you want, amamora.”
Jovie looks up at me with a pained expression.
“I know I’m up and down right now. I’m still working through everything.” I’m secretly terrified someone’s going to take her from me. I did not get to stay with my guardian as a child. I’m more certain of it now that I’ve witnessed the Oramma orb with Jovie.
Living under my father’s thumb for years, if he even is my father, has torn apart my confidence and made me run from him more than once. Every time I’ve tried to go home, thinking things have changed, they haven’t. It’s not about survival with the royals. It’s about control. And I’m fearful of what they’ll do if they get their hands on my mate.
“Team up in a few?” she asks.
I don’t want her to go, but Jovie seems ready.She worked hard to get here. She wants to have fun.
I let her leave without protesting this time. She is mine. She is claimed. All the other males here will smell our recent bonding and not bother her. It’s just the ones who don’t care, the ones I can’t see, that worry me.
21: Aurelius
ABR has tables set out buffet style in private males’ and females’ areas near changing huts. I manage a handful of something called tacos before I get in line to gear up for the Grenade Maze.
The staff harnesses us up with silly, colorful—useless—armor, a belt of neon canisters, and a rifle that firesstimulatingpaint bullets. Then we gather with the females again behind another railing and listen to another announcer.
“There is an egg at the center of this maze. The first couple to the egg will win a prize. This one is a vacation on Planet Opoueali in the beachfront rooms of the Cistali for a week. It will also put you in the running for the grand prize wedding on the Pearl de Gaia. Points are also awarded to the second and third-place teams to be redeemed in the ABR merch shop.
I make my way through the crowd, looking for Jovie. When I find her, she has purple paint on her face. I can’t explain what it is about the design, but I know I’ve seen the pattern before: the swooping diamond shapes on her cheeks with the pair of lines up her forehead. “What did they do to you?”
She works around something hard that rattles in her teeth, then crunches down on it. “Gave us candy, coffee, and painted those of us who have chosen our mates. They say they’re traditional female patterns from your homeworlds. They had a big old book from some archaeological site that they pulled these from. Said mine are for a Lightbringer, whatever that is.”
My dream comes rushing back to me with Jovie blazing with light so bright that even I had to shy away.Is a Torchbearer supposed to bond with a Lightbringer?
I wish I knew. It has been so long since my people had a homeworld that finding information on our old ways is almost impossible.But there’s some still out there.
Jovie rights her rifle in one arm and taps her belt. “Locked and loaded, big boy. You ready for some hunting?”
I lift her chin so I can admire the design.Either they know I’m a Torchbearer, or they don’t, and it was a lucky guess.
The railing blinks as I lean in and kiss her. Males and females shout and chatter as footsteps thunder out into the field toward the maze. Glittering clouds puff into the air all over the arena. And Jovie tastes so good and feels so right that I don’t care if we win.
I already have.
The hum of a cameradrone circles us, making me break the kiss.
“Come on.” Jovie tugs me toward the maze but takes a different route than most others.
“The egg is that way,” I tell her. “Almost everyone knows the route now.”
“I don’t care about the egg.” She tightens her hand around mine. “I want something else.”
Jovie releases me to run a hand along the tall hedge. A male turns the corner ahead of us. I shoot him before he has a chance to lift his gun. The paint from my bullet splatters blue against him. He grabs a laughing female beyond the corner of the hedge, pulls her into him with a hungry growl, and starts grinding on her.
A blast goes off in an adjacent passageway, and pink smoke filters through the leaves. The scent of it stirs my Storm and makes me crave finding a place to steal Jovie away and take her.
My mate disappears into the hedge. “Jovie?”
“Come on, Aura! You’ve got to find me!”
Leaves rustle. I track the sounds and find a weak spot in the hedge, but I’m almost too big to fit through, even as I turn sideways and inch myself deeper into the branches. “Jovie?”
A hand finds me and guides me the rest of the way through. Jovie hooks her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist, and kisses me. A smoke canister billows overhead as it’s launched over our passageway of the maze. Someone on the other side swears. A female yelps and then laughs.
