Page 192 of Dancing for the Minotaur

Then Lucy wrapped her arms around Terra and Taurex both and they all formed one big family embrace.

For several seconds they were all tangled together—Terra in her wedding gown, Lisa clinging around Taurex’s neck, Cody hugging him from the other side, Lucy pressed against Terra’s shoulder and Taurex somehow managing to hold all of them at once.

Terra closed her eyes in absolute bliss. She had once believed happiness would look like the life she planned with Jackson—a husband and children…a house…security. She had spent years trying to make that picture work even after it became painfully obvious that the man standing beside her didn’t value any of it the way she did.

What she had with Taurex was different. It was messy and unexpected—completely ridiculous and perfectly serious at the same time.

Her future husband had horns, and her children called him “the Bull-man.”

Her mother had apparently appointed herself a relationship expert and Terra was standing in the middle of David’s Bridal wearing an enormous diamond on her finger which promised that the fake wedding she’d been planning was going to be real.

It was nothing like the life she had once imagined—it was infinitely better.

Terra tightened her arms around the people she loved and felt Taurex’s hand settle warmly against her back. For the first time in her life, there was nowhere else she wanted to be.

And she had never been happier.

46

TERRA

The wedding was absolutely beautiful and everything Terra had ever wished for. Though she had to admit that when she used to daydream about someday having a real wedding, she had never once imagined that it would take place aboard an enormous living alien spaceship orbiting Mars.

And yet somehow it was perfect.

They held the ceremony in one of the open garden areas of the Monstrum Mother Ship, beneath the warm glow of its artificial green sun and surrounded by flowering vines that seemed to understand something important was happening because they had opened in brilliant shades of ivory, lavender and gold.

Terra carried the bouquet she and Taurex had chosen together—lilac blossoms—and the lemon-raspberry wedding cake they had both fallen in love with waited beneath a nearby pavilion grown from the intertwined branches of enormous silver-leafed trees.

Lucy walked Terra down the aisle, Lisa wore a lavender dress and scattered flower petals with such enthusiasm that several landed directly on the guests, and Cody stood beside Taurex holding the rings and looking proud in the formal clothing the Monstrum tailors had made especially for him.

Terra hardly noticed any of it once she saw Taurex waiting for her.

Instead of a tux, (they couldn’t find one to fit him anywhere) he wore dark formal Monstrum clothing edged in gold, the severe lines emphasizing the width of his shoulders and the enormous breadth of his chest. Delicate golden chains had been woven around the bases of his horns according to some old Monstrum Joining tradition Terra still didn’t completely understand.

His golden eyes never left her as she walked toward him, and the expression on his face made every nervous flutter inside her disappear. This was no longer pretend—she wasn’t walking toward him because she needed to convince the police of anything, and she wasn’t standing beside him because she owed him for saving her children.

She was here because she loved him—because she chose him and he had chosen her. And because somehow the massive horned alien she had once been frightened of had become the safest place in her world.

Commander Rarev himself performed the ceremony, looking remarkably dignified in his formal robes and his great leonine head. He spoke first about the human institution of marriage and then about the Monstrum tradition of Joining, explaining for the benefit of Terra’s human family that although the deeper spiritual Bond would be completed privately later, the promises made today were no less sacred.

“Before the Goddess and before those gathered here,” Rarev said solemnly, “You come freely to choose one another, not because fate commands it, but because love has drawn you together.”

Terra felt Taurex’s large hand tighten gently around hers and she smiled up at her groom and mouthed, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he murmured.

Rarev turned toward him first.

“Taurex, do you take Terra as your wife and chosen mate, promising to honor her, put her happiness before your own, and protect her with your life for all the days that are granted to you?”

Taurex didn’t hesitate.

“I do,” he rumbled.

His deep voice seemed to vibrate straight through Terra, and she squeezed his hands.

Then Rarev turned toward her.