Page 193 of Dancing for the Minotaur

“Terra, do you take Taurex as your husband and chosen mate, promising to love him, honor him, and walk beside him through whatever worlds your lives may carry you?”

Terra opened her mouth but before she could speak, Lisa shouted,

“She does!”

For one frozen second there was silence…then everyone burst out laughing.

“Lisa!” Lucy hissed, reaching over to tug her granddaughter gently back into place. “You have to let your mother answer for herself!”

“But we already know she will,” Lisa protested. “She promised to make the Bull-man our daddy!”

Even Commander Rarev’s whiskers twitched with amusement.

Terra laughed so hard that tears filled her eyes, and when she looked up at Taurex, he was laughing too, his ears twitching in the way she had come to adore.

“Well,” Commander Rarev said gravely, when the laughter died down. “Despite the testimony of the smaller female, I believe tradition requires Terra to answer personally.”

Terra wiped beneath one eye before her makeup could run and looked up at Taurex.

“I do,” she said, her voice trembling with laughter and happiness. “Absolutely, completely, one hundred percent, I do.”

Commander Rarev smiled.

“Then by the laws of Earth, the customs of the Monstrum people and the blessing of the Goddess, I declare you husband and wife. Taurex, you may kiss your bride.”

Taurex didn’t hesitate. He swooped Terra up into his arms and kissed her long and deeply enough to make her heart pound with desire.

Terra wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back while the entire gathering erupted in applause.

Somewhere behind them Lisa was cheering, Cody was whooping, and Lucy was undoubtedly crying again, but Terra barely heard any of it. She was absolutely lost in the kiss with her new Monstrum husband.

When Taurex finally lifted his mouth from hers, he kept her close and leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“Now I may call you mine,” he murmured, “And you may call me yours. Not because we own each other, but because the Goddess brought us together and we will never be parted again.”

Terra felt joy filling her like sunshine. There was no fear in the words anymore—not because their meaning had changed but because she finally understood them.

Taurex wasn’t saying she belonged to him like property—he was saying he belonged to her too, completely and forever.

“I like the sound of that,” she whispered back.

Taurex tightened his arms around her.

“I will love you forever, lovely one,” he rumbled.

Terra looked up into his golden eyes and felt her own fill with happy tears again.

And as her husband bent to kiss her once more beneath the golden-green light of the Monstrum Mother Ship, Terra knew she had finally gotten the wedding she had always wanted.

But more importantly, she had gotten the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life loving.

EPILOGUE

TERRA

The honeymoon suite was unlike anything Terra had ever seen, which was saying quite a lot considering she was spending her wedding night aboard an enormous living alien spaceship orbiting Mars.

Before leaving the reception, she had checked on Cody, Lisa and Lucy one last time, despite her mother repeatedly assuring her that they were perfectly capable of surviving a single night without her hovering. The three of them had been given a spacious guest domicile near the Market district, complete with two sleeping chambers, a little sitting area, and one of the living kitchens the children had already become fascinated with.