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Amanda huffed out a breath. "Of course, something happened. We saved a bunch of women from monsters, tore those monsters to pieces as they deserved, and brought the victims to the ship to deliver them to the sanctuary. My darling Dalhu is superstitious, and he took it to be a bad omen. I had to convince him to go ahead with the wedding. But the truth is that I should have offered my help instead of spending the afternoon and evening pampering in preparation for the party."
"We have enough volunteers to care for the women," Syssi said. "Your particular talents lend themselves to many tasks but not to dealing with traumatized females."
Amanda lifted her glass. "To my lack of nurturing instincts." She emptied half the glass in one go.
"We each have our own unique talents," Alena said. "You don't have to be the best at everything."
"I'll drink to that." Sari lifted her margarita glass and waited for Amanda to clink it with hers. "May we all recognize our limitations along with our strengths and learn how to best utilize them for our own satisfaction and for the greater good."
Dalhu
On the sprawling balcony of Kian's cabin, Dalhu gazed out at the gentle waves. The ship had left the harbor hours ago and was sailing toward Cabo, but his heart was no longer on the trip.
He and his groomsmen, all dressed impeccably for his wedding, were talking loudly and gesturing with their hands, trying to affect the same boisterous atmosphere that Orion's bachelor party had enjoyed, but he could tell that their hearts were not in it.
They were doing it for him, though, and he appreciated the effort. The least he could do was to pretend along with them.
"Fake it until you make it," he murmured under his breath.
The weight of the day pressed down on his shoulders, as it did on the shoulders of his groomsmen, and the nervous energy pulsating between them was explosive. If they were a less civilized bunch, it could have easily turned into a brawl.
He wished he could have been there when the Guardians had torn the monsters apart. Perhaps revenge would have eased the tension squeezing his chest and making his breathing laborious.
Opening his by-now-famous cigar box, Kian got their attention. "Gentlemen, pick your cigars. We don't have much time, so I suggest you choose the smaller ones this time."
As the groomsmen approached Kian, Dalhu hung back, waiting his turn.
"Nathalie is going to grumble about the stink," Andrew said as he drew out one of the big cigars. "We should have done this earlier so we could shower and change clothes before the reception."
"There was no time," Kian said. "We needed to get the women settled in their cabins, get them medical assistance, and arrange for Vanessa and her volunteers to speak to them via video chats. Most of that was done by the ladies, but I figured it wasn't fair for us to be drinking whiskey and smoking cigars while they were still busy performing all those tasks."
Andrew nodded. "You're right." He accepted a glass of whiskey from Anandur, who was working in tandem with Okidu, distributing the glasses.
The scene was so normal, one that Dalhu had taken part in many times, and he still wondered how he had gotten so lucky.
How these males had accepted him as one of their own.
Not everyone did, and some clan members still looked at him with resentment in their eyes or avoided looking at him altogether, but those were people he didn't know. Those who knew him appreciated him for who he had become and had forgiven who and what he had been.
Dalhu hadn't.
He still felt guilty over his past deeds. Perhaps if he had joined the rescue missions, he would have felt as if he was more deserving of the life he had with Amanda, but he needed to stay away from combat as much as he could.
From time to time, the itch to go on a killing rampage became almost unbearable, especially on days like today when evil had been so close that he could still smell it in the air, but the problem was that succumbing to that itch was dangerous.
He didn't want to be the male he had been before. Violence was tainting, even if it was morally justified and directed at evildoers to make it safer for the decent and the innocent who were the monsters' victims of choice, the filthy cowards who would piss their pants rather than engage someone like him in battle.
"Easy, my man." Anandur handed him a glass of whiskey. "You look like you are getting ready for a battle, not the wedding altar."
"Thank you. I need it."
"No shit. I could feel the waves of aggression wafting from you." Anandur regarded him with a knowing look. "I'm sorry to have missed the fight too. It would have helped with the riot going on inside me. I didn't know how bad it was until I heard reports from the Guardians."
Dalhu didn't even try to pace himself with the alcohol and emptied his glass. "Yeah. I didn't hear all the details, and I don't want to. Not today."
"Right." Anandur lifted the whiskey bottle and refilled Dalhu's glass. "One detail I heard will interest you, though." He leaned closer to whisper in Dalhu's ear. "Dagor stayed in the truck to protect Frankie, but Negal joined the fight, and in the scant moments before Frankie got injured, he dispatched six monsters with his own hands and fangs. Max said that he moved with the speed and strength of the Kra-ell, at least. Not that of a god. Then, when Frankie got injured, he jumped back into the truck to protect his teammate as Jin drove them to meet me and Bridget."
"Negal doesn't look anything like a Kra-ell. Besides, don't the gods frown on hybrids?"
