Posted 2024-02-11; beta'd by Eeyorefan12

They lay in bed where Edward had willingly let Bella drag him upon his return the day before. After summoning his family, he'd been gone for nearly two hours—a separation they'd both felt keenly but a necessary one. The dragon was now safely settled in the Cullens' dragon enclosure where it would be properly cared for. The two hours had been anxious ones for her, knowing that Edward also would be confronting Jasper.

"So, you spoke with your brother?" She hoped it wasn't a breach of protocol to ask.

"I did." Edward nuzzled her cheek. "He won't be disrespectful to you again—or question my choices. At least, not aloud."

She nodded. Not that Jasper's silence on the matter wouldn't be an improvement, but how much better would things be if his thoughts remained unchanged?

Edward used his finger to lift her chin. "All is well, I assure you."

"Okay."

Edward chuckled. "You do not appear assured."

"Sorry, but I'm not. He was pretty adamant."

Edward hummed thoughtfully. "He understands the need for unity on these matters. We are a family, and while we may disagree, we protect one another." He grinned unexpectedly. "He has had, as I've heard humans say, 'an attitude adjustment'."

Bella gave a small laugh at his wording, running her hand down his chest, relieved. "Thank you."

"As if I would leave things less than satisfactory to you."

She felt badly for having worried.

"Though I can't say I can do anything about the way he smells."

"What?"

Another throaty chuckle as he kissed her ear. "A side effect of mating. Other people will smell off-putting for a time. An added incentive for keeping to ourselves."

Time alone with Edward sounded just fine by her. "Good. I mean, okto." Bella smiled at him.

He returned the expression, sliding his arms further around her, squeezing gently. "You're beginning to sound more like a Sabellian. And I'm glad your voice is better this morning."

"Okto, I guess?" She snorted out a giggle, feeling the rumble of Edward's laughter in his chest.

She sighed, resting her head against his shoulder. He felt warmer than usual—though perhaps that was her, rather than him. Her temperature fluctuated wildly still. One of the many changes her pregnancy would bring. The thought of change made her consider the impromptu vocabulary lesson at hand—and the word Edward never used.

"You don't say it," she said.

"It," Edward murmured. "I said it."

She chuckled. "You're grasthe—wait, no. That's not it."

"Gashte." There was a tickle by Bella's ear as he kissed her lightly there. "The word means six. Did you know that?"

She closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation. "No."

"Gashte had six arms, and Okto, eight."

"Famous insects?"

Edward's laughter tickled her ear, sending a pleasant shiver down her back.

"No, a goddess and a god. Okto was a talented weaver, apprenticed to Athena. Gashte, another apprentice, was jealous of her skills, and in a rage, he destroyed Okto's tapestry—and with it, the real island she'd been weaving on behalf of Athena. As punishment, Athena made Gashte an apprentice to Okto." Edward ran his finger down the back of Bella's neck in a lazy dance that elicited pleasant twitches and shivers.

"So not fair." It wasn't clear even to Bella to which situation this applied: hers or Okto's.

"That's what Okto said, or something close to it. But Athena had ordered it, so she complied, and after many instructive misadventures, both Gashte and Okto came to a productive peace."

"So, if he comes out as not so bad in the end, how come he's remembered as a byword?"

"I always thought it was unfair that he was judged by the beginning, and not the end of his story. But we often judge others by their origins, so . . ."

There was another lazy dance of his fingers down her neck. She'd almost forgotten her original question—but not quite. "Why don't you say either of those words? Is it out of protest of Gashte's depiction as the villian?"

"Nothing so noble, I'm afraid. My reasons were entirely practical. I trained myself not to use them. Those and many other words. The habit has stuck."

Another whisper of a kiss. She felt a frisson of heat ripple over her body. Still, she wanted an answer. "You trained yourself because . . .?"

The whisper moved down up to her hair, his cool breath rippling through the loose strands.

"Muttering 'okto' and 'gashte' every time I made an acclimation error would have drawn attention to myself."

Of course. "True," she muttered, most of her attention not on what he was saying.

He cupped her head, sliding his fingers up the back of her skull and then down again, massaging gently.

Bella gave a quiet moan of pleasure and then a louder one of disappointment when the sensation disappeared. She opened her eyes to find Edward leaning on his hand, eyebrows nudged together.

"I've been wrong not to make you more mindful of how you speak, Bella. While you won't be in town that often, and certainly not there alone, you should be careful in what you say. As much as possible, avoid speaking with strangers, and if you must say something to them, use as few words as will suffice. Get away as quickly as possible. It still isn't safe for some people to know what you are."

"I will."

Edward continued to study her face, not hiding his concerned expression.

"I get it, Edward. Avoid strangers. Use the KISS principle."

The wrinkle in his brow told her she'd lost him completely with that one.

"It's an acronym. Keep it simple. Use few words. Get out of there."

Edward squeezed her hand, leaning in and kissing her on the lips. He pulled away, sighing.

Bella wondered at what he'd said. "I see your point. I guess I thought you'd be more concerned about people seeing my teeth—or lack of pointed ones." Ever since the incident in the market, she'd been careful and always kept her gloves on in public. But her teeth—

"Your canines will come in soon enough."

"My canines are in."

Edward blinked. "No, your new—you didn't read the book?"

"I did start reading it." She huffed out a breath. "There was just—there were—"

"It's alright." He shook his head. "I'm sorry for forgetting just how overwhelming what you're going through is—and how new everything here is for you. Often you appear so at ease. You—I hope you know that there's no need to hide any of that from me?"

She was about to say, "of course" but stopped herself. No, she hadn't had that assurance before. "Thank you for being clear about it. I'll try not to . . . hide what I'm thinking from you. I have. But, um, let me know if you'd like me to start concealing some of it. I'm not sure you know what you're getting into."

"I think I have an inkling." He grinned.

She gave his words more thought. "So, my canines are going to lengthen? Or get sharper? Like yours?"

He nodded. "At least more like my sisters'." His expression turned apologetic. "You . . . can always file them down when you . . . if you feel you need to."

If I return to Earth.

She shook her head. With all that had happened to her and all of the changes she was undergoing—she was most likely pregnant, after all—having slightly pointier teeth barely seemed important.

She sighed and resettled herself into the crook of his arm. Their first few days at the mating house had passed by unexpectedly quickly, but at least they had more to come. She looked forward to spending time with Edward just talking, eating, sleeping, and engaging in. . . other activities. Now, with the dragon incident behind them and her temporary mutism resolving, Bella let her thoughts wander, trying to imagine what it must have been like for Edward to arrive on earth. He'd have been forewarned on many fronts, but there were bound to have been many shocks. If his father had traveled there last in the early twentieth century, then his latest information would have been woefully out of date. She recalled his formal attire and stiff mannerisms on their first meeting, and how she'd wondered if he were some sort of fundamentalist. She pictured him at the table of boxes, eyeing the book of sketches.

"The book! The one with the portraits." She looked up at Edward.

He furrowed his brow.

"When we met. There was a picture of a woman—a slave. Ne—"

"Naera."

"Yes." She sat up, putting her hand to her neck. "She wore a lace choker."

Edward nodded.

"But she was a slave. How—?"

"Remnants," Edward said. "Sabellian-human hybrids. We brought our kind home when severance allowed. Sometimes it was years or decades between windows. And sometimes, it was too long."

"People died?"

"Not death, no." Edward reached up, gathering her in his arms again and laying them both back down. "It's primarily our genetics that let us travel, but it is also the tardigrades. For a heavy-blooded Sabellian—one whose lineage is more Sabellian than off-worlder, like mine—travel isn't limited. We can live off-world for years—decades even. For those with lighter blood, their time is limited, lest they become remnants, essentially trapped where they are. And for those born off-world, who have neither heavy blood nor tardigrades, their ability to travel also decreases over time."

"That doesn't make sense. How did you import slaves, then?"

Edward ran his hand down Bella's arm, pausing at her hip and frowning. "There are ways of marking humans for travel."

Did anyone examine her for marks? The words had startled her then, in those first days on Sabellia, and they made her stop breathing now. She swallowed, putting a hand to her neck.

"Not there, no. Here"—he touched her shoulder, her chest, and her hand—"and here. That or impregnating a female slave was enough."

"Then"—it was Bella's turn to frown—"could I have been seeded before I was brought here?"

"Perhaps." He frowned and paused. "I know it troubles you, not having answers."

She shook her head. "Yes and no. It's . . . not knowing who I need to distrust."

Edward turned the cradle of his arms into a hug. "I'm sorry that I don't have answers for you and . . . that it happened to you at all. I'm doing everything I can to find out more."

"Thank you. Knowing that helps. Knowing I'm safe with you helps, too." The feeling of contentment was profound. Part of it was chemical, she knew—or rather, had been warned about. The mate bond was double-edged. "I'm . . ." How did she say this? "I'm glad it was you. I mean, I'm not glad about being abducted, but I—" Oh, she was really screwing this up. "I like you, Edward. I like . . ."

C'mon brain, work!

She made the mistake of looking up at him, her worried gaze meeting his very warm one.

"Are you trying to say that you enjoy our mating?" He curled his finger through a lock of her hair, leaning in to kiss her ear. "Not that you need to tell me with words, given the sounds you make when we do."

Bella laughed. "Yes, I like it." She felt her cheeks warm. "But, I also just like talking with you. You're a good friend, Edward. I—you're a . . . really good—friend." Friend was pushing the boundaries of the word. Her feelings were much stronger than that, but she had no business complicating their friendship—or her plans to return home—with an unequal balance of feeling.

Rolling her onto her back, he loomed over her. "I'm grateful to be called so. But right now, I think it is another name I wished to be called by." He kissed her deeply as he pushed her legs apart with his knees.

"Okto," she whispered, this time without any hint of a giggle, accepting the joining of his body with hers and the intense pleasure it brought.

— o — 0 — o —

Standing in the dimness of the dragon stable, Bella was glad for the etiquette that dictated Jasper and Emmett keep their distance. Despite Edward's conversation with Jasper and his assurance that nothing like it would happen again, she remained wary.

And Edward had been right. His brothers both smelled bad to her. Being around others would take some getting used to.

Their trip to the barn was one of several they would make on that front, acclimating themselves to their family—and their family members to their newly-mated state. They'd had nearly two weeks in the mating house, and Edward assured her that they'd passed the pheromone peak, but it would be a few more days before they would resume communal living.

Not that Bella was in any rush. Privacy suited her just fine, as did the space and time the mating house allowed for . . . well, mating. Not to mention access to the mating house's large, heated bathtub. A deep oblong of thick metal, it was filled from a roof-top cistern and slowly heated by two braziers. She thought of how she and Edward had begun their evening soaking in its pleasant warmth—

"Would you like to see it, Bella?" Edward asked.

She blinked, trying to recall the general bent of the dragon-related conversation. Much as it was a passion of Edward's, discussion of scale infection treatments was not one of Bella's.

"Um—"

"A little lost in your thoughts, sister?" Emmett called out.

After giving Emmett a low growl, Edward turned back to Bella. "The dragon you helped me capture?"

"Oh, sure."

Emmett's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. Bella dipped her head, hiding her smile. She'd missed his sense of humor.

Jasper avoided eye contact. She hadn't missed him by a long shot.

Edward pulled her by the hand towards the back of the barn, Jasper and Emmett walking a few yards ahead of them.

"I've made the salvage claim," Jasper said.

"Was it contested?" Edward asked.

"Not officially, no." Hearing Jasper's wry tone, Bella eyed him. "Mrs. Hatzis was not the registered owner, though she did come to make an appeal on behalf of her son, which"—he coughed—"our mother officially refused."

Edward grimaced.

"How was Stolos?"

"Abashed," Jasper said. "Grateful no one was hurt."

Edward nodded. "I did warn him. Their penning was dangerously inadequate."

"There were many warnings from you to Stolos, and from our mother to Mrs. Hatzis, and no doubt, from whatever shameless trader sold a dragon with unclipped wings to him."

The four of them reached the far end of the barn, where thick wood planks screened off a paddock-sized pen. A familiar, inky-black dragon slithered around the circumference, hissing and flaring its neck frill. It looked ready to pounce.

"She is beautiful," Jasper said. "And an absolute nuisance."

"You don't say." Edward lifted an eyebrow at his brother, now standing beside him.

Bella was more concerned with the pen; it was made of wood. "Um . . . can't it burn this down?" She tapped the closest rail.

Edward shook his head. "Not without glyko, which we don't feed them."

"It was aflame when you found it?" Jasper stared at his brother.

"Yes. She'd gotten to an unharvested patch."

"You didn't tell me." There was anger now.

"I had more pressing concerns at the time." He gave Jasper a mild glare. "And she was fully extinguished by the time I summoned you."

"Stolos' loss—our benefit," Emmett offered. "Doubly so if you count not having to attend dinners with his parents."

Bella suppressed the urge to laugh.

"That's enough, Emmett." Edward glared at him.

"They might be neighbors, but they're insecure bigots, and Mrs. Hatzis didn't say anything to persuade me otherwise when she made her demands last week." There was no remorse on Emmett's face. "I'd think you'd feel the same, given their comments at our last dinner—which became far worse when she was here." Emmett was unrepentant.

"I'm not sure we should hold those against her. This loss will be a costly one for them, and she didn't appear well to me." Jasper frowned. "She looked very pale."

"Has she ever seemed well, in her mind?" Emmett grumbled.

Jasper shook his head. "She said you stole the creature, Edward, which I knew was nonsense, but for her to lie so boldly to us, it was the final cut."

"Truly?"

"She was never very reasonable to begin with. This can't surprise you." Emmett leaned against the lattice.

"What will it mean, going forward?" Bella asked.

Edward sighed. "We'll be neighbors, and not the friendly kind."

"At least not with the senior Hatzis. Torom—Stolos was much calmer about it all. He made efforts to reason with his mother, not that they were effective," Jasper said. "I'm not sure if he'll ride with us, though." He eyed Edward, who nodded, his expression serious.

"No, I can imagine."

"Emmett and I can make do for now, but—"

"No, I'll come. It's tomorrow, isn't it?" Jasper nodded as Edward reached over to take Bella's hand, giving her an apologetic smile. "You'll need to return to the house, at least for tomorrow night."

Bella thought wistfully of the bathtub. "Of course." Looking more closely at Jasper and Emmett, she could see they stood not quite so erectly as normal. They were tired. There was a squirm of guilt in her midsection. Having her and Edward stay in the mating house meant more work for everyone.

"Maybe we can ask Mr. Printer to ride with us the following night?" Emmett suggested.

Edward snorted. "Don't be ridiculous. He's as likely to shoot you as he is a bandit. I'll ride then too."

Thoughts of the bathtub disappeared, and with them, a hope she hadn't realized she'd been nurturing. A distinct sense of disappointment replaced it.

As she and Edward walked back to the mating house from the barn, Bella sifted through her feelings—feelings for Edward that had been taking on a life of their own. Returning to the large and busy home would mean an end to a privacy she'd come to relish.

While Jasper had been nothing but polite—if not cool—to her since that day in the grove, she feared that he'd only shown what others were deliberately hiding. Sabellians performed politeness and courtesy like the skills were inbred. How often they did so at the cost of honesty, she had no way of knowing.

And Edward. Clearly, he was trying to make things work with her. But how much of it did he really mean? If it weren't for the mating bond, would he want to be with her, spend time with her?

There was no way to know.

But doubting everyone's intentions was exhausting, and it was no way to live. If she wanted to be mentally well when she returned to earth, she needed to accept her family here at face value, as she'd begun to do with Edward. He'd given her no reason to doubt his sincerity.

"How was it?" Edward asked.

"What?"

"Being with my family?"

"Fine, I guess." Bella shrugged.

Edward chuckled. "I wish I could say the same."

"You seemed fine. What was bothering you?"

Edward pulled her to a stop by a tree, taking both her hands in his. "They looked at you."

Bella made the mistake of chuckling. "And that—?"

"Bothered me. Immensely." He leaned down and kissed her, releasing her hands and lifting her by the waist to lean against—and then be squashed into the tree. There were several more deep kisses, accompanied by a powerful wash of heat sweeping over Bella's body.

"Edward?"

He made a sound between a purr and a growl at her neck.

"We're outside." Not that the possessive nature of his kiss wasn't clue enough, but the proximity of his hips offered a more explicit one.

"We are."

"The house is just over there."

"It is."

"I don't want—I'd like to be . . . inside, for what comes next."

With a low groan, Edward assented.

The better part of an hour later, they lay in bed together, Bella still breathing hard as Edward drew the sheet over her, rubbing his hand up and down her back.

The warmth of their mating lingered, centered in the slow and pleasant throb at her groin. To make an inadequate comparison, it was like eating only one cookie: delicious but leaving her wanting more.

"Matings used to be public," Edward said.

She wondered at the non sequitur. "Well, they are still. Ours was."

He smirked. "Not this part."

Was he joking? "You don't mean—"

Edward gave a slow nod. "It hasn't been common for several centuries, but it was seen as a duty. Mated couples were expected to bless the land with their fertility. For those with land and households, the act was publicly witnessed."

Bella lifted her eyebrows. "Just so we're clear, you're not proposing—"

Edward chuckled. "No, but I admit, when I was young and learning the histories, I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to do something so intimate in public. Now"—he drew her to him—"I understand completely. It's as if an irrational creature has taken up half my mind. Earlier today, I wanted to beat my brothers simply because they'd looked at you. I wanted to—to show everyone who you are to me." He buried his face in her neck, nuzzling over the mark there.

Before, he'd carried her to the bed, and their mating had begun slowly, gently. Now, the heat of the first fire made the second one flame. Bella kicked away the sheet. "I'm not an exhibitionist, but you can absolutely show me."

There was desire, and then there was desire. Watching Edward, she only had to wait a moment before the Edward who cared about gloves, propriety, and formality abruptly vanished and her mate appeared.

FYI, folks, there are approximately 16 chapters left to go.

- Erin