“You’re agitated, big brother. Let me do the portal, go see your man,” Gem says.
In no mood, Zhang vacates his chair with a growl, and storms off whence he came. I snatch the circular headband from its place on the dash.
“Please,” Gem says before I can drop it onto my head. “I want the practice.”
“You haven’t lost your touch, baby,” I reassure him. “It’s not even the same frequency.”
I can’t bear the forlorn expression wrinkling his perfect face. Doubt has crept into his field because he failed to activate the stargate—his words, not mine. He won’t be able to activate it at all if he keeps that up. Activating a stargate requires a higher vibration. The vibration of doubt is low.
“Please,” he whispers.
I slip the band over his forehead, pressing a kiss to his crown. “Go for it, baby. I believe in you.”
He beams. “Thanks, Atlanta.”
I said something right, something that made him happy. Those words came out pretty easy. My thumb rubs over the Orion ring I put on his finger as a sense of awe fills me. Gemini inspires magic.
Refusing to let him go, I hold him to me, letting some of my strength flow to him. We’ve fucked, our energy has long been entangled, and it moves back and forth between us, bonded or not. His lids flutter closed and there’s a hum followed by a strip of fluorescent blue light that chases itself across the headband.
* * *
We touch down in a highly wooded area of the Alcyone. I grab my sweetheart—my rifle—and outfit myself with my weapons belt and my new starblade.
“Don’t leave home without your teddy bear, Orion,” Zhang says.
Whatever, he’s still sore about our earlier conversation.
“You don’t need all that, Atlanta,” Treyu says.
“Father would disagree.” It’s not like him to be so carefree. He’s relying too much on the Centaurus, but I guess he doesn’t have much of a choice, having been stripped of his claws. The bare place his sunstar used to live serves as a stark reminder of what he lost, and once again my soft spot gets the better of me. “I need to protect your ass.”
Using my free hand, I ruffle his black hair.
Zhang glares. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m coming to the perimeter of the woods.”
“No, you’re not.”
“What happened to equal hunting partners, huh?”
“Not when you’re being unreasonable.”
“Oh, Gods, not you two.” Treyu gestures wildly between him and Zhang. “Us.We’re the bickering twosome of this foursome. It’s only cute when it’s just two of us.”
“Not trying to be cute, Treyu,” I say.
He turns to his husband. “Listen, babe. You’ve got to let this go. Atlanta does what Atlanta does.”
Zhang’s eyes flicker to Gem, and I know what he’s thinking. That I’m being reckless, considering I have Gem to look after now. It’s the first time I pause. Am I? No. Can’t be. I’m doing this to protect him. He knows how I operate. I’m never going to be the sit-in-the-shadows kind of husband. That would kill me.
“You need to back off, Centaurus,” I say, standing taller and puffing my chest. I’m not as big as him, but I’m scarier. I will shoot him in the foot.
“Gods, Atlanta. That is so the opposite of not bickering,” Treyu says. “Babe. Babe, c’mere.”
Zhang seethes at me, but he lets Treyu drag him off. Gem lays a gentle hand on my weapon.
“Don’t listen to him, Lanta. We know how we like things between us. We only do us.”
