I opened my mouth to tell Dayton about Mookie as we packed away silverware, but he nodded to me and then to Kimber, stretched out and pouting on the table. I told Uri I’d be right back over our link and flopped down beside the unicorn. He lifted his head from his hands and rested his cheek against my bare arm.

  “I’m sorry they acted like assholes,” I said for the millionth time since we found out they got married without us.

  “They weren’t assholes,” Kimber sighed and shook his head. “I just feel left out. It feels like how things were back in the meadow. I mean, at least then I had Wilder. Now, I don’t. Not really.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that Wilder was still his best friend if he wanted him to be, but Kimber shook his head, and I didn’t say anything.

  “Things have changed, and we all know it. I’m just sad. I thought we’d all become really good friends last year on the trip. I mean, I know it was scary there at the end, but I thought we’d formed a little group.”

  “We did, and we still have that,” I said.

  “It doesn’t feel like it,” Kimber frowned. “I mean, I get they’re technically one couple, but I wouldn’t have a wedding without Wilder.”

  “I’m going to take some wild guesses into the dark here, but can you bear with me for a minute while I do that?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m too full of food to move anyway, and Alder is out cold.”

  “Okay. I don’t think they wanted to leave us out or even leave Canton and his out. I think that they have gotten so much pushback about being poly from some assholes that they felt freer over there. I think they wanted to get married somewhere folks wouldn’t speculate whose dick was going into whose ass. TMI, maybe, but seriously, Kimber, they didn’t want to leave us out. We weren’t there. They didn’t go over there to get married. They went over there for Jude to wrap up his affairs and for his village family to meet his new family members. Then they were in a spot where everyone was cool with their relationships. That was probably their first taste of that sort of freedom. I know poly isn’t for everyone. I couldn’t imagine sharing Uri with anyone, but it’s for them, and they’re happy.”

  “So you’re saying I should gore everyone who speaks out against polyamory?” Kimber arched a playful brow and sported the first real smile I’d seen on his face since we got the news about the wedding, we all missed out on.

  “Maybe, but I’m pretty sure Dayton would have to arrest you.”

  “He doesn’t need that excuse to whip out his handcuffs and use them on me,” Kimber laughed before turning serious again. “If that’s the reason, why didn’t they say so?”

  “Because that just draws attention to them again,” I took a guess.

  “But Philip and them don’t get much grief about it,” Kimber sighed.

  “That’s not true,” Philip’s voice cut into the conversation. “We do, but usually, they want to say it to Ruben. I guess they’re afraid of me, and everyone knows Zee will rip someone’s head off over Cypress. Ruben just doesn’t care. He grew up being judged for everything, and he’s past it. No one says anything about Bryn and them around me because Bryn’s like my nephew. If they were brave enough to say something to me, I’d set them straight on what is and isn’t their business. Some of us are just better at ignoring assholes than others.”

  “It bothers Wilder when they talk about Bryn,” Kimber said.

  “I know. It bothers me when they talk about Bryn too,” Philip nodded.

  “So Wilder needs to punch the next Alpha who does it?” Kimber asked hopefully.

  “No, that wouldn’t fix anything. It’d just give them more to talk about. Though, those same uneducated folks are about to get a whammy. Ty and Feral are working with the founding council to make an official definition of mateship and marriage and it’s all plural. Basically, marriage doesn’t have a limit to participants as long as everyone is willing and an adult.”

  “I want a copy of that to carry around and whack people with,” Kimber laughed.

  “I’ll get you one,” Philip said and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t take what they did personally. It was to protect themselves more than it was to leave us out.”

  “Thanks, Philip,” I mouthed to the bear shifter because he had more luck than I did with cheering up Kimber.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Uri

  Under normal circumstances, I hated to be left alone at a party where I knew practically no one. Only the unicorn omega smelled sad enough to drown himself in the lake. So, I was happy to share Ramero’s attention if it meant that didn’t happen. Instead, I stayed with Dayton, and we silently packed things away for a while.

  “Thanks for letting us borrow Ramero,” Dayton said, breaking the silence.

  “I guess he was yours first,” I grinned.

  “Maybe, but I know how it is when you first meet your true-mate. They take center stage for a while.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t think yours can afford to lose any more friends right now. He smells so sad.”

  “I know, and it’s driving me crazy. I get both sides of this, but if I could punch someone and make it better, I’d probably be a lot less stressed out,” he said, closing the tote full of dishes and silverware. “I’m not usually the one to punch first and ask questions later, but I hate seeing him like that.”

  “I get it. If Ramero was upset about the wedding, I’d be upset too, and I don’t really even know the folks involved,” I said, sitting down on the edge of the table.

  “Congratulations by the way. I’m sorry their homecoming sort of bumped you two out of the limelight. I’ll put something together for you guys after you’re ready to come out of the mate moon stage.”

  “You don’t have to,” I said automatically.

  “Maybe not but I’m selfish and over the moon that Ramero met you. I’m older than him, if you haven’t noticed. So, he’s one-part best friend and one-part kid brother. So, I worry about him, and one thing we have in common is that neither of us was any good at casual dating. You can have all the friends in the world, but guys like me and Ramero need something more. Hell, I didn’t even know I needed that something more until I met Kimber.”

  “I knew I needed it. I just didn’t know how to get it.”

  “I think a lot of folks carry that feeling around,” Dayton said. “Most of them just never put together it’s the fact they haven’t met their true-mate. That reminds me. Ramero started to say something about someone from your village going missing.”

  “Mookie,” I said.

  “Who is Mookie?” Dayton asked, pulling out a little notepad and pen from the front pocket of his shirt.

  “A trickster. I mean, he looks like a cat, but he’s a trickster. He’s originally from the Other World. He can speak and everything. Ramero made it sound important that I include that last part. He doesn’t usually wander off and not come home for meals. It’s like he just disappeared into thin air.”

  Dayton didn’t say anything for a long moment as he considered what I said. I braced myself for the worst. Without a doubt, he was going to tell me I was wasting his time.

  “Okay,” Dayton said. “With most missing pets and persons, they show up in a few days. I say both of them because it’s true, and to be honest, I don’t know what to sort Mookie as. He sounds like a bit of both. Sometimes change makes people do crazy things and you meeting your true-mate is a big change for you but also for him and anyone close to you. He may be giving you space to sort all of that out.”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” I said and bit my lip, feeling like an idiot now.

  “Most people don’t. We all panic when our loved ones go missing. It’s a natural response. We’ll keep an eye out for him, and if you have a photo, I’ll get it passed around too.”

  “I can text you lots of photos.”

  “Well, if he changes forms, the more photos we have of different forms, the better.”

  “He doesn’t really change forms. He mostly always looks like a cat. Sometimes he just has gills or wings or other things that allow him to do whatever it is he wants to do at the moment.”

  “Sounds like we’d all want to be Mookie if we could,” Dayton chuckled and squeezed my shoulder. “Send as many photos as you think we’ll need. I’ll get them passed around, and we’ll see if anyone spots him, but I bet he’ll show in a few days once he thinks he’s given you time to settle into the new stuff.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ramero

  While Uri and I retreated back into his house in the lakeside water dragon village, Evie headed the hunt for Mookie. Her worry seeped over the pride link like water through an unpatched crack in the ceiling. The little lioness blamed herself for his disappearance since she prodded me into swimming out to retrieve who she thought was a cat. I didn’t blame her, and neither did Uri. We both told her as much at the wedding party but still, she headed the hunt for him. After a few days, he still wasn’t home, but four cats meeting his description now were barn cats over on Canton’s farm. They seemed happy enough, and everyone tried to remind Evie that since Mookie thought more or less at the level of one of us, he could be anywhere, and if someone didn’t want to be found, it was extra hard to find them. Besides, kiddo was saving cats left and right even if she hadn’t found Mookie.

  She gave a teary-eyed report via video call on the evening of the fourth day. My summary was that she watched way too many scary documentaries online about people not being found after the first forty-eight hours.

  “I’m so torn,” Uri said as I tucked my phone back under my pillow.

  Despite having it back since the party, I hadn’t checked it often unless someone prodded me over one of the group links to do so.

  “About Mookie?” I asked, even though Mookie was the obvious answer.

  “I’m having fun. I’m enjoying myself. It’s our mating moon. I love Mookie, and I’ve seen him walk through fire, sleep in an oven, and heal from a fall into a thorn bush in seconds. So, I keep telling myself that he’s okay wherever he ended up because Mookie’s always okay. Do you think I’m just lying to myself because I want to stay in here with you?”

  “If those things happened, I don’t think you’re lying to yourself,” I said and pulled him into my arms.

  Not touching him still left me aching deep inside. The period right after true-mates meet was described as the mating moon. It was a time used to solidify the bond and soothe out the rough edges of the magic involved. In other words, the claiming vow ended a lot of the concentration problems but other effects like the need to touch and be touched lingered for weeks after sometimes.

  “Tomorrow is a closed day for tourists,” Uri said, resting his head against my shoulder. “I want to go out and check the lake properly. I know others in the village have, but they don’t know Mookie like I do. If he’s hiding, they might not find him. Even Algae doesn’t fully get Mookie. So, I’m wondering if he said something that offended him or something. Tricksters can be like that. I think in a way, they’re a bit like cats. At least, Mookie is a bit like some cats in that way. He’s a one humanoid trickster and seems not to take to anyone else fully.” He bit his lip and sniffled. “I’m not blaming Algae for Mookie disappearing. Mookie isn’t just a cat you can keep inside. If he wants out, he’ll get out no matter what you do, and he left Algae’s house of his own accord. I mean, everyone would’ve heard if someone came in and tried to make Mookie do something he didn’t want to do.”

  “Yeah. Let’s get up early before the sunbathers get out there and check the lake for him. Besides, I need to test these gills out in actual water,” I said, rubbing the spot just under one ear.”

  “Shit! I should’ve had you in water every day! They won’t make you sick or anything if you don’t get into the water, but you need to practice with them for them to fully function and to know to disappear when your head isn’t under the water.”

  “Okay, so we’ll do both tomorrow. They’ve only tried to kill me once,” I smirked, trying to get a laugh out of him. I understood his worry but the sadness tinging his scent set me on edge.

  “You dreamt of being underwater, didn’t you?” He asked, looking up at me through his eyelashes.

  “Yeah. It was great. It was something out of a fantasy book a whole underwater kingdom for water dragons and me!” I grinned.

  “That sounds like Atlantis. Yep. It was a real place once upon a time. Politics killed it. I dream of it sometimes too. I think we all do. We all want to go back to a place where we’re fully functional under the water.”

  “Maybe someday,” I said and kissed the top of his head.

  “Probably not. The war that destroyed the city took a lot of the magic we knew too. I mean, the people who knew it died in that war. So, we lost it that way. Not the magic, but we don’t know a lot of what they knew how to do. It was so long ago. Believe it or not, that was when the dragons were still in the Other World. That was before Frost and Juda met and brought true-mates over here.”

  “Shit, that was a long time ago.”

  “Some dragons think it’s just part of the lore, but I like to believe that it was real.”

  “Are there any portals in the lake?” I asked, sitting up suddenly inspired by all the little caverns I swam through in the dream that birthed my gills.

  “Like magi portals or something? Are those even real?” Uri laughed, flopping down on the pillow.

  “I don’t know. I think they are. Maybe not in the way the books portray them. Could there be an Other World gateway down there?” I asked.

  “So, you think there are water-breathing elves guarding a tiny underwater gateway?” He arched a brow.

  “Well, do you think that elves are the only ones that have gateways? I mean, we know theirs best, of course, but to say they’re the only ones who have them just seems to me to be a little bit bigoted.”

  “I’m not a bigot,” Uri crossed his arms, but his scent was playful. “I just hadn’t thought about who else might have gateways before.”

  “Well, you said he washed up in the lake, right? That means somewhere is a place where things have to meet up. I know you guys guard one side of an Other World gateway here but don’t you think the guards would’ve noticed a little Mookie scrambling through the doorway?”

  “Shit, I hadn’t thought about that. I figured he just wandered over through that doorway. Maybe Mookie sent you a dream about where he is.”

  “So, Mookie is in the past in Atlantis now?” I arched a brow.

  “We don’t know that you dreamt about Atlantis,” he laughed a real and hearty laugh and melted a bit.

  If Uri kept this up, I’d spend the rest of my life as a puddle of goo with only my mane to show that I was once a flesh and blood lion. It hadn’t been a week since I met him, but I loved everything about him and couldn’t wait to show him my life too.

  “Maybe they’re unrelated, but in my dream – it only comes back to me in bits, and pieces like dreams do – I remember swimming through underwater caverns to get to different parts of the city.”

  “That’s how things are drawn when artists render their vision of Atlantis. You probably picked up a lot of that from the claiming vow without thinking of it. You’re right. Mookie probably can’t send people dreams. I just miss him, and I sort of hope there isn’t a portal or whatever down there because if he got sucked through, he could be anywhere fighting to get back to us and what if we can’t fit through it to find him.”

  There were a lot of other what-ifs I could’ve added. Kimber jumped through a well – the same well Wilder did and ended up in a different place. Some asshats jumped through too, and one ended up in London. So, who knew how this hypothetical portal might work?

  “Zee. If we find a portal or something, we call the harpy,” my lion announced to us. “He might be air instead of water, but he knows more about the Other World than anyone we know. Well, maybe Theron and his first vampire know more but they’re some closed-lipped son of a bitches.”

  “He’s right. If we think Mookie is lost in the Other World we should talk to someone who knows the Other World.”

  “Can he hold his breath for days?” I asked, laying back down with Uri because the spark of energy my idea gave me was fading fast.

  “He doesn’t need to hold his breath,” Uri shook his head. “He’s always been able to breathe underwater.”

  “So, theoretically, he could be hiding down there on the bottom of the lake, and everyone’s just overlooked him? Are tricksters that dramatic?” I asked.

  “I don’t know about tricksters in general, but Mookie is that dramatic,” Uri nodded.

  “Let’s get some sleep, and if the drama king is down there, we’ll find him tomorrow.”

  “I hope that’s where he is,” Uri sighed. “I hope wherever he is, he’s having fun or at least safe.”

  “I’m sure he is,” I said but didn’t promise because there were no sure things in life.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Uri

  At first light, Ramero and I stood at the end of the pier butt naked and scanning the dark lake with the night vision of our inner beasts.

  “So, how do these gills work?” Ramero asked with a yawn. “I’ve been trying to make them come out, and they’re not listening if they’re still there at all.”

  “Like I said last night, it takes some practice. There are books and online stuff run by niche bloggers who are water dragons who happen to have land leggers for mates. First, we gotta get you in the water. If they don’t come out when you stick your head under, I might have to hold you under for a bit.”

 

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