Page 67 of Tail, Dark and Handsome: Celestial Mates
“Hmm. I’m just saying you don’t run into this issue with a Bando ship.” She rolled back onto her side, facing him. “One little asteroid and now it’s shake, rattle, and roll until we land.”
“Marigold—” His fingers twisted through her hair, half-combing and half-tugging.
She waited for him to continue, expecting him to propose again. Or talk about emotions. She was having a few, mainly the gooey and warm ones.
“Sleep in here.”
“Yeah, sure,” she answered, not disappointed. Nope.
Mari snuggled into Winter’s side, her head resting on his chest, and he pulled a blanket over them.
The speed at which Winter had gotten so tangled up in her heart made her uneasy, but she wouldn’t stop whatever this was, not for all the stars in the sky.
She knew she couldn’t stay, even if Winter had been sincere in his proposal. She had a debt to pay off—somehow—and she couldn’t expect to burden him with her trouble. Nox had been suspiciously quiet. That could be a simple failure of the comm equipment, but her call to Joseph went through just fine, so not that. Maybe the lump sum she gave him before leaving Olympus Station would keep him satisfied until she got back. She really hoped her mother hadn’t paid off Nox.
Winter’s tail brushed against her ankle. “You are thinking too loudly. Sleep,” he grumbled.
With a sigh, she drifted off to sleep as he stroked her back. This was nice, even if it couldn’t last.
Chapter 14
New family joy! Rebel Cayne speaks about cleaning up her act and expecting a kit.
-Tal Tattler
Marigold
The stabilizers held for the next two days, gradually growing rougher. By the time they reached Corra, Mari felt like her behind had been tenderized. Breaching the atmosphere was, predictably, terrible.
“Safety harnesses on,” she said. The floor vibrated under her feet, and she wanted nothing more than to sit on the ground and let her soul sink in the calm, firm, unmoving, and unfluctuating planet.
Teeth rattled, and the ship groaned around her as it leveled out just as the vessel punched through the cloud layer. A city grid spread out on the viewscreens. It was so easy to think of the screens as windows, but Mari knew the feed from the external cameras.
Having already completed the tedious details of clearing the ship to land and verifying the identity of the passengers with the large orbital station that handled transportation on- and off-planet, she headed for CayneTech’s private facility. On the fringes of the metropolitan area, the ship was given instant clearance and permission to land. No waiting. Wealth had its privileges.
Landing, though…stabilizers helped to keep the ship from bouncing around by absorbing kinetic energy. They smoothed out acceleration and deceleration, so the frail meaty passengers inside the ship were not thrown back into their seats and crushed by sudden forces. Most importantly, they kept the ever-suffering ship from bouncing and skipping like a stone across the landing pad.
“Top of your class,” Winter grumbled, freeing himself from the safety harness.
“Quality CayneTech parts,” she retorted.
A man waited for them at the bottom of the ramp. With a cream complexion and dark gray striations, he shared more than a passing resemblance to Zero. He and Winter shared the same long and lean build, and the same nose, but the similarities ended there.
Mari recognized him from numerous photos of Rebel, always her companion, sharing a smirk and a laugh. In every single photo, his charisma carried through, even the photos of him disheveled after a long night of partying. The man just couldn’t take a bad picture.
“Uncle Chase!” Zero slammed into the man, wrapping him in a tight hug.
“What did you do to my ship?” Chase said, scowling as Winter, wearing his shaded glasses, ambled down the ramp.
“Lovely to see you, cousin. I hope you are in good health.”
“My. Ship.”
“Hit an asteroid.”
Chase’s tail swept from side to side. “And you did that because…”
“Discuss that with the pilot.” Winter waved a hand toward Mari.
