She was so exquisitely beautiful that it brought tears to his eyes.
“Wow,” she murmured.
“Bed time,” he told her. “We only have a few more hours for resting.”
She blinked at him.
“Come, let me help you,” he said, offering her his hand.
They stepped out of the tub together and he grabbed a towel.
She allowed him to dry her off gently, as his dragon begged and slavered for more.
But Noxx was determined. And the Invicta warriors were known for their strength of will.
She slipped into a sleeping shirt and stepped out of the bathroom. The rest of the treehouse was perfectly still.
He loved the way she went first to the cradle to check the child.
Then she crawled into the pile of furs on the floor and looked up at him expectantly.
Gods, but this would be difficult.
He crawled in after her.
She flowed into his arms, and for a moment he was intoxicated with her scent and the warm softness of her body pressed to his that he forgot everything he had sworn to control.
Yesss, the dragon hissed.
No, he told it firmly.
“Sleep now, woman,” he whispered to Luna.
“Don’t you want…?” she whispered back plaintively.
She thought he didn’t want her.
He nearly groaned at how easy it would be to prove her wrong. Surely, she could feel the evidence of his wanting pressed like steel against her.
“Rest now,” he told her. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
She lowered her head to the pillow in sleepy surrender and he wrapped himself around her.
She seemed to drift into slumber in an instant.
For Noxx, the night seemed to stretch out as he listened to her soft breathing and dreamed of making her his own.
At some point, he must have drifted off himself.
Noxx awoke to daylight streaming through the windows.
He reached for Luna, but she was gone.
He sat up and saw that the cradle was empty too.
He smiled to himself, impressed that she had managed to wake, feed the baby, and head outside, all without waking a warrior of the Invicta.
He showered and dressed, humming to himself as he got ready for the day.
The long night had given him a big appetite. He decided to make a traditional breakfast for them.
They could talk about the future over a shared meal.
Then he just had to get that transmitter working again.
He padded into the kitchen, humming, and headed over to the food replicator to program their meal.
But the food replicator wasn’t there.
Or, more specifically, it wasn’t all there. And what was, couldn’t really be called a food replicator anymore.
Its parts were spread out on the counter, as if a serial killer had surgically torn it apart and left it there as some sort of dark warning to the other appliances.
“Were we robbed?” he said to himself.
Luna. Sol.
Panicked, he ran to the balcony.
They weren’t there.
He sprinted to the front door, his heart in his mouth.
No, please, no. I can’t lose my family again.
He nearly tripped over Luna, who was bent over something on the wide branch of the tree, with Sol strapped to her back in some sort of baby-carrying contraption.
“Good morning,” she said brightly, looking up from what she was working on.
The radio transmitter.
And it was in pieces, too.
She had murdered all of their most important technology.
She had sabotaged their chances at survival on this cursed moon.
“What in the name of Zygon are you doing?” he demanded.
“Watch,” she said.
He watched, furious, as she slid a few pieces back together and flipped a switch.
The dials on the transmitter box lit up and the sounds of an open comm channel filled the air.
“Holy hells,” he exclaimed. “You did it. You actually did it.”
The dragon in him chuffed with pride at the wonders of his capable mate.
14
Luna
Luna was flushed with pleasure.
Getting up early and tending to the baby without waking Noxx had been a challenge.
Then she had needed to figure out how to repair the transmitter.
But she had never seen him more delighted than he was now that she had flipped the switch.
“I had to use parts from the food replicator,” she told him. “But I knew this was important to you.”
“I saw that,” he said. “It’s going to make things challenging for us. We’ll need to go down and hunt for food right away.”
“Don’t we have any other food?” she asked.
“I believe you gave my cakes to your monkey friend,” he said.
“And we don’t have anything else?” she asked.
“Not unless you want to eat replicator paste,” he said.
Crap.
She hadn’t thought this through. She’d been too eager to surprise him.
“Don’t worry,” he said gently. “I’m sure we’ll find something edible for today. If we plan properly, we can journey to the village to get more parts for the replicator tomorrow. And we can eat the replicator paste, if it comes to that. I’ve eaten worse. We won’t starve.”
“Okay,” she said. “When should we leave?”
“No time like the present,” he said. “Want me to take the baby?”
“Not unless you want to,” she replied. “I like carrying him.”
She’d managed to load Sol into the soft baby carrier that fit on her back, and he’d been gurgling happily back there for a while. It was nice.
“Suits me,” he said, stepping onto the disk with his hand on the hilt of his sword. “Down.”
The crisp morning air lifted his hair from his shoulders as the disk dropped to the branches below. He looked like a storybook hero.
She waited for the disk to return and then stepped on.
“Down,” she said.
When they dropped, Sol crowed and banged the back of her head with his little fist.
“Fun, right, bud?” she asked.
She alighted on the branch next to Noxx.
“Ready to climb?” he asked.
“Absolutely,” she said.
She watched as he swung down, taking the footholds two at a time until his feet hit the soil below.
Weapon out, he circled the trunk.
“All clear,” he called up to Luna.
She climbed down to join him, noticing how much easier it was to use the footholds.
She began to believe that one day she really would just climb up and down without thinking about it.
They walked into the trees in companionable silence. Time passed pleasantly. It was good to stretch her legs, good to feel the baby’s warm weight on her back.
And it was good to be with Noxx.
Though of course she still wondered where they stood, after last night.
“So what are we looking for?” she asked him after a time.
“Anything with fur,” he replied.
She wrinkled her nose.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t love having to meet my food,” she admitted. “I’m kind of soft-hearted.”
“You don’t say?”