“Are you ready to rejoin your beloved mate and meet the others?” Elfa asked her.
Em lifted her chin.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “By all means, let us go to them.”
“Wonderful!” Elfa beamed at her. The Rigellen girl’s teeth looked very white in her blue face, Em thought. “Come,” she said. “Let us go.”
And she led Em out of yet another glass door and down another long glass corridor.
Em followed her, barefoot and with her Venetian Blinds dress fluttering with every movement, her arms held stiffly by her sides. Ah yes, she thought dryly—this should be a meeting to remember.
She had no idea how very right she was.
14
Rarev paced in the waiting room his bathing attendant had led him to after his time in the Mists. What was taking Emilia so long? Was she all right? Had something happened to her?
The long white trousers they had given him to wear swished as he walked. Rarev disliked the loose fabric around his legs and it wasn’t like the trousers covered anything anyway. They were crotchless and there was nothing to cover his backside either. In fact, they looked more like the strange clothing that humans called “chaps” than proper trousers.
Luckily, the short, dense, velvety fur that covered his body meant he was never really nude, with or without clothing. Even his shaft was tucked away in the natural sheathe between his legs, which meant he wasn’t indecent in any way. So the strange white trousers were basically useless.
He wouldn’t have worn them at all if he hadn’t been well aware that Emilia’s people did not consider nudity proper. All of the Monstrum wore clothing around the Earthlings to appear more civilized—more “human.” Though in actuality, their natural state was to be unclothed, since all of them had fur to cover themselves.
So it was for Emilia that he was wearing the ridiculous trousers he had been provided with, but he was growing more and more anxious about her well being.
“Where is she?” he demanded, turning to his attendant. “What have you done with her?”
“Be calm,” the bathing attendant said soothingly. “Your mate will be here soon, I promise. I have been in contact with Elfa and she assures me that Minister Oxley simply had a lot of impurities to get rid of, and so she spent an extra long time in the Purifying Mists.”
“I don’t think—” Rarev began but just then the glass door at the end of the room opened and Emilia came in.
Rarev sucked in a breath. She was beautiful, as always—he had thought so from the moment he met her. But now her mane was positively gorgeous.
Manes were important features to Lionus Monstrum like himself—the longer and thicker and more lustrous the mane, the more status a person held in his culture. Emilia’s mane had always been lovely, but now it sparkled like a pure silver waterfall running down her back. It was the most beautiful mane he had ever seen.
“Hello, Rarev.” She came shyly forward, her chin lifted defiantly as though daring him to say something about her new look. She was holding her arms stiffly by her side for some reason, he noted.
Rarev couldn’t help himself—he had to touch her. He had been so worried about her and he needed to assure himself that she was truly all right. Besides, he told himself, he was playing the part of a concerned mate.
“Beloved!” he exclaimed, coming forward to take her in his arms. She was stiff at first, but then allowed herself to melt into his embrace, as though remembering she had a part to play in this little charade of theirs as well.
“Rarev. Er, darling,” she returned, as Rarev enfolded her. “How very good to see you again.”
“I was getting worried,” Rarev murmured in her ear. “Your mane is glorious,” he added.
“Oh, er…do you really like it?” She sounded uncertain.
“I absolutely love it,” Rarev assured her.
He couldn’t help pressing his face to her mane to breathe her in—her scent was stronger and more distinct than ever, he thought. She was definitely close to her Second Mating Season—if not already actively in it. Her time in the Mists had either magnified her lovely fragrance by stripping away all impurities, or else it had somehow stimulated her body to dive deeper into its new state. Maybe it was a little of both but either way, she smelled incredible.
She felt incredible too, with her small, curvy body pressed against his own much larger one. Her new dress was made of many thin strips of the same white linen material his own loose trousers were composed of, Rarev noticed, when he finally released her. They had been cunningly sewn together in horizontal lines that started at her shoulders and went all the way down to her mid-thighs where the dress ended.