“Kitten, don’t you know by now that there’s no one that compares to you? I don’t even see anyone else,” he said, before licking the side of my face.
I looked at him, my anger rapidly dwindling in the face of his sweet words. “Why exactly did you just lick me?” I asked. Derrial shot me a grin.
“I thought that was the thing on Earth, if you lick it, it’s yours,” he said innocently. I rolled my eyes, not so secretly loving his playfulness.
We stepped onto the plane where Corran and Thane were impatiently waiting for us. Corran immediately scooped me up and sat down, placing me in his lap. They were all acting like they couldn’t keep their hands off of me. I kind of loved it.
Derrial and Thane took the controls since it was obvious that Corran wasn’t going to let me go.
“So where are we going?” I asked as the ship took flight. They had made the walls around us completely opaque so that you could see everything as we flew. Once again, Veon took my breath away with its beauty.
“It’s a surprise,” said Corran, placing a gentle kiss on my neck that gave me goosebumps. He gently caressed my arm, continuing to place soft kisses from the nape of my neck down my shoulder as we watched the landscape pass by.
I gave a little gasp when the plane went over a mountain and a sparkling lavender sea was laid out before us.
“It’s gorgeous,” I gushed as we began to fly over it. The suns were just setting on the horizon and the water seemed like it was sparkling as it reflected its fading light.
“Not as beautiful as you,” whispered Corran. I rolled my eyes at the corniness of the line even as I blushed. What could I say...I liked a good corny line.
Evidently this was just a lake as we reached the opposite shore rather quickly. There were more mountains on the other side and as we scaled them, I couldn’t help but gasp.
There was a city, right out of a fairytale, laid out in front of us. There were white dome like structures all over the valley, going up the mountains. They had brightly colored flowers all over them. Explosions of color were everywhere you looked. Planes similar to the one we were in were flying all around. Lanterns were hovering in the air. I couldn’t see anything keeping them afloat so it resembled the floating lantern festivals that I had been to a few times before. The effect was stunning.
“What is this place?” I gushed, my eyes going everywhere as more amazing things caught my attention.
“This is the capital of Veon. It’s called Valin,” said Derrial in an almost reverent voice. This city is a millennia old. It’s where all of our history is. It’s where Thane and I were born.”
“It’s the most beautiful city that I’ve ever seen,” I said, not knowing how to adequately describe the splendor of what I was seeing.
“Yes, it is,” Thane said as we began to make our descent.
Derrial and Thane landed us expertly beside one of the white structures.
Instead of letting me walk off the plane, Corran carried me.
“Is this the way that it’s going to be all night?” I asked, enjoying being carried around much more than I should.
“Yep,” said Corran. “And it’s probably going to be me doing it. The other two have gotten your attention too much lately,” he said it matter of fact but I wondered if Corran was feeling a little left out. I had formed a bond with him after the other two, but it didn’t mean that what I felt for him wasn’t as strong as the others. There were so many things special about him, so many things that set him apart from the other two. If I ended up winning these trials I vowed that I would make sure he never felt left out again and always knew where he stood with me.
I placed a kiss on his lips and he looked down at me, a storm of emotions in his golden eyes. “You can carry me all you want,” I said softly and he rewarded me with one of those rare Corran grins that never failed to light up my world.
The four of us stopped outside the structure. Derrial waved his arm in front of the door and like with most of the other Vepar structures I had been to, an entrance opened up to allow us inside.
“We thought we would do a little meet the parents night before we got to the next portion of the evening,” Thane threw out casually over his shoulder as if he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on me. Corran set me down and I wobbled on my feet as anxiety threatened to overtake me.
“Meet the parents? Why didn’t you warn me? I would have brought a gift or something,” I started blubbering, even though I didn’t have access to a gift.
“You didn’t need to bring a gift,” said Derrial, suddenly pulling me towards him and gifting me with a mind-blowing kiss. He pulled away from me and looked at me with satisfaction. “Perfect. You’ve got color in your cheeks again. I was afraid you were going to faint on us you were so pale,” he said as he brushed a piece of his hair out of his face.
I tried to punch him but Thane caught my hands and put them behind me. With Thane behind me, Derrial in front of me, and Corran watching aptly beside me...I felt like I was going to combust.
“Get your paws off the poor girl,” came a sweet voice from the hallway. The guys reluctantly stepped away, but I knew my face was as red as a tomato. Of course their moms had to catch us in a compromising position. What a way to make a first impression.
Once they stepped far enough away, I was able to see a gorgeous blonde headed Vepar that I knew right away had to be Derrial’s mom. She had the same color of hair as him and the same sapphire eyes stared back at me that I had started to love so much.
“Hi darling,” she said, looking me over not in the disdainful way that I had grown used to, but in a curious, friendly way. She had two small ivory horns that barely peaked out of her hair. She was shorter than the other Vepar women that I had seen, closer to my height, but no less beautiful than any of them. There was an intrinsic goodness about her that I could sense already that made her even more beautiful in my eyes.
“I can see why my boys are taken with you,” she said, stepping towards us and pulling me in for a tight hug. “You’re absolutely stunning.”