“Show me.”
He looked to me, then my mom, who nodded. He hopped down from the bed, his pajama leg sliding back in place. Yes, he hopped. No tentative step. He looked to me, eyes wide. Then he jumped. Mom put her arms out, instinctively ready to stop him.
“It’s all better!” he said, then ran across the room to the bathroom door, then back. “Mommy, it’s all better.”
My mom put her hand to her mouth, trying to cover her tears. Tears, I knew, were of joy, not sorrow. Her eyes met mine. “All better.”
I nodded as Wyatt came back and stood before me.
I ruffled his hair. “All better,” I repeated. The relief was incredible. It had worked. No matter what happened in life now, I knew Wyatt was going to be okay.
“That’s good, Wyatt. It’s time to sleep now.”
He climbed in bed easily enough. While I had no doubt he’d want to bounce around the room all night, it was late for him.
“Go to sleep,” I said, leaning down and kissing his soft forehead.
“You stay,” he insisted.
“I’ll stay. I promise.”
Wyatt drifted to sleep and my mother and I settled in hard wooden chairs facing one another across a tiny round table. The motel was old, the carpet worn threadbare in front of the door. The overhead light had several flies trapped in the dingy yellow glass and the room smelled like dust, but I didn’t care about any of it. Wyatt was healed and we were safely away from the apartment.
My mother leaned forward and crossed her arms over her chest. One eyebrow raised in a look I’d seen hundreds of times. She held out her palm and I gave her the wand.
“Tell me.”
She didn’t say more. She didn’t need to. I had three days to tell her about and ten light years of travel. With Wyatt asleep, I told her everything I dared about the journey, the fighting pits, and about Kiel. The wand. When I was done, I was wiping tears from my eyes and so was she.
“You love him.” It wasn’t a question.
I shrugged. “How could I? I only knew him for two days.”
There went the raised eyebrow again. “You love him.”
I wiped the tears from my cheeks and looked at my son. “I love Wyatt.”
“But he’s your, what? Marked mate?”
I held out my palm so she could see the mark there. The mark that, up until a few days ago, was just a weird birthmark.
“Your father had one like that. And so did his mother. I assumed it was just a weird family trait, like red hair or crooked teeth.”
I was stunned by those words. He’d been gone a long time and I didn’t remember the little things about him. Especially a mark on his palm. If he had a mark, did that mean my mother was his marked mate?
“You don’t have one,” I said.
She shook her head.
So my father had once had a marked mate out there somewhere in the universe and never found her? Was she still alive? Did it matter? I knew my parents’ marriage had been a happy one. That I remembered. That was all my mother knew, perhaps even my father. I hadn’t known the mark was a sign I was a descendant of Everis either. I wasn’t about to tell my mother her marriage was less because they weren’t marked mates.
“Isn’t there anything you can do? To be with him…and Wyatt?” she asked, breaking me from my thoughts.
I shook my head sadly. “He doesn’t know about Wyatt. I never told him.”
“Shame on you, Lindsey.” She chastised me and I felt like I was three years old again. “If he loves you, he’ll want Wyatt, too. I don’t understand why you can’t be together.”
“Because Earth doesn’t allow their volunteers to the Interstellar Brides Program to have children. It’s against the rules. You can volunteer to sacrifice your own life and happiness by going to another planet, but I can’t make that decision for a minor. It’s not allowed.”