Sparkling pink, orange and yellow clouds washed over us. Red turned off the radiation filter and the viewscreen went black. Stars streamed around us.

Though I hadn’t the faintest idea how to fly a deep space ship, I sat in the cockpit, in the copilot’s seat next to Red to keep her company. She was worried about the kids. I didn’t blame her. Though the kids were being basically guarded by an army in a fortress that hadn’t been breached in hundreds of years of warfare between the shifters, there was always a chance.

“I’m surprised at how good it feels to be back in the pilot’s seat, again,” she said, trying to hide her distress.

“Rethinking your choices?”

“Maybe.” She rubbed her forehead, keeping one hand loose on the wheel.

An odd pang resounded in my heart. It wasn’t that I was jealous. No, I was happy for her, happy that my friend had found meaning in her life.

And still I had that clawing jealous lump in my chest.

I disgusted myself.

When we had first met the kids I had connected with them. They were terrified of Red, the first non-shifter they had ever met.

But when it came to soothing their animal rages without fear, it was clear that Red was who they ran to in their time of need. Red, and not me.

Another sign that I wasn’t fated to be anyone’s mother.

“Are you?” Red asked, eager to change the subject. Her eyes took on a mischievous glint. “How was the hunt?”

I sighed. “It’s complicated.”

Red laughed. “Welcome to life. The only time things aren’t complicated is when you’re dead.”

And the mention of the dead killed our moment of laughter.

The door slid open behind me.

I didn’t even have to turn and look, but I knew it was him.

We hadn’t talked since we had been rescued. Even though Kanona wasn’t around, her authority clearly was. She had ordered a course set, not for Stargazer sanctuary, but for the Library Main. Kanona wasn’t a seer like Kai, but she had “feelings,” whatever that meant. And her feelings led her to order Red to pilot the Ealen ship to us and take us to Library Main. Her feelings also meant that a Varanesian healer had been ordered to accompany us. I didn’t know what Kanona expected to happen on the way to the Library, but the fact that Kanona sent along one of the most formidable healers in House Stargazer didn’t seem to bode well for our journey.

“Dr. Silver wants to speak with you.”

I took a deep breath. I hadn’t been alone with Kai since we had left Altai. At first, I thought it had been a good thing, but now it felt as if I were putting off the inevitable.

I stood up, headed for the door. Kai had already gone back to the common area.

I followed him to the center of the ship.

The healer, a light-brown woman with blonde hair and blue streaks, sat at a rectangular table to the side of the room. Several screens monitoring our body functions floated.

“You’ve both been exposed to the necromantic virus that activates tissue upon death. Well, usual death.”

“Are we going to turn into zombies when we die?”

“Here’s the strange thing. He,” she said, pointing at Kai, “has the virus. If he receives a death-resulting injury I suspect Kai will become one of them.”

My heart was a lump in my stomach.

Dr. Silver turned to look at me. “But you? Your Ealen nanites are taking care of the infection. I didn’t even see the virus until I just happen to see a nano-cell chomping on the thing as if it were lunch.”

I wasn’t sure I had heard her correctly. “Ealen nanites?”

“The ones in your blood.” Dr. Silver gave me an odd look. “You didn’t know? They are quite unusual.”

“No.”

She gave me a look of disbelief. “From what I can tell, they’ve been there for a while.”

I shook my head. “There’s got to be a mistake. Where would they even come from?”

“Visiting Ealen ruins?” suggested Dr. Silver.

“Wouldn’t Kai have them too?”

Kai leaned back, his arms folded. “The Library.”

“How do you know they’re Ealen?”

“There’s a…look to them,” she said, almost a little too quickly. “Have you ever had any health issues?”

Other than starving to death when I was young? “Not since I joined the Library.”

“Colds? Respiratory illnesses.”

I thought about it and came to a strange realization. “No. Never.” Was this why the birth control failed?

But why would it fail with Kai, when it had worked before? It all had to be a coincidence.

Kai looked at me with those seer eyes. “Interesting.”

“I can get the Library to scan me when we arrive.”

Kai’s eyebrow went up, as if to say You still trust the Library?

I met his gaze. “There’s going to be a reasonable explanation that will clear things up once we get there.”

“I hope that’s the case.”

Dr. Silver closed down her screens. “I’m exhausted. I’m going to take a nap.”

She swiped at the wall, opening an alcove with a bed. She climbed in and the wall closed in behind her.

Kai and I were now alone for the first time since we had retreated from Altai. He came across the room, sat next to me on the bench, which sank slightly at his weight. He was too gentle, too kind in the manipulative way that politicians learn to be when they want something from you.

“How are you doing, really?”

I wasn't ready to come to it, our long overdue reckoning of what had happened between us. His lies, the child I had lost. I needed to distract him. “I was going to ask the same thing of you.”

Kai was a Tigerlord with the strength to face the most difficult of tasks head on. “I thought you were safe in your father’s house,” he said, beginning that long-awaited conversation. “If I had known, nothing would have stopped me from coming for you.

Maybe because I understood some of it now, or maybe I was just tired of being angry at fate. But I realized that the fury that I had held on to for so long was more of a shield against the hurt. And it was beginning to ebb away. “You were in the middle of a civil war. Your mother had just died and you were named House Lord.”

He clenched his fists. “I would have done something.”

“I didn’t need you in the end.”

“No. You didn’t.” He was quiet for a moment. I leaned against him, still trying to find the words to tell him what he needed to know. But, he was a tiger shifter with senses more perceptive than any human. I should have known it was the stillness before the action.

The question was as sharp as his claws. “Did you have a child?”

I knew that question would come one day. I thought I had prepared myself properly, shielding myself with distance.

I just didn’t think it would be like having your chest torn open, your heart exposed once more.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out. I did have a child once. I had possibilities once. I had another future once.

He watched me with those green eyes that saw everything, and said nothing.

I swallowed. He deserved an explanation.

“She was stillborn.” The words, the truth, felt odd in my mouth.

And then words, a mess of words tumbled out of me, as if his question had torn open a dam of emotions held back for so long.

“It’s funny because my father tried to force me to shift – he didn’t know I was pregnant – and yet she survived that. I thought it was fate. But when the tigershifters — took us prisoner, I went into labor. Something happened that knocked me unconscious. And when I awoke, they told me she was gone.”

He was still, so incredibly still, more still than I had ever seen him in my life, more still than I could even imagine.

“Didn’t you have birth control?” he asked.

I blinked at his response. Hadn’t he heard what I had just told him?

“I did. It failed. I was in the .000001% failure.” His reaction was unreal. “It was yours,” I emphasized for good measure.

He stood up, began to pace. “It’s not possible.”

Anger began to boil within me. “Do you think I’m making this up?”

“No. I just —“

I was aghast at his response. Didn’t he care that I — we — had lost a child.

The anger that had begun to fade roared back. My voice rose. “You need to stop talking now.”

He strode over to me, his hands clamping around my arms. I struggled, but it was of course pointless. I was shredded, as if I had been torn to pieces. “Let me go!”

“Stargazer seers have always been infertile,” he said. “With the usual means of procreation,” he added.

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t fuck anyone else so you had to be the father.”

He let me go, staggered back and ran his hands through his hair. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t make sense is how I ever thought that I wanted you.”

Something flickered in his eyes. “Your Ealen nanites. It has to be,” he said.

“That’s ridiculous. You’re not the first man I’ve slept with.”

“The Ealens bred shifters like animals, choosing and selecting for their own purposes. Their nanites would restrict who each person could breed with. If the carrier slept with a favored mate, the nanites would make pregnancy possible.”

“You’re saying that these Ealen nanites disabled my birth control and let me get pregnant. Why? Because you’re so special?”

“Each House was bred for a particular ability. Stargazers had the gift of foresight. What of Nightclaw?”

“Oddly enough, my father didn’t choose to share that information with me.”

He grabbed a medscan brace and slapped it on my wrist. I felt the tiny poke and then the bracelet beeped.

“You’re not pregnant now.”

I yanked my wrist away, and ripped off the bracelet. “Then your theory was wrong.”

“I think we slept together more than once when I was on Tranquility.”

I felt a red flush rising to my cheeks. I looked up and saw him remembering the same memories, saw that he knew what I was remembering.

“Let me go.”

“No.”

“Kai. Kai. Please.”

He pulled me into him, crushing me against him. I struggled. He held.

And I surrendered.

I cried.

And he held me.

It seemed like I had been in his arms forever, sobbing, but it could have just been a matter of minutes. But the whole time, he stroked my hair, held me.

I looked at him, saw wet trails on his cheeks. I touched them. He didn’t flinch. He let me see his face, let me see his quiet sorrow.

His voice was raw. “We had a child? Truly?”

And I knew at that moment, more truthfully than I knew anything in my life, that I had the power to soothe him, just as he did with me.

“Yes. We did.”

I reached up and kissed him. He went still. For a moment, I thought he would pull away. But then he opened, and I tasted the salt of his unbidden sorrow. His hands went around my waist, pulling me closer to him.

"I am so sorry, Seria. If I had known, nothing in the universe could have stopped me from coming for you."

"Shhhhh," I said, my fingers to his lips. "We can't change the past. But we can change the future.”

He turned and kissed my hands, the tiniest curves of a smile beginning at the corners of his mouth. Who was I to talk about futures and destinies to a someone who could see the future?

"Tell me," raising my chin to him, intent on changing the subject. I had finally told him about our child but that didn’t mean I wanted to linger on that sorrow any longer than I had to. "What do you see when you look at me?"

His fingertips skimmed along the spinal seam at the back of my suit, opening at his touch, exposing skin leaving a hot lingering sensation along my skin. "I see the potential for future that I never even thought was possible."

A tiny part of me realized that he was saying this to me only because I had proven that he could have a child, at least with me, not because he loved me.

But I knew better than to ask for more. And if that meant I could have him in my life, I was willing to make that compromise.

His hard thigh nudged between my legs as he pulled me toward him. He leaned closer to me nuzzling my neck, inhaling my scent. "I know this is not the right time nor place," he said. "But everything you do makes me crazy. You look at me, I get hard. You talk to me, I get hard. And when your scent is so close, control is almost impossible."

I looked in his face, the sorrow that was still there. I knew what he was doing, using sex as a distraction. And I was fine with that.

The words were out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying. "Then don't control yourself."

He narrowed his eyes, and there was a low rumbling vibration from his chest, more purrr then any human sound. "Are you offering yourself to me?"

I wanted him, or more accurately, my body wanted him desperately. And as I looked into his eyes, I realized that I was lying to myself. I didn't just want him for his body, as unforgettably excellent and superb as it was. I want Kai, Tigerlord or not. It had been a truth I couldn't handle when I had thought he had forgotten me. And to be honest, it was a truth, I still wasn't quite ready to face.

I licked my lips, and was mesmerized by the golden gleam that appeared in his eyes. "What would you do if I did?"

His hands traveled across the back of my skin, his touch electrifying the simmering heat that was always within me when he was near. "It is dangerous to tease a Tigerlord." He raised his thigh more, so that I was now astride him, feeling the unmistakable hard outline of his arousal against my groin.

Any moment now, Dr. Silver would emerge to see us. Any moment, Red would put the ship on autopilot, come for a snack or something, and find us like this. And yet, I couldn’t stop myself from undoing the seam of his shirt, opening him to my touch. I smoothed my hands against his chest, reveling in the solidity of him. “I’m not afraid of you.”

There was a low rippling tiger rumble of anticipation. “Maybe you should be.” Before I could even blink, he swept me up into his arms and we practically flew across the room as he leaped into a little alcove of a bed. I landed on the cushion, and the privacy door slid closed behind us.

Never had I been more thankful for modern technology that allowed clothing to be released with a single swipe of the seam. We were naked in a matter of seconds, his hot flesh pressing against mine, his hand to my mound, my fingers around his cock. His fingertips swirled at my slick opening. There was another rumbling vibration of pleasure. “I love how wet you get around me, even when you’re angry and you don’t want to.”

“You’re a cocky bastard if you think arguing makes me want to fuck you.”

He lowered his mouth to my ear. “But it does. The scent of your desire,” he said, shoving two thick fingers into me, “doesn’t lie.”

"Ohhhhh." I said unable to stop myself from drawing out the sound into a breathy sigh of pleasure. His cock jumped at the sound of it, and I squeezed hard.

He laughed. “Patience, now.”

He lowered his mouth to my breasts, sucking hard, inflaming the pleasure of his fingers, stroking that delicious spot inside me, as if commanding my pleasure to surge forth at his touch. My body obeyed, helpless under his seductive spell. Faster than I had ever thought possible, I convulsed around him, letting out a moan that he covered with his mouth. He kissed me hard, but that only intensified the fever burning inside me.

His mouth trailed down my neck. “Fuck me with your big hard cock. Please.”

I could hear the carnal smile in his voice, “You only have to ask.” He surged up, the bulbous tip of him at my opening. I arched my hips to take him in, but he only moved with me, with a casual ripple of his standout abs, his cock sitting right where he wanted it.

“KAI,” I yelled, laughing, hitting his chest with frustration, which was about as effective as hitting a brick wall. “Stop teasing me.”

He surged upward to look at me, wearing a grin that was all smug tiger. And then, strangely he stopped. He reached for my hands and entwined his fingers around mine. The look in his eyes, of hot desire mingled with unexpected tenderness was one I would hold close to my heart for the rest of my life. His voice was thick with an emotion. “You have but only to ask.”

And that was the moment before the frenzy.

He thrust forth inside me, hot and hard. The sneak onslaught on my senses rocked me into a wild bliss. He was vibrantly ferocious, snarling out as I clenched around him. He hammered my core harder, his cock completing me in a way that only he could. Pleasure surged and broke upon me. I thought I was undone. And yet, still he moved, still he rose, still he fucked me, wrenching forth a savage ecstasy that sparked in every atom of my body until I could barely remember anything beyond the primitive rhythm between us. Just when I thought I would die from sheer pleasure, he collapsed upon me in a roar that seemed to shake our alcove.

“Oh my stars, Kai,” I said, trying to catch my breath, my arms clasped around his neck, him still hard inside me. “I think they heard you all the way to First Earth.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Says the singer.”

“What are you talking about? I just…moan.”

He kissed me on the nose. “I live for the noises you make during sex.”

I pinched his nipple and he grabbed my hand and kissed it. “Keep doing that, and I’ll have to punish you.”

“Mmm,” I said, tracing the stark V-line towards his groin. “Is that a promise?”

* * *

Sex was a wonderful distraction, but at some point, I fell asleep.

I awoke to Kai gazing at my face. But there was something haunting in his eyes, something that told me he wasn’t really seeing me.

“Kai?” I said hesitantly, touching a huge bicep. “What’s wrong.”

“I had another vision,” Kai said. There was something in his voice that made me wary.

“I was wrong,” he said, stroking my face.

I snuggled closer to him. “About what?”

“The future,” he said, much too softly and gently.

I drew back and looked him in the face. “I never thought that one’s fate was predetermined.”

His hand slipped downward to my bare shoulder. It felt like a warm caress, but seemed at odds with the distance in his eyes. “I never said it was.”

Something in his voice told me I wasn’t going to like where this conversation was going. “You can’t fight fate?”

He sat up away from me, exposing his broad muscled back. There were scars along some of those nooks and valleys. I fought an urge to reach out to him. “The future is an unstoppable current flowing towards you, regardless of your desires. You cannot stop it from coming. But you can always try to change it.”

I drew up the bedsheet around me. “Is that what you are trying to do?”

He began putting on his clothes. “I’ve been trying to change fate for most of my life. My visions have always been clear. It’s interpretation that is difficult.”

Suddenly I knew what he was saying, without saying it. My role in his story, was not what he had thought it was, not what I felt it had to be. It was a bit part, already played out, over before anything ever began. I wasn’t a great love, which made sense because I wasn’t a great anything.

I was a mere messenger to help him strike down his myth of infertility. And now my time with him was done. “You don’t need me to find the Dragonlords.”

“No.”

I suddenly realized I had reached too high, too far. And now it was time for me to fall. I had the sudden urge to cling to him, as if the precipice were a real thing that he could keep me from.

But then, he pushed. “I need to release you from your vows.”

I felt myself falling, cold streaming around me, through me, freezing me until there was nothing left but brittle ice.

And I knew, this more than anything, was what I had been afraid of.

Shifters, so concerned with children and bloodlines.

To have a child and then lose it, only proved how unsuitable and deficient I was.

I felt myself breaking into brittle shards, bristling with sharp edges.

Edges that I would use to hurt him as much as he hurt me.

“It’s a simple matter. All we have to do is face each other and say that we divorce each other three times in the presence of witnesses.”

I sat up. “Good. Let’s do it once we arrive at the Library then.”

There was something hard in his voice. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you with them.”

He had no claim, no say in my fate any more than I did on his. And yet, he was still trying to shape it. I was tired of everyone telling me what to do. “The Library is more my home than any other place in this universe. I may not have been born there, but they took me in and cared for me before when no one else would. They have always been there for me, when no one else was.”

His mouth was pressed into a thin line, as if he had tasted something bitter. He opened his mouth then closed it. “I still need your assistance, Seria.”

I made my voice as formal as I could. “Then tell me Tigerlord, how can I be of service?”

He looked pained for a moment. “Don’t address me that way. Not you.”

I thought of ice. An endless plane of ice. I resolved to be nothing but ice.

“The spouse of an Infoist is given the same access as an Infoist herself, is he not?”

He could not be asking me this, and breaking my heart all over again at the same time.

Oh, but he was.

“Everyone has equal access to all the archives of the Library. Regardless of who they are.”

He finished dressing and turned towards me. His gaze made me realize how naked I still was. “I’m aware of the Library’s stated mission. But I am sure that there is more. Something else you might consider: if your mother truly was a Librarian, there should be evidence of her presence. I can help you with that.”

I turned my back to him and rummaged in the bed for my clothes. “It’s a glitch in their information systems. Once it is corrected, I’ll be able to figure out who she was.”

“Wouldn’t you like to be absolutely sure?”

“It’s hard to be sure of anything. But the Library will tell me the truth.”

“I hope they will.” It was clear in his voice that he did not believe it.

I don’t know what I had thought.

But I had certainly hoped.

I had hoped that it would be different. That he would be different. That this quest would somehow bring us together.

It hurt, bad as anything that had ever hurt me. I had been wrong about him. I drew my hand across my face. I was so tired of being wrong. I couldn’t think straight around him. I had to get him out of my life for good.

“I will do as you ask, and maintain this marriage charade on one condition. But I will not do it indefinitely. Thirty-six hours. And then you will leave and I will never hear from you again.”

He paused. “If that is your request –”

You have but only to ask.

“It is.”

“I’m sorry, Seria –”

I tried to leave before I could hear him say the rest. Even so I still heard it.

“My fate was not to be with you.”