The female anomaly never answered his question. Most likely because she had lost consciousness. Her almost-drakki body little more than limp dark flesh inside his arms, despite her healed concussion. But even in this unconscious state, she continued to milk the penis he’d used to seed her. Curious…

However, his other penis was not quite as interested in the female’s still clenching sex. It remained swollen in a painful way that he now realized must signal arousal. He could feel it at the front of her. Writhing, but unable to reach the other available hole because his first penis was embedded at an angle in the female’s vertical slit.

MY fated mate, the non-seeding penis seemed to shriek on a drakkon’s caw, wanting little more than to also sow its long pent up seed inside this female.

But how could this be? She was of an entirely different species. A far inferior species, at that, with barely enough IQ to hunt dumb beasts with rudimentary handmade weapons. Yet, here he was…

Xenon knew not which was worse. That he’d just rutted an animal. Or that he wanted to do it again. With an intensity so fierce, he knew, protocol or none, he’d seed her once more as soon as she passed another round of heat. Because one thing was certain: lupin or not, he’d wanted her. To the point that she was now his mate. And when she next released her pheromones, he’d take her again.

Fensa thought of nothing. Dreamt of nothing. Then woke alone on the red metal examination table. This time, she was covered in a heavy blanket, but there soon came the tug of tubes withdrawing. Pretty much erasing any comfort she might have taken from waking beneath a warm and cozy fake polar bear fur.

When she sat up, lights came on, revealing the dragon. He was seated naked atop the pile of polar bear blankets, but at the edge farthest from the examination table. As far from her as he could get without leaving the room. And Fensa couldn’t help but notice, he’d gone back into reptile Ken doll mode.

His gaze was trained on her, and nothing but her. Giving the impression he’d done nothing but sit there and stare at her all night. Or was it all day?

“What time is it, anyway?” she asked, pushing the thought into his head without even thinking about it. Growing up with parents who spoke two different languages, she’d seen them use their mental mate bond frequently before the divorce. It didn’t even occur to her not to use the one she shared with the dragon as soon as she had access to it.

But the dragon appeared to recoil as if he’d been invaded. In a way, she supposed he had.

“Sorry for intruding,” she said into his head. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I am not upset,” a dark, resonant voice replied in return. “But how is it possible I can hear your words in this fashion?”

“Um, well it’s like an ESP thing wolves can do once they’ve formed a mate bond—kind of like talking mind to mind without speaking words aloud.”

“Drakkon have a similar link with their mates, as well,” the resonant voice replied. “However, I understood your language not before you spoke into my mind. How is it you have come to speak my language now? Or understand me as you did not appear to understand the Far Travelers?”

“Oh, this happened to my parents…and my grandparents, for that matter,” she said, finally understanding his real question. “I guess the mate bond…it doesn’t just let you speak mind to mind, it also acts as a translator, too. It doesn’t work like that where you come from?”

“No,” the deep voice answered, heavy with disquiet. “There is no need for this as we all speak the same tongue.”

An awkward pause. Then Fensa felt compelled to ask, “So, ah, where exactly do you come from?”

“That is classified,” he answered, so quickly, his response seemed to slap her like a sudden gust of icy wind in the otherwise warm room.

“Is everything about you classified?” she asked carefully. “Because I have so many questions.”

He tipped his head in that way of his, the one that put her in mind of a king cobra. “You have…questions.”

“Yes, questions. Of course, I have questions! Who wouldn’t in a situation like this?”

Another snakelike shift of his large head. “This is another surprise. I was not expecting questions. Most of your kind, as our sociology team has observed, draw their own conclusions without asking for more information.”

She grimaced, thinking of some of the less introspective wolves in her Detroit pack. Having been little more than an incredibly rich, but incredibly unsophisticated motorcycle gang since the latter half of the previous century, they tended not to ask a lot of questions. A few even wore “Shoot First” patches on their leather jackets.

“You are not like the other lupinhominids in Far Travelers Group 7.”

“You mean the Post-Apocalyptic Bunch outside? No, not at all. Are you—did you guys do this to us?”

“I do not understand your question.”

“What happened to those shifters? Like, I’ve heard of some pretty primitive Inuit tribes up in Alaska. But those guys stripped me naked. And handed me over to you. Like a sacrifice. Why?”

“It is because they believe me a god and wished to curry favor,” the dragon shifter answered. “You do not believe me to be a god, Female 7-133?”

Fensa blinked, too stunned by the question to answer right away. Of course, her answer was no, but then their mating came back to her. So intense. Unlike anything she’d ever heard described.

“Are you a god?” she asked the dragon carefully.

A beat passed as if he were running the question through a protocol filter. Then he answered, “No.”

So. Many. Questions.

She opened her mouth to ask another but was rudely interrupted by the scent of her arousal filling the air.

“You are in a state of arousal again,” he said.

Then his eyes lifted to the wall above her head in a way that made her curious. And when she followed his gaze, she gasped at what she saw there.

That strange glowing runic Korean script from before was scrolling across the blue wall above the tubing holes.

“What is that?” she asked, trying to ignore her incoming heat.

“Your medical statistics,” he replied, in a tone that made it seem as if the answer to her question was obvious. “How else could I have known you had once again entered a state of mating fever?”

“So you can’t smell it? My heat?”

Another crook of his head, then the voice inside her mind replied, “I keep forgetting your species carry scent receptors inside your nostrils. Ours does not.”

“Then how do you smell?”

As if in answer, his fork tongue flicked out. “All our olfactory receptors are located on our tongues.”

Oh. Then a bigger, OH!!! hit Fensa when she realized, “That first day. When you licked me down there? That was why…” Her eyes dropped to the blue floor in embarrassment. “You were trying to, what? Smell me? Is that the way you conduct examinations…where you’re from?”

“Yes…but it is a very rudimentary method. One we only apply if we don’t have the correct tool at our dispos—”

His words suddenly cut out inside her head. And Fensa finished for him, “Disposal. But why wouldn’t you just get a tool?”

No answer came.

And when she looked up, she found the dragon crumpled over in pain.