Fensa suspected it wasn’t going to end well when she followed Xenon and Eos up here. As soon as she spied her son and mate working together on the northern side of the mountain when they were supposed to be out hunting, she knew nothing good would come of her hauling her hugely pregnant butt up that mountain.

But she guessed cats weren’t the only creatures made dumb by curiosity. She’d stealthily followed Xenon for two reasons: one…because she sensed he’d been keeping something from her for weeks now. She might not be able to read heat signatures, but he’d become more and more distracted as this pregnancy progressed. She could feel him becoming more agitated and sad over their mate bond—rather than more and more excited, as he’d been during her first pregnancy. And though they continued to have sex regularly, it was…different. More desperate, somehow. And always forward facing, often with Xenon staring intently at her as they moved together, as if he was trying to memorize her face.

And two…she was already so huge that her sneaking days were numbered. It could very well be today, or never. She’d known something was amiss when the two dragons circled back around the mountain rather than away from it.

But never in her wildest dreams did she guess what she’d find when she followed her mate and son up to the location where she’d broken down crying. By the Fenrir wolf, had it been over a year ago already?

Time passes when you’re falling in love, she thought to herself, even as she shook her head at Xenon and asked, “How did this gate get up here?”

The only acknowledgment he gave her question was a slight stiffening of his dragon shoulders. Then he said something to Eos in their hiss-shriek language and without so much as a glance at his mother, the boy flew off.

Leaving her alone with Xenon on the mountain. Next to a gate that had definitely not been there a year ago. Or, as she strongly suspected, even two months ago.

Xenon turned so very slowly that it was like watching a slow-motion scene in a movie.

“Treasure…” came the word in her head. Followed by silence.

Fensa stared up at her twenty-foot dragon. Waiting. Not wanting, but still needing to know.

Finally, he spoke. “I must beg your forgiveness, Treasure. I did not lie to you, as an acolyte must never lie, but there are things about myself that I did…” he trailed off, before coming back with, “…keep hidden.”

“Things like what?” she asked, even though her wolf was screaming at her in the back of her head. Run! Do not continue with this conversation. Do not ask more questions. Run!

Yet, she found she couldn’t obey her wolf. Couldn’t do anything, in fact, but stand there with her hand on top of the belly already so heavy with his dragon baby. Waiting to see how he’d answer.

He continued, his eyes turned downward, his head bent low. The reverent position for imparting bad news, she remembered from some lesson long ago. Finally, she’d instantly recalled a fact from the Reverence protocol, but wouldn’t you know it didn’t bring her any joy.

“Whatever it is, we’ll get through it,” she found herself promising. “You are my dragon, and I am your wolf. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

“Reverence, you honor me with your loyalty, and I will treasure your words until my dying day. But this issue can only be ‘figured out’ in one way. I will start by answering your original question. How did this fating portal appear in this place? The answer is the lie of omission. I built it, Treasure, with Golden Son’s help. You see, I misled you by only telling you a few of my titles: Prince, Reverence, Treasure, Your Drakkon Everlasting—these titles are important on Drakkon and here on this planet. But for the purpose of my mission, there is only one title that counts: Royal Fate Maker.”

“Royal Fate Maker,” she repeated. Not understanding. Not wanting to understand.

“Yes. Fate Maker is the title given to those charged with the making and encoding of the fertility DNA matching systems. The Royal Geneticist—the drakkon you do call by the name of Fenrir—felt a DNA matching system would increase your species chances of viability since you do not reproduce nearly as easily or as fast as the humans. Also, there are so few hybrids that he was afraid of homozygosity within the groups. This is when the genes from both parents align so identically it creates undesirable outcomes in their offspring.”

“Inbreeding.” She pushed past her shock to supply the word. “You were afraid of inbreeding, which would potentially thin your hunting dogs.”

“I do not like your tone, but yes, your meaning is correct. Your species is already at the bottom spectrum of intelligence. We had no wish for you to become less intelligent because of, as you call it, inbreeding. For this reason was I brought along on this mission to set up a matching system which might prevent such poor outcomes. I was charged with installing a system in every major Zone occupied by lupin hominids. To give your species the best chance possible to become a fertile species that would provide us with good hunt. I had built all but one of the systems and was making plans to construct another in Zone 8, which is how we refer to this land…this North America. A few of the anthros had already started following herds across the land bridge, Beringia, and I hypothesized the lupins would soon follow. I’d even planned to fly here four rotations ago and do some reconnaissance work. But then you arrived at the Zone 7 portal, and my plans were…abandoned.”

He stopped there. Waiting for her response.

But her brain was still processing what he’d just told her with the sluggishness of a circa 1990s computer. “You made those gates? Not the original geneticist, or wolf god, or whatever he’s called. But you?”

“Well, the Royal Geneticist made a small system of three fating portals for his original experiment group in Zone 2. But as for the rest… yes, it was I who made those,” he admitted with a solemn nod. “It is all very complicated, Treasure, but the simplest explanation is I am a systems programmer and an engineer. I earned the title of Fate Maker through rigorous schooling. And I failed to share this information with you for fear of what you might ask of me if you knew.”

“Oh, my God,” Fensa realized out loud. “You could have sent me back?”

“Yes.”

“At any time?”

“Yes.”

“But you didn’t.”

He once again lowered his head. “No.”

She digested the news. It felt like someone had shoved a huge chunk of mammoth steak into her mouth, and she had to chew and chew before it could be fully swallowed.

But eventually, she did swallow. And her first words after doing so were, “I don’t care.”

“Treasure…”

“I don’t care. You were right not to let me return. We’re a family. You, me, and Eos. You were right, we shouldn’t be apart. I’m glad you didn’t tell me. I’m glad you didn’t send me back.”

With a strength she didn’t think she possessed, Fensa grabbed his huge dragon paw and placed it on her belly. “Now, let’s go home.”

“Treasure…”

“No, don’t argue with me. Let’s just go home. Back to our cave.”

She pulled at him again. Tugging with all her might.

But he didn’t budge. “Treasure, there is more. During my last examination...”

Fensa abruptly stopped pulling. “Oh, God! Please tell me you didn’t lie about that, too! The baby isn’t okay?”

“There is not one hatchling, Treasure, but two. That is the reason you are twice as big this time around. You will recall you barely survived the birth of Golden Son when we were in the glacier with a full suite of medical tools at our disposal, and the wall to guide me through the birthing. I feel certain you would not survive the birth of two hatchlings. It would have been a high-risk birth at my lab. But here…it is a death sentence for you and for the babes.”

Fensa shook her head, even as she realized the truth of what he told her. The pain. The blood loss. The memory of waking up in his arms weeks later, dazed and feeling like she’d gone to hell and back to keep her promise not to die.

“For you and our hatchlings to survive, you must return to your time,” he told her. “Where you will have access to the best medical care, and medicine specifically for your species. And to give you reverent protection, I…I will send Golden Son with you.”

Fensa shook her head, her heart filling with horror. What he was proposing was beyond unacceptable. She couldn’t return to her time. Leave him here, alone. For the rest of his ever.

“No,” she whispered. “Xenon, you must come with me. You come with us! We’ll say the return spell together, and we can all go back together!”

“Treasure, there is one thing a Fate Maker cannot do. And that is to travel through his own fating portal. In order that we might be given the credentials to become a Fate Maker, we are stripped of the vital nucleotides that allow any fated portal we’ve encoded to read our DNA code. This is done for ethical reasons.”

A comment Aunt Tu once made came to mind. From that time when she accompanied Fensa’s mother on a tour of the Arizona facility. During the tour, the nurse went through a list of the rules, many of which seemed arbitrary on the surface.

After hearing that the patients—or “residents” as the nurse referred to them—weren’t allowed to wear shoes with shoestrings, Tu quipped, “You got to wonder what happened to inspire a rule like that.”

Tu’s words came back to Fensa…the memory stinging like lemon juice on a cut.

But she pushed the memory away, determined to find a solution that she could not find for herself when her parents left her at the facility. “Okay, okay, but you said there were some gates you didn’t make in Zone 2!”

“Yes, but those gates are on the other side of the land mass we used to call home. Too far for Golden Son to travel.”

“Then we’ll take breaks on our journey there. You can carry me. And we will stop along the way.”

“And what would happen if you began childbirth while en route? I never encoded the other portals, so you and our offspring could very well die while we tried to reach the portal made by the Royal Geneticist.”

“So you’re just going to send me away? Back to my own time?”

Xenon jerked as if her question had stabbed him with the same force as a spear in the eye. “Treasure, if there was any other way...”

“There is another way! I’m not willing to risk these babies—you’re right about that. But I am willing to risk myself. I’ll die having these children right here if that’s what it takes to keep us together.”

“No, I cannot allow that. “

He was no longer looking at the ground, his red gaze found hers with a shake of his great head.

“No, you don’t understand. I’d rather spend another month with you than the rest of my life without you.”

“You know not what you say!” he all but snarled inside her head. “What you ask of me.”

“You thought I’d die with Golden Son, didn’t you?” she pointed out, spreading her arms to both sides. “And you let me have him anyway. What’s so different now—?”

“Do you believe watching you almost die was easy, Reverence?” he suddenly roared inside her head. “The memory haunts me like one of your night demons to this very day!”

He gave his dragon head another angry shake. “And I knew not this yellow flame then. It was hard enough when I merely treasured you. Do you think I could let you die now? When I know there is an excellent chance to prevent it?”

“It’s my choice!” she insisted, standing her ground. “My choice whether I live or die. You took my choice away from me for years. Now I’m taking it back. So, no! I won’t go! I love you with every fucking thing I have, and I’ll die before I ever let you send me away for my own good. Just like my parents did.”

He said nothing. But he didn’t have to.

She’d seen that kind of stillness before. Like that time when she’d been caught talking with Ola at camp.

Her Aunt Tu standing there, so still her thoughts were as loud and clear as if they’d been spoken aloud. “You’re crazy. You’re crazy. You’re crazy.”

“I’m. Not. Crazy,” she told him with tears shining in her eyes. “I just love you. More than this life. More than my survival. Please. Oh, God. Oh, Fenrir Wolf, please don’t send me away.”

Her dragon. Her dear, dear dragon looked down at her for a long time. And then…

He was a giant man, cupping her face with his fingers. “And I love you the same, Fensa. My Fensa. We drakkon treasure not our names, but your name will forever be writ inside my heart. Our love will be embedded in the stars, even if, as you say, a moon falls from the sky. And though I have known you for but a wingbeat of my life, I will die with your name upon my flame. This I promise you. This I vow.”

Then he took her hand, laying it over his cheek as he pressed his forehead to hers.

His words, so beautiful, so sincere, so poetic, ripped open her fucking heart. Because nothing he said to her could cover up the real meaning of a male pressing his forehead to his mate’s.

Goodbye. He was telling her goodbye. But this time it would be for way longer than a few hours.

He was saying no, she couldn’t stay here with him. Couldn’t die in his arms after having their babies.

He stepped back and returned to his dragon form, before throwing out a caw she recognized well. It was the one he always used to call their son to his side.

Then her dragon raised his huge forepaw, palm facing forward to receive her goodbye. Her final goodbye.

But no, NO!

He wouldn’t get it.

Fensa turned on her heel and started making her way down the mountain.

She’d hide, she thought desperately. He wouldn’t be able to send her away if Eos couldn’t find her. She threw a hasty glance over her shoulder to make sure he wasn’t following.

And what Fensa saw nearly stopped her cold. Xenon with their son. The large blue dragon pressing his forehead to that of the much smaller golden dragon. And the golden dragon…his shoulders shook. Not with laughter, she knew, but with the human tears he’d inherited from his mother.

Fensa stood there, mesmerized. The goodbye spoken in a screeching language she could not understand. But then she realized her folly. Because in the next moment, Eos shot into the air.

She watched him go up at an angle, then descend, landing in front of her a boy with a set of golden dragon wings.

“Mama…” he said sadly, in her native language. “It is time for us to go.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head

But when she reached up to push him away, he grabbed hold of her. Both hands wrapping around her wrists like manacles.

“Let me go!” she screamed. “Please don’t do this, Eos. I’m your mother. You have to listen to me. Please—!”

She cut off when a tunnel like the one her father had described opened behind her resolute son. “Nooooo!!!” she screamed, only to have the tunnel instantly suck her and Eos into its confines.