WHEN KAYLEB DIDN’T drop dead by sundown, he began to breathe easier. And as night turned back into morning, he let himself hope that the impossible had happened and that he’d been spared.

Though his feet tapped on the tile of the kitchen, begging for one of his long walks, he didn’t dare leave the apartment. Not yet. Krayter and Penny kept shooting him looks, somewhere between hope and pity and disbelief. And except for the moments he’d stolen away in the bathroom, neither of them had left him alone.

He loved his brother and liked Penny, but if this babysitting went on for too long it wasn’t going to end happily for any of them. Before Krayter came to him with the crazy plan to leave Jaaxis and find Earth, Kayleb had lived alone, despite the large apartment that housed the rest of his family. He’d never liked the crowds.

His head got too full, a pounding pain and pressure that didn’t let up until he found his own space where no one looked at him, no one cared. Visiting his family was great, letting Krayter stay for weeks at the time was welcome, but he’d always been the one a little different from the rest of the cheery NaMoren clan.

He’d been the one who brawled and tossed out insults like they were charity donations. He’d spent nights in lockup and had been kicked out of three schools for unlawful conduct. And while he’d left most of that behind, the longer he was left under a microscope, watched every moment for some sign of deterioration, the more his skin itched and his bones begged him to lash out.

If he was already feeling that after a day, he shuddered to think of what would happen if Krayter and Penny were still in the apartment at the end of the week.

“I don’t feel like I’m going to drop dead at any moment,” he told Krayter once he settled onto the couch next to his brother. Penny had stepped outside to take a call from her mother, which eased Kayleb’s tension by a degree.

He was still as tightly wound as an old fashioned clock and his feet tapped even faster when he tried to sit still. He stood back up and tried to look casual as he paced to the book case and picked up a small glass statue that he’d bought at one of the markets that he’d found on one of his walks.

Krayter looked at him and didn’t need to say anything. Kayleb tossed the statue up and down, watching the swirl of color in the clay as it spun. After a few moments, even tossing the statue wasn’t enough and he started to pace the small space of the living room. He was told that their apartment was big by New York standards, but the family home back on Jaaxis had much more space.

Kayleb’s own house had practically been designed for pacing. “Do you plan to watch me every second for the rest of our lives?” he demanded. “I don’t think that your denya would appreciate it.”

Krayter sighed and leaned back into the sofa, crossing his arms. “Don’t do this,” he pleaded quietly. “I don’t know what’s going on, and I’m not going to leave you to deal with it yourself. Especially after less than a day.”

“More than a day.”

Krayter groaned and pressed a hand to his forehead. “Kay...”

For a moment, Kayleb’s body released him from the compulsion to move and he stared at Krayter, waiting for whatever trick his brother had up his sleeve to somehow make this whole thing Kayleb’s fault. But Krayter let the word hang and didn’t say anything else.

“I’ll go to a doctor if it would make you feel better,” Kayleb offered. And he bit his tongue to keep from adding not that there’s anything a human doc could see. Detyens didn’t sicken and perish, they just dropped dead, hearts stopped, breathing ceased, brains silent.

But the offer seemed to make his brother happy. “I talked to Ru yesterday. He gave me the contact information for someone nearby, in the Alpha Centauri system. If we leave tomorrow, we could be back by the end of the month.”

No!

Kayleb didn’t realize that he’d spoken or stepped towards Krayter until his brother flinched and Kayleb saw both of his hands in front of him as if he were about to fight. He took a deep breath and lowered his hands to his sides, leaving his fingers loose, no matter how much he wanted to clench them into fists. “No,” he said again, calmer this time. “I don’t think I should leave the planet.” He turned and looked out the window. They didn’t live in a stylish area of Manhattan, but from the window he could look out and see the glowing lights of skyscrapers and the flashing vehicles in hover mode sailing over the city. But Kayleb’s eyes were drawn south to the darkness of the warren of slums that he and Krayter had been warned to steer clear of if they appreciated keeping their wallets in their pockets and their blood in their bodies.

No matter how much Kayleb’s body sung for a fight, he’d heeded the warning and stayed away. But today his feet itched to walk out the door and explore the darkness, to find the end of the path he could almost feel himself being led down as if a point on a map was embedded in his chest.

“Is there a reason you want to say?” Krayter asked, coming to stand next to him, but keeping enough distance between them that Kayleb couldn’t easily lash out. That was the problem with brothers, eventually they got too good at knowing you.

Kayleb tried to find the words, any excuse that made sense. If their cousin Ru knew of some specialist that might be able to explain why Kayleb hadn’t succumbed like all of the unmated Detyens before him, he should be jumping at the chance to find out why. But the thought of leaving Earth right now caused everything within him to rebel. He’d jump off the ship before it ever left land. He couldn’t do it.

“Do you think anything could make you forget Penny?” he asked, recalling what she’d suggested the day before, that he’d met his mate and left her behind somewhere. “Or was there any way you could have met her and...” he searched for the right way to say what he meant, mind circling the problem, “not known?” It wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be. He’d know if he were mated. And yet, he was alive past his thirtieth birthday.

Krayter stepped closer and placed a tentative hand on Kayleb’s shoulder, patting it twice as if that was sufficient comfort. “I know her in my soul,” he said. “I can’t imagine that I’d ever see her and not know that we belong to one another. And as for the other... no, I recognized her the first second I laid eyes on her. Actually...”

When he trailed off, Kayleb looked at him and saw that his brother was smiling.

Krayter let out a little laugh. “I guess I didn’t know the second we met. Her sisters had blindfolded me and tied me to a table.” And from the smile on his face, it was all one big joke. “Even just hearing her voice, I knew that she was special. I don’t think I could forget her. But,” he conceded, “I didn’t suffer from a massive head injury.”

“I need to think.” He’d had enough of standing around in the apartment all day. He left his brother standing by the window and walked out, passing Penny in the hallway and not managing more than a wave. His feet pulled him south, so south he would go. No matter the danger.

***

THIS WAS STUPID. IDIOTIC bordering on suicidal.

Hundreds of light years from home and Kayleb could still recognize exactly the type of neighborhood that he was walking too deep into. He couldn’t hear the roar of fight pits, but night was a long time coming and they had to be here somewhere. If not fight pits, then something similar, some place where violence coated the air and money changed hands and the poor fought, risking their lives for their next meal.

No prostitutes walked the street, but he saw plenty of posted flyers advertising the services of people and bots for fewer credits than he’d spent on his lunch. The further he walked into the slum, the cheaper life got. Garbage littered the streets, no cleaning bots traveling their scheduled routes. Either they’d been destroyed for parts or the city government had left this area to rot to save the money on maintenance.

Was this where he belonged now? He’d never been pulled to a place so strongly, even as that lunch he’d hastily eaten threatened to come back up at the stench in the warm air. New York City had all the modern amenities, but from the smell of things here, some people didn’t even have indoor plumbing. Or if they did, they didn’t bother to use it.

He turned off the main road and tried to convince himself that he’d circle the block and then head home. He’d been walking for hours and Krayter had to be worried sick right now. Kayleb could remember the feeling, like worms were crawling around in his organs, from when Krayter had gone missing a few months ago. He shouldn’t be subjecting his brother to this, should have agreed to go see the specialist and figure out what was wrong with him.

But Kayleb hadn’t figured out how to tell his brother his most secret thought about the last day. He couldn’t make himself say the words.

He was afraid. Afraid that if they found this specialist and spoke with him, then the only solution would lead directly to his death. Or he’d discover that his soul had shriveled and he was walking in a living death any way, his emotions draining away until he was less than a husk of his former self. Even worse, he was afraid that he’d discover that he’d bonded with someone and she was long gone, nothing more than a memory and a life preserver.

He’d been waiting his whole life to meet his mate, had held off on pleasures of the flesh because he saw no point if it wasn’t with the one person that he knew was meant for him. He’d dreamed of the life he could build with this woman, the home they’d live in, the children they’d have, the dreams they would share. They were the things that he’d never felt comfortable voicing to Krayter. And if he couldn’t say them to Krayter, then he couldn’t find anyone else to speak with.

He loved his parents, but they’d always put each other before their children, even if they hadn’t meant it. They had a love that he envied and resented and if he spoke any of his fears and longings to them, he didn’t know that they’d understand. They’d mated so young that they hadn’t needed to worry about the Denya Price, they saw it only as a gift.

And they’d certainly never understand the possibility that he’d forgotten his denya.

How? It wasn’t possible. It might have been the simplest explanation to the problem at hand, but that didn’t mean that Kayleb could accept it. If he’d forgotten her, what would she think of him? Did she think that he’d abandoned her? Or had they simply shared a night together and gone their separate ways with her not knowing who she was to him?

Could he have done something like that back on the ship or at Honora Station after he was recovering from his injuries? Would he have made love to his mate without telling her just how special she was to him, just how perfect? He’d never thought of himself as that kind of man, but anything was possible today.

A strangled shout broke him out of his reverie and he looked down the street to see the shadow of a woman in a dark red sweater dart down a road followed by two men, one human and one not, their faces full of fury and their strides long and sure.

Kayleb ran.

His feet struck the pavement loud enough to echo down the narrow stretch of road and the force of his speed reverberated up his leg. He threw his body around a corner without thought and slammed into the human attacker from behind, pushing him to the ground. A blaster flew out of his hand, arcing up and clattering down onto the broken cement. The human’s friend, a tentacled alien breed that Kayleb couldn’t name, hissed at him and one of its arms shot out, close enough to wrap around him and reel him in if he hadn’t jumped back in time.

Without pausing to think why he did it, he reached out and grabbed for the sucker covered arm and pulled with all his strength. The tentacled alien stumbled and fell over its human friend, who’d been trying to stand. Kayleb spared them one last look and took off running after their quarry.

His quarry.

Though his mind hadn’t quite caught up, his body knew that he needed to follow this path and see where it led. He’d seen something in that glimpse of fabric that picked at his mind, and unless he ran after it and saw what was there, it would haunt him to the end of his days.

He couldn’t hear her footsteps anymore, but he turned right by some instinct and then left down the first path he found. A huge piece of wood swung wildly in front of him and Kayleb hit the ground at a roll, popping back up as his would-be attacker staggered from the force of her miss. He held both his hands up and kept far enough back, both to show that he wasn’t a threat and so she wouldn’t try to hit him again.

“I’m here to help! I won’t hurt you, I promise.” He was panting and feared that his eyes glowed red from the violence and the chase, but his claws remained sheathed and all he could do was hope that she wasn’t scared of aliens.

The light hit her face and he caught sight of brown skin, curly red hair escaping from where it was held back, and eyes as brown as a dwarf star. Recognition tore through him and Kayleb took a step forward, reaching out for her without thought, with nothing driving him but the desperate need to be near her, to touch her.

Denya.

The woman’s eyes widened and a sound between a squeak and a gasp escaped her throat. Then her gaze narrowed and she scooped up her plank and threw it straight at his head, the move so unexpected that the edge of the wood scraped his face, opening a cut on his cheek. She sprinted down the alley and away from him.

Kayleb clutched his hand to his face and strained to hear her, but her steps were silent. Unlike the plodding run of the man and the thing coming up on him. He picked up the plank and tested its weight. And unlike his denya, he didn’t miss when first one of his denya’s would-be assailants rounded the corner. The human went down with a nasty thunk and while the squid thing tried to fight back with its tentacles, a few knocks on the head was enough to take it down and leave it writhing on the ground.

Kayleb tossed the plank far away from the men on the ground and took off running. He had a mate to find.