“Still no thoughts on the return of your dog?” Damianos asked from the door of the dim room.

Naught but a candle gave relief to the pitch black, and the vents that did allow cool air into this room had all been covered. To make the room blistering cold in the winter, and blistering hot during the solstice.

In truth, Xenon found it quite comfortable. It reminded him of his former planet. But that planet was no more. Yes, the orb still hung in the heavens. But his brother, their subjects, and the entire civilization had been obliterated by a dark matter bomb. One the Royal Geneticist had set off soon after the King, having received recommendation that this planet not be awarded sanctuary status, announced his much-delayed royal hunt to his court.

God of the wolves. Fenrir had turned out to be just that. Sacrificing himself and his entire planet so his creations might live free.

But Damianos, and the most of the drakkon who had been stranded here on this planet, had not felt the same. Ecoterrorist, those drakkon most likely called him today. He’d heard the word once upon the small box Damianos had installed in his room a few solars ago. Just a few. Mayhap 40 or 50. He no longer kept track.

Damianos had put it there not as a luxury in the otherwise completely bare room, but to drown out Xenon’s fights with Fensa. At least that was what he claimed before turning the dial to the highest volume setting.

In any case, Xenon appreciated the gift. He and Fensa often watched it together, with her commenting occasionally, “Oh, I loved this song. Remember I used to hum it when I washed our clothes on the rocks?”

It had been so long ago. That life in Arizona. That family in Arizona. There were so many things he could no longer remember. Luckily, he had Fensa there to remind him.

But tonight, Damianos, not his aged human servant, came to the door.

He’d been doing this for…oh, nearly three moons now. Seeming to want something from Xenon. Something Xenon could no longer give.

“You truly have nothing to say about the return of your dog? No questions? No curiosity where she might be after waiting for her for so long?”

His cousin set a plate piled high with meat in front of Xenon, just close enough for him to reach out and eat with one hand since the other was chained to the wall with a manacle forged from an Uthbert sword used in the Lupin-Drakkon War. The portion size upon the plate had been carefully considered by the few remaining drakkon after they charged him with a long list of war crimes, including treason, and stripped him of his crown. The amount of food was enough to keep him from starving to death. But not enough to make Xenon feel anything close to full.

For this reason, over a thousand rotations into his imprisonment, he was little more than skin and bones.

“Do you wish me to have something to say?” he asked Damianos, impressed to a small degree with his latest torture tactic. After all, his cousin would know nothing of Fensa, if not for overhearing their many angry exchanges here in his attic prison.

Damianos didn’t answer. Instead, he looked at Xenon, his lips turned down like a human’s until, in a sudden burst of fury, he kicked the plate in front of him. The meager bit of food went flying across the room, and the plate hit the wall with a metallic clang before falling to the floor in a sad slide of meat and grease.

“Tell your dog to fetch that for you,” Damianos snarled.

Then he left the room, once again not bothering to turn the small box back on. He hadn’t allowed him this small luxury for months now. Or, as he used to call it in Arizona, moons.

The door slammed closed, leaving Xenon once again in the dimly lit room. With his real torturer.

“Man, he’s really not going to forgive you for double-crossing your dragon crew in that fight for the Zone 2 gates,” Fensa observed in his wake. She then turned her contemptuous sneer on him. “And he really doesn’t seem to understand I’d never do anything for you. I hate you. I’ll always hate you for what you did.”

Yes, shortly after gaining her trust he’d betrayed it. He’d lost everything in the blink of her human eye, including his son. But for some reason Fensa’s words didn’t cut him like they usually did.

“What was it the Drakkon king said again?” he asked her. “He keeps attempting to tell me something. He seems to think it of great import.”

“Never mind him,” Fensa answered, coming to stand over his body where he sat naked upon the floor with legs bent. She lowered herself down to sit upon his groin like she used to during those few months when their flames had burned yellow for each other. “Do you have desire for me? Would you like me to take out your male works and put them inside my wet heat?”

A trick. He knew it was a trick, but nonetheless, his male works became steel inside his stomach at just the thought of having her again.

Fensa laughed, low and husky, “Oh, I can feel how much you want me, Xenon. What would you do to have me again? To be inside me? What price would you pay?”

“Anything,” he swore, his voice little more than a whisper. “I would give anything. Pay anything.”

“Would you beg? I’d like to hear you beg for my forgiveness.”

He begged. And apologized. And begged some more. Begged and begged her forgiveness, until his voice gave out with a croak.

“Mmm…” Fensa made a considering sound in the back of her throat, pressing her forehead into his as he had taught her. But it wasn’t reverence. He knew this. Had been taught this lesson by her so many times. Still, his breath caught. The longing so poignant, it vibrated within him like a plucked string.

However, it came as no surprise when she withdrew. “Too bad your anything is worthless to me,” she spat. Before retreating into the darkness.

No…Xenon thought, his flame returning to its usual blue. Damianos tricks were worthless. As much as his cousin would like to be the foremost benefactor of his pain, no one could torture him as perfectly as his Fensa.

And no one else ever would.