PRESENT…

We built Felicity a house in our old camp. A little south of Lake Ang, we’d constructed a three-roomed structure with large windows. A portion of the roof was flat. Felicity had enjoyed lying there, naked, feeling the sun’s rays caress her skin. So many days, we’d climb up the ladder and find her there, her glossy brown hair partially covering her perfectly-formed breasts. She’d smile at us and beckon us forward, and in that small platform, hidden by the tree’s thick foliage, we’d make love.

How far away we are from that place now. Both physically and emotionally.

Most of my belongings are still in that house. Felicity, on the other hand, had packed everything she owned into a bag when she came here.

“Just give me a few minutes to get my stuff,” she says now, her voice vibrating with some hidden emotion.

I follow her to Dennox’s house, where we’re staying. The others are staying back to talk about the ship. Especially Luddux, who undoubtedly wants to know if Thrax found a communicator in the wreckage. He’s desperate to make contact with the outside world. “Do you need help?”

“No thanks,” she says stiffly.

I sigh inwardly. We caused this, Luddux and I. We should have been truthful with her from the start, but we’d held off on telling her what we were doing.

And it seems to have destroyed something between us.

Or maybe it was all only in my imagination. Maybe I’d wanted to be loved so badly, maybe I’d wanted a mate and a family of my own so much that I ignored the truth. Maybe there had never been anything there at all.

She pulls out her suitcase from under the bed. “Is that your luggage from the Fehrat 1?” I ask. I know that Arax and Nyx had retrieved the women’s belongings from the ship, but this is the first time I’ve seen the torn and faded box.

“Yes.” She unzips it. There are two pairs of pants—the human women call them jeans—and a few shirts. It doesn’t seem like a lot for what was originally planned to be a six-month mission.

“Is that all you had?”

Her eyes move away from me. “Yes.”

There’s a stiffness in her body as she moves to the small cupboard in the room and starts pulling clothes out of it. I see a flash of blue.

It’s a shirt, the first thing I gave her. Three months, three weeks and three days ago…

* * *

PAST…

Liorax and Zunix have been gone a very long time. The two men are restless by nature, always eager to explore this unknown planet that we’ve been imprisoned on.

I’m not as curious as they are, or maybe I’m still bitter about being torn away from my home and my estate. My family had been wealthy. We’d run the largest diarmod mining operation in Alvi. Two sectors from the homeworld, the testing had been something of a formality. No one in generations had tested positive for the mutation. It was just one of the rituals of the High Empire that every male Zorahn participated in, whether we understood it or not.

Until I’d tested positive.

Liorax and Zunix still have hope. I admire them for it. I don’t think I do. My days are routine. Wake up, hunt and fish, scavenge for leaves and berries. If I need anything that I can’t make, Zunix has a syn, and he’s usually willing to trade favors for access to it. After sixty-five years, there’s not much I need though.

We gather in the clearing. They’ll have news about their travels, and their stories will break the monotony of the prison planet for a day or two.

And then I see her. There are other women, but I have no eyes for them because I can’t tear my gaze away from the small, dark-haired woman who’s standing in the clearing, her face pinched with fear and worry. A need to comfort her fills me, a desire to wipe away the sadness in her eyes and replace it with joy.

The women aren’t Zorahn. Many questions run through me. Where did they come from? Why are they here? What does it mean? And then, it doesn’t matter. A creature stirs inside me, as if awakening from a long slumber.

Mine, it announces.

Threads of connection grow between the woman and me, between the woman and Luddux, between Luddux and I. In my mind’s eye, I see a bond form between us, and then the shackles that restrained my dragon break, and he is free.

This strange woman, whoever she is, belongs to Luddux and me, as much as we belong to her. She’s ours. She’s our mate.

And we will do anything to make her happy.

* * *

PRESENT…

Felicity hasn’t smiled in weeks. Her unhappiness is visible to everyone. Just last week, Arax had pulled Luddux and me aside. “Viola’s concerned about the human,” he’d said. “And so, I’ll be blunt. Are you hurting her?”

“No,” I’d replied, shocked to the core. “You think I would hit a woman?”

“I think there are a lot of ways to hurt someone without hitting them,” he’d retorted. “She’s your mate, and she’s miserable. Fix it.”

If only it were that easy. It’s not like I haven’t tried because I have. And so has Luddux. But Felicity won’t tell us what’s wrong. The wall between us is more impenetrable than ever.

“Are you sure you want to come?”

She doesn’t look at me. “Do you not want me to?”

No. Seeing her in our treehouse will be too hard. Remembering what we had, what we’ve lost… I don’t think I can take it. Felicity was like a comet. She entered in a blaze, burning bright and lighting up my life, but everything between us seems to have withered away to a crisp.

Now, things just hurt too much. I want to go back to the numbness I had before Felicity came into my life.

“You don’t like heights,” I reply. “You don’t like to fly.”

“I’m not afraid of heights.” Her lips twist into a small smile. “I’m just scared of falling.”

We’d never let you fall, my love.

It’s a measure of how much things have changed between us that I don’t say the words out loud. “Are you happy, Felicity?” I ask instead.

“Everyone’s asking me that question today.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

She faces me “What do you want me to say, Xan? What do you want to hear from me?”

“The truth.”

Her eyes well with tears. “I don’t know if I ever knew how to be happy,” she whispers. “Maybe this is as good as it gets.”

I swallow the pain in my throat. Once we find Dariux and bring him back, I’m going to suggest that we stay in our home near Lake Ang for two weeks. And in that time, if we can’t fix things between us…

The humans are not like the Draekons. Felicity doesn’t feel the way we do. She might not find a true mating bond with one of the other unmated Draekons, but maybe they’ll be able to make her happy.

I can’t bear to see Felicity unhappy. When we get back from Lake Ang, if nothing’s changed, then I’m going to leave. For her sake, and for mine.