PRESENT…

I caused this. I was the one that allied with Herrix and Belfox. I was the one that helped them find the seven diarmod boxes scattered in the desert to the east of us.

I had a reason. But if I tell Felicity why, I will lose her.

Though I think I’ve lost her already.

I didn’t expect her to offer to come with us. This last month, she’s spent as little time with Xanthox and me as possible. There are now thirty-one people in the camp, and it’s easy for her to avoid us during the day. There’s always something to be done or someone that needs help.

And at night? Well, she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to share our bed anymore. It’s everything I deserve, but it still stings.

Faced with an impossible choice, I picked my mate. And ironically, she wants to have nothing to do with me.

Xanthox follows her to the house we’re staying in. I stay behind, knowing that whatever I do will only make things worse. She’s still hurt, too wounded to want to be around me. I should have never yelled at her that day, never exploded in anger the way I had, and ever since then, something is broken between us.

I should have told her the truth from the start.

The people in the clearing are huddled into knots, talking about what the arrival of the Zorahn soldiers means. Except for Thrax, who's watching me with a sympathetic look on his face. I walk over to him, trying to quell the faint hope in my heart. Every time I dare to hope, it gets crushed. “Did you have a chance to search the wreckage?”

“Only briefly,” he replies. “Once I found the soldier, my biggest priority was keeping him alive.”

I take a deep breath. Of all the Draekon in this new camp, I like him the best. We have very similar backgrounds. We both grew up in an orphanage, and we both ended up as smugglers before being exiled to the prison planet. “Can you go back?” I ask him urgently. “I need a communicator. It’s a matter of life and death.”

He grimaces. “I don’t think you’re going to find one.” He takes a look at the despair on my face and pats my back. “I’ll look. If I find one that’s wrecked, I’ll try to fix it. I only studied to be a technician for a few years, but I give you my word. I’ll do my best.”

That’s the best I can ask for. “Thank you, Thrax.”

He nods. “Things aren't good between Felicity and the two of you,” he says quietly. “Are they?”

The first week or two, I thought I could fix it, but as the days tick on, I'm beginning to lose hope.

“Don't give up,” Thrax urges quietly. “If you want her, fight for her. Show her that you care.”

“I don't know how to do that,” I tell him, my voice tired. “Caeron knows I've tried.”

“When Ryanna first got here,” he says, “I was crazy about her. I did everything I could to attract her attention. I flirted with her, I joked, I tried to make her smile. But it wasn't until much later that I discovered the real reason she stayed away from me. Her bondmate back on Earth used to beat her, and it left her terrified of all men.” He gives me a sober look. “I'm telling you this because we tend to forget that the human women have pasts, the same way we do. Felicity's experiences have shaped her life, the same way your experiences have shaped yours. The way she's reacting could have nothing to do with you.”

Our mate rarely talks about the past. All I know is that her mother died giving birth to her, and her father had left her with family shortly after and moved away. Just once, she’d said that his actions had made her feel abandoned.

That day, when she confided her feelings in me, I should have held her in my arms and comforted her. I should have let her know that she would never be alone again. That we were her mates, and we would be with her for the rest of our lives.

But I hadn’t, because those words had hit a nerve deep inside me…

* * *

PAST…

We’ve flown the run between Maarish and Skadus for three long weeks. About ten days into the mission, Skadus’ planetary patrols shoot at us, taking out our comms dish.

“We don’t need it,” Captain Plyke says, looking around at her three-person smuggling crew. “Let’s keep going. The client’s paying a bonus for early delivery.”

I nod agreement. It isn’t as if I’m expecting to hear from anyone. My parents are dead. As soon as I came of age, I ran away from the orphanage that I grew up in, and I’ve spent the last three years in Captain Plyke’s crew.

It’s a good life, much better than any I could have had if I’d stayed at home. The captain’s fair, she pays on time, and she doesn’t double-cross us.

Four weeks later, we’re finally back in the Zorahn empire, in a remote corner of the Northern Wilds. “A week of shore leave,” the captain says, her lips twisting into a grin. “Use it well, boys. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, and remember, if you get arrested, I’m not bailing you punks out.”

Snesh, who is from Adrash, falls in line with me as we head toward the town. “Of all the places for shore leave,” he grumbles, “Why here?”

I wince. “It’s my fault,” I admit. I show him my forearm, with the twenty-three tattoos marking the number of times I’ve been tested. “It’s the time of the Testing, and it’s far less trouble to show up and get it over with. The scientists hire bounty hunters to find the dawdlers.”

“Ah.” He gives me a sidelong glance. “I forget you’re Zorahn. Are you nervous?”

“Me?” I shake my head. “We have no history of contagion in my family. It’s just a formality.” I pass a market stall selling cheap communicators, and I pause in front of it, pulling a wad of money out of my jumpsuit. “Three weeks without comms. I guess I should check my messages.”

The shopkeeper is in a haggling frame of mind. It takes me a good knur to buy the communicator and link it to my records in the ThoughtVaults. By the time I’m done, I’m running late for the Testing. Muttering a curse under my breath, I put the small device in my pocket and head to the main square in Ryki.

The lines are long. Every male Zorahn under the age of fifty needs to be tested. “They only sent two Scientists,” the man standing in front of me complains. “I’m a healer. You think these idiots care that I have to turn away patients and shut my practice for a day to do this?”

“Shh,” someone else says warningly. “It doesn’t pay to antagonize the indigo-ones. People have a way of disappearing into the Crimson Citadel and never coming out.”

I don’t reply. I’m reading the messages that have piled up in my absence. There are a couple of job offers. Good smugglers are always in demand. A couple of messages from my friends, wondering when I’m planning to be home next.

And then I read it… the message that makes my heart stop.

It’s from the planet of Kraush.

I have a daughter?

I remember Sola’vi. We’d met in Zydna four months ago. She was making her way to Kraush to head up a research station there. I’d been on shore leave. I’d bought the first round of drinks, and she’d bought the second, and one thing had led to another.

I didn’t know she was pregnant with my child. She had four months to tell me. We’d parted on pleasant terms, and we’d exchanged contact information. I’d given her, not just my official registered identity, the one issued by the High Empire, but also my private one, the one hidden in the deep recesses of the ThoughtVaults, out of sight of the authorities. Why didn’t she?

It’s too late for questions. Sola is dead, and I am a father.

“Finally, the line’s moving.” The healer behind me heaves a sigh of relief. “It’s taken long enough.”

I need to get to Kraush as quickly as possible. I’ll need a ship, or maybe I can talk the captain into taking a job that takes us to that densely-populated world. And then what? I can’t be a smuggler anymore. Captain Plyke’s ship is no place to raise a child. I’ll have to find something else to do.

A smile grows on my face. A little baby girl. My child.

As soon as I’m done with the Testing, I’ll head back to the spaceport. Find the captain, explain what I’ve discovered, and make a plan on what to do next.

“Next,” a bored-looking scientist calls out. I enter the chamber and stick out my forearm.

Twenty-three times I’ve stood there, the gold-tipped needle against my flesh. Twenty-three times it’s pierced my skin, and the tester has flashed green.

This time, the only time it matters, it flashes crimson.

“No,” I shout out, desperate and pleading, as they drag me away. “You don’t understand. I just found out I have a daughter.”

They don’t care. They never do. I am Draekon, and Draekons are exiled. I will spend the rest of my life on the prison planet.

Mar’vi will grow up thinking that her father never came for her. For the rest of her life, my daughter will believe that I never cared enough to claim her.

* * *

PRESENT…

Mar’vi will never know how much I cared. I have no way of contacting her, no way of explaining.

I’ve failed her.

But I don’t have to fail Felicity.

For the first time in weeks, resolve stiffens my spine. I’m not done trying to fix things. I will try to heal the wound I caused my mate, even if it takes me the rest of my life.

There are too many distractions here, but we’re going back to our camp. The place where we first kissed, where we first lay together, where I fell in love with her.

I will win her back.