Jailmates

by Lesli Richardson

  I would have welcomed that.

  Now? I cannot begin to think about abandoning Pfahrn. I have too many responsibilities. And as I walk home, one other thought hits me—how did Simon know the contents of my confidential contract between Yyallohrn and Dohrn before it was unsealed? Because from his retelling yesterday, I realize now it was as if he already knew what he would find in there upon the unsealing.

  I also do not know where to begin to focus. I am overwhelmed and unable to think.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Simon

  I decide what I really want to do is make sure I’ve got a good dinner ready for Mohrn when they return home.

  One I’ve prepared for them.

  Not to mention I still have my little surprise for Mohrn that they don’t even know about yet.

  I grab Cloohdlin and give them a battlefield promotion to assistant estate manager to help me with everything. Too much to do today means I can’t sit and watch the court proceedings on the vid. But by the end of the day, at least, I feel pretty confident I’ve got a handle on both estates. There were managers for each division who were able to continue normal daily operations. Now, they report to me and Cloohdlin instead of their respective former bosses.

  Simple.

  I hurry back to the house and get dinner ready when I see on the vid that court is wrapping up. I’ll have just enough time to have everything ready for Mohrn when they return home.

  Then I’m going to spend the entire evening taking their mind off everything but me.

  We’ll need to go file a new marriage contract, but in my research I found we can file a pre-dated one to take effect upon the yundohn for the other contract, meaning we’ll remain married.

  I keep listening for a ground transport, so I’m not prepared when Mohrn walks through the door a while later, looking distraught and…destroyed?

  I hurry over to them. “What happened?”

  They slowly shake their head. They look like they’re in shock, and that’s what I feel from them, too—shock. “It is…done.”

  “You’re Khalden?”

  They nod.

  “This is fantastic!”

  They look at me. “Simon, is there anything else you have not told me?”

  Uh-oh. “Like what?”

  “About how you proved the fraud. Is there anything else?”

  “I proved it. Isn’t that what matters?”

  “How did you know about the contract between me and Yyallohrn and Dohrn for me to accept responsibility? It was sealed. Even as my spouse, because you were not a signatory to it, you couldn’t access it. When you told me what happened, it sounded like you already knew about it even before it was unsealed? How can that be?”

  Shit.

  I take a deep breath. “Promise me you won’t get upset.”

  “What?”

  I walk over to them and take their hands in mine. “The reason they wanted you to go with a nonhuman mate wasn’t for the shorter sentence, or a cheaper cost. It was because they wanted to make sure you weren’t mated to a Pfahrn who might accidentally see the truth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “A true mate,” I gently say. “Someone you bite.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when you envenomated me? It didn’t just make me really horny for you, buddy. It really linked us. I can read your thoughts. I saw everything about the contract, and that you were innocent. It had the same effect on me that it does on other Pfahrn.”

  Their eyes widen, horrified. “What?”

  “But I found a way around it, don’t you see? I found the proof without needing to use that. So no, you didn’t invalidate the contract—I did, with proof of fraud. Independent proof I found that anyone else could have found, if they were looking for it.”

  They pull away from me. “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Do? Fuck them, Mohrn. They lied to you all your life. They used you. They were going to throw you away. I love you, buddy. Me. That’s not the venom talking—that’s what I’ve felt for you since we met. What we’re going to do is be fucking happy together from now on.”

  “But…what am I supposed to do?”

  There is so much pain and confusion and even anger in their soul I can’t make heads or tails of their thoughts right now.

  “You get to do everything you ever dreamed of! And, because you’re Khalden, you don’t have to worry about being ishblane anymore. Perk of the rank. Fuck them. Isn’t that what you always wanted?”

  I think I’ve misheard them when they whisper, “No.”

  “What?”

  They take another step back. Now I feel the shock and fear and a whole mix of emotions I can’t even begin to decipher slam into me—from Mohrn.

  I thought they’d be happy about all of this.

  I was wrong.

  I was…incredibly wrong.

  Is there a word more wrong than wrong? Because apparently, that’s what I am. I can’t even feel what I thought was their love for me right now. There’s nothing in their connection but that…vast, black gulf of pain and fear and confusion.

  I watch Mohrn’s back as they turn and run, disappearing through the front door, moving too fast for me to stop them, even with my augmentations.

  Too fast for me to have any hope of catching up, I’m sure.

  I don’t try, either. I feel…stunned.

  In shock.

  Because one thought did pulse through to me from them before they fled—“I cannot do this.”

  And it sure as hell feels like they meant…me.

  Have I really gone through all of this only to find out that no, he—they, phey—don’t feel anything for me?

  Anything at all?

  I step over to the window and, sure enough, I catch a flash of violet as Mohrn disappears down the other side of the rise on the trail leading into the wilderness, most likely heading toward their favorite spot.

  It feels like my entire body…aches.

  Not in good ways, either.

  The pain feels centered in and radiates from the center of my chest, like my soul is trying to shatter but the confines of my skin and bones prevent the destruction from completing. It is a pain I feel because Mohrn is in pain. Except they’re also desperately trying to get away from me right now.

  What did I do wrong?

  I thought for sure they’d be…well, happy. I mean, okay, not happy to find out that the person they trusted and thought was their father and brothers—despite the shitty way they treated Mohrn all these years—wasn’t really their biological family. That their entire existence was built upon lies not from one person, but multiple people.

  That they had been nothing more than a pawn.

  Mohrn now controls arguably the most powerful landholding conglomerate on the damn planet. They are now also a lawmaker, by virtue of their birthright, and by the award for what they went through.

  They could do all the things they’d talked about doing while we were alone in the prison, about guaranteeing rights for those like them. Insuring equity for the abandoned, and for those who chose a different path.

  We’d talked about those plans together. I mean, okay, yeah, Mohrn didn’t know the truth then, that yes, we really could do it, but I’d thought…

  I thought the big pink bastard loved me.

  Or at least had feelings for me.

  Maybe this was far more one-sided than I thought it was. Maybe my body lied to me. Did I misinterpret what I thought I felt from them? Was it not just rose-colored glasses, but rose-flavored venom?

  Blaming my current state on the venom is a cop-out and I know it, because being honest with myself means admitting I’ve had feelings for Mohrn for a long time before that. Maybe from the moment I first looked into their eyes in person. Before we’d even completed the first mating.

  From the moment I saw their picture and felt…drawn to them.

  Drifting over to the table, I sink into one of the chairs and stare at the uneaten meal. I�
��d taken great pains to learn from Cloohdlin how to make it exactly the way Mohrn liked, something special for them, never knowing I’d be able to use my skills in person this soon.

  Is Mohrn really that horrified by my admission? I’d been extremely careful throughout the course of my doings to make sure never to lie to them. Never to outright deceive them. I knew Mohrn couldn’t read my thoughts and my mind the way I could theirs since first being bit, but I honestly believed they loved me.

  Had I been wrong?

  Had I mistaken sexual energy for emotional energy?

  Had I failed to show Mohrn how I felt for them?

  I mean, hellooo, clearing their name and proving they’d been lied to and in truth deserved their birthright and the estates they now controlled—and the accompanying legislative seat—was a pretty big deal.

  Right?

  But what if I was completely wrong?

  I had built my hopes completely on a future with Mohrn. If Mohrn doesn’t want me…

  Then I don’t know what I’m going to do, either.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Mohrn

  Everything has come crashing down upon me, and I do not know how to deal with it.

  Therefore…I run.

  I do not even know how to begin trying to…process.

  On top of the crushing reality facing me—losing Simon far earlier than I believed I would—I realize I cannot face losing him at all. I cannot do that.

  I love him.

  Worse, I have now lost the only blood clan I thought I could lay legitimate claim to.

  I am truly alone.

  Finding out my entire life has been a deception built upon a convenience shatters me to my core. I was raised knowing I was different and feeling like an outsider. I assumed it was because I was ishblane. I felt lucky that at least our planet had progressed past the time when those like me were killed and our bodies parted out for use in dark magick.

  Still, I grew up perpetually worried and sheltered, believing that I was both a great shame to my family and also at even greater risk should I venture too far out into the world on my own.

  I was, as Simon would likely say, kept as one does a fungus—in the dark and covered with fertilizer.

  Although ishblane retain legal protections under the laws of our planet in modern times, we never truly feel like we fit in.

  Now, I suppose I know the true reason for that, in my case.

  I never fit in because I was never intended to. The birthright laws allow for the parent to hold off designating the primary heir, because of cases exactly like me. I suppose the double shock of me being ishblane and Yyallohrn losing their one true mate because of it was too much for them to take, perhaps?

  I had tried to prepare myself to never see the beauty of Pfahrn again. To open myself to new experiences once this part of my life had passed.

  I had not anticipated meeting Sy.

  I had not anticipated now becoming that which I had always longed to be and yet knew I never would be, in more ways than one.

  Khalden.

  The first like me to achieve this status.

  Worse than all of this? I had to conceal the full truth of the matter from Simon, and yet he saw through it all, knew what I was hiding, and discovered my life was an utter lie I did not even know about.

  I thought by doing this I could at least hold on to my honor. Now, I have fame and recognition and a birthright…

  But do I even have honor? Is that possible?

  Pain and fury build inside me as I run. I need to escape. I need away from Sy before I accidentally do or say something to harm him. It seems I have far underestimated my feelings for him and am not prepared to say goodbye to him so soon.

  The end of our contract.

  Is it possible he is telling me the truth about his feelings for me? How am I to ever trust again? I grew up being lied to about my very identity, by people willing to cast me aside as garbage. What truths are there now? Perhaps he only loves me for my money. How many times did he mention to me that I was a “blessing” to him because he could support his family?

  Worse, what if his feelings are nothing more than the venom speaking for him? He admitted to me he never had a romantic relationship before. What if this is nothing more than biological ardor and once he is rid of the bionanotech he understands he was mistaken?

  How can I allow myself to ever trust anyone ever again? If he can never reciprocate with me in our mating, how will I know his true heart?

  Why does the thought of losing him cause me such great pain?

  I run, until it feels like my lungs will explode from exertion. I run until I hear the river and when I round that last, blessed bend and see my refuge, I collapse onto my knees in the soft sand, throw my head back, and howl my devastation to the oldest ones in the sky.

  * * * *

  It is well past dark when I roll onto my back and stare up at the stars. I ruined my voice screaming, trying to release the pent-up anger and pain.

  The jealousy.

  That is a strange and ugly emotion I have never felt before.

  I have never had reason before.

  The memory of seeing a brief portion of that video during my discharge process, what Simon did by rutting with the Guyardiens to help me or not, contract or not.

  It should not affect me so, and yet it does.

  What does that even mean?

  I have to release him from our contract. I have already issued the yundohn date. I did that before leaving town and filed it with the regional office there. It would be unethical to hold him to it for the full term. Perhaps my biological and adopted parents are liars, but I am not and never will be.

  Yet it pains me to know Simon can leave once yundohn comes to pass.

  I do not understand why he would stay.

  Unless…

  I lie there with the damp earth beneath me and the stars above me. I do not move, even when the skies lighten and shadows grow, then shorten, and I feel the warmth of the sun on my skin after I close my eyes against the brightness.

  So long since I have felt this.

  I understand what Sy meant about always being cold in space. He sees me as warmth, but even with bedclothes and a uniform, I was always cold in the prison.

  Only when I was with Simon did I feel true warmth.

  The thought of losing him should not destroy me the way it does.

  Yet, it does.

  Instead of fleeing a home I understood never wanted me, I now control that which I used to believe I most desired, and I cannot control the one thing that has ever brought me true happiness.

  Before I was transported back to Pfahrn, I was also allowed to view the video of what happened in the medical bay. The day Simon saved my life.

  I terrified him in my raged state, that much I could see. He flinched when I roared. Yet he still stood up for me, to me, with me.

  He knew the risk he was taking allowing me to bite him, and yet he refused not to take it.

  The prison doctor gave him a chance to let me die, and yet Simon refused to allow that to happen, either.

  He fought for me, in more ways than one.

  My slippery little human. So difficult to hold on to.

  When the sun grows too warm on my face, I roll over and press my cheeks into the cool ground beneath me. I know from long experience the shadows will soon cover my spot, and so I wait.

  I smell the warm, earthy musk of decayed vegetation, of animals who have passed this way, I smell—

  My eyes open as my nose twitches, following, my body crawling across the clearing.

  Old and faint, and yet it is.

  My Simon.

  Here is where he sat for a while, and here. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. Perhaps I had not taken him fully at his word when he said he visited. I knew he could have used the mapping software to explore and take the pictures, but he had made it here in person.

  He’d meant it when he said he wanted to spend time here.

&
nbsp; Time in the place I love most.

  There are more places, all around the clearing, where his scent is even fainter, and yet…here.

  He visited multiple times.

  I strip and walk into the water, my mind spinning as I sink all the way below the surface, letting it flow over me, cleanse me of the last vestiges of that place. I suck a little water into my nostrils and mouth and force it out again, just enough to flush me clean.

  Then I return to the shallows and stretch out on my back, my head cradled in the cool, healing mud as I stare up into the trees.

  I wonder if my Simon did this, too.

  I wonder if he closed his eyes and pictured me here.

  I had always feared this area would end up marked for mining.

  Now, I can preserve it forever, long past my own lifetime, with an irrevocable wilderness trust.

  I would say that my children and their children will be able to come here and do this and reset their minds and souls, but then I remember that I have no true mate.

  Even if I did, the one my heart seems to love will leave me soon. Even if some miracle arose and he does not leave, we would not be able to bear children together.

  And what Pfahrn would ever want to breed with me for a contract, much less love?

  I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and let the sobs roll free, the water washing my tears from my face as they trail down to meet the river’s cleansing touch.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Simon

  I think by day four I knew.

  Mohrn wasn’t coming back. Not until they knew I was gone.

  I can’t even process that right now. Until the end of the month, I’m still legally Mohrn’s spouse—Mohrn-mohr. No, scratch that, technically Khalden-mohr. He—they—still have a massive fricking estate to run, since it’s now all merged into one unit. And the mining stuff. I won’t just turn my back on it all and say fuck it, see ya.

  I spend the days leading up to yundohn working toward making sure everything is in place should I need to appoint a caretaker until Mohrn’s return.