Jailmates

by Lesli Richardson

  If the big pink bastard won’t so much as say goodbye to me after all I did for them…

  Well, then fuck them.

  I gave them my heart and got shit on. I know they’re upset and overwhelmed, but come on. At least fucking talk to me.

  Unless they return, once the contract officially hits yundohn status, I’ll take a transport up to the docking station, then a skiff over to the space station, meet H’looder and his crew there, and we’ll then head out to another galaxy. Apparently there’s another situation, a different species, obviously, and a human. H’looder is eager to get to work with them.

  H’looder guesses it’ll take at least a couple of weeks to reverse most of what I want reversed. He was honest with me that he’s not sure how long it’ll take to reverse the effects of the envenomation, especially since I’ve had multiple doses, but he’ll also experiment with antidepressants and other drugs to try to help me through it.

  Yes, H’looder offered me a crew spot on his vessel. He asked if I’d be interested in tagging along as part of his engineering crew and letting him do some long-term studies on me.

  At first I wasn’t going to take him up on it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized maybe planets are overrated.

  I won’t feel cold in space anymore with the thermo-tech.

  Frankly, it pisses me off that Mohrn can’t be so much as bothered to return to the house. Not like they can’t fucking find me. The tracker won’t deactivate until the expiration of the contract.

  Fucking BPB. More like Big Pink Baby.

  I even moved out of the master suite and back to the guest room because I felt like a damned idiot. Mohrn and I wouldn’t be sleeping there together, who was I kidding?

  Those stupid fantasies of curling up and going to sleep wrapped in those strong arms and tucked against that warm body in a house that belonged to us were dreams I never should have engaged in.

  A contract.

  That’s all it was.

  That’s all I was to him.

  Them.

  Phem.

  What the fuck ever.

  I can’t even go into town now without everyone speaking to me, giving me deferential treatment. Every fucking eye on me.

  That means I have zero privacy. But I have business to take care of for the estate, for the mining accounts, and that means I have to do it.

  I can’t slough it all off right now. It would be disrespectful to the Khalden for me to do that, and I won’t do that to Mohrn. Being ishblane, they’ll still have enough of an uphill battle with people. I don’t need them to think Mohrn had a batshit crazy human mate making things worse.

  The final straw was when I broke down sobbing during a vid com session with H’looder.

  Rock, meet bottom.

  I wasn’t going to try to hunt Mohrn down and force them to talk to me.

  Maybe that was also part of the problem. Physically, Mohrn was older than me, but I now know they weren’t nearly as mature. I’d been in the military, seen a lot of shit. Emotionally, Mohrn is younger even than Hells. Granted, Mohrn also had a shitty fucking home life, and they weren’t very savvy when it came to personal relationships.

  I mean, not that I had a lot of room to talk. Technically, Mohrn was my first “relationship,” but at least I hadn’t been a damn virgin when we got together.

  I’d been their first, and not exactly by their own choice, either.

  H’looder helpfully sends me information on the stages of grief, but that’s about all he can do for me until the contract expires, and I know it.

  As the final morning dawns, I lie there after having not slept at all, the entire night spent praying Mohrn would swoop in and apologize at the last minute and make it all better.

  I should’ve known better.

  I pack my things and sit to hand-write a note for them. Even take the time to translate it into Pfahrn script for them, because I’m a nice fucking guy, apparently.

  Not because I’m stalling and hoping Mohrn shows up while I’m writing it.

  Nope, not at all.

  Mohrn,

  I’m sorry I hurt you. I thought you’d be happy I freed you. I guess I mistook what I was feeling for you as mutual. I love you. It doesn’t matter to me why.

  A driver will pick me up later today to take me into town. I’ve booked myself on the last daily transport to the orbital station, which leaves after the contract expires. Since your absence and silence have made it perfectly clear to me that you don’t want me around, I have agreed to join Dr. H’looder’s crew. I guess I’ll let him try to undo whatever this is and I’ll sort out my feelings about it later. I can’t be around my family like this. I wouldn’t even know where to begin telling them about any of this. I need to get myself together first, and there’s still a couple of years left before they were expecting me. At least they’re both in school right now.

  For what it’s worth, I was ready to spend the rest of my life with you here on Pfahrn. I never lied to you about how I felt. It started as a contract, but I genuinely love you. I find it difficult to believe that’s due only to the medical effects of what they did to us for the mating. I got to know you.

  The initial attraction, sure, that was probably medical, but what I grew to feel for you was real. I thought what I felt from you through our connection meant you felt something for me, too. I guess I was wrong.

  If you ever want to talk, get in touch with Dr. H’looder and he can put you in contact with me. I’ll make sure I stay in contact with him if I ever decide to move on. Right now, I honestly don’t know what to do with my life. I thought I had it planned out, but those plans all revolved around you and helping you run the estate while you made history as a lawmaker.

  Now I’m just a guy with a broken heart and no idea how to start getting over that.

  Cloohdlin has all the information you’ll need to take over running the combined estate. The next legislative session starts at the beginning of the primary moon cycle, or in twenty-one days. Your seat is waiting there for you to be sworn in, Khalden A’djanhrn.

  Maybe this doesn’t mean anything to you, but I am very proud of you. So damned proud. I’d really hoped to be standing there with you as your proud Khalden-mohr when you were sworn in, sitting in the gallery and watching you as you led your first session as Khalden.

  If it’s available on video, I’d still like to see it. I’m still proud of you.

  I’d hoped to at least see you one more time and tell you goodbye in person, although I’d really hoped never to have to say goodbye at all, because we’d be mates forever. I don’t want to leave, but I can take a hint.

  Maybe all the medical stuff hit me a lot harder than I realized and I’m making an ass out of myself and it really was nothing but a contract to you the whole time.

  I thought what I felt through our connection meant you truly loved me.

  Honesty is first, right?

  Well, I’m hurting right now.

  I feel hurt that I’m apparently not worthy of at least enough respect or affection or something for you to come say goodbye to me. Hell, not even a handshake?

  I feel hurt that if this was me misinterpreting things that you didn’t afford me the dignity of telling me that to my face and allowing me one last hug.

  I feel hurt that I didn’t even get so much as a thank you from you for proving the truth and restoring your honor and your deserved birthright.

  I feel hurt that I’m left sitting here crying as I write this damn note to you.

  I feel hurt that I can’t even feel anger at you. Just sadness over losing you. Grief on par of what I felt losing my father.

  I feel anger at myself for falling in love with you and for believing you were better than the rest of those assholes and that you truly lived what you said you did.

  What I don’t feel is regret for anything I said and did while we were together. Contract or not, I exposed the truth and restored not only your birthright and honor, but you have your dream now. You
have the respect of your peers, but I have to tell you, those assholes aren’t worth piss. You’re better than them. Fuck them. Fuck all those assholes. You’re way better than them.

  Love and well wishes. Stars and sunrise. Hopes and health. May truth walk with you.

  As does my heart—and it forever will.

  In my heart, I will always be your mate, your Mohrn-mohr, and consider you mine, even if you don’t want me. I will always grieve what I wish we would have had.

  I will always miss you and consider you my greatest, sweetest blessing.

  Love forever,

  Sy.

  Dusk is closing in when the driver arrives to take me into town to the transport station. They load my things for me while I take one last walk around the house. In a small travel tube with the carry strap slung over my shoulder I have three of the drawings Mohrn made for me while in prison, including one of the clearing. The rest are secured in another tube inside one of my trunks. These are my favorites, though, and I want them within easy reach.

  Maybe it makes me a masochist, but I want them.

  They’re all I have left now, besides my memories. I don’t know what reversing the effects of this will do to me, but I want those three pictures and the memories of the way they make me feel.

  Because in my time with Mohrn, I’ve felt more and in far deeper ways than I’ve ever felt anything before.

  Finally, I close the front door behind me and, forcing myself not to look back, I climb into the car while I blink away tears.

  Goodbye, you big pink bastard. I hope you find happiness with someone, even if it’s not with me. You deserve to be happy, finally. I want you to be happy.

  * * * *

  Like everything else on Pfahrn, the transport station looks low-tech when the truth is they’ve integrated tech so seamlessly with everything that it’s deceptive. The driver loads my things onto a porta-sled for me and, with it in tow, I enter the building to check in. I’m early, I know, but better that than sitting around an empty house and crying my damned eyes out, right?

  While I’m not the only non-Pfahrn here, I am the only human in the place.

  Kind of obvious who I am, too.

  I don’t know which is worse—that everyone now knows who I am because I exonerated Mohrn and elevated their status as a result, or that everyone knows my relationship with Mohrn was that of a contract, which is now terminating.

  That…stings.

  Still, as always, they act polite and deferential to me as I move through the gigantic space toward the waiting area for my transport. Heads are tipped and I acknowledge every soft platitude spoken to me as I pass.

  No matter how ignominiously this ends for me, I will never disrespect Mohrn in front of others. For another little while, I am still Khalden-mohr, the mate of Khalden A’djanhrn, and I couldn’t forget that even if I tried.

  I’ll damn sure act like it, although it feels like my heart is being dragged across jagged, fiery glass in the process.

  I settle in a seat on the back side of one of the ornately carved stone pillars supporting the cavernous space’s roof. It affords me a little shelter, and with my heavily laden porta-sled next to me, unless you know who I am, you likely wouldn’t notice me now because you have to come right up on me to even see me.

  I check my com unit and realize I still have almost two hours to wait before loading will begin.

  Fuck. Me.

  I smooth out my kilt around me, tip my head back against the column, close my eyes, and pray not to cry until I am safely locked inside a damned private cabin on the transport.

  I’d really hoped for a fairytale ending, a romance-book last chance, where the hero realizes how badly he’s fucked up and he swoops in and apologizes, grovels, and makes up with the heroine.

  Except my hero obviously isn’t going to do that. My hero fucking disappeared, not wanting anything to do with me.

  I can take a fucking hint. I won’t let the door hit me in the ass, either.

  I don’t know how long I sit there when my com link buzzes. My heart throbs as hope pulses that I’ll find a message from Mohrn. Disappointment washes in when I realize it’s an automatic system message from MC.

  Contract officially expired. Automatic tracking nodule deactivated. If you wish for the tracking nodule to be manually reactivated, please respond to this message and…

  I thumb the message closed and shove the unit into my pocket, closing my eyes again.

  I guess it’s official, then.

  No more wishing it would end the way I’d hoped, no last-minute sweet reunion.

  No more wishing, period.

  I crack my eyes open as a low rumble fills the space and I realize the transport has arrived, and it’s early. Somehow, I missed its approach.

  I’m slipping, I guess. Too much time on a planet has dulled my skills.

  But they’ll have to offload the passengers and cargo and be checked by customs first before they’d load us, so it’ll be a while yet.

  I am going to miss this fucking planet. I love it here. It’s gorgeous, and not just because of whose eyes I first learned to view it through.

  Because I loved it.

  I’d loved it because Mohrn loved it.

  I’d thought it’d be my home, too, and I’d been eager to make it my home.

  I guess I’m just not destined to have a damn home of my own.

  I settle in to wait.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Mohrn

  I keep track of the days I am gone, until yundohn. I have little physical hunger, and when I do I satisfy it by nibbling on plants or berries.

  Although my traitorous body’s sexual hunger nearly drives me back to the estate. While I wish to see Simon once more, I know if I do it will utterly rend my sanity into pieces I cannot restore. It is best I do not see him again before he leaves.

  Besides, as my mohr said himself, sometimes you just cannot fake it any longer and need to do what you have to do to take care of yourself.

  I stay close to the river as I need to slake my thirst, and I roam my favorite place in the universe with a grateful heart that I am able to see it one more time, and will continue to do so.

  I am not at a critical point in my heat yet, nowhere close to that. Unfortunately, I know that I can simply travel into the town now and arrange an encounter. It will cost me, but not nearly as much as losing my heart has.

  I am reasonably sure there are plenty of volunteers to help the Khalden with their needs. Possibly even for free.

  The truth is, however, I don’t want anyone else.

  I want Simon even though I am no longer required to be tethered to him.

  Rather, he will no longer required to remain tethered to me. Even if I thought my soul could bear to see him one more time, lie with him one more time, I do not wish the emotional pain it will cause me to be with him one more time. It would also feel…like I am using him.

  I do not wish to do that to him.

  The slippery little human embedded himself deep into my soul. I do not know if what Maxim Colonies’ doctors did to us is the reason, or if it is genuine love, but there are two truths I have to admit to myself—I cannot hold him beyond the contracted terms. I will not.

  And it will destroy me to lose him.

  He did this for his family, people who have known him all his life and who love him very, very much.

  People he was willing to do anything to support.

  I cannot ask him to give them up. I will not ask that of him.

  What I do realize after all these days is that I lived alone before Sy, and I will continue to live alone after him. Losing loved ones hurts in ways I am not prepared to relive. Once he is gone and returned to his life, I suppose I will find a way forward through mine.

  Alone.

  On the morning of the day the contract will terminate, I wash myself in the river one more time, dress, and slowly begin my trek homeward. I have screamed myself nearly mute over the past days and will probabl
y need every moment of time I shall have before the next legislative session starts to regain my voice.

  A voice I never expected to use in that way.

  A voice few would have ever listened to before, much less given any credence or respect.

  I have everything I wanted now, and more. Far more.

  Except I do not have the one thing I discovered I truly need.

  Simon.

  When I make it home, I hesitate at the front door. It feels…empty inside, and when I enter I confirm that. The main com panel is on standby, and I touch it, just to be sure.

  Simon’s tracker is nowhere on the estate. When I search, I see he is at the transport station in town, just before the screen freezes and turns red.

  A message flashes across it.

  Contract officially expired. Automatic tracking nodule deactivated. Thank you for using Maxim Colonies!

  I would cry, except I have no voice. And yet my tears still fall. I can smell him everywhere in the house, as if he has only stepped out to do the shopping. It makes my heart ache and bleed.

  Then I find the note he left for me and I am…

  Gutted.

  I do not have ground transportation, and there are no drivers who can get to me and back to town in time. So I take off on foot, desperate and praying to gods I never hoped existed before.

  Now, I do.

  Ooooh, how I do.

  I run as if my very life depends on it because it does. If I allow Simon to leave without telling him yes, I do love him, I suspect I will never see him again.

  He would have no reason to believe me.

  He would have no reason to think I was being truthful. What, I apparently came from a long line of liars, biological and adopted.

  But as I round the final corner before the road dips into the hollow that houses the transport station, I spot a shuttle slowly rising from its berth and ascending. Wordlessly, I hoarsely scream, jumping up and down in the vain hope that Simon will see me.

  Will somehow know I did not let him go without a fight, belated though it might be.