33
This would not end happily for him. That much was clear.
“Reverence? Is everything ok?”
Xenon looked up to see his fated mate’s worried face above her bent legs. He’d allowed himself to get lost in the dark thoughts again. Something he wished to avoid doing in her presence.
During this pregnancy, his examinations always ended with him honoring her before pulling her atop him so she could more easily ride his male works in her increasingly large state. But today he’d let his flame go blue with the thoughts of what he must do in a half moon’s time—two weeks, as Fated Mate would call it.
And that thought had turned what should have been a sexy examination into something bittersweet.
“Forgive me, Treasure,” he murmured quietly inside her head. “I ponder the next moon’s feast. The closest bison herd is growing thin. I should begin a search for a new herd with Eos this morn. Then shall I return to help the Far Travelers with the construction of the ground caves.”
Xenon stopped when her flame turned bright yellow, and her chest rippled orange with laughter. “Why flame you thus?” he asked.
“Because for someone who claims not to care about the hunting beasts, you’re sure putting a lot of thought into this next moon’s feast and helping them build cave dwellings.”
For not the first time during the four rotations they’d spent together, he gave thanks his flame was not visible to her. That she could not see the blue tinge when he answered, “I suppose it is fair to say they have grown to my liking.”
“Reverence?” she asked him with a soft smile.
“Yes, Treasure?”
“I know you’re anxious to leave, but do you think we might have a little time to honor each other before you go? I’m getting so big, as you may have noticed. Lord knows how much longer I’m going to be able to honor you in any way until the baby arrives.”
Once more, Xenon’s flame blued at her words. He could no longer trust himself to respond. So instead of giving her words, he gave her his hands upon her waist. It seemed his male works were not as occupied as his mind because both penises stood ready to receive her wet heat as soon as he pulled her above him.
However, rather than embedding each penis in her front and back per usual, he allowed her womanhood to engulf one while pushing the other up against her swollen clit. This was a position he used only rarely because she often came too quickly for their liking.
But this morning was different. Not only did his heart fill with stark relief when she found her honor a short beat later, but he spilled into her soon after. Happy to be done. If not with the act, then at least with the lie.
Xenon looked to the cave entrance. The view had changed from sky to river since their time at the hot spring. Not only because Fated Mate had met his condition of trust, but because he had no wish to restrict her freedoms further. He did not want her to remember him as a jailor…
Another dark thought.
“I will return for the midday meal,” he told her, giving her forehead short press before he rose to his feet.
“Okay, bye,” she answered.
Xenon made a great effort to ignore the dark spots of confusion upon her otherwise yellow flame.
He turned and rapidly made his way to the mouth of their cave.
But instead of going toward to the encampment as he usually did when Golden Son slept apart from his parents, he immediately launched upwards. Unshelling as he sprung from the entrance, crying out for his son to join him in the air.
Golden Son responded to the summons with proper haste. The year had matured the boy in interesting ways. He still did not stand as tall as a drakkon of similar age. And he remained far from adulthood, despite nearly four solar rotations having passed since his birth. But Golden Son was now as tall as a wolf of ten rotations, and though he still had what his mother referred to as an “impish sense of humor,” his pranks were far more carefully orchestrated, often taking days to execute.
However, he did not attempt light conversation with his father as they flew toward the north side of the mountain. To Xenon’s bittersweet surprise, his son had taken to their secret project with the zeal of a maker born. As it would happen, he and his hybrid son were not as different as he had once thought—a discovery that made Xenon both happy, and sad…for reasons he could not yet impart to his son or his mate.
Which is why he reminded Golden Son of his most important duty as they worked together at the site where his Most Revered had hoped to find her Arizona “gate.”
“I will remind you of this again, Golden Son. Though we keep this secret from your mother, you will protect her after I no longer can.”
“Yes, of course, Blue Father. A father’s duty passes to his son when the son leaves the family cave, and when the father leaves the world. You have told me many times. I understand.”
Golden Son’s voice had taken on a somewhat churlish tone as of late. One Fated Mate professed, “not to love.” But in that moment, Xenon already missed his son’s voice, churlishness and all, with a bittersweet longing he doubted would ever cease. Perhaps Fated Mate had been right all along about the value of childhood.
Another dark thought.
“We could make more of these,” Golden Son pointed out.
Xenon once more turned his attention back to his son. “No, I’m afraid we cannot,” he answered.
“Blue Father, I know this is your last one. But I was thinking more on Mama’s story about how hard it was for her father to track down her mother from the one North American gate. You said these mountains are much bigger than the ones on Drakkon. So maybe the system doesn’t have to be as big here. If we gather enough gold and find the right conditions, we could probably break this down to make several dozens more of these if we wanted to.”
“This is not a bad idea,” he said to his son. “More would certainly make it easier for the lupin. I’ve also had an idea to change the encoding, so that one does not have to stand directly in front of a fating portal in order to make use of it…”
Maybe he had grown as fond of the Royal Geneticist’s experiments as Fated Mate claimed this morning. Because for the next few minutes, he and his son hypothesized how the device they were working on might be broken down and multiplied. It was a good conversation. Filled with possibility and ideas.
Yet for the thousands of the years that followed, it would be this conversation he blamed.
It was the only explanation he could give for what came to pass. How he’d failed to keep his project hidden for the two more precious weeks he’d promised himself before doing what he must.
But as it turned out, both he and Golden Son had been so intent on their discussion, neither of them noticed anyone coming up the natural trail that led to this bit of outcropping.
Not until it was too late.
“What are you two doing up here?” a voice suddenly asked behind them, cutting the conversation short. Fated Mate’s voice, he realized, his flame darkening with shame.
And then, before he could turn to her, she said, “Oh, my God. Is that? Is that…the Arizona time gate?”
34
Fensa suspected it wasn’t going to end well when she followed Xenon and Eos up here. As soon as she spied her son and mate working together on the northern side of the mountain when they were supposed to be out hunting, she knew nothing good would come of her hauling her hugely pregnant butt up that mountain.
But she guessed cats weren’t the only creatures made dumb by curiosity. She’d stealthily followed Xenon for two reasons: one…because she sensed he’d been keeping something from her for weeks now. She might not be able to read heat signatures, but he’d become more and more distracted as this pregnancy progressed. She could feel him becoming more agitated and sad over their mate bond—rather than more and more excited, as he’d been during her first pregnancy. And though they continued to have sex regularly, it was…different. More desperate, somehow. And always forward facing, often with Xenon
staring intently at her as they moved together, as if he was trying to memorize her face.
And two…she was already so huge that her sneaking days were numbered. It could very well be today, or never. She’d known something was amiss when the two dragons circled back around the mountain rather than away from it.
But never in her wildest dreams did she guess what she’d find when she followed her mate and son up to the location where she’d broken down crying. By the Fenrir wolf, had it been over a year ago already?
Time passes when you’re falling in love, she thought to herself, even as she shook her head at Xenon and asked, “How did this gate get up here?”
The only acknowledgment he gave her question was a slight stiffening of his dragon shoulders. Then he said something to Eos in their hiss-shriek language and without so much as a glance at his mother, the boy flew off.
Leaving her alone with Xenon on the mountain. Next to a gate that had definitely not been there a year ago. Or, as she strongly suspected, even two months ago.
Xenon turned so very slowly that it was like watching a slow-motion scene in a movie.
“Treasure…” came the word in her head. Followed by silence.
Fensa stared up at her twenty-foot dragon. Waiting. Not wanting, but still needing to know.
Finally, he spoke. “I must beg your forgiveness, Treasure. I did not lie to you, as an acolyte must never lie, but there are things about myself that I did…” he trailed off, before coming back with, “…keep hidden.”
“Things like what?” she asked, even though her wolf was screaming at her in the back of her head. Run! Do not continue with this conversation. Do not ask more questions. Run!
Yet, she found she couldn’t obey her wolf. Couldn’t do anything, in fact, but stand there with her hand on top of the belly already so heavy with his dragon baby. Waiting to see how he’d answer.
He continued, his eyes turned downward, his head bent low. The reverent position for imparting bad news, she remembered from some lesson long ago. Finally, she’d instantly recalled a fact from the Reverence protocol, but wouldn’t you know it didn’t bring her any joy.
“Whatever it is, we’ll get through it,” she found herself promising. “You are my dragon, and I am your wolf. We’ll figure it out. I promise.”
“Reverence, you honor me with your loyalty, and I will treasure your words until my dying day. But this issue can only be ‘figured out’ in one way. I will start by answering your original question. How did this fating portal appear in this place? The answer is the lie of omission. I built it, Treasure, with Golden Son’s help. You see, I misled you by only telling you a few of my titles: Prince, Reverence, Treasure, Your Drakkon Everlasting—these titles are important on Drakkon and here on this planet. But for the purpose of my mission, there is only one title that counts: Royal Fate Maker.”
“Royal Fate Maker,” she repeated. Not understanding. Not wanting to understand.
“Yes. Fate Maker is the title given to those charged with the making and encoding of the fertility DNA matching systems. The Royal Geneticist—the drakkon you do call by the name of Fenrir—felt a DNA matching system would increase your species chances of viability since you do not reproduce nearly as easily or as fast as the humans. Also, there are so few hybrids that he was afraid of homozygosity within the groups. This is when the genes from both parents align so identically it creates undesirable outcomes in their offspring.”
“Inbreeding.” She pushed past her shock to supply the word. “You were afraid of inbreeding, which would potentially thin your hunting dogs.”
“I do not like your tone, but yes, your meaning is correct. Your species is already at the bottom spectrum of intelligence. We had no wish for you to become less intelligent because of, as you call it, inbreeding. For this reason was I brought along on this mission to set up a matching system which might prevent such poor outcomes. I was charged with installing a system in every major Zone occupied by lupin hominids. To give your species the best chance possible to become a fertile species that would provide us with good hunt. I had built all but one of the systems and was making plans to construct another in Zone 8, which is how we refer to this land…this North America. A few of the anthros had already started following herds across the land bridge, Beringia, and I hypothesized the lupins would soon follow. I’d even planned to fly here four rotations ago and do some reconnaissance work. But then you arrived at the Zone 7 portal, and my plans were…abandoned.”
He stopped there. Waiting for her response.
But her brain was still processing what he’d just told her with the sluggishness of a circa 1990s computer. “You made those gates? Not the original geneticist, or wolf god, or whatever he’s called. But you?”
“Well, the Royal Geneticist made a small system of three fating portals for his original experiment group in Zone 2. But as for the rest… yes, it was I who made those,” he admitted with a solemn nod. “It is all very complicated, Treasure, but the simplest explanation is I am a systems programmer and an engineer. I earned the title of Fate Maker through rigorous schooling. And I failed to share this information with you for fear of what you might ask of me if you knew.”
“Oh, my God,” Fensa realized out loud. “You could have sent me back?”
“Yes.”
“At any time?”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
He once again lowered his head. “No.”
She digested the news. It felt like someone had shoved a huge chunk of mammoth steak into her mouth, and she had to chew and chew before it could be fully swallowed.
But eventually, she did swallow. And her first words after doing so were, “I don’t care.”
“Treasure…”
“I don’t care. You were right not to let me return. We’re a family. You, me, and Eos. You were right, we shouldn’t be apart. I’m glad you didn’t tell me. I’m glad you didn’t send me back.”
With a strength she didn’t think she possessed, Fensa grabbed his huge dragon paw and placed it on her belly. “Now, let’s go home.”
“Treasure…”
“No, don’t argue with me. Let’s just go home. Back to our cave.”
She pulled at him again. Tugging with all her might.
But he didn’t budge. “Treasure, there is more. During my last examination...”
Fensa abruptly stopped pulling. “Oh, God! Please tell me you didn’t lie about that, too! The baby isn’t okay?”
“There is not one hatchling, Treasure, but two. That is the reason you are twice as big this time around. You will recall you barely survived the birth of Golden Son when we were in the glacier with a full suite of medical tools at our disposal, and the wall to guide me through the birthing. I feel certain you would not survive the birth of two hatchlings. It would have been a high-risk birth at my lab. But here…it is a death sentence for you and for the babes.”
Fensa shook her head, even as she realized the truth of what he told her. The pain. The blood loss. The memory of waking up in his arms weeks later, dazed and feeling like she’d gone to hell and back to keep her promise not to die.
“For you and our hatchlings to survive, you must return to your time,” he told her. “Where you will have access to the best medical care, and medicine specifically for your species. And to give you reverent protection, I…I will send Golden Son with you.”
Fensa shook her head, her heart filling with horror. What he was proposing was beyond unacceptable. She couldn’t return to her time. Leave him here, alone. For the rest of his ever.
“No,” she whispered. “Xenon, you must come with me. You come with us! We’ll say the return spell together, and we can all go back together!”
“Treasure, there is one thing a Fate Maker cannot do. And that is to travel through his own fating portal. In order that we might be given the credentials to become a Fate Maker, we are stripped of the vital nucleotides that allow any fated portal we’ve encoded to r
ead our DNA code. This is done for ethical reasons.”
A comment Aunt Tu once made came to mind. From that time when she accompanied Fensa’s mother on a tour of the Arizona facility. During the tour, the nurse went through a list of the rules, many of which seemed arbitrary on the surface.
After hearing that the patients—or “residents” as the nurse referred to them—weren’t allowed to wear shoes with shoestrings, Tu quipped, “You got to wonder what happened to inspire a rule like that.”
Tu’s words came back to Fensa…the memory stinging like lemon juice on a cut.
But she pushed the memory away, determined to find a solution that she could not find for herself when her parents left her at the facility. “Okay, okay, but you said there were some gates you didn’t make in Zone 2!”
“Yes, but those gates are on the other side of the land mass we used to call home. Too far for Golden Son to travel.”
“Then we’ll take breaks on our journey there. You can carry me. And we will stop along the way.”
“And what would happen if you began childbirth while en route? I never encoded the other portals, so you and our offspring could very well die while we tried to reach the portal made by the Royal Geneticist.”
“So you’re just going to send me away? Back to my own time?”
Xenon jerked as if her question had stabbed him with the same force as a spear in the eye. “Treasure, if there was any other way...”
“There is another way! I’m not willing to risk these babies—you’re right about that. But I am willing to risk myself. I’ll die having these children right here if that’s what it takes to keep us together.”
“No, I cannot allow that. “
NAGO, His Mississippi Queen: 50 Loving States, Mississippi (The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy, Book 1) Page 39
