The only thing I have left to do is find a way to save my brothers from a fate worse than the one I have now.
Dante is still healing, so once we return to Earth, I insist he be put in bed before I find Luca in his apartment on the other side of Gia and Amara.
It is early, but he does not look tired. He looks alive, his eyes bright, his cheeks red.
‘What’s up?’ he asks me.
‘Need you to work at shop,’ I explain. ‘Dante needs rest.’
He looks immediately concerned, his face paling. ‘Bad flare? Need hospital?’
I don’t want to tell him that I have taken him to Erethar against orders. That I have borrowed an illegal portal device and have worked with the Tarek to heal him. All of those, I’d assume, would be punishable by death.
I do not wish to die. Not when I’ve just discovered something as sweet as Dante. I want to live with him for as long as I can. I do not want it to end early.
‘Better soon.’
Luca seems confused, but he simply nods. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the shop.’
I do not think Dante will need rest for long, but the zitha and my cum need time to work on healing his system. Sabik seemed very certain that he would be fully healed and would not need such treatments forever, but a small part of me hopes that Dante will still want to drink from me as I drink from him. I wish this very much.
I enjoy it.
And I want it to be something he does for pleasure, not just for healing.
My phone beeps on the kitchen island where I left it as I rushed out. I pick it up and see that Everest is messaging me. There are many missed calls from many people.
I feel loved and also concerned.
Why are humans so interested in being in contact at all times? On Erethar, it is not like this. There may be days when we are hunting or working the mines, unable to contact one another. It does not lead to distress.
It does offer us much happiness when we see each other again.
I stare down at the phone screen and then see the background change slightly, with a big green button at the bottom. Green means go, or at least that’s what Brody told me. He said red means stop and yellow means to slow down. I do not know why. This is not what it means on Erethar.
Green means something sick, something diseased. Yellow is fertility, and red is death.
But I am no longer on Erethar, so I click the green button, and Everest appears, his face large on the screen, his eyes wide.
“Oh my god. You’re back. I kept calling.” His voice is slightly panicked and breathless.
Rathyn appears over his shoulder, squinting slightly. “I told him to leave you alone, but my Everest has no ability to wait. He does not have patience, which is valued here and on Erethar.”
Everest ignores him, pushing him aside, and asks, “Can we come by? I want to see you both. I was so fucking worried.”
“Yess, but you must be queeeit.” I peer back down the hallway toward the bedroom. “Dante is sleeping and heeeeling. Nooo distuuuurp.”
“We will be so quiet. You won’t even know we’re there.”
Rathyn hums low in his throat. “I do not know how to enter a room without humans knowing I am present.”
Everest murmurs under his breath something about a gigantic ego and then adds, “We’ll be there soon.”
And then he hangs up, leaving me with nothing to do but check on Niaus. She is happily upside down, her tail wrapped around a perch, her eyes closed. I enjoy that this odd creature likes to display itself in ways that I have never seen before. It is different and quite satisfying. How do their small, thin tails support them? How are they able to sleep like that? I have many questions and no answers. In Erethar, at least in the placesI have been, we do not have animals that hang by their tails upside down. It is quite magical.
I open the cage and set a bowl of fruit on the bottom, and I see Niaus’s eye peek open. Then she is uncurling from her perch and making her way down to the food. I lower myself to the floor and watch her eat until I hear a knock on the door.
It is only then that I move from my spot on the floor.
