“Don’t leave me here,” she cries with a shaky voice, her hand reaching down to grab the cushion. “W-won’t make it.”
When her plush bottom lip begins to tremble, I decide I’ve had enough. Rules be damned. I can’t let her continue to be stuck in whatever awful vision she’s experiencing. I lightly brush my fingers along the back of her hand. “June,” I whisper. “Awaken, June. You’re safe.”
She still doesn’t wake, and the words she mutters aren’t even words. They’re bitten off unhappy sounds that twist my gut.
I grab her shoulder and try shaking her a bit. “June, wake up.”
She jerks back as her eyes fly open, worry and fear changing the luminous green of her irises to a dark seaweed color. “Wha-where are they?” she asks, getting to her feet and looking around, bewildered.
“Who?”
That’s when her gaze settles on me, but only for a heartbeat before she wraps her arms around my middle and hugs me like I’m her only tether to reality. “Zivren,” she chokes out, her grip tightening. “Thank god.”
At first, I’m frozen in place. My son is the only being who’s ever held me this tightly. I’m not sure what to do, or how to react. June’s body shakes and when I hear her soft cry against my chest, my front arms slowly fold around her. I keep my touch light, casual, non-threatening. “You’re safe,” I tell her, hoping my embrace brings her nothing but comfort.
She pulls back with tear-stained cheeks a moment later, and her expression is twisted in shame. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.” She bites her lip, dropping her hands to her sides. “A bad dream. It was just a bad dream.”
I let her go and clear the knot in my throat as I attempt to look as unaffected as she does. “It’s fine.”
We remain like this for an indeterminate amount of time, a very short distance between our bodies as we stare at each other. I don’t know what it means, but I can’t bring myself to break away from it. Particularly when her eyes return to the brighter green shade that’s so easy to lose myself in.
Her gaze drops to my lips, and I want more than anything to peek inside her head and see what’s on her mind. Does she like the way I look? Or does she find my purple skin unsightly and voice grating and daydream about forever closing the source of such a wretched sound with a needle and surgical thread?
“I…” she begins, her gaze traveling over the bridge of my nose and along the lines of my jaw. What does she see? “I should get going.”
The spell is broken.
“Right,” I reply. There’s no hiding the disappointment in my tone, but maybe she’s too tired to notice. “I shall see you tomorrow.”
She offers me a wave and a smile before closing the front door behind her.
I plop down on the couch, sinking into the cushions that are warm from her body, and try to clear my head. How am I expected to continue this torturous charade? What can I do?
As I ponder breaking my rule of listening to her thoughts to see if she returns my affections, I hear a commotion building outside. Voices raising. More than two, in fact. Then I hear June’s.
“This is ridiculous!” she shouts. “I’m an approved resident of the island. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
I race outside to find two large males with rusty orange scales and white jumpsuits closing in on either side of her, a stout, older looking male with blackish gray scales and yellow feathers along the center of his skull holding a thick folder of papers in front of her face, and Uzellarin, Chancellor of the Isle of Many, looking like she wants to squeeze the feathered man’s head until it pops like a bubble.
“We have laws here, Lord Forchan,” Uzellarin declares with clenched fists. “You cannot pluck a resident from their home and take them back to whatever planet from which you hail.”
“She is a murderer, Chancellor,” Lord Forchan replies through gritted fangs. “I’ve explained this to you already. She killed our benevolent king and must be prosecuted immediately back on Etirinu.”
June lets out a scoffing cackle. “Benevolent? The king who used to beat his wives and children when they spoke without his permission? That’s the king we’re talking about?”
I watch Lord Forchan raise his webbed hand like he’s about strike June and something snaps inside me. Something foreign and feral.“Ficqing porkovyo!”I shout as I charge toward the group and wrap my fingers around the lord’s thin wrist, yanking it backward. “You do not touch her.” My voice is gravelly andalmost too low for me to recognize, but I make my threat clear, and I can see the terror in Lord Forchan’s eyes as he registers my size and the fact that I have twice as many arms as he does.
“Zivren, let’s not resort to violence,” the chancellor says nervously. “We can resolve this issue with words, of that I’m confident.” She turns to Lord Forchan. “You see, this is what happens when you attempt to break a mate bond. You could’ve at least warned us about your arrival and the matter at hand. The couples on our island are blissfully happy and will lay down their lives to protect one another.”
June meets my gaze, and I can tell she’s as confused as I am.
The chancellor gestures between me and June. “A new mating such as this, well, that’s when the eternal bond is at its strongest.”
Mate bond? Me and June?
My mouth flops open.
Lord Forchan is caught off guard by this revelation, but only for a moment. A sneer returns to his oily, tightly pinched face as he says, “A mate bond means nothing to the government of Etirinu. This female is an assassin of the mighty King Hextul, and I am required by law to bring her back so that she may be properly prosecuted.”
