Dante gazes down at me. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on in his head, if anything.
“I rut for this little female,” he says, his tail curling around my waist. “I rut for her,” he adds emphatically.
“You do?” I find my voice is a hoarse whisper.
Kerra and Scarlett have told me a bit about a Sarkarnii rut, having experienced it firsthand. It’s not something I think I’m ready for.
“He is in rut,” the computer answers for Dante. “He is filled with mating mix.” It seems to hesitate. “And it means you should not take anything else, for the mutation, Dante.”
“Nothing?” He lifts his head.
“Nothing.”
Dante looks down at me.
“What happens if you don’t take anything?”
“I bite small human females because they have a scent I cannot resist,” Dante murmurs, stroking one huge digit over my cheek. “Things become a blur. It is difficult to think straight. All I can do, all my crew can do, is act instinctively.”
“Like the Kursarkarnii,” the computer chimes in.
“What are they?”
“They are the Sarkarnii before we were able to control our shift, our ancestors.”
“Feral and dangerous,” Dailiah says.
“It would seem the mutation sent us back to the time before we were Sarkarnii,” Dante adds softly. “And we have to control that side of ourselves with narcotics, or we will not return to being who we are.”
He releases my hand for a moment before curling his around mine as if it was a mistake to let me go. “Now I need to show you my cargo.”
We approach a doorway in the med bay, and it slides open into an airlock. When we step inside, there is a slow hiss of gas, and then the door on the other side opens into a large room filled with light and plants, a bit like the atrium Dante showed me.
Dante releases a series of small gulping yelps, and I stare at him.
“I am calling them. They will have scented you and gone to hide,” he says, as if that explains everything.
“Who? Who are you calling?” I demand, absolutely not in the mood for more Sarkarnii insanity.
“Them,” Dante says, nodding into the undergrowth.
As I follow his gaze, the leaves part, and I see pairs of eyes, all with slit pupils staring at me. One by one, the slender creatures emerge. They’re maybe my height at five foot six, some a little taller, some much smaller. Their scales are paler than Dante and the rest of the Sarkarnii, but they are Sarkarnii.
“Sarkarnlings,” he says.
“Children?” I gasp. “How?”
“We were transporting them in stasis, taking them to their parents in a colony the Sarkarnii had created on a new planet, Orias,” Dante says. “They survived the wormhole without mutation. I did what I could to keep their stasis pods running, but in the last nova month, they have all ceased to function, and all of them have awoken.”
One by one, the Sarkarnii children emerge. Some are wearing nothing at all, some have rudimentary clothes. They all look nervous.
“Dante?” A male steps forward. He is wearing, for want of a better description, a long waistcoat. “What is this?”
“This is my mate.” Dante grins. “A female.”
I feel something touch my fingers and look down to see a significantly smaller Sarkarnii take hold of my hand. She smiles up at me, two gaps where her fangs should be.
“Er…hi…” I say, using my free hand to wave at them.
