“A snotty rich one. So…?”
“I got a Drathious.”
Sky blinks like she’s never heard of them.
“Not as oversized as Talhuskins, but they burn like demons, can throw fire, and have wings more like dragons that catch fire.”
She puts in a pair of stud earrings that shine like blue sapphires. “Lot of fire.”
“Yeah.”
“You must know a lot after living in space. Is this even exciting for you?”
I move aside for another woman, who’s returning from the showers. “Quite a bit, and…I’m not sure. I was, but I’m mostly looking for a change in my level of safety. Not sure if I’ll find it.”
“What are Ginarigons like?” the woman beside me asks.
“Prefer sister-mates. They usually have a few females, harem-style. Cocks aren’t as big as you’d expect, but they’re known for their frequenthunger. And watch out for the drugging bite,” I reply. “That’s how they get you, whether you like it or not.”
She tilts her head and shrugs. “I can get with that. Thanks.”
Sky watches her get dressed and hurry off to chat with some other friends like they all arrived together. “Please tell me Mindor are not like that.”
“No. They are pack animals,” I reply. “Think of them more like wolves if wolves were shifters and a community. They watch out for each other’s mates. They take their mate in front of the pack as a rite of passage to the woman becoming part of the pack. And if her mate dies, another male will care for her.”
“That sounds nice. A tight-knit family.”
Yeah, it does.
Mine has been broken since my brother died. Then Ahna left. We sold the farm, and my parents moved to the city. Then Mom died, and Dad followed just days later.
I miss when we felt whole, strong, like we were going to stay together forever.
When Sky is ready, we head through the doors to the buffet hall where women carry plates loaded with food to tables andbooths. The clatter of silverware on ceramic meshes with excited and nervous chatter in a numbing drone.
Sky’s right. I should be elated to be here, but something doesn’t feel right. Part of me feels that it’s because I’ve walked away from my ship and my job right when it’s especially needed by a hurting species.
“Unless the female dies,” I mutter. “I encountered that a few months back.”
“What happened?” Sky gets in line for the buffet with me.
“I was doing a drop off of medicinal plants. Mindorans are a lower-tech species. They try to keep things traditional, though they have substantial forces in orbit. But life on the surface is pretty natural still. So ifshedies, the male will shift into his wolf form and leave the pack. He becomes what they call a Night Stalker.
“Night Stalkers patrol the perimeter of the dens for infiltrators and for sneaky teens hoping to howl at the moons. Only non-mated males will take a widow as a mate. These widowers stalk until they wander off to die. It’s pretty sad, really. But that’s how they survive, I guess.”
“What if they have kids?” Sky asks.
“The pack raises them. They believe in a mother and father, a nuclear family. If he is alone, he is not seen as enough.”
“That is really sad. So he loses literally everything when she dies?”
“Yeah.” I grab a plate and fill it with everything from fancy sandwich rolls and truffles to crispy mozzarella sticks and mini cupcakes. “Gnakatoa are similar in behavior, but they’re a lot more like lizards, not to be confused with Lasinnce, which are closer to extinct Komodos of old Earth. They are very independent and often fight each other for territory rights and mates. It’s why they’re not in the races. They’re too combative. But they look a lot like Gnakatoa in body structure.”
Sky and I find an empty booth and take seats across from one another to look out at the race grounds. The TV screens on the walls around the buffet hall play video clips of the other women answering questions, but I’m not really paying attention. I’m still stuck on what Sky said.
“Yeah, I don’t know if Mindor is what I want.” Sky sounds disappointed.
“Might be comforting since you’re used to your robots. Except they’ll care for you. Plus, they’re warm. Even when they’re in their humanoid form, they have really light, very short fur all over. So they’re much softer than hugging a robot.”
