Her Dragon Everlasting: 50 Loving States, Arizona

By Theodora Taylor

"Theodora, I thought I was ready. I wasn't ready" - 5 Star Amazon Review

First I wake up on top of a snow-covered mountain, in an unknown place and time. Then less than an hour later, I'm offered up as some kind of virgin sacrifice to... Well, I don't know who he is...or what. But he lives in a glacier castle with lots of shiny treasure. Has a long, retractable, forked tongue. And he will claim me as his FATED MATE.
Now one thing's for sure. If you thought the stories about my grandfather and father were sexy and bigger than life, you had better brace yourself for this DRAGON of a tale.

Find out why readers are saying...

"Oh my word...."

"Bless you for sending us on that roller coaster of emotions"

"AMAZING!!!!! She had me on the edge of my seat...If it wasn't for that pesky thing called sleep I would have finished it in one day."

"I'm in love with a dragon! I'm in love with the whole story!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Theodra Taylor
• Release date: Sep 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781942167327

Book preview

Part I

Where am I? When am I? What the…?

Chapter One

Special Confusion Note for Alpha Kings Readers: Don’t worry. Keep on reading no matter what, and both this note and all confusion will become clear. I promise! Hugs, Theodora Taylor

---

Her eyes opened to a river of blood.

She propped herself up on one aching arm, blinking the world back into focus. Gaining perspective. Enough to finally realize the river was more of a rivulet, oozing its way across a patch of snow. But it was definitely blood.

Your blood, the side of her head informed her, throbbing and burning hot with pain. She reached up. Felt something wet seeping from what could only be a large gash across her left temple. When she brought her hand back down to investigate, her fingertips were damp and bright red. And… hypothesis confirmed.

She would have cursed, but her teeth chose that moment to begin chattering. Ironically, her searing head wound was the only heat she could feel. Aside from that, she was cold. Deeply cold. The coldest she had ever been despite growing up in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Strange. Not only because she should be more or less impervious to the cold after a childhood spent as close to Canada as you could get in the lower forty-eight, but because of what she was. A shifter. A werewolf to be exact. And thanks to her unique body chemistry, temperatures above twenty degrees Fahrenheit had little to no effect on her.

Which meant wherever she was, it was way the hell below twenty degrees Fahrenheit. And a long way from where she’d started out this morning: just a few miles from the facility, in Arizona. During one of the hottest summers on record.

You shouldn’t be doing this…

Ola, it will be alright.

Fenny, it won’t be alright! If I’m here, it’s not even remotely alright!

WARNING! WARNING!

An urgent electronic voice shrilled in her head, shoving the memory away, and yanking Fensa back into the frigid present. Another point of warmth appeared on the back of her neck where her bio-ware bleated,

WARNING! OFFLINE! MANUFACTURER WARNING!

Fensa fell back into the snow, her arm collapsing, and her head exploding in pain as the microchip embedded in her brain stem screeched straight into her cerebrum. Then came a second sharp bite of agony as her cheek sliced across something. She jerked up, scanning the ground nearby. A rock…dark and nasty beneath a formerly white blanket of snow. Probably the very same rock that gave her the gash on her head, if the blood splattered, winter-themed Jackson Pollock painting surrounding it was any indicator.

Meanwhile, her bio-ware continued to bleat its dire warnings. " Your GoGen is currently out of the GoGen service area. You have sustained injuries that may include the following: moderate to severe concussion, mild to moderately sprained ankle, severe contusions, and approximately two minutes of unconsciousness. Your GoGen bio-ware is unable to connect to the server for a full analysis. Please report immediately to a medical service bot or facility staff to receive a comprehensive analysis."

Fensa couldn’t agree more. She needed to find a doctor. Stop the bleeding. Warm up. Because, as her papa used to say, by the Fenrir wolf, it is cold!

Wandering around in sub-zero temperatures in nothing but a pair of black Lycra fitness shorts, and one of the five thin gray t-shirts issued to her by the facility was definitely not going to work for long out here. The ensemble was perfectly suited for her allotted twice-daily walks around the facility grounds in the often blistering Arizona heat. But this was not a blistering Arizona day, and the facility was nowhere in sight. Fensa felt sure if she didn’t solve the clothing situation soon, she’d probably lose a few toes and fingers to frostbite, like you hear about in those human lost in the frozen wilderness movies. So after she finally managed to pull herself up from the permafrost, her very next priority would be to track down a decent change of clothes. And then, like, full body hug a space heater.

Fensa tried to sit up—but nearly blacked out again from the effort. A sharp, piercing pain stabbed through her head, and her stomach lurched, threatening to expel the oatmeal she’d been issued earlier that day for breakfast.

She stopped, waiting for her body to catch up with her will as she took in the scene in front of her. A mountain. She was on a snow-covered mountain—which made sense. Nearly all time gates were located in kingdoms, small mountain towns or villages with a local wolf population to monitor them, and perhaps more importantly, keep the gates completely hidden from humans.

The last thing she remembered was standing on a mountain… one made of red sandstone that probably hadn’t seen snow in over a millennium. But now she was on another mountain. Apparently in the middle of a Game of Thrones level winter.

Brace yourself, girl, winter is already freaking here.

Fensa dragged herself forward through the snow, scraping her pain-wracked body over the cold, unforgiving ground until she reached an overhang. She propped herself up just high enough to peer down the mountain’s steep slopes and was greeted by a seemingly endless expanse of…well, white. A valley of snow, snow, and nothing but snow as far as the eye could see. No, not just snow. Some of it seemed far too smooth, too solid. To her untrained eyes, it resembled a vast plane of ice. Like those massive ice sheets Greenland used to have before they all melted. And…there was something else, farther off in the distance.

Fensa narrowed her eyes to squint at a collection of…tents? Igloos? A combination of both, maybe? Round, brownish dwellings with tiny people gathered in small clusters in front of them. They seemed to be staring up at her, just as she was staring down at them.

A kingdom village, she suspected. Based on the relative proximity of the gate she’d just come through. But that made her stomach lurch again, this time for a very different reason.

A kingdom village made up of circular huts rather than modern structures? This wasn’t good. Not at all. Fensa was forced to change her line of questioning. Now she was way less concerned with where she was and way more concerned with when she was.

Damn time gate…

What are you going to do when you get there, Fenny? You know the gate won’t bring Papa back. Nothing’s going to bring him back. He’s gone! Let’s go back, Fenny. Please!

Fensa glanced around for her twin sister, Ola, but there was no sign of her. She was no longer begging Fensa to return to the facility before it was too late.

Where was Ola? One more mystery to be solved. A steady trickle of blood dripped from her head down the side of her face. Like blood-tinged sweat produced from the sheer effort she was putting into trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Aunt Alisha’s story about how she’d damn near broke her arm when she’d gone through the Viking time gate didn’t seem quite as funny as it had when she’d told it at the last Thanksgiving dinner Fensa had been allowed to attend.

She had to get up. Find help. Find Ola…and given the lack of a medbot, find bandages for her head. She was pretty sure bandages were what people used to stop the bleeding back in the days before medbots. Pretty sure…

Fensa diverted all her mental and physical efforts towards pushing herself up to a stand, despite her throbbing head, lurching stomach, and—what had the GoGen chip said? —severe contusions. Oh yeah, she thought on a wince when she finally made it to her feet, the GoGen called that one right. She felt like she’d been hit by a Zamboni, then rolled back and forth over rocks for extra kicks and giggles.

Or spit through a time tunnel into an eff-ton of icy tundra.

One of those...

Shift! her wolf howled at her, wanting to escape its human’s pain. For a reason shifter scientists still couldn’t quite explain, changing into wolf form healed most non-mortal injuries.

Believe me…I would if I could, Fensa answered. But that option isn’t available to me nowadays.

The facility had put Fensa on the heat control shot, the shifter equivalent of human birth control, less than twenty-four hours after she’d been escorted through its doors. And much like how human women used to gain weight while taking birth control (the result of their bodies being tricked into believing they were pregnant), Fensa could no longer shift into her wolf form at will because her body was pretty damn sure it was pregnant, and pregnant she-wolves didn’t shift. Nature’s way of protecting the future mother (and child) from their inner beasts during gestation.

Now, normally this no-shifting thing wasn’t a big deal if you were stuck in a facility, and didn’t want to risk adding more years to your sentence by wolfing out every time a Ph.D. doctor-splained why you had to let your beloved twin sister go. But heat control had its drawbacks when you were trying not to lose your extremities to frost bite.

And to think just a few hours ago, Fensa had been rebelling against her miserable existence at the facility. Ha! It turned out the joke was on her because this cold wasteland was giving that place a huge run for its money. She’d never been so miserable in her life. Not even that summer before she was due to head to college when Papa shipped her off to her Uncle Grady and Aunt Tu’s Oklahoma summer camp for teen wolves. She’d not only been forced to give up her video games for a whole two weeks, but she ended up getting sent to the facility halfway through her stay. Fensa had thought the worst moment of her life was when she walked through the facility doors with her disappointed parents on one side, and Aunt Tu on the other. But no, the bone-shattering cold of this place was way worse than that, for su—

Fensa stopped, freezing in place…and not because of the cold. A sudden upshift in the wind’s direction carried a new scent to her nose, something other than blood and snow. She was being watched. She could smell them behind a nearby pile of large rocks. Male shifters. At least three or four. Lying in wait.

Fensa cursed inwardly, wishing she’d paid more attention to Uncle Grady’s instructions in those hand-to-hand combat classes he’d insisted she take during that failed summer camp experience.

Hi! she called out, striving to keep her voice light as if she’d just happened by on a carefree stroll…through the tundra. In her fitness shorts and facility t-shirt. As you do.

I’m Fensa Greenwolf, Princess of Michigan, and cousin to President Nightwolf. I, uh…I come in peace.

Typically, Fensa went out of her way to avoid name dropping her lineage. Royal ties only brought shifters the kind of attention they didn’t need or want at the facility. Ask her cousin Knud about that. It had been almost daily fights for him until he finally left in a body bag.

But under the current circumstances, Fensa decided to quickly reverse her keep yourself to yourself policy of the last five years. If name dropping convinced whoever waited for her behind those rocks to stand down, she was more than happy to give them a long list of her royal connections.

And maybe it worked because four figures slowly rose from behind the rocks. They all wore similar outfits: smock-like garments made up of brown animal hide, with fur-lined hoods. The wind shifted again, and she caught an unfamiliar scent along with their wolf pheromones. The hides they wore smelled like…elephant? But somehow different. Which once more begged the question, where the hell was she???

And when? her overwrought brain added. Because her current problems extended way beyond head wounds and extreme cold if she, like her Grandma Chloe, had landed in the Viking Era.

But no, these guys weren’t Vikings. They were relatively squat and small in stature, somewhere in the region of four-foot-four. Which was odd because most male shifters Fensa knew stood above six feet or so. These guys were like the mini-versions of just about every male shifter she’d ever encountered. They had weathered faces, and thin, dark almond shaped eyes, which reminded Fensa of her great-uncle-in-law, the dearly departed Inuit Alpha King of Alaska.

And speaking of…

The former King of Alaska was my great-uncle. In fact, his granddaughter, Koko, is my cousin...and close friend. We were even making plans to move in together next school year...

Given the snow and the Inuit-like features of these shifters, Fensa was beginning to wonder if maybe she’d arrived somewhere in present day Alaska, since a few of the Alaska wolf tribes were, as her Aunt Tu once put it, keepin’ it traditional on three-fucking-hundred. They not only continued to dress and live like their ancestors, but they also had special permission to catch one whale per year to feed their people and provide villagers with blubber for their oil lamps. Though that still wouldn’t explain the strange elephant smell…

Please God, let this place be part of some remote village in Alaska, Fensa prayed. With a zoo…please…

But then the four shifters raised their right arms. And Fensa immediately lost hope.

Each male held a weapon. Not guns, knives, or bows and arrows. Because any of those would have been acceptable, if equally unwelcome. Instead, these weapons consisted of long, slender sticks that ended in very sharp looking, elongated off-white triangles. Fensa’s gaze narrowed and then widened in surprise. Bone. The triangles were made of animal bone. Expertly carved and sharpened to jagged but deadly points, then attached with thin strips of hide to tree branches stripped bare of their bark to reveal the pale, smooth wood beneath.

Spears.

These people were aiming spears at her. Spears made of wood and bone.

While there was the slightest chance she’d stumbled upon some sort of off-the-grid, traditional Inuit hunting group, Fensa knew even the most hardcore Inuit preferred modern weaponry like harpoon guns and rifles. And given the lack of any modern trappings on these shifters…Fensa figured now was as good a time as any to go into full-on panic mode.

Oh, Fenrir Wolf! Oh, God!

Fensa prayed to both her mother and father’s gods as the four male shifters began to advance on her with their spears raised high.

Chapter Two

"Y ou shouldn’t be doing this!"

Fensa kept walking. Doggedly moving forward. Trying to ignore the one person she never could: Ola, her twin sister. But her hiking boots were becoming heavier and heavier. Filling with sand, thanks to their lack of shoestrings. The sun beat down on her, relentless and unmerciful. Punishing her. Cursing her stupidity with its heat.

The only thing worse than the sun… effing Ola.

Her sister matched her stride for stride. The desert trek was super easy for her. She wasn’t even winded. Which was too bad, because she was using her every effortless breath to second guess Fensa.

Girl, you are going to DIE out here!

Fensa didn’t answer. Just kept moving forward.

You’re going to get caught, and all those plans you made with Koko to move in with her and finally start college? Poof! Gone like a damn magic show—right before they send you someplace even worse. Why did you bring me back here? You were almost free! Ola’s voice, usually so Detroit cool, grew more frantic by the minute.

Fensa couldn’t reply for all the sandpaper in her throat. She should have brought water with her. But she’d honestly thought she could make it, since the North American time gate was only about four or five miles away from the facility. But as it turned out, four or five miles was a damn long way to trek in sand-filled hiking boots, and nothing to protect her from the vicious sun but a thin gray t-shirt, and a pair of flimsy shorts.

She should have left at night instead of the middle of the day when the sun was at its highest and strongest. But it wasn’t like she’d had much choice. No…Fensa had seen an opportunity, and she’d taken it.

You’re going to break Mama’s heart with this, Fenny! Again. Doesn’t she deserve some peace after the divorce and Papa’s funeral?

Fensa hated that she and Ola were divided on this. Before Papa’s death, her twin had been her most loyal supporter, defending even her craziest actions. But not today, which admittedly gave Fensa pause.

But then, like a wish granted, the bottom of the mountain range appeared. Red and stubby and dotted below with ancient sandstone cave dwellings cobbled together by a shifter tribe from long ago. Fensa glanced farther up the mountain to the natural caves above. They were scattered across the mountainside like moles on an otherwise dusty red face.

She couldn’t see the time gate at all. But then no one could actually see the gate. However, her wolf could sense it. And it was her wolf that propelled her forward, quickening Fensa’s previously leaden steps with the need to get to the portal on the red mountain’s highest, sun-facing steppe.

What are you going to do when you get there, Fenny? Ola demanded, striding right beside her on the mountain path.

Look at it. She only wanted to look at it. The gate had been calling to her with its siren song ever since her parents and Aunt Tu dropped her off at the facility four years ago.

Look there, Daughter…you can view the mountain the time door sits upon from your window, her papa had pointed out. When you look to it, think of your papa slipping from his time into yours.

Bullshit, Ola answered her memory. You’re not just going to look at it and think of him! You know going to that gate won’t bring Papa back. Nothing’s going to bring him back. He’s gone! Please turn around, Fenny. Go back…please!

Ola, it will be alright, Fensa croaked out of her sandpaper throat.

No, Fenny, it won’t. If I’m here, things are not even remotely alright!

"It will be alright!" Fensa insisted, her gaze set firmly on the time gate.

Really? How is any of this going to be alright??? You’re dehydrated as fuck. And you can barely walk!

But Fensa was almost there. She couldn’t turn back now. It will be alright. Trust me, she croaked again, trudging forward.

But it wasn’t. Not even remotely.

---

The world was upside down, swaying back and forth when Fensa came to. This time, rather than the stark white expanse of snow and ice, she felt rather than saw thick, scratchy fur. It was covering her. Her eyes slowly adjusted to reveal a hairy, brown blanket that smelled strongly of the almost-but-not-quite-elephant she’d scented earlier. And beneath her…a horse. No, wait…not a horse.

She inhaled deeply through her nostrils. Then inhaled again because she couldn’t quite believe her nose. But the nose never lies—especially when it belongs to a wolf. Which meant as difficult as it was to imagine, she was almost certainly draped across a type of reindeer.

What the hell was she doing on a reindeer???

From her dangling position under the rank-smelling blanket, Fensa could make out a set of large black hooves—cloven like those of a deer or goat—deftly navigating the snow and ice covered ground below. And beyond the hooves, she spotted the fur-and-hide wrapped feet of two of the four shifters who’d jumped her with their spears. She assumed the other two must be up ahead, leading the way.

At first, she thought to call out to them, but then remembered what had happened the last time she tried reasoning with this gang of spear-wielding thugs. So instead, she focused her mind on more important things. Such as…

Where were they taking her?

As if in response to her silent question, the reindeer came to an abrupt halt. Fensa heard a sharp whistling sound and the crunch-crunch-crunch of feet moving towards her through the snow. And then the musky hide was whipped off her, thrusting her back into the unimaginable cold. But before her teeth could even begin to chatter again in protest, hands grabbed her and hauled her off the reindeer like she was an oversized couch they’d been charged with delivering.

Sadly, this wasn’t the first time she’d felt like oversized furniture. Her mother was a 5’10" video game designer, and her father was a ginormous Viking. Lucky her, she’d inherited her mother’s awkward social skills and her father’s inability not to stand out in a crowd. Which resulted in her morphing into a huge nerd—both literally and figuratively. This had caused her no end of trouble during her teen years because—yay! the only thing better than being a chronically shy adolescent? Being a chronically shy, six-foot tall adolescent who’s fatter than the average she-wolf.

Her cousin Koko wore her height and curves proudly, declaring, The softer the pillow, the better the lay. But ever since puberty, Fensa felt less like an inviting pillow, and more like the huge, unwieldy piece of furniture these male shifters were treating her as.

What are you doing? Where are you taking me?! Fensa demanded as soon as they set her down on her now considerably less shaky feet.

Apparently, her second head-wound nap of the day had done her well. Yay for that. But not really…because the male shifters now surrounded her, their spears pointed towards her vulnerable middle.

The largest of them shouted words at her.

Unknown language. Unable to translate, her GoGen unhelpfully informed, making her want to rip the damn thing out of the back of her neck.

But it wasn’t like she needed a translator. The big guy (relatively speaking) brandished his spear and used the tip to roughly prod and jab at her clothing, his message vicious and precise: Strip. Or else!

He wanted her to take her clothes off? Here?!

Are you fucking kidding me!? Fensa asked, no longer interested in diplomacy. She’d gladly let all four of them stab her with their spears before she gave up even one stitch of clothing in this intense cold. So they could just go fu—

All thoughts disappeared when she glanced up mid-angry eye roll and noticed the structure. Right there in front of her. Completely tuning out the mini-shifters and their spears, Fensa gazed up, awestruck. To think she’d completely missed this huge…thing.

What exactly am I looking at??? she wondered, taking an unconscious step forward.

For one ridiculous moment, Fensa was nearly convinced she’d stumbled across the intimidating ice castle from that old Disney movie, Frozen. Brought to life. Minus the angsty queen with the blond braid and beltin’ 1000 singing voice.

It only took her a nanosecond to abandon that line of thinking. Because although the resemblance was there, this thing didn’t look exactly like an ice castle, per se. The structure was at least a hundred feet tall and loomed over her with the massiveness of a glacier. A giant glacier that someone…or something…had put a lot of time and effort into hewing and carving to closely resemble...well, a beautiful building. Made of ice. Fensa was no expert on architecture…but she was pretty sure the two thrusting towers at either end of the structure were turrets. And the walls glowed blue as if lit from within. Oddly though, the structure had no windows.

Fensa had seen holo-pics of glaciers when she was a kid in school. And she’d visited the few remaining ice caves in Alaska during her childhood. This structure shared similarities with both, but it didn’t fall easily into either geologic category. Her thoughts bounced from the teacup-sized shifters wielding bone-tipped spears to this elaborate, futuristic ice palace.

Seriously. Where the hell was she?! When the hell was she?!

It felt like her mind was exploding inside her head. Which was probably why she didn’t notice the four shifters closing in on her. Again. But this time, instead of knocking her out, they started ripping at her clothes.

In preparation, she would soon find out. Because they were about to sacrifice her to whatever lived inside that ice fortress.

Chapter Three

If not for the high-pitched shrieks, Xenon would have never exited his dwelling.

The Far Travelers Experiment Group 7, though a true feat of bioengineering, had proven irksome in their need to regularly bestow gifts upon him. He had explained to them numerous times that he would only accept gifts of precious metals and gems—aurum, adamas, and any other minerals he could use to power his glacier station lab or replace the worn parts on his conductors. This, he’d told them time and again, was what he considered good treasure. And to their credit, they had swiftly begun bringing him regular deliveries of precious metals and gems.

Unfortunately, they also seemed to be under the distinct impression Xenon was in desperate need of female companionship.

A little over five solars ago, he’d come to this planet with a team to investigate an appeal put in by the Royal Geneticist. The older drakkon had been sent here on a mission to develop a tracking beast that would provide ground assistance for the royal hunts. To that end, he’d completed his mission successfully. However, it was not a complete win for the court because upon returning to Drakkon, the Royal Geneticist submitted an official petition to change the planet’s status to that of a protected habitat.

As it turned out, the Royal Geneticist had grown close to his creations during the 10,000 years he’d spent designing and developing the King’s half beast, half hominid hunting companions. Perhaps too close.

He’d not only become a fervent opponent of the Millennial Royal Hunt but went so far as to submit a second petition…this one a request to delay the upcoming hunt meant to celebrate the inauguration of the new King, Xenon’s brother.

As the Royal Geneticist had admitted in his petition, both the anthrohominids and his bio-engineered lupinhominids were primitive and lacked higher intelligence. They were also only slightly more evolved—due to their larger brains and capacity for language—than their primate ancestors. But the lupinhominids, and at least one genus of the anthrohominids, had begun developing tools, language, and rudimentary expressions of art. The Royal Geneticist believed both species had the potential to evolve into two distinct, civilized species, and should therefore no longer be treated by drakkon as mere game or tracking companions.

The petition had proven vexing for both Xenon’s brother, the then Crown Prince, and his cousin, the Royal Huntmaster. For various reasons, a few restrictions were added to the King’s otherwise unchecked power when the Blue Drakkon line took over the throne. Petitions by members of the court could no longer be dismissed out of hand. Or simply ignored because the Crown Prince wished his hunts to continue uninterrupted.

Which was why a hundred drakkon survey team had been sent to this planet for a thousand rotation observational study to determine if the Royal Geneticist’s petition should be granted. As Royal Overlord (and a favored member of the court who would keep the Crown Prince’s wishes in mind), Xenon’s uncle had been appointed as head of the investigation. Xenon’s cousin, the Royal Huntmaster and son of the Royal Overlord, had also been named to the mission and given a security title. But given that he’d immediately started to oversee the training of the new lupin species just in case, shortly after they landed, Xenon suspected his cousin’s appointment had more to do with his court title, than with any sincere interest in the mission’s security.

Unlike his cousin, Xenon took his mission title and directives seriously. And like any good scientist, he endeavored to reserve judgment about the Royal Geneticist’s claims while he collected data samples on his assigned group of lupinhominids. However, he was beginning to have his doubts about the lupins’ intellectual capacity. For despite Xenon’s explicit rejection of their first female lupin offering, the Far Travelers Group 7 continued to offer him one of their puny females at least once every moon cycle.

Of course, Group 7 didn’t make these offerings to him out of sheer altruism. Ultimately, they did it for the meat.

Per mission protocol, Xenon had never discussed his reasons for being here with Group 7. Nor had he told them the real purpose of the fresh meat he handed out to them from time to time—a boon for their mostly maritime village. Unfortunately, the Far Travelers, hailing from so nascent a species, had concluded he was a type of god, a deity to be praised with shiny gifts and females. And perhaps even more practically, they hoped for his aid in a new squabble with a hostile anthro tribe who’d recently migrated from the south—or Zone 6 as the Drakkon research group referred to it. And though the Royal Geneticist had reported that this species had the potential to shift without the moon’s solar power, they had yet to figure out how to organize themselves against the much cleverer anthros or give them good fight on shift nights when they became little more than feral, unthinking beasts.

Xenon had been warned before agreeing to this assignment that the Group 7 lupins might eventually begin worshipping him as a deity. Apparently, the species of hominid they’d been cultivated from had a genetic propensity towards theism in all its various forms.

You can be their god, or you can be your brother’s victim, Xenon’s father informed him when he commanded Xenon to join the thousand-year planetary research expedition. Whether he wanted to or not. I would prefer you to be the living god of a wild, primitive species than a dead Prince of Drakkon. And when the thousand-year expedition has completed, perhaps your brother’s flame will be less red towards you.

So here Xenon was. Stuck on a half iced-over planet. With a species at the bottom of the intelligence scale. Assigned to study an experimental group of hybrids that continued to leave females at his door, in spite of his protests.

In any case, when he first heard the Group 7 leader’s distinctive whistle over the lab’s outside security feed, Xenon’s initial instinct was to ignore it. He had much work to do.

But the scream that soon followed the whistle changed his