He frowned, wondering, as always, how her brain functioned. Her head was in direct proportion to the rest of her, which he reckoned made her skull a good twenty percent larger than his—or any boy’s. The geneticists who’d designed the clan’s binary children had given her a cute flat nose, wide enough to hold additional blood vessels that fed into a carotid rete at the base of her cranium, a configuration of arteries and veins that basically served as nature’s heat exchanger. Yirella and the girls needed it to help cool their larger brains, along with the absence of hair, which would’ve otherwise acted as insulation over their skulls, preventing the heat from escaping.

All that extra gray matter generated more and smarter thoughts than Dellian could ever manage, just as the geneticists intended. But it meant keeping up with her and the other girls was hard sometimes. “Because now everyone’s gone, most of the portals have shut down, especially to somewhere as remote as this.” He gave her an expectant look, pleased that he’d come up with a logical and rational answer.

“The resort is maintained to give people a holiday. Therefore, regular transport is an obvious requirement. So why shut it down?”

“I liked the sense of isolation we had here. It made me feel…I don’t know, different, like seeing what being an adult is going to be like.”

She grinned. “Me too. It felt like we were being trusted for the first time ever. That was nice.”

His eyes tracked along her amazingly long legs, wondering how they’d feel straddling his hips. Perfection, he decided. “Could’ve been better,” he said wistfully.

Yirella laughed and flicked some sand at him. “Oh, Del, you’re not still cross that we didn’t have sex, are you?”

“Saints, no. I wasn’t cross. I was disappointed, that’s all.”

“It’s just, I don’t think this was the right place and time for you and me, that’s all. The island was purely about everyone partying and having lots of fun sex. We deserve it after all those battle games we’ve been playing for the last couple of years; they’ve been tough. Now we’re all as relaxed and happy as we’ve ever been.”

“Yes, but…No, sorry, I still don’t get it.”

She gave him a genuinely caring smile. “Look, we both know we are going to have sex, and it’ll be great sex, too. But we have feelings for each other, strong feelings—you know this. So being together could mean a lot more for us. I don’t want to risk that by making it the same as a simple holiday fuck. That’s why.”