A good king serves his people, but I have to be there for my Femeni. My Oma told me the scent would tell. Every instinct and urge demand I attend to him. Not to the point of unnecessary indulgence, but he was a simple farmer’s son. He would be at my side now, but he didn’t grow up in our empire. Everything was new. For now, I could let him see his planet as it shrunk in the distance.

Perhaps if I was truly honest with my thoughts, I wanted time with him. I’ve been both blessed and cursed by the universe. My old Femeni and Dara are gone forever. Two points of the shell lost amid the waves of death. And now… one point returns. I can enjoy these hours. Gerlari is attending to my affairs like the capable guard he is.

We watched the planet slowly disappear while I pressed into his body as Soturi and Femeni do.

I’ve missed this.

Nothing would ever take away the pain of my old losses. Peter… I smiled at his name. So strange yet fitting for a strange people. He wasn’t a replacement. It was disrespectful to think of him as such. He would help close the cracks in the shell as my people would say. Not the same as before, but the shell would regain strength.

My hand went around his tiny waist. I lied to him early when I demeaned his smallness. I didn’t want a mate… even though I smelled the warm scent of desire. Yes, I was far bigger and he fit perfectly against me. I leaned down against his head and inhaled the sweet smell.

I smiled when I saw his half-lidded expression in the window’s reflection.

“When?” He asked.

Questions about mating. Good.

“When we get to Augo.”

“But not before?”

I saw my smile in the mirror window. “It wouldn’t be proper.”

His voice cooed out like the animals near the sacred waterfall. “Is that what you want? A proper Omega?”

Such a simple thing. Just a vocal change and yet I felt my garment move to accommodate my erection.

I wondered if my muscles would feel warm against his cool soft stomach and chest. My lips pressed together as he reminded me of my Oma. So frail against a dangerous universe. Outside of my planet were other races like the Gloom. Within the blue waves were Ryba warriors. Even worse were the tiny microscopic contagion that kept my Oma within a force field prison.

I will do everything to protect you. Everything.

I ran my nose over his hair and breathed in the smell of trees. My Oma told me that every mate smells different. My old mate would waft with the scent of freshly baked sweets.

I wonder if Peter’s smell will change?