“Yes,” whispered Oberon. “I feel you.”

“I was scared,” said Ángel. “I’m still scared. I couldn’t believe you would love me, especially because I’m not fae, and I don’t have magic—”

“You are overflowing with magic.”

“Am I? Then it’s the wrong kind—so I was scared. And when they told me you didn’t want to see me, I believed it. For a minute. But oh, Oberon. Can’t you feel how I feel?”

Oberon stroked Ángel, reverently. His skin color was coming back—pale taupe, only lightly tinged with gray. “You love me? You love me?”

“I love you,” said Ángel. “Even if you—even if you decide Mendel is the one you love, I’ll still feel this way. It’s not pity, Oberon. I’m just not very brave. But I love you.”

Oberon began, softly, to purr. “I am not going to decide that Mendel is the one I love. I only love you.”

He cuddled Ángel close, rubbing his face against Ángel’s chest. The signals coming from his skin tingled, became warm, soothing; he began to smell faintly like ginger. They lay together, legs entangled, for a long time.

“I read this magazine story,” said Ángel, after a while, “about penguins. That’s a kind of bird. They lived in a zoo, so, like, an artificial environment, but the zookeepers tried to make it as natural for the penguins as possible. And in the spring all the penguins mated and started laying eggs, and the zookeepers noticed that two boy penguins had mated and were trying to incubate a rock.”

Oberon murmured, “How sad.”

“Yes, but then there was an orphan egg, so the zookeepers gave it to the boy penguins, and they adopted it and they were like a little family. Total happy ending, right? But the article said it only happened because there were more boy penguins in the zoo enclosure than girl penguins. In their natural environment, they would have sought out female mates. And later, when there were more girl penguins available, the boy penguins broke up and mated with females, because that’s what’s natural for penguins to do.”

“I am not a penguin,” said Oberon. He raised his head. “Ángel, you are not a penguin, either. This planet has millions of available human mates for you. Do you think you will find a human man you love better, and stop loving me?”

“No.” Ángel was certain of that.

“Why do you have faith in your own love, but not in mine?”

Ángel gazed at him. “I guess that’s a good question.” He touched Oberon’s face, his lips. “I don’t know. Maybe because no one ever loved me before without wanting me to change.” He paused. “Although I think my dad is trying.”

“I want you.” Oberon kissed Ángel’s fingertips, touching one with his tongue, and the sensation sizzled down Ángel’s nerve endings. “Only you.”