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So why shouldn’t I do my duty to protect who we are?

But I was young—younger than Rathyn, even—when I got my first taste of disillusionment. When I watched a young soldier who had done nothing wrong be carted off to the bowels of the castle, only to return a shell of himself.

That Vyastil never looked another one of us in the eye again. The scars were both inside and out, and every time I asked for an explanation, I was told it was none of my business.

And then he came.

My human.

A reward for being a loyal servant to the crown. He was one of the first, pulled through the portal on the promise that he would be given many gifts and treated with the highest honor.

That’s how they sell them: the companion contracts. They promise the humans everything in exchange for something so little—something that brings them pleasure. And too many of them are willing. They fall to their backsides and spread their legs. They dissolve herbs on their tongues that allow them to forget who they are, and they give and give. The Vyastil who have them grow stronger and more intelligent…

And more dangerous.

And, of course, I was the naïve fool who thought every time Kori put his hands on me in tenderness, it was a reflection of our future together. I loved him in a very human way. And while I understood my duty to my people, with Kori, I could forget for a little while that I was a tool.

A means to whatever it was those above me were working on. A project I willfully turned a blind eye to because I did not want to live with the guilt.

We had already perverted who we were. Those in power had spent eons corrupting our biology, destroying what came naturally to us. There were no Vyastil alive any longer who had a mate—who knew the unique feeling of being connected by heart, by mind, by soul to their VySytheh.

That was a word of mythos now. Of legend.

Of shame, reflecting the barbaric society we once lived in.

But I knew the truth. I swallowed it down and soothed myself with Kori’s cum, his soft hands, and the way he would lie in my arms and show me what it was to be different—how good and perfect it could feel.

Then I grew bold. I grew tired. And I spoke out of turn in front of Prince Jyrion, who’d had his eye on my human for far too long. My possessive nature and reluctance to live for a future I didn’t want clouded my judgment.

“Perhaps it is better if you find someone else for the next breeding cycle,” I said when I pulled Kori away from his wandering hands. “Perhaps it is better that I step down.”

His eyes grew cold, his claws long, his fangs sharp. Guards were on Kori, putting him in shackles before I could speak a word, and then I was on my knees with a knife at my neck.

“You need to be reminded of your place.” His words weren’t cold. They were full of glee. “I will handle your human. You will go for reeducation.”

Like Cielo, I am now intimately familiar with what happens in the darkness beneath the city. That pain and I are old friends, and the physical scars left behind on my skin are a reminder of that.

I cover them with my tunics to avoid questions and knowing glances from other Vyastil, but they are not the most painful part. The pain came from the realization I was a fool. I believed that if I suffered long enough, screamed loud enough, I would return to my post a better Vyastil, ready to soothe whatever scars Jyrion left behind on Kori.

I was not expecting to receive his final vial of cum, and the knowledge that his life was forfeit for my mistakes.

I will never forgive myself for his death, and I will never, ever allow myself to become weak for a human, ever again.

At least, that is what I believed.

And then I met Luca, and now everything is upside down.

Pacing the room, I ignore my internal alarm as I dissolve a bit of zitha on my tongue. I have several injuries from my time beneath Erethar that will never heal, and taking zitha once every fourth-moon cycle helps. It’s harvested fresh, delivered from Sabik, who cultivates it in exchange for free passage through the capital’s tunnels.

It’s a worthy, personal treaty, though I know what the consequences will be if either one of us is ever caught. But I have no one to worry about but myself now. At least, so long as no one knows what happened when I was in Vegas.

The portal scientists have been attempting to find other places on Earth where the veil between universes—as they call it—is weakest. We know that rips have occurred before, but they were natural and healed before we could study them.

We also know that another race on Erethar has opened their own portals. The Vorthex have theirs, where they take holes—the Vorthex word for humans—kept for their own survival. But they have mostly stopped taking humans and have been breeding them in their sky palaces for eons now. They have shared their technology with us from the moment they realized the Vyastil were in need of something from humans just like them.

But they did not anticipate how far the Vyastil would go to control that technology, and from what I know in council meetings, it’s possible we are close to taking over what the Vorthex have created.

Right now, our portals are limited to one small area, but deep in the desert nearly two thousand miles from this little place I call a second home, there was a blip. I was sent to investigate with my team and found nothing.