Page 27 of Rainse
“So, this bond,” I said slowly, forcing my thoughts back into order, “what does it actually do? Is it permanent? Biological imprinting or something?”
“It’s permanent for us,” he said. “But it needs two hearts to hold. One can sense it first; the other has to choose it. Nothing binds without consent.”
“Right.” I folded my arms. “Except for the part where biology is apparently making the decision for me.”
“Biology doesn’t decide,” he said quietly. “It only tells the truth we spend our lives pretending not to feel.”
“That’s poetic,” I muttered, “and also incredibly convenient.”
His mouth twitched — almost a smile, but not quite. “You think I’d choose this?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“I’ve spent half my life being told I’d never have it,” he said simply. “That I wasn’t worthy. That my anger and pride had no place in something sacred. So yes, I would choose it — but I would never force it.”
The words knocked something loose inside me. I looked away, pretending to study the horizon. The water was calm, unnervingly so. I wanted to stay calm with it, but my heart hadn’t got the message.
“You’re asking me to believe I’m part of some… biological recognition system,” I said finally. “That out of all the people in the universe, your DNA just happens to like mine.”
“It’s not a coincidence,” he said. “It’s a connection.”
I gave a short, disbelieving laugh. “Do you even hear yourself? That sounds like something off a dating app.”
He shrugged, unbothered. “Maybe your people’s technology is finally catching up to what ours have always known.”
I wanted to argue — to call it superstition or selective memory or evolutionary nonsense — but then he looked at me, and the protest died. There was no manipulation in that gaze. Just patience, and something like awe.
“If it helps,” he said softly, “you don’t have to decide now. Or ever. The bond is there, yes, but it’s yours to acknowledge or to walk away from. No one will take that from you.”
“Including you?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Including me.”
A sigh of relief escaped me. Tension fled from my muscles, tension I hadn't even realised was there. I wasn't going to tackle the subject of do-I-want-to-be-his-girlfriend-slash-mate topic yet. There was something else simmering in my mind.
"What I don't understand," I said after a moment of silence, "is why you had to bring me here. Why isolate me? Your brothers have human mates, they could have explained the whole thing to me, told me how it was for them. This seems extreme. Possessive. Dangerous."
"I am sorry. I don't want you to think that I did this out of nefarious reasons. Let me tell you how it was for my clutch-brother, Cerban. He realised that a human female working on the island, Maelis, was his mate. He even saved her life when she got trapped in an underwater cave. And if they'd been the first finfolk-human-match to occur on the island, it would likely have all been fine. Everyone would have celebrated. But something bad had happened just a few sunpasses earlier." He took a deep breath. "I think I may have mentioned Kelon before, the male who financed our expedition to Earth? We went to the same clutch school until he was adopted by a Matriarch. He became one of the richest finmen in the city. He also became extremely self-centred and spoilt. When Elise was introduced to us by the dating agency that we'd contacted in the hope of finding eligible females, he decided to take her for himself - even though she wasn't his mate. He was greedy. Kelon kidnapped Elise and if Fionn hadn't gone after them and fought him... who knows what may have happened. Anyway, Kelon was trialled by the Intergalactic Authority and sent home to Finfolkaheem to sit out his sentence. His ship was given to Elise and luckily, the crew all decided to stay here. But ever since, the leader of the dating agency has been suspicious of us finmen. She has been insisting on following strict rules and protocols."
I held up my hand to stop his impassionate monologue. "Wait. So you were scared of some rules? That's why you didn't bring me to the island?"
He cringed. "The rules say that humans and finmen have to stay separate until a match has been scientifically verified. It takes time for the sample to be flown to the lab, processed, analysed. If I'd taken you to the island, your injury would have been healed instantly by one of the med pods on the spaceship. You would have demanded to be taken to your ship. There would have been no reason for you to take a DNA test. You didn't know me. You'd have no reason to want to get to know me better."
He hung his head in defeat. I wanted to reach out and comfort him, but I was also angry at having the decision taken from me before I'd even known it existed.
"You still didn't tell me what happened to Cerban - was that his name?"
"Yes, Cerban. When he felt the mate bond to Maelis, he was told to stay away from her. It was awful to see him like that. A beast trapped in a cage, separated from the female he wanted to get to know. I helped them, smuggled her into his rooms while he was on house arrest. I took messages back and forth. But it was hard for both of them. She may not have felt the bond the way he did, but that didn't mean it was easy for her. It seemed to take forever until their test results finally came through, until they were finally allowed to spend time together. I hated seeing my brother in that situation. And I didn't want to be in the same situation. Not ever."
Silence followed his words. I had heard the pain, the anguish.
"I'm still not happy with your decision," I said slowly. "But I can see how what happened to your brothers affected your choices. What happens if we go to the island now? We can't stay here. Fionn said there's a storm coming."
He let out a long, deep breath. "I know. I have been ignoring the scent of the storm in the hope that it would change course. But my clutch-brother is right. We don't have a way to shelter on this islet. It is time to leave. But I will not have you swim with your injury. I will ask Fionn to get the Tidebound here. And then... would you like to contact your ship? The other humans? Let them know that you are alive?"
I didn’t answer him right away. My mind was still stuck on the word alive.
A week ago, I’d have said that was obvious — of course I was alive. I had work, plans, data sets waiting for analysis, an inbox overflowing with unanswered emails. But those things belonged to another world. A smaller one. Here, stripped of everything but salt, sun, and one infuriatingly sincere alien, being alive meant something different. It meant breathing, feeling every heartbeat, acknowledging them as the small miracles they were. It meant feeling every second as it passed.
