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As I sit there, I can feel their eyes on me – all three of them.

Their gaze is just a little too hard. A little too intense. I breathe in, and unscrew the canteen, wetting my dry mouth and pretending to ignore their stares.

All three of them are watching me like I’m a Goddess, or something.

I felt their pure adoration and sensed their need to claim me in that rough mating – but now, the three of them are looking at me with something else in their now colorful eyes.

Veneration – something that I’m not ready for.

To them? I’m now a Goddess. But this isn’t just a fantasy – this is the reality of my life now.

In among the hundreds of books in my room are tomes on the history of early humans; back when we were isolated on the spinning blue and green jewel known as Old-Earth.

Despite geographies or demographics, there was always a consistency among their kind in the “worship tendency.”

Almost universally, all across the human species, the early ages of pre-history were marked by communities of humans worshipping some form of fertility goddess. They prayed she’d bring them strong heirs, and they gave her offerings and sacrifices to bless them with healthy babies.

Imagine how it would be to come from a culture like that of Otho, Brennan, and Lazar; in which only one woman in the entire universe existed who could allow these three men to continue their bloodline – not to mention the continuation of their species.

Wouldn’t they be inclined to worshipher?

Suddenly, Brennan’s aura hardens. Every last trace of his emotion disappears. This is how he is when he takes the lead. I know it can’t be easy for him to decide to surrender to Law Enforcement – to turn his triad in, and be punished for crimes that truly weren’t their fault.

Yet, he made the decision instantly. He did it because it’sright– and, as I see more of his perspective, all becomes clear.

He’s not surrendering out of a misguided sense of duty – but because he wants to have a future with me. He wants to be able to come out of jail as a man who has paid his debt – so that he can start a new life from a place of stability.

A treacherous thought suddenly fills my mind.

I’ve alreadytakenthe Bond from him. I’ve already gained the benefits of the Bond – the enhanced strength and focus, and the thousands of years of extra lifespan. I can already feel how my body is different – filled with an energy and focus like I’ve never experienced before.

I know now that I’ll live for thousands of years – whether I stay with these Aurelians or not.

The cost? The cost will be spending those thousands of additional years in torment – fighting the ever-powerful urges driven by the Bond. Unless there’s some technology that can quell it, I could run as far from these three Aurelians as an Orb-Drive would take me; but always feel the siren’s song of longing to return to them and bear their sons.

These three men are going to turn themselves into the Aurelian enforcement in the hopes that I will wait the lifespan of a human, or more, for them to be set free.

Is that my life now? A hundred years without them? And just as that’s sunk in – just as I’ve lived four of my current lifespans all alone…

…then, suddenly, three Aurelians will burst out of captivity and into my arms, and we’ll all have a ‘happily ever after’ together?

They’ll be the same three warriors after a hundred years – because it’s just the blink of an eye in their centuries of life.

But for me? I will be a different woman by then. I will have reinvented myself ten times over. I stand free, now – free from my lifetime spent sheltered and protected. I’m a blank canvas, waiting for the universe to write my story upon me…

…but the three authors I desire most won’t be there to do so.

Gods! Is the power of the Bond a gift? Or a curse?

Would I have rather faced my human fate? A century of empty existence, hidden away from the world? Perhaps I might, given the uncertainty that lies ahead.

I didn’t ask to be Bonded to these Aurelians, and I certainly didn’t expect it. Now, I’ve linked myself to them for eternity.

It feels like the roof is coming down on me. I feel like I did earlier, when I’d taken my first shot with that Orb-Beam pistol. I’d imagined one shot of that gun bringing down the roof and burying us all, and my imagination of that happening was so vivid it physically hurt – like it was actually happening

Now, I feel like that again; only it’s not the Orb-Beam bringing the roof down around me. In fact, I can’t even remember where that gun is now – whether I lost it during the mating, or sometime before.

I shake my head. The roof isn’treallycoming down. It just feels that way.