petted Ena’s head. She whimpered, pushing into it.
“It’s all right, little sister.”
He would miss her. He would miss them all. They had been his family, his pack, the bonds of love that had kept him sane.
He knelt in front of Ena, and the pack surrounded him. He petted them in turn, the aging males, the young pups.
“My word as donai, I will return.”
He didn’t realize there were tears on his face until Ena licked them off. How strange. Grown donai did not cry. Humans cried. Perhaps those tears were the last vestiges of his humanity.
* * *
—
When Andret had first chosen this meadow as their home, he’d done so because of the nearby cave. He’d placed the containers deep within, where the metal of the mountain would shield them from most sensors.
Accompanied by the wolves, he returned to the cave and emerged with the container marked “male.”
Save the container marked “female,” Calyce had told him.
Even without weapons, his speed, his strength, had defeated the strongest, best-armed humans at the creche. But he could not defeat other donai. Mature, trained, and armed, they would be wary of a solitary donai coming out of the forest. The container would be his bargaining chip, the proof that he was still sane. They must see him as a young donai who’d been given a mission and was still worthy of trust and respect.
The pack ran with him, following him until their strength gave out. Their howls trailed behind him as he outran them. They were a strong, intelligent pack. If he didn’t return, they’d descend to richer hunting grounds. They’d survive. He was certain of it. He needed to be.
For the second time in his short life, he left his family.
First, a family of one named Calyce, a woman who had been his mother, a child of her heart if not her body. How different were they, as a species, if a donai could think of a human as his mother? If he could love her in that way? If she had loved him as a son? If she’d trusted him with the lives of forty others?
Second, a family of wolves. Ena was as much a sister to him as any of the donai at the creche. How different could they be if they could bond like they had, if they could adopt him and accept him as their leader?
He hurt. Not from the burn of muscles taxed to their limits, not from loss. Joy had done this to him, let him feel loss as intensely as he had love.
If he could hold on to it no matter what was to come, he could become the best of both—human and donai.
* * *
—
Andret crouched on a branch, high up in the trees overlooking the crash site. Rain and wind had swept Tante’s funeral pyre away years ago. The damaged fighter shone in the sunlight, impervious to the planet’s vegetation.
He didn’t recognize the markings on the ship dwarfing his own. The design was definitely Ryhman; the markings were not.
Three donai, two males and one female, emerged from the ship. They were all at least a head taller. The larger male was twice as wide as any donai Andret had ever seen. They wore uniforms opaque to his enhanced vision. Sidearms and short blades rode their hips. They wore their hair in the short, cropped style of donai troops. The large male’s was black like his own, the female’s blond. The smaller male’s was white, but not with age.
“Come down,” the female said, her contralto voice strong and clear as she looked straight at him.
He stilled, patting the container strapped to his chest.
“Come down, or we’ll come for you.”
The males sprinted, racing to his position.
Before he had a chance to leap, the tree he’d used for concealment fell to the ground. He rolled away, arms crossed over his chest, protecting the container.
It cost him, kept him from escaping. The males pinioned his arms back and dragged him out of the forest. He struggled, yelling