The moons crested the horizon, passing over it and disappearing from view.
On the opposite horizon, the first signs of the twin suns and their ceaseless dance filtered through the dense cloud cover, exposing us to the prison guards any time they picked themselves up and came across our tracks.
I took a seat beside him and wrapped my arm around his broad back.
He leaned his head against mine and I hummed a tune, something I made up on the spot, something I felt deep in my heart that had no words could express.
“Thank you for coming back for me,” I said.
“I had to come back for you. I can’t live without you.”
I smiled at him and the tears came unbidden.
I let them roll down my cheeks as I kissed him on the lips, wishing I could give him the same gifts he shared with me when we made love.
To help him heal faster.
I would have gladly absorbed the pain for him, as much as I could bear, anything to alleviate the suffering he was going through.
He’d set me free in more ways than one.
I was his and he was mine.
We sat there, facing the dawning of a new day.
Its sunlight warmed our faces and neither of us noticed as a figure in regulation boots stepped before us.
“Sorry to interrupt this beautiful moment,” the leader said.
We both started.
Egara released me and made to rise to his feet.
He lost his balance and fell back.
He shook his head, disorientated.
I stepped between the two males and fixed the leader with a look.
“He’s injured,” I said. “He needs medical attention.”
“The prison has excellent medical facilities,” the leader said. “The sooner we get him there the sooner he’ll be back to his old self.”
He stepped forward and extended an arm to take me but I wrenched it free.
“He saved your life,” I spat. “He saved all your men’s lives.”
The leader seemed taken aback and peered from me to Egara.
Was it possible he hadn’t seen Egara come to the rescue in the shuttlecraft?
“He flew the shuttlecraft into the monster,” I explained. “Without him, your men would be dead. You too. You owe him your lives.”
A corner of his helmet had been smashed, revealing a square chin.
A single line curled one corner of his mouth.
It wasn’t much to go off but I could have sworn his expression softened.
“Is that true?” the leader said.
Egara wasn’t capable of much but he could nod his head.
“I didn’t do it to save you,” he said. “I did it to save her.”
The helmet turned minutely to me and then back again.
“I thought nothing happened between you two?” he said.
I turned to look at Egara and a smile rose to my lips.
“The most natural thing in the world happened between us. Even in this place, it’s possible to love.”
The leader reached into his back pocket.
His weapon, I thought. He’s reaching for his weapon.
“Please,” I said. “Don’t hurt him.”
The leader surprised me when he came out with a small first aid kit.
“It’s not much,” he said. “But it’s all I have. It might tide him over for a little while. But you’re going to need to get him to a hospital soon.”
At first, I didn’t take the first aid kit.
Was it a trick?
Then, slowly, I reached out to take it.
He made no sudden movements and didn’t draw any other weapons.
I sat down, opened the first aid box, and set to work giving him the medicine.
The leader watched us for a moment and then turned to leave, following our tracks back toward the fallen monster.
“Where are you going?” I said, fearing he might be heading to fetch more of his men.
“To tell my men we’re heading back to the prison… without any prisoners,” he said.
I couldn’t leave it at that.
I hated ambiguous endings and this one was ripe.
“Why are you doing this?” I said. “Why are you helping us?”
“I wouldn’t say leaving you out here in the middle of a desert is exactly helping you,” the leader said. “But if you’re telling the truth and you really are in love, perhaps you’ll find a way to escape the planet after all.”
With that, he turned and left.
Speechless, I continued to administer the medicine under Egara’s watchful gaze.
It was alien medicine and I had no idea what I was doing.
I shot him with so many needles I thought he might suffer from acute blood loss.
It was disheartening to see none of it seemed to help him.
“Okay,” he said, easing back, “that’s it.”
“No. There must be something else here I can give you.”
He nodded.
“There is one more medicine you can give me. The most valuable medicine.”
He wrapped a hand around my shoulders and kissed me.
I could taste the salt of my own tears.
I wasn’t embarrassed and let them come.
The leader might have let us go but he hadn’t set us free.
With no food and lacking the medicines Egara needed, it was as good as a death sentence.
“If you’re telling the truth and you really are in love, perhaps you’ll find a way to escape the planet after all.”
Had the leader meant in death?
It was a freedom of sorts but not the one I had hoped for.
I pulled back and smiled at Egara.
A little color had returned to his cheeks but he was still badly injured.
He ran a hand over my cheeks as I ran mine through his hair.
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you too. My fated mate.”
It was a love unlike any I had ever known, the kind most took a lifetime to develop.
And I knew with certainty this would not be the end.
At some point in the future, or maybe the past, our paths would cross again.
Perhaps then, in that time, we would live the life we deserved.
The sand kicked up and stung my face.
I pulled back from his lips as the wind grew stronger.
A whirring like the shuttlecraft engines grew louder and more voluminous.
I squinted and cupped my hands around my eyes to protect myself from the worst of the sand and made out a
