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from me. Sometimes, the simple fact they even existed is what gets me through the day so I'm not feeling quite as alone.”
    â€œYou're not alone, though.”
    â€œI am in ways I'm not sure you'd understand,” she whispered. “We're like family, and I cherish your father as if he were my own. But he's not mine to claim as much as I want to. I'm still the outsider, the orphan, and I will always be that because that's the only way people choose to see me. There's no point in fighting it anymore. We're not blood relatives, and being away from that is a difficult burden to explain.”
    Teo frowned, his eyes closing. “You're not just my best friend Mikko, but my sister. It hurts to hear you talk like that.”
    â€œLike I said, I don't know how to explain it. I love you all so much. There's no doubt about it in my mind. I just…”
    â€œIt's not the same,” he mumbled. “Would you have rather stayed with your actual blood-related kin?”
    â€œNever.” The tears began to flow again. “I wouldn't trade the time I've spent with your family for that. I'm sure my other uncles are wonderful, but I don't belong with the Oceina people. Not only that, but they look at me like I'm different. I mean, I am different. It's a fact I've come to accept a long time ago. I'm a female dragon born of a pure dragon family. But…”
    â€œYou feel like a freak around them?” Teo supplied.
    She nodded. “That… and I don't think they would have been okay with my choosing to not pursue finding a mate for so long. I'm sure I'd be married by now to another dragon. They'd force me to wed another dragon.”
    He laughed. “Now, now, they are Oceina, not the Aero or Inero. They've made a lot of progress in their mating rituals.”
    â€œTrue, the Sacrifice is all but eliminated now.” Mikko smiled softly.
    The world was indeed progressing. She'd heard a lot of stories from her grandparents about the old days. How the Oceina men would find their brides by taking a “sacrifice” from different villages and small towns. The sacrifice was always a virgin woman who would become that dragon man's wife. Her grandparents from Inero had met under similar conditions, only the young women were taken in groups and chosen in a fashion similar to an auction without the bidding. The dragon men picked their bride from the group. Choosing order was arranged based on social rank. For a long time, neither culture believed in letting love naturally take its course.
    It fascinated her, but also frightened her. What if she had grown up in similar times? She'd have been auctioned off without a second thought. The Terran had begun practicing finding their soul mate through traditional human courtship nearly two millennia ago. It was a model being used by all of the dragon tribes now — except for the Aero. The Aero still practiced arranged marriages, but there was a level of courtship involved in their ritual. From what she understood, a series of dates occurred before the dragon man decided to proceed with the engagement. The woman always had the choice to refuse if she didn't think things were going well.
    Thinking about all of the ways to find a husband made her head hurt. She wanted a man to love and cherish as her own. Being alone for the rest of her life was not appealing in the slightest, and to have children someday was always one of her biggest dreams. Because she was a dragon, however, everything was so much more complicated. The secret of her kind had to be kept, especially in a world that was quickly losing all sense of morality.
    â€œMaybe I'll marry a human,” she whispered.
    Teo scowled. “Are you sure you want to court a human man? Most of them don't save themselves for their wedding night. It sounds like a lot of potential drama. After all, when two people mate, they're joined together for life. The humans are giving themselves to one another a lot more