A clap of thunder woke Samantha from her deep slumber, and dim light and raindrops poured into the room through the open windows. This was the first storm she had encountered in the Beast World, and she was glad to have Spencer nearby. Another flash of lightning illuminated the large fox next to her, and she burrowed into his fur for comfort, surprised that he could sleep through such a loud thunderstorm. He didn't even stir when Samantha tried to bury herself in the fur on his back. Trying not to flinch when the peal of thunder hit, she wrapped her arms as far around them as they would go. Once upon a time, she had found storms relaxing, but her life had changed too drastically since then and she had disliked loud, sudden noises from unseen sources since then. She swallowed her anxiety and tried to focus on her mate's breathing instead of the thunder and lightning only to discover that his breathing was raspy and labored. "Spencer?" she whispered, "Are you okay?" Samantha waited for a response that didn't come. As she struggled to stand up and check on her mate, Samantha was surprised by the pain that coursed through her. Apparently, mating with a beastman was a more strenuous activity than she had thought it would be. The fur she was wrapped in fell from her shoulders as she stood, and another flash of lightning drew Samantha's attention to her chest, where a new marking had appeared on her left breast over her heart.

It was all Samantha could do to keep from screaming. The outline of a fox's head and neck were clearly defined in black, but aside from the loving brown eyes that stared out at her, she could see no color at all inside her spousal mark. The spousal marks she had seen on Jewel were the same color as her mates, but this, aside from shading, had no discernable color at all. A series of intrusive thoughts entered Samantha's mind, all of them immediately blaming her for whatever had befallen Spencer. Had this happened because she was human and he was a beastman? Did she do something wrong while they were mating? He looked like a ghost; was he going to die because they had decided to become mates? Blinking back tears, Samantha grabbed Spencer's bag of spars and circled around to his front. His eyes were tightly closed, and his tongue was dragging along the top of the furs that cradled his head. After pinching his ears, Samantha decided he probably didn't have a fever, but she wasn't sure what else she could do to assess the situation. She put her hand on his paw, caressing it with her thumb. "Spencer, please, wake up," she pleaded, but he gave no indication that he could hear her. In this entire time, he hadn't moved a muscle except the ones he was using to breathe. Samantha placed his tongue back in his mouth and reached inside with a finger. It wasn't completely dry, so hopefully he had enough saliva to dissolve and swallow a spar. Wiping her fingers on the makeshift bed, Samantha used her other hand to draw the bag of spars closer to Spencer's mouth. She cradled his head in her lap and placed one spar inside his open mouth.

It felt like she had waited an eternity, but after she was relatively certain the spar had dissolved, she massaged the fox's chin and throat in an attempt to trigger his swallowing reflex. After a few passes, he swallowed weakly, and Samantha stayed on alert to look for any changes in his condition. A few minutes later, there was no change, and Samantha began to panic. She put a spar into her own mouth and dissolved it without swallowing and deposited the liquid into Spencer's mouth as best she could. Closing his mouth immediately, she repeated the same process as before until he swallowed again, but after a few more minutes had passed, still nothing had changed. Out of frustration, Samantha took one spar herself, and felt the power within it restore her own body and completely remove the pain she had woken up with. A clap of thunder echoed her own sentiments and brought her closer to screaming her own frustration back at the sky. She administered a third spar to the fox, as if it would work on him after she had proven the spars still worked on herself, and she felt tears rolling down her face as she was let down once more. She let Spencer's head rest to the side again in case he threw up, and she tried to keep her wits about her. She returned the bag to its hiding place and began to dress herself, calling for Benjamin in an increasingly loud and panicky voice.

Eventually, the scorpion entered the bedroom, clearly exhausted and wiping his eyes from lack of sleep. "What is it?" he grumbled. "It's Spencer, please come look at him; I don't know what's the matter and he hasn't moved since I woke up," Samantha begged. "My spousal mark is defective and I don't know why," she said more quietly, sobs engulfing the end of her sentence. Wordlessly, Benjamin yanked her top down just enough to see the mark he knew would be over her heart, and he remained speechless as he wracked his brain to think of any other similar instance he had heard of. "It's that bad?" Samantha asked him, her voice small compared to the downpour outside. "I've never heard of anything like it," Benjamin admitted, mystified. He turned to examine Spencer himself, pressing on various locations throughout his body trying to get any kind of reaction out of him. He pried the fox's eyes open, but let them fall closed again when he only uncovered a set of upturned irises. "Did you try giving him a spar?" Benjamin asked, sighing in exasperation. "Three," Samantha confessed, "and none of them had any effect at all." Benjamin closed his eyes to think, and Samantha turned her pleading eyes toward him. "I didn't hear anything unusual while you were mating," he mumbled, more to himself than Samantha, who turned bright red in the darkness. "But then," he continued, "I had to beat away more than one peeping neighbor, so I might have been distracted."

The scorpion remained quiet for a time, and Samantha could practically hear the gears turning in his head. "It doesn't make sense; he should be fine. He's a four-stripe beastman, so mating with you for two nights and a day shouldn't have done anything like this." Samantha's eyes widened; she hadn't realized they had been intimate for that long. It was no wonder she was sore all over. "Is there a healer in the city?" she asked, trying to hide her embarrassment. "Yes," Benjamin replied appraisingly, "but it's too dangerous to go out in this weather. Even if I made it to the veterinarian, I doubt that he would return with me." "What if we took Spencer there?" she asked, getting ready to do just that. "What part of 'too dangerous' did you not comprehend?" Benjamin responded, clearly irritated. "Do you want to bring him outside just for him to get pelted by the rain or possibly struck by lightning so he can die out there instead? I'm not sure what rainstorms are like wherever you came from, but here, they can kill the strongest of beastmen if they aren't careful. We're staying put until it's over," he finished decisively. Samantha was getting ready to make a counterargument when sudden loud knocks at the front door interrupted their discussion. "I thought it was too dangerous to go out," Samantha whispered through her teeth, "So who in the world is that?" Benjamin covered her mouth with his hand and whispered in her ear, "I don't know who's out there, but it can't be good."

The knocking continued, but neither Samantha nor Benjamin was willing to even look through a window to see who was there. It got louder and louder until they heard an unfamiliar voice order, "Break the door down and retrieve him." Shortly after, the sound of the old, weathered front door hitting the stone wall inside echoed through the house. Benjamin released Samantha and prepared to fight the intruders, and Samantha, unable to find a weapon inside the house, stood beside him, her arms raised and fists out. Benjamin rolled his eyes and maneuvered her behind him with an elbow, knowing she wouldn't back down even if he told her she was making his own job more difficult. Before they knew it, the door to the bedroom slammed open, and six strong-looking fox beastmen poured into the room. "If you want him to live, you'll let us take him," their leader said; it was the same voice they'd heard earlier when the team of foxes was still outside. "Heal him here," Samantha responded stubbornly, her angry gaze staring down the fox who had just spoken. "That's impossible," the fox scoffed, "We're bringing him back to our tribe; we don't have much time and he needs our help. Step aside before I'm forced to hurt you, female." Samantha only dug her legs more firmly into the dirt floor as she replied, "He's my mate and he's not going anywhere without me." The foxes stumbled as Benjamin unleashed a small amount of beast pressure to back up Samantha's words.

"That is a mistake," their leader ground out through his teeth. "Neither of you can accompany us; you are not members of the fox tribe. Even if you are his mate," he finished, sneering at Samantha. He clearly didn't find her worthy of being a fox's mate, and she seethed with anger. "He will die if we leave him here; nothing you or anybody else can do will save him," the fox continued. Samantha's eyes darted over to Spencer, who was already surrounded by the other five foxes despite Benjamin's light beast pressure. She looked at Benjamin helplessly, and he shrugged sadly in return. "They might be telling the truth," he told her honestly. Returning her gaze to Spencer, Samantha was struck by just how poor his condition was. If spars couldn't heal him, what could? As much as she was unwilling to allow him to be taken away, she was even more unwilling to let him die. "Will you bring him back after he's recovered?" she asked the foxes, trying to keep her desperation out of her voice as she asked. "That will be up to him," their leader answered, although he made it sound as if there was no chance Spencer would ever choose to return to her.

"We're nearly out of time," he told the other foxes, "Take him away." He cast a glowing forcefield around Spencer as all six foxes lifted his lifeless body. Samantha threw herself at her mate if only for a chance to say goodbye, but the forcefield repelled her and she flew to the floor. Benjamin attacked with his tail, but it had no effect on the fox magic; even his pincer made only the smallest of cracks in the spell they had cast. The foxes exited the same way they had come in, and Benjamin had to divert his attention to holding a desperate, sobbing, and screaming Samantha inside the house. All of her strength couldn't break her free from his grasp as she watched her love carried quickly away from her; her heart shattered the second he was removed from her line of sight. Samantha collapsed to the ground feeling as though her soul had been wrested out of her, and Benjamin carried her limp body back inside their broken home.