Mating Season

Growing up on a tropical island isn’t always bliss for Ariel. On her eighteenth birthday, she became a vessel, and must prepare for Mating Season; a seven day long gathering, where women of breeding age travel to the distant all-male island in order to repopulate the broken lands.

On arrival at the island, Ariel’s world is shaken when she reunites with Ben, her best friend who was forced to leave his home and live on the all-male island when he turned thirteen. Though she and Ben care for one another, neither want to conceive a child the other won’t know.

Confronted with the reality of what happens to rule breakers who do not mate willingly, the two agree to fake a physical relationship in order to keep their emotional one.

In a world where love is forbidden, and marriage is a foreign concept, fighting for the chance to be with the one you love becomes a matter of life and death.