She glanced at me. “What are they going to do? Kill me? Not likely when I’m carrying one of their little demon spawns.”
I’d had the same thoughts myself, but I’d seen what the women were like after they’d been taken away for insubordination. They were broken shells of their former selves, and I didn’t want to see this girl go the same way. She seemed to have fire inside her, and the Trads would put it out in a second.
“She’ll be good,” I blurted, addressing Nadeusz. “I’ll make sure she knows the rules.”
The big Trad turned his attention on me, and I shrank back into the bed, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut. His intense gaze fixed on me, and I had the horrible feeling I was going to be the one who got dragged off to isolation. He was massive, the balls of his shoulders the size of my head. He seemed to have a pent-up aggression locked inside him, like he could blow at any moment, and I didn’t want to be around when he did.
He remained staring at me, Avery apparently forgotten. I wished I could take back what I’d said, but it was too late now.
Wanting to disappear, I huddled up into a ball—my knees up, my arms wrapped protectively around my belly, despite my innate fear of what was inside me. Nadeusz took a step closer, and then another, and I reared away, terrified of what he might do to me.
He leaned in, and a wave of scents washed over me—black pepper and the sidewalk right after it rained, and freshly laundered sheets—all of my favorite fragrances, and something happened inside me. Automatically, I relaxed, exhaling softly and slowly, my skin rising in goosebumps, but not in a bad way, more like when someone lightly runs their fingers down the side of your neck.
“I’m watching you, too, girlie.” His voice was a low growl. “It won’t be long now.”
And then he stepped away, and the spell was broken. I blinked in surprise and shook my head, unsure what had happened.
Nadeusz was already walking away, his thick tail lashing from side to side. I tried not to admire the muscular shoulders and back that was highlighted, rather than hidden, by his form-fitting silver t-shirt and black pants. The other Trad, Mikotaj, was standing in the doorway, waiting for him, and I watched them exchange a glance before they both left together. I didn’t know what was in that glance, but it was meaningful, and perhaps even a little disapproving.
What did he mean when he’d said it wouldn’t be long now? I guessed he was talking about the baby being born. Why was he counting down the days? The only reason I could think of was that he’d decided it would be his baby I’d carry next. A shudder ran through me. How was I supposed to be with someone like him? I couldn’t even bring myself to think about it, my mind rebelling.
“Why did you do that?” a voice suddenly said from beside me, yanking me from my thoughts. I’d practically forgotten about the new girl in my shock at the moment with Nadeusz. “Why did you stick up for me?”
I shrugged, turning my attention back to Avery. Perhaps I was overthinking things. “I just don’t want to see anyone else hurt.”
She glanced down at her swollen belly. “We’re already hurt, aren’t we?”
I gave a wry smile. “Yeah, I guess so, but you can be hurt worse.”
“Can you?”
I nodded. “I’ve seen it. They break you if they think you’ve got too much spark about you. They don’t like it. So, if you want to stay strong enough to maybe get out of this situation one day, you need to play by their rules—or at least pretend as though you are.”
She pressed her lips together. “I guess that makes sense.”
Avery barely appeared to be far out of her teenage years. I probably had almost ten years on her, and while I didn’t normally feel like the older, mature one in normal life—especially since friends of mine had started to move out to the suburbs, getting engaged and married and having kids—a surge of protectiveness rose inside me. Was it the pregnancy hormones working, preparing me to care for the alien baby growing inside me? Perhaps, but there was no way I could ever love this thing. All I could picture when I thought of it was Rhett, and the hate I felt for the Trad who’d tricked me, and seduced me, before kidnapping me and bringing me to this place, heavy with his child.
This girl was innocent, however.
The baby is innocent, too, a little voice said inside my head.
That may be, but it was still a Trad.
“What happened to the last girl who was in this bed?” Avery whispered over to me.
I looked around, just making sure the Trads hadn’t come back again. “She had her baby.”
At least, I hoped that was what had happened. I couldn’t be certain.
“And then what?”
I shrugged. “None of us know for sure.”
She sank back onto the bed. “Oh, shit.”
“Yeah.”
We fell into a silence, each of us contemplating our fate.
Chapter Five
Nadeusz
“I SAW YOU TALKING TO the girl.”
I turned to see Miko standing in the doorway of my yurt, his full lips thinned in disapproval, his arms folded across his chest.
“So?” I replied, turning back, pretending to be busy with the report I was writing up. I was working on a tablet with a stylus which automatically translated my handwriting to typed-up notes.
We’d all been moved from the city when the facility was being built. We couldn’t realistically commute between the two every day. Massive dust storms ravaged the dunes between here and the city of Vrale, and though the tunnels allowed us to travel during those times, they couldn’t handle heavy foot flow. Besides, we were needed here. It was too far to go during an emergency, and there was no telling when we might be needed for something important.
Miko stepped more fully into the room, his mohawk shivering with the movement. “You’re not supposed to get attached to any of them. That’s not why we’re here.”
“It is why we’re here,” I disagreed. “It’s the whole reason we’re here.”
“You know what I mean.”
Miko was right to be concerned. I thought I’d done well to hide my feelings but I’d slipped up today. I’d lost control of my pheromones when I’d gotten close to her, and she’d felt them. It had only been for a split second, but it had been too late to take them back.
I didn’t know what it was about this human girl that was so different, that had caught my attention and held me rapt ever since she’d been brought here. Admittedly, we were all desperate for a little female company, but none of the other females had affected me the way she had. Every time I closed my eyes, her face appeared on the backs of my eyelids—those wide blue eyes, the silky blonde hair, those sinfully full lips. I wanted to know how it would feel to rake my fingers through that hair and crush my mouth to those lips. But then she saw us as nothing but monsters, and rightfully so. We’d stolen her from her home planet and impregnated her, and were now keeping her prisoner.
We were monsters.
“Don’t ruin everything just for one girl,” Miko warned.
“I won’t, but every time I see Rhetarz, I want to punch him in the face. I can’t believe that’s his child she’s carrying.”
Miko shrugged. “Rhetarz got lucky, that’s all. It could easily have been one of us.”
“But it wasn’t, was it, because we were here preparing and never got to go to Earth.”
“You know why that was, Nadeusz.”
I glowered down at my work. “Yeah, I know.”
“Just stay away from her, okay. It’s safer that way.”
“And are you going to do the same?” I shot back. “I didn’t miss how you were helping her the other day.”
“She was freaking out. I needed to calm her down. It’s not good for the baby if she loses it.”
I scoffed. “Plenty of the women have lost it. I didn’t see you getting cozy with any of them.”
Miko scowled at me. “Jealousy isn’t a good color on you, Nad.”
“Fuck you. I don’t have anyt
hing to be jealous of.”
“Just keep your head down, okay? Don’t do anything stupid that’s going to draw attention to yourself. You can’t risk everything just because of a little infatuation with one human woman.”
“As long as you’re listening to your own advice.”
Miko narrowed his eyes. “Of course. One of us has to keep their head on straight.”
“Mine’s straight,” I growled.
But even as I protested my innocence, the image of Tara’s face appeared in my mind, and my body reacted. I shifted in my seat, crossing my legs to hide my burgeoning erection from my colleague. Yes, she was pregnant right now, but her body was so curvy and lush, I couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like to lose myself inside her. One day soon, she’d birth the baby and then she’d be free to be impregnated again.
I knew it wasn’t right, but that didn’t stop me wanting to be the one who took her.
Chapter Six
The baby shifted inside me, no longer able to twist and roll due to its size, but instead pushing outward with hands, elbows, knees, and feet, and now, as I’d seen, tail as well. I could see where the baby’s back was, according to the lean of my bump, and though I didn’t want to think about what it looked like, it was hard to keep the image I’d seen on the scanning equipment out of my mind.
The baby jabbed an elbow up, and a peak formed in the side of my bump. It was uncomfortable, so I pressed back on it with my fingers, trying to get it to relax. It was the strangest feeling ever, having something else actually living inside me, and somehow being attuned to its feelings. I knew when it liked to sleep, and when it was most wakeful—normally during the times I wanted to sleep, too. I knew if I ate certain foods the Trads brought us, the baby would be dancing a jig for an hour after I’d eaten.
I pressed harder, and finally the elbow, or whatever it was, pulled back. But then another jab got me on the other side of my belly, and this time the lump the foot or hand was creating an even bigger than the first.
Little sharp points pushed back on my palm, and a jolt of alarm went through me. I glanced around, wanting someone to reassure me that everything was all right, but all the women were sleeping—no more than shapes beneath the thin sheets we were given—and there were no Trads around that I could make out. I’d have even been happy with the blue alien, though I doubted he’d be able to do or say anything to make me feel better.
What were they? Horns?
No, the baby I’d seen on screen only had little nubs for horns—they hadn’t been fully developed, and I doubted they’d have grown in a matter of days—not that I knew anything about alien fetal development, of course. But it felt like there was more than just two. If I ran my hand down the length, it seemed like there were multiple sharp points, all digging painfully into my flesh from inside me. I suddenly realized what I was feeling and snatched my hand away, gasping in shock.
They were spines.
The baby had spines running down the length of its tail, and now they were spiking up into my stomach.
The discomfort only got worse. My eyes prickled with tears of fear and pain, and I had to put my hand back on my belly, trying to push the tail back down.
“No, stop, please stop.”
But it didn’t work—the spines only seeming to grow harder and larger under my palm. I cried out, the pain becoming agony now. What was it doing?
“Help, someone,” I begged, looking around, frantic now. Surely someone would have heard my cries. But no one moved beneath the sheets of any of the beds surrounding me. I couldn’t even see the rise and fall of their bodies as they breathed. The sudden horrific thought filled me. What if they were all dead and their bedsheets had become their shrouds? What if I was surrounded by the dead and I was about to become one of them?
Through the silvery material of my dress, a speck of blood appeared.
“Oh God. Please, God, no.”
Desperately, I yanked the dress up over the top of my belly and stared in horror. One of the spikes had pierced the skin from the inside and was stabbing through.
A scream of horror pealed from my throat. I tried to shove it back down, but it didn’t work. Fresh pain stabbed through me, and a second spike tore my skin.
I tried to get off the bed, needing to find help. I’d have even taken Rhett’s help at that moment, but the silver metal bonds around my wrists hardened at my sudden movement, pinning me in place. Now I couldn’t even reach my belly, and I shook my head, hysterical, and unable to do anything as a third spine tore its way through my skin.
I looked to either side of me, still hoping one of the other women would wake up and somehow be able to help me, but now, instead of there just being lumps beneath the sheets, the sheets were moving, and red stains bloomed out across the middle of each of them.
Blood, there was so much blood...and the baby tore and tore and tore, until a little clawed hand reached through the gaping wound of my stomach...
I BURST FROM SLEEP, gasping and drenched in sweat, my cheeks wet from tears.
Immediately, I reached for my bump, placing both hands on top of it and feeling around, reassuring myself that I was still in one piece and the baby was most definitely where it was supposed to be.
Oh God. It had only been a dream. A hideous dream, but that was all.
Gradually, my hammering heart and my rapid breathing slowed.
“Are you okay?” Avery whispered over to me from the shadows of her pod. “You were making some scary noises in your sleep.”
I nodded and rubbed my hand over my mouth. “Yeah, just a bad dream.”
It wasn’t just a bad dream, though, was it? This was very much our reality. For all we knew, that was exactly how the baby was going to be born, busting out from inside us like something from a horror movie. No, I tried to reassure myself, the Trads wouldn’t allow that to happen. They wanted us to carry multiple children, and losing each of their captives every time a baby was born wasn’t going to make it easy to repopulate their planet again. And besides, evolution wouldn’t allow for a baby to kill the mother upon birth. It still needed to be nurtured and fed.
Except, we weren’t the Trads’ natural mothers—we weren’t even the same species—and still the fact none of the other women had come back to the birthing ring haunted me.
“Yeah, I’ve been getting them, too,” Avery whispered back. “Horrible, aren’t they?”
I nodded, still struggling to talk. The images from the nightmare remained fresh in my mind, and I thought they would haunt me for the rest of my life—however long that may be.
I lay down again, staring into the dimly lit space. I knew there was little chance of me going back to sleep, and I didn’t even want to try. The images from my nightmare flashed back into my head every time I closed my eyes.
Eventually, morning arrived, and the light was increased into the room, simulated to be as though we had windows and dawn was peeping through them. Around me, the other women began to stir, preparing themselves for another day of the same routines.
Diarus approached with the cart containing trays of food. As usual, he kept his head down. That was fine by me. After my nightmare, I wasn’t in the mood for trying to coax anything out of him. Yes, he might be a slave here, but there was no point in giving any thought or energy to him. I had enough of my own problems to deal with.
I didn’t want to eat either. My stomach felt like it had shriveled into something the size of a walnut shell, and my throat closed over at even the thought of trying to swallow.
If I didn’t eat, would the creature inside me starve as well? Was that why the matron was always so focused on us eating? Or would it take whatever it wanted from me, eating me alive from the inside out?
Misery and the futility of my situation weighed down on my shoulders. The dream had deeply affected me, and I wasn’t sure I had any fight left in me. What was the point, when all the outcomes were the same? I would be having this baby, no matter what. I had no way of getting home,
and even if I did manage to go back to Earth, the planet had been half destroyed by the asteroid strike. My life was never going to be the same again.
Diarus placed the tray beside my bed. I didn’t even lift my head to see what was on it. I wasn’t interested.
I thought he was going to walk away again, but then he hesitated.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a voice that was barely audible. “You appear pale.”
This was the most he’d said to me, and his concern surprised me, but not enough to get a reaction out of me.
“Leave me alone.”
“I brought your breakfast,” he insisted. “You must eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll anger Kaja,” he told me.
I shrugged. I didn’t even care.
His hand on my shoulder made me jump. His touch was warm and dry, the weight of his palm giving me some comfort. “Please, it’s important you stay strong. This isn’t—”
His words cut off as movement signaled the Trads coming. Rhett and Zymunt approached the bed, and Diarus snatched his hand away, put his head down, and continued to Avery’s pod to deliver her meal.
“What’s wrong with you this morning, Tara?” Rhett demanded. “Sit up. Eat your food.”
I didn’t answer him, didn’t even lift my head and look at him.
“Don’t make me get Kaja involved,” he threatened. “She won’t be pleased.”
I turned to face the other way. Despite the advice I’d given others about staying strong in case an opportunity arose, I suddenly felt like there was no possibility that opportunity would come. I’d been kidding myself this whole time. This was it for me now. I’d have this alien baby, and it would be horrific, and if I was lucky, I’d die, and if I wasn’t, I’d go through this whole experience all over again until I eventually did die.
“Get her up,” Rhett snapped.
The Trads moved to either side of my bed and hauled me up to sitting. Zymunt held me in place, while Rhett picked the plate off my tray, scooped up some of the food with the spoon, and pushed it toward my mouth. I remained listless, not bothering to fight back or turn my head.
The Tradrych Strain- The Complete Series Page 4