Then something else fell out. And then again.
“Oh my!” Sophie exclaimed, as Liv caught the machine’s results and cupped them in her hands. “One…two…three blue flowers.”
Kat looked at her, eyes wide with sympathy.
“Three little boys. Well, you’re going to be busy, doll, I can promise you that.”
“Three?” Whitney couldn’t believe her ears. “Did you really say three?”
“Well, yes—but so far they’re all healthy,” Liv offered as she handed Whitney the three perfect blue flowers. “But you say Rafe is the father? It’s very unusual for a Beast Kindred to father triplets—that only usually happens when you’re bonded to Twin Kindred like Kat is.”
Whitney’s head was spinning. “It must have been the special food,” she muttered, staring down at the flowers. “It seemed to cause the tweedles to conceive multiple babies—it must have done the same thing to me.” She rubbed her temples. “God, what am I going to do? I was prepared to raise one baby on my own but three…”
“Wait a minute—tweedles?” Liv asked, frowning.
“And why would you raise the babies on your own?” Sophie demanded. “I thought you told us you were bonded to Rafe?”
“I am—but he doesn’t want me.” Whitney’s voice wavered and the three blue flowers grew fuzzy as her vision blurred. “He…he said he’s going to try to find a way to break our bond. Something about a machine made by the Scourge—”
“What?” Kat demanded. “Let me tell you, doll—I went through that with my guys and it’s horribly painful. You can’t seriously be considering it!”
“I don’t know what I’m considering,” Whitney whispered. “I only know he doesn’t want me. And now I have three babies to raise on my own and what am I going to do?”
Then she broke down crying again and this time she couldn’t seem to stop.
Thirty-Six
“I’m glad you’re coming to the party tonight,” Kat said, smiling at her in the 3-D viewer they were sharing as they got ready to go. Her two husbands, Deep and Lock, had taken their three boys out trick-or-treating up and down the halls of the Mother Ship, leaving Kat time to get ready for the big party.
“I thought it was a good way to say goodbye to the Mother Ship.” Whitney sniffed and dabbed at her eye-make up. Rather than going as a cat, as she had first planned, she had traded costumes with Kat and was wearing a Cleopatra outfit instead. It came complete with a golden asp headpiece, a flowing white gown, sandals that laced up to her knees, and elaborate make-up. Which she was not going to cry off, she swore to herself. No matter how crazy the pregnancy hormones were making her.
“Wait…what? Say goodbye to the Mother Ship? What are you talking about?” Kat gave her a startled look in the mirror as she adjusted her own cat makeup. “Where are you going?”
“Kat…” Whitney sighed and put a hand on her friend’s arm. “You and Liv and Sophie are wonderful and I love being here but I can’t raise three babies on my own! I mean, you have two husbands to help you and still you’re always telling me what a handful three is.”
“But the Mother Ship is a great place for single mothers!” Kat protested. “We have free health care, free daycare, paid maternity leave for the whole first year—”
“Yes, but what you don’t have is my mom and my sisters and my Grannie,” Whitney interrupted her. “I’m going to need all the support my family can give me to get through this.”
“But…what about your job?” Kat protested. “You love being part of the BEGI—Sylvan recruited you specially.”
Whitney sighed. “Yeah, I’m going to miss it,” she admitted. “But there’s just no way I can stay here and keep going on dangerous missions when I’m raising three babies all by myself.”
Kat frowned and put a hand on her hip.
“I don’t think you’d have to raise them by yourself if you’d just tell that big stupid Beast Kindred of yours about them! I mean it, Whitney—tell Rafe you’re pregnant times three and he’ll come running back in a heartbeat.”
“Which is exactly what I don’t want,” Whitney exclaimed. “I don’t want him coming back because he feels obligated.”
“Well he is obligated!” Kat said indignantly. “He had a little something to do with putting those buns in your oven too—you didn’t get preggers all by yourself!”
Whitney sighed. “I know but he didn’t want to bond me to him in the first place. He only did it because the special food Mama Tusker had given me was going to kill me if he didn’t, uh, you know, service me.” She had picked up that much through their bond—it made her a little less angry at Rafe for bonding her to him when he really didn’t want to—though no less sad.
“Too bad—it was still his sperm that made those babies,” Kat said stubbornly. “And if he tells you he didn’t enjoy the act of bonding, that’s a big fat lie. Bonding sex is the best sex going so it’s not like he didn’t have some fun. It’s like the two of you enjoyed a really expensive fancy dinner and now he’s sticking you with the entire bill!”
Whitney shook her head. “It’s not like that.”
“Oh no?” Kat put a hand on her ample hip. “What’s it like then?”
“I…can’t explain it.” Whitney couldn’t even explain it to herself, let alone her friend. How could it be that she felt such intense love coming from Rafe’s side of their bond, and yet such intense regret at the same time?
It wasn’t just that he had broken his oath as a Protector, either. She had inquired discretely of Sylvan and found out this wasn’t the first time a Protector had fallen in love with the female he was protecting. It wasn’t considered optimal but when the two of them ended up bonded, it wasn’t looked down on either. So Rafe would have been forgiven for breaking his vow—which made her think something else was behind his confusing feelings for her.
Well, he’s going to have to stay up here and figure them out himself, she told herself firmly. After the party tonight I’m taking the first shuttle down to Earth and I’ll probably never see him again.
The idea of never seeing the big Beast Kindred again for the rest of her life caused desolation to well up and threaten to suck her under like quicksand. Taking a deep breath, Whitney braced herself She was going to have a good time at the party with her friends tonight and she was not going to spare a single thought for Rafe.
“There,” she said, putting the final touches on her elaborate blue and gold eyeliner. “How do I look?”
“Fabulous, doll.” Kat put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. There were tears in her eyes as she admitted, “I’m really going to miss you around here! And Liv and Sophie and all the rest of our bunch are going to be devastated too. Are you sure you can’t just bring your family to live up here?”
Whitney gave a little laugh that was really more than half sob.
“I would if my sister’s husbands didn’t have jobs down on Earth. But my mom will never go so far away from all her grandbabies and since my sisters are stuck down there, she is too.”
“Makes sense,” Kat admitted nodding. “Oh shoot—I’m ruining my eye makeup!” she exclaimed, dabbing at her watery eyes.
“Don’t you dare start crying,” Whitney warned her. “These crazy accelerated pregnancy hormones already have me on edge. I don’t need to start bawling myself.”
“I wished for an accelerated pregnancy when I was carrying my three,” Kat remarked, touching up the damaged makeup. “Considering that Kindred buns usually take an entire year to bake. By the time my fourth quadmester rolled around, I wanted to die.”
“Liv and Commander Sylvan say it won’t take that long for me,” Whitney said. “Apparently I’m due in six months.” Which was why she had asked to trade costumes with Kat. The tight black cat suit that went with her original costume clearly showed her already-pronounced baby bump.
“That is so unfair,” Kat grumbled. “I mean, not that I’m not happy for you,” she added. “But the fact that you only have to go
through six months of the preggy blues instead of an entire year just doesn’t seem fair to those of us who already went through it.”
“Everybody says the same,” Whitney agreed. “But to me, it gives me less time to prepare for the babies. And with three, there’s a lot to prepare for.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Kat said dryly. “Although if they’re anything like my three, they should get along pretty well,” she added, clearly trying to cheer Whitney up. “Oh, look at the time! People are going to start arriving soon and I have to help Lock put the boys to bed.” She sighed. “If I can get them to bed now that they’re all sugared up that is.” She turned to go but Whitney just stood there, looking in the mirror. “You coming, doll?” she asked, a note of concern in her voice.
“In a minute.” Whitney sighed and put a hand on her belly, glad that the flowing white Cleopatra gown hid her bump. “I just…don’t feel like facing people just yet,” she admitted to Kat.
“I understand.” Kat squeezed her arm gently. “Take your time—no one will bother you. But I hope you’ll sing for us before you go—I’ve got the karaoke machine all set up.”
Whitney smiled. “We’ll see.”
“All right, see you in a few minutes.” Kat closed the door quietly behind her and Whitney looked at her own reflection in the viewer and promised herself that she would not cry.
No matter how much she wanted to.
“Warrior—come here!”
The voice was so loud and sudden that it made Rafe, who had been sitting slumped on the couch in his quarters, jump.
“What?” he asked, looking around wildly. He had been contemplating a tall glass of fireflower juice he had poured for himself but hadn’t started to drink yet. He was going to have to soon, though. Only the stupefying effects of the strong liquor helped block out the terrible emotions inside him—both the ones he was feeling himself, and the ones he was getting from Whitney through their link.
It had been days since they had come back from the Mother Ship, inexplicably appearing only minutes after they had left. Commander Sylvan had said he thought it was some kind of space-time anomaly and since no one else had a better explanation, that was how it was noted in the official expedition logs of the BEGI. And now it had been days since he had seen Whitney or even tried to contact her.
He kept telling himself he would look into the Scourge machine which cut the ties between a bonded couple but somehow he hadn’t gotten around to it. In fact, he hadn’t gotten around to much of anything except feeling miserable.
I should go to her and beg her forgiveness, he thought to himself a dozen times a day. But the knowledge that he didn’t deserve her—that he was too much of a coward to love her the way she ought to be loved—stopped him. For her part, Whitney never contacted him either and it was his distinct impression that she wanted nothing more to do with him—not that he blamed her.
“Come here,” the strangely familiar voice demanded again and Rafe found himself getting up and wandering into the sleeping chamber, which was where it seemed to be coming from.
“Yes?” he asked uncertainly. “Goddess, is that you?” In the days since their escape from the giant world he had somehow managed to convince himself that hearing the Mother of All Life speak to him had been some kind of waking dream, brought on by stress. Now he knew he had been fooling himself. There was no one else it could possibly be.
“Yes, it is I and I am not pleased with you, warrior!” The Goddess’s voice seemed to be issuing from the 3-D viewer across from his sleeping platform. Indeed, a brilliant light was pouring from it—so bright he could barely see. Rafe shaded his eyes and went over to it cautiously, knowing that he was in a very dangerous position indeed.
“What have I done to anger you Goddess?” he asked the light.
“You have flouted my gift—the female I have given you has been left alone without help or protection!” the Goddess exclaimed.
“The female?” Rafe asked, feeling stupid. “Do you mean…Whitney?”
“Is she not the one you are bonded to?” the Goddess demanded. “And yet now you talk of cutting the tie between you—a sacrilege of the highest order. I am most seriously displeased, warrior!”
“But…but I don’t deserve her,” Rafe protested. “I couldn’t protect her on the giant planet, just as I couldn’t protect…”
He trailed off but the Goddess finished his sentence for him.
“Tenda.” She spoke the name of his lost love with gentleness. “Warrior, I know how her loss hurt and embittered you—I felt every bit of your pain, tasted every drop of your bitterness.”
“Then why did you not stop it from happening?” Rafe was suddenly roaring, so angry he could barely see. “Why did you take her from me? Why did you let her die?”
“My son…” The Goddess’s voice was gentler still, despite the fact that he had committed blasphemy by raging at her. “We do not live in a perfect universe,” she told him. “I cannot stop every tragedy from happening or keep my children from every pain that occurs, though I wish that I could. I can only help you bear it and be near you when it hurts the most.”
“I loved her. She was my life.” Rafe’s voice was a whisper now and when he looked into the viewer the light had softened.
“I know the agony you have gone through,” the Goddess assured him. “Which is why I wanted to give you a second chance. But you must be brave enough to stretch out your hand and take it.”
The viewer cleared but instead of showing Rafe his own face, it showed Whitney’s. Her long black braids had been piled on top of her head in an elaborate up-do and she was wearing a lot of gold and blue make up which emphasized her lovely dark eyes. She was beautiful—gorgeous, he thought yearningly. But her face was sad and withdrawn.
“Go to her,” the Goddess whispered. “I put the two of you together for a reason. You will never lack for laughter in your house if you will only take the love that I offer you. If you will only go to her before she leaves forever—which she is planning to do tonight.”
And then she was gone, as suddenly as she had appeared. The image of Whitney took a little longer to fade but when it did, Rafe blinked his eyes.
He shook himself, feeling like a male waking from a trance. What had just happened? What was he doing standing here when the woman he loved was missing him? Especially when the Goddess had said she was leaving tonight if he didn’t make things right between them?
Quickly, he straightened his red uniform shirt and made certain it was tucked into his black flight leathers. He ran his fingers through his wild black hair and decided it would have to do—he needed to go see the woman he loved.
He needed to get to Whitney before it was too late and she left the Mother Ship forever.
Thirty-Seven
He had forgotten it was the Earth holiday of…Weeny-Howls? Ballow-steen? Anyway, he had forgotten all about it, Rafe thought ruefully as he dodged around children dressed in outlandish costumes as they went up and down the halls of the Mother Ship banging on doors and demanding sweet treats. Who had made up such a strange tradition?
Then he remembered that Whitney was, herself, supposed to be going to a party given by her friend Kat that very night. Luckily he knew where Kat’s suite was because he was friends with her mates, but ducking and dodging down even more crowded corridors was irritating in the extreme.
He finally got to the right suite but as he waited to enter the busy party, he couldn’t help noticing that everyone who went in had on a costume. Would he be turned away for not wearing one?
“It’s time to go to bed now, Kendrick—you know it is. Just because it’s Halloween doesn’t mean you don’t have school tomorrow,” a woman was saying to her young son just in front of him.
“Aww, Mom!” The little boy was wearing a red cape and an oversized black mask which outlined his eyes and kept slipping down over his nose. “All the other kids got to do the other side of the ship too—some of them even got to go to the Sacred Grove!
I heard the priestesses give out the best candy on the whole ship. And it’s blessed by the Goddess,” he added virtuously.
The corners of his mother’s mouth twitched.
“Nice try, buddy,” she remarked. “Maybe next year when you’re older. For now, I happen to know someone who has a test on his nine times tables tomorrow and needs his sleep.”
“I do not!” Kendrick protested and yawned hugely, giving the lie to his statement.
“Come on, champ—time for bed.” His mother started to pull him down the corridor but Rafe stopped them.
“Excuse me,” he said awkwardly. “But if you have no more use for your mask, could I use it?”
“You wanna wear my mask?” The boy called Kendrick looked up at him uncertainly.
Rafe nodded. “I must go to a party—there is a female there I have to speak to. But everyone else has a costume and you see, I do not.”
He nodded at the door to Kat’s suite where people in costumes continued to pour in while he himself had none.
“Well…” Kendrick looked undecided for a moment. Then he shrugged and slipped off the black mask, which only covered the eyes. “Have fun, mister,” he said, handing it to Rafe.
“Thank you!” Rafe took it and put it on. “Thank you very much!”
“’s’all right.” The boy grinned at him. “Happy Halloween!”
“Happy Weeny-howls to you as well,” Rafe said sincerely, which made the boy laugh and his mother smile.
They went on up the long metal corridor and left Rafe to put on the mask and join the party.
He just hoped he was in time.
“I can’t do it—-my heart’s not in it,” Whitney protested, trying to give the microphone back to Kat.
“Oh come on, Whitney—you can’t leave without letting us hear you sing one more time,” Liv protested. She was dressed as an angel with fluffy white wings and a halo and her husband Baird was wearing a red devil tail and horns.
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