by Roxie Ray
Kloran nodded, reaching up to smooth my hair away from my face. “It would pain me too, Bree-ah. I…I do not want to lose you. You are truly precious to me.”
His treasure, he’d called me. He’d broken an entire trade alliance with the Jeorkanians just because their queen had talked shit about me.
“I don’t have anything waiting for me back on Earth,” I admitted. “I’d be alone in the world. And I’m tired of being alone, Kloran. Even in my marriage, I never felt like I had anyone.” Ever since my parents had been hauled off to the work camps, I’d never felt like I had anyone at all.
At least, not until now.
“If you chose to stay, Bree-ah, you would never be alone again.” He laughed, but it was a sad one this time. “You would live your life in luxury with me. Luxury like you’ve never known. No one would hurt you. I will protect you. Down to my dying breath if I had to.”
“Even if I can’t give you…cubs?” It felt weird to say that, cubs, not babies. Wolves had cubs, not humans. But I guessed Kloran was a lot like a wolf in a lot of ways. The fangs, for one. The growling and the claws, for another.
“If your womb cannot take my seed, we would have to continue to seek out a species of breeding slaves who could, that is true.” Kloran bowed his head, looking annoyed at the very thought of it. “But there are plenty of Lunarian males. I would not be under any obligations to breed a Lunarian female. I could simply adopt an heir from another house. And I have already mated with you, Bree-ah. I would like to continue doing so. Does that answer your question?”
I nodded, then folded myself against Kloran’s chest. “It does. And I’ll think about it, okay? It’s a big decision to make, staying here in space for the rest of my life. But…” I swallowed hard as my eyes welled up with tears. “You’ve been so good to me, Kloran. You’ve been kinder to me than any man ever has in my entire life.” I let out a little laugh as I tried to blink the tears away. “I want to keep mating with you too, you big idiot. This is just…a lot to process, I think. I never thought I’d ever leave Earth at all. I didn’t think I’d ever become a mom, either.”
Kloran cupped my face in his hands and turned my chin up so he could hold my gaze. “You would make such a good mother, Bree-ah. I would make a good father. And cubs or not, I will be the best provider for you, take care of you in ways that no one else ever could. If you but say the word, choose me…” He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. “I will make you happy, Bree-ah. A thousand more nights like the one we shared in the embassy, more pleasure than you could possibly comprehend.”
Slowly, I smiled. “I think I might be able to comprehend a little, big guy.”
“Good. Then you know how you will be rewarded when you make the right choice.” Kloran smiled back at me, a little pink playfulness glittering in the purple of his eyes. “Until then, we can continue mating as we did the other night, surely?”
Feeling a little playful myself, I moved my hand to the lap of Kloran’s pants. Immediately, my fingers found the bulge of his cock there. With the way I was pressed against him, he must’ve been half-hard for most of our conversation.
“Well, I guess now that we’re off Jeorkana, we probably do have a little bit of time to spare…” And admittedly, knowing that the whole time we were banging one out in that bathtub, Kloran had been thinking about knocking me up was kind of hot. I didn’t want to tell him, but I’d been kind of thinking about it too. If I was serious about still not being sure about motherhood, I guessed I could have asked for a condom or something, but I didn’t even know if the Lunarians had condoms, and I didn’t think I wanted one.
It had been hot, feeling Kloran’s cum shooting up into me. So hot, that chance of pregnancy be damned, I was kind of into the idea of being filled up by him all over again.
Unfortunately, when Kloran pressed his lips to mine, it wasn’t the kind of kiss that said he was seconds away from taking me back to his room and ravishing me.
“I must go meet with the high council now, I am afraid, vringna. There will be time to mate again later, though. I promise.” A hungry look flashed in Kloran’s eyes as they shifted to that dreamy midnight blue again for a moment and his hands moved to my breasts. He gave my tits a possessive squeeze before moving in to steal another kiss. “But you are free to move about the ship as you like. It might be good to accustom yourself with some of our warriors. Learn our ways. Perhaps it would make it easier for you to make your decision.”
“Mm. Yeah, okay. That could be cool, yeah.” I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be spending the rest of my day riding Kloran’s dick again, but I supposed it was fair. I had kind of created a diplomatic crisis for him to deal with and getting to explore the ship a little more seemed like fun. “I’ll miss you, though.”
“How much?” Another possessive squeeze from Kloran’s massive hands, this one at my hips.
“Maybe just a little.” I winked at him, then popped up on my tiptoes to steal one last kiss before I slipped out of his grasp. “Maybe a lot.”
15
Kloran
The next few days were difficult ones. The Lunarian High Council was not happy that I had pulled our troops from Jeorkana and despite my father’s support of the action, was even less happy that we would no longer be able to acquire slaves from their handlers. They were fascinated by Bree-ah and the promise she showed in solving our population problem, but until I could confirm that she was capable of bearing a Lunarian child—and until we found more females who were also willing and able—I knew I had left House Dyoval on political thin ice.
Bree-ah herself also posed a great concern for me. After our discussion on the viewing deck after leaving Jeorkana, I was beginning to regret administering the fertility shot without her knowledge. Continuing to mate with her despite her uncertainty about motherhood was one thing; injecting her with a drug to increase the likelihood that she would get pregnant was another entirely. My only hope was that during our nightly trysts, when she would sometimes outright beg me to sow my seed inside her, she was beginning to warm to the idea.
My fear was that she would choose to return to Earth regardless—or perhaps that she would get pregnant and come to hate me for it. Both would culminate in the realization of my greatest fear of all: that I would lose her. The prospect ate away at me, and there was nothing that could stop it except for Bree-ah’s own decision to stay. A decision which, to my dismay, she was taking her sweet time on making.
A pleasant turn of events on the Bree-ah front, however, was her newfound interest in the ship’s healing ward. She had stumbled upon it during her first day of exploration on the ship and, revealing that she herself had been a healer back on Earth, had quickly taken to nursing the wounded warriors that we had brought aboard the ship from our outposts on Jeorkana. Head Healer Adskow spoke highly of Bree-ah’s abilities every time I met him in the hall. She was good with his patients, he told me, and incredibly knowledgeable of her craft.
Seeking to see my mate in action, I slipped down to the ward one afternoon to judge Bree-ah’s abilities for myself.
“Do not touch it!” A warrior I knew well, Nion, was on Bree-ah’s examination table as I peered in through the doorway. His face was contorted in pain. His eyes were a furious blood-red.
Anyone else—male or female, Lunarian or otherwise—would have taken one look at Nion’s bared fangs and the sharp, short horns protruding from his forehead and done as Nion ordered. But Bree-ah was a brave little thing, not easily dissuaded by his snarling and howling. She merely hissed a frustrated “Shhhh!” at him and swatted his hands away from the sutures on his thigh she was attending to.
“It’s infected, you ass,” she snapped at him. “Do you want me to fix it, or do you want to lose the leg completely?”
“Your incessant prodding at it is painful, human. I would rather die than go on enduring this level of humiliation and agony!”
“Well, you will die if you don’t let me disinfect it. So either make good on those
words, or hold. Still!”
Groaning, Nion lay back and allowed Bree-ah to go on with her work. His groans and huffs as she undid his sutures allowed his distaste for her ministrations to be known by all within hearing distance.
“One would expect that an esteemed warrior such as Nion of House Jonivia would have greater tolerance for pain,” I quipped from the doorway, leaning against the frame with my arms crossed over my chest. “Has your time on Jeorkana caused you to go soft, warrior?”
Nion groaned even louder as his eyes fell upon me. But as Bree-ah turned to see me, her lips curled into a little smile.
“I think his time on Jeorkana nearly ended him completely,” Bree-ah told me. She beckoned me toward her for a kiss, and dutifully, I approached her. But she was careful not to touch me with anything more than her luscious, delicious lips before she returned to attending to Nion’s wound. “It sounds like Queen Lieja was burning the candles of her Lunarian mercenaries at both ends.” Nion and I shared a look of mutual confusion at Bree-ah’s turn of phrase. I shrugged. He rolled his eyes. “Can you believe she had him fighting with a wounded leg? He’s lucky you pulled your troops when you did.”
“And you, tiny human, are lucky that General Kloran has you under his protection,” Nion grumbled back. “Else I would have you over my knee in an instant. Then we would see who is good at taking pain.”
“The only knee Bree-ah will be bending over is mine, Nion,” I warned him with a growl. Bree-ah shot me a dirty look at the suggestion, though, causing me to laugh. “Only if she wishes, of course.”
“I’m going to have you both over my knees if you don’t let me get to work.” She stripped her gloves from her hands and stepped back from the examination table. “There. It’s disinfected now, but you’ll need to stay off of it for several days and be sure to keep it clean.”
“Yes, Healer Bree-ah.” Nion sat up and gave me a pathetic look as Bree-ah left the room to disinfect her own hands. He waited until she was out of earshot before speaking again. “She may be good for you, General, but I fear she will continue to be a nuisance to me unless I heed her words.”
“Good for me, is she?” This was news to me. With so few females to go around, I knew that some of my warriors were jealous of my acquisition of my exotic new mate. But it hadn’t yet struck me that others might have been glad for me in finding Bree-ah as well.
“You move differently now, General. You stomp around less, for one thing.” Nion grinned. “Though perhaps that is because your balls are no longer too full of seed to walk properly. Is that it?”
“If only your own balls were not so full of the entire contents of your brain, Nion. Then perhaps you would remember not to speak that way to your superiors.” My words were harsh, but my tone was light. Nion was a good warrior, and the thought that Bree-ah was visibly improving my mood pleased me greatly. I had not realized how at ease I had begun to feel since Bree-ah entered my life. She was the light in my evenings on even my darkest days. The one thing that could put a glimmer in my eye, even when I wanted to put my fist through the hull of the ship out of rage.
The truth struck me like an arrow to the chest. I was in love with Bree-ah. Perhaps I had been for a long time.
Now, all I needed was for Bree-ah to love me back as well.
I helped Nion up off of the table as I sensed another presence enter the room. I turned to find Leonix standing in the doorway that Bree-ah had just exited through—and her eyes were nearly black with concern.
“Something awry, Leonix?” I asked.
She stared at Nion for a moment, then motioned for him to leave. With a nod, he obeyed the order, limping out into the hall. He closed the door behind him, leaving Leonix and I alone to discuss her concerns.
“I just caught scent of Bree-ah as I moved through the other room.” She inclined her head to the room she had just come from. “Her smell is…different. Her own, mixed with Lunarian—and no, it isn’t because you’ve left your musk all over her. The scent seems to be coming from…within her.”
I opened my mouth, but suddenly, I could not find my breath.
“Are you saying…”
“She is pregnant, Kloran. Only a Lunarian woman can smell the scent of conception, but, yes, she is without a doubt carrying your cub.”
I felt my eyes flash through emotions. Elation. Love. Fear. Hope. This was what I had wanted for myself, for Bree-ah, for my people. It was what I had desired from the moment I first set eyes on her. Now, we knew that human females could carry Lunarian children. The future of our race lay in their hands—or rather, in their wombs.
Bree-ah was pregnant with my cub. I would be a father, and she, the most precious thing I had ever known—she would be my cub’s mother. I wanted to rejoice, but a dull, heavy weight on my shoulders was holding me back.
She had gotten pregnant, at least in part, because of the fertility serum I had dosed her with as she slept. Part of me had hoped that perhaps my seed would not take during this cycle, and we could try again after her moon-time had passed. Then, at least, there would not have been this deception hanging over the pregnancy like a black cloud.
Instead, I had been blessed with the promise of a cub—and I had ruined it by tying Bree-ah to me against her will. I did not know if she would ever find it within herself to forgive me for my deception.
I did not know if she would be happy to know that she was pregnant at all.
“I need to consult with Haelian,” I told Leonix. I moved to her, lowering my forehead to rest it against hers. “Thank you for telling me, cousin. But please, do not reveal this to Bree-ah until I have had a chance to discuss it with her myself?”
“Of course not. But hurry up about it, Kloran.” Leonix closed her eyes and backed away. “If you wait too long, she will soon come to discover it on her own—whether you are ready or not.”
I moved to the communications deck with haste. Leonix was right. There was no time to lose. I did not wish to disturb Haelian from his mission near Earth, where he was still waiting for the right moment to attack and board the slaver ship there, but he was still my most trusted adviser. And never before in my life had I been in greater need of advice.
“Greetings, General.” Haelian rubbed his eyes as he blinked up at me from the screen of the video communicator. “I hope this is urgent—you just interrupted the first hour of sleep I’ve had in two days.”
“Urgent is one word for it,” I said grimly before launching into the tale of Bree-ah’s pregnancy—and the misdeed I had committed to ensure it.
“Kloran,” Haelian hissed. “You should have called me before you did something so violating! Your father is right about you—by the time you think your actions through fully, you’ve already committed them.”
“I’ve already had one lecture from Leonix, Haelian. I do not need another.” I rested my face in my hand to hide my shame and sighed. “I was desperate. I am in love with her, Haelian. I feared if she did not get pregnant, she would leave—that I would lose her, and—”
“And now you may lose her still.” Haelian shook his head, looking even more tired than he’d been when I first called. “Does she know yet?”
“No. I…I do not know that I can bring myself to reveal it to her. I have never been in love before, Haelian. It is turning me into someone I do not like.”
At that, Haelian gave a sharp laugh. “There is a human saying. About love being blind and making you act erratically as you stumble around in the dark, because of your lack of sight.” He scratched his head. “Or something like that. But the deed is done now, Kloran. My only advice is to tell her now, before it’s too late. She may love you as well—enough that it will not matter. Better to rip out the sutures now than let the wound heal over, only to slice it open again.”
I forced out a laugh of my own. “I believe Bree-ah was just trying to explain to Nion exactly that.”
“Your mate is a clever one, Kloran. Only more reason to tell her before she discovers it on her own.”
“Thank you for your honesty, Haelian. I know that it is not always the simplest thing to explain to a general that he is wrong.”
Haelian rolled his eyes. “You speak in jest, surely, General. Telling you that you are wrong is my greatest joy.”
We ended the call on that note, but though I knew Haelian was correct, acting on his advice would not be a simple thing either. I had to tell Bree-ah what I had done, and the consequence of that action.
I could only hope that she loved me back enough to forgive me for it.
16
Bria
It had been a week since I’d started volunteering in the medical bay of Kloran’s ship. In that week I’d seen things I’d never even thought possible. I’d witnessed an entire year’s worth of chemotherapy carried out in a matter of seconds, with no sign of cancerous cells surviving and no side effects, either. I’d seen a new set of lungs regrown from a tissue sample overnight—I’d even been allowed to assist Head Healer Adskow in transplanting them into his patient. But for every medical miracle I’d witnessed, there had been horrors, too. A scouting ship full of warriors who had returned from Rutharian space with no sign of external injuries to speak of, but such severe internal trauma that we had only been able to save one of them. On one evening, a warrior had come into the ward clutching his head while his eyes flashed wildly in every color of the rainbow. Healer Adskow had been quick to determine the source of the injury, though there was little to be done; the man had somehow contracted some sort of hypnotic virus from malware he’d downloaded while trying to watch the space equivalent of internet porn.
As I pulled my head out of the toilet and wiped my lips with the back of my hand, I just wished my constitution was holding up a little better in light of it all. Seeing the horrible effects of war and the bizarre dangers of the intergalactic online world weren’t exactly the routine medical procedures I’d grown accustomed to in the cushy Sector One hospital I’d been employed at on Earth, but I was still a nurse, dammit! Even the smell of the disinfectant that Healer Adskow used on the ward was beginning to turn my stomach now. I hadn’t been able to keep anything down since shortly after Kloran’s first brief visit to see me working on the ward—and he was beginning to catch on, too.