by Roxie Ray
Nion was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I knew it in the heat he’d left coiled in my core, tight and throbbing and ecstatic, and in the slow, steady rise and fall of his breath in his chest beneath my cheek.
Without everything I’d been through, I would have never found him. It was like every suffering I’d ever been through had been building toward this reward: getting to love him. Getting to belong to him.
Being allowed to live the most incredible life I could have ever imagined.
And now that I had it, I had a feeling that it was finally going to make me happy.
It was real, and so was he. Knowing that, I could feel my happiness unfurl and unleash, vast as a thousand galaxies and shining brighter than every star in the sky combined.
24
Nion
When we docked on Lunaria, our exit from the ship had to be quick, careful—and most of all, unseen.
“You know, I think this is the first outfit you guys have given me that doesn’t show the entire world my belly button.” Alyse seemed surprisingly pleased with the thick robes Leonix had found to dress her in. I wrapped a scarf around her head to cover up her long, lovely hair, then crossed it over her face so only her eyes were visible. Though it almost pained me to conceal such a beautiful visage—especially one belonging to my mate—Alyse’s eyes still sparkled up at me through the slit in the cloth.
“You should have been presented to my people as a goddess,” I grumbled nonetheless. “A source of salvation. You are only the third human female to bear a Lunarian child, you know. When Kloran brought Bria here to the capital, she was greeted by crowds and cheering. It vexes me that thanks to politics and Lady Idria’s ill will, you will not have the same.”
“I don’t want crowds and cheering.” Alyse cupped my cheek in her small hand and moved her mouth instinctively toward mine. She giggled as she struggled to kiss me through the cloth of her face-covering. “Honestly, I think a bunch of pomp and circumstance would just make me uncomfortable, Nion. What I want more than anything is just…” She sighed and rested her forehead against mine. “A simple life. Something nice and safe and quiet. For our sake and for our babies’, too.”
“That, I can promise you.” I wrapped my arms around her small frame and pulled her against me. No matter how many times I held her body against mine, it never failed to amaze me how delicate she felt in my arms—or the strength that could be contained within such a tiny creature, for that matter. “Are you sure you do not simply want to take the private shuttle to Haelian’s castle with Sawyer and Bria now? They loved you so much—and you cannot pretend that this plan of action does not present some risk.”
When we first touched down in the capital, Sawyer and Bria had wasted no time in boarding the ship. The journey from Haelian’s lands in the mountains was a short one, and the personal guards that Haelian and Kloran had arranged for them there were all well-trusted friends. With only a small retinue of dependable warriors to protect them, they had managed to evade the watchful eyes of jealous Lunarian nobles and Lady Idria’s specters alike.
Sawyer and Bria had delighted in Alyse immediately, and seeing the way Alyse had doted on Bria’s daughter made my heart feel warm and light. She would be a perfect mother, I knew. Alyse was full of more love than I had ever imagined possible—more than enough to share between me and our cubs.
It gladdened me to know that soon, she would be whisked away to a safe location as well. Though I would miss her when the Avant Lupinia returned to the stars, Alyse’s safety was paramount to me. At Haelian’s castle, Alyse would be able to share in her pregnancy journey with the two other pregnant human females while living in carefully protected luxury until we were able to put to rest any dangers that might threaten them.
She would be happy there, I knew.
I only wished she was not so stubbornly insisting on delaying her journey. Even if I was eager to show her off to the only person on the planet she truly desired to meet now.
“I’m sure. This is important to me too, handsome.” Alyse pulled her veil aside to press her lips against mine, skin on skin. With her kiss, she washed away all my doubts.
If this journey beyond the ship was what she wanted, then I was determined to provide it for her. For the mother of my cubs, no boon was too great.
Besides—I knew my own mother would be eager to meet the female who was providing her with grandcubs. Given the rarity of cubs on Lunaria, it would be cruel thing to deny.
The little shuttle we took to my mother’s village contained only Alyse and myself. While I steered it, Alyse scooted down in the passenger’s seat and kept her veil pulled tight across her face. Still, once we were away from the docks and beyond the edges of the capital, I noticed she could not help but peek out the shuttle’s window to survey the landscape.
“It’s beautiful here,” she breathed as we zipped through the trees. A gentle snow fell all around us, casting a smattering of crystalline flakes across the shuttle’s front windshield. “There’s nothing like this on Earth anymore. I can’t believe any of this is real.”
“Can you not?” I chuckled. “You have been pulled away from your home, dragged across the galaxies, subjected to other lifeforms of all species, colors and creeds…and this is what you cannot believe? A little snow?”
“I always knew that aliens existed.” Alyse placed a gloved palm against the window at her side and peeked up over the edge of the shuttle. “This, though…it’s real snow. On Earth, the only snow we get has to be created by machines.”
“You humans are ridiculous things,” I agreed. “Why would one want to manufacture snow?”
“It used to snow on Earth, I think. A long time ago.” Alyse sighed. “A lot of things are manufactured there now, though. It’s just…I mean, it’s nice, being surrounded by things that aren’t fake for once. I think I could be really happy here. Do you think, when everything is over, we could come live here?”
“We would have to live with my mother for a time,” I pointed out. “Until I could build us a hut of our own. Are you sure that you would not prefer to live in one of Kloran’s or Haelian’s castles instead? It would be more comfortable for you there, I think.”
“Absolutely sure,” Alyse said with a little laugh. “I’ve lived in mansions for most of my life, Nion. I’ve been offered riches and crowns and fortunes beyond my wildest dreams. But having something honest and simple and genuine…” She reached over and placed her hand on my knee. “Especially with you. Yeah. I want that more than anything.”
“Then you’ll have it,” I promised her. I did my best not to betray the relief in my voice. I did not think I would have enjoyed living in one of the generals’ castles so much myself—not when there was wood to chop, animals to tend to and fields to plow here in the village where I had been raised. “Fortunes and crowns, I cannot give you. But a simple life—that, thankfully, is something I can provide.”
We found my mother out in the back gardens, tugging on the reins of a steppe-beast, one of the eight-legged creatures that the villagers used to draw their plows through the fields, and cursing with more color than even the most foul-mouthed warriors I had fought alongside.
“Thrice-damned bletchkin! Moon-cursed, craven knudlink!” Mother let out a fierce roar, sank her feet into the mud and put her full weight behind pulling the steppe-beast forward, though it only chewed its cud with disinterest. Not one of its eight hooves even moved from the mud and slush. “I will pull your feathers out, slit you open and stuff you with them, you stubborn good-for-nothing, and then I will lie here and recline on your corpse—don’t think that I won’t! Then you will be sorry! So, move!”
Alyse let out a giggle as we looked on. As soon as it escaped her lips, she clapped her hand over the veil covering her mouth to stifle the sound.
I cleared my throat and stepped forward. “Mother? Do you, er…need some assistance?”
“Nion!” Mother turned, pale green hair disheveled and wide eyes flashing yello
w. Shooting the steppe-beast a final glare, she relinquished its reins and rushed toward me. Her arms encircled my neck and I lifted her up off the ground to spin her in a wide circle. When I placed her back on her feet again, her frustration had vanished. In the place of her scowl was now a smile bright as the sun. “I did not realize you were coming home so soon. Your blood-ridden ship tells me nothing, sends no word, and yet—” Mother paused as she turned and spotted Alyse, shivering at my side in her robes and veil. The sight of my mate made Mother’s eyes shift a dozen different shades before they returned to the bright yellow of surprise. “And yet…here you are.”
“Here we are.” I placed an arm on the small of Alyse’s back and drew her forward.
With a tentative glance my way, Alyse unwrapped her veil and let it settle around her shoulders.
“Hello, Missus…um.” Alyse let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sorry. I’m Alyse. I’m not sure what to call you.”
“I call her Mother.” I gave Alyse a gentle smile. “I imagine you should as well.”
“Should she, now?” The yellow in my mother’s eyes glimmered as she narrowed them with interest. “Well then. Perhaps we should go inside.” Her gaze shifted from me, then to Alyse, then back to me again. “It seems that the two of you might have quite the story to tell.”
Inside, Mother made us all cups of tea from the kettle that hung over the fireplace. Truth be told, the story of how Alyse and I had come to be together was not an easy one to tell. The worst parts of it—her capture by the Rutharian king and all that she suffered on his ship—I glossed over for Alyse’s sake. But when Alyse revealed that she was pregnant with twins—one Rutharian, one that was of my own seed—Mother seemed to put two and two together.
To my relief, she did not seem to mind.
“Twins are a blessing,” she told Alyse, reaching over to place a hand over Alyse’s belly. “Next time, though, I think triplets might be nice. I have a poultice for that. Applied during the full moons in the sacred caves, I think…”
“Would that work?” Alyse leaned forward with interest. “On Earth, you know, we have ways of ensuring multiple births as well—but it’s not with a poultice, it’s a little more complicated than that. You see—”
I laughed and collected the mugs to wash Alyse and my mother plotted and schemed for additional pregnancies in the future. For the time being, I was happy with our current situation. Coplan’s last assessment of Alyse had determined that the half-Lunarian cub had caught up to the half-Rutharian cub’s growth. Unnatural as this situation had seemed in the beginning, now we knew we could expect two strong, healthy cubs born as though they were natural twins. But if Alyse and my mother wanted an entire army to raise, I would have to find some way to provide it for them.
In many ways, it was a beautiful idea. Once upon a time, I had no plans or hopes for any mate at all, let alone the dozens of cubs that Alyse and Mother now seemed moon-bent on getting out of me. But seeing as the two of them were getting along so well…
If twins were a blessing, then triplets, I supposed, were certainly a possibility. Once war and politics were settled, it was easy to imagine cubs of all ages running around the garden, with Mother chasing them and Alyse at my side.
“We will have to return to the ship soon,” I told Mother after dinner. The snow was falling faster now. We watched Alyse speak to the steppe-beast from across the garden. She petted its feathers in a way the beast seemed to enjoy and, for reasons unknown to me, kept calling the cursed thing Cinnamon Bun. “Alyse will need to be taken somewhere safe until our enemies are snuffed out completely. We should not have come at all, I know, but Alyse insisted.”
“You chose well with her, Nion.” Mother crossed her arms over her ribs and shot me a grin. “If your mate’s will is even stronger than your own—and you know I will never turn down a visit from my only son.”
“We chose each other, I think. But a mate and the promise of cubs is not all I have brought back for you from my mission, Mother.” I reached into my pocket and ran my thumb over my brother’s braid, taken from the chambers of his killer. As much as I would have liked to keep this small piece of him with me, I knew that Mother would appreciate it more. I passed it to her with a small nod. “This is for you.”
She took it without a sound. “Hyian’s braid. I…I never thought I would see this again.” As she held it, I saw her eyes glisten with tears, but she did not allow any to fall. “He is avenged, then?”
“He is. My only regret is that I could not give you more than a trinket and my word.”
Mother patted my chest and shook her head. “You have given me more than a trinket, Nion. More than words. Alyse, these cubs…they are a better prize than any vengeance. You should have realized that by now.”
My chest felt light and heavy all at once as I took her words in. Across the garden, Alyse threw her head back and let out a peal of laughter as the steppe-beast licked at her hand then nudged her belly with its nose. The snow glittered all around her, settling into her curls like so many diamonds. The sound of her joy warmed me so greatly, I did not even feel the cold.
“I think I have,” I told Mother. “This, what we have here…it is the greatest prize of all.”
25
Coplan
Her hair was the color of a starless night. It had been ratted and tangled so badly that it had taken hours of brushing while she was unconscious to set right. But now, when the light hit it, it shone so black it was nearly blue. She kept her eyes clenched shut tight most of the time, but when she did open them—usually just before she lunged at me in attack—they were a lovely silver-gray.
She was the most beautiful female I had ever seen in all my days and she hated me more deeply than any hate I had ever known.
What I had done to warrant her malice, it was hard to say. Perhaps it was touching her that had done it. When I had carried her from the Rutharian outpost, she had been too weak to even stir in my arms, but with the help of an IV and a long sleep in the safety we could provide her on the ship, she had strengthened just enough to react when I inserted her translator chip.
Sometimes, I looked at the little crescent marks her teeth had left in my skin with fondness.
I did not enjoy being bitten, but I could appreciate that this new female was a fighter. She had been starved, beaten, kept chained like an ill-behaved pet…and yet, she still had not given up hope. The Rutharians had not broken her.
It was not much to go on. I would have preferred to know her name. Her story. How she had gotten there and how best I could help her now that she was safe.
But if she was a fighter, then she could fight through this new turn in her life, too. Convincing her that she was safe, though—that was the hard part.
The night we landed on Lunaria, we held a vigil for our warriors who had fallen during the black-haired female’s rescue. I would have liked her to be there for it, so those who had lived could understand what those who had died had died for—but in her current state she would not even allow me to help her to the shower so that she might bathe.
She would not be presentable for the warriors for some time now. It would make things difficult in the future, I knew. Already, grumblings as to whether such a great loss of life had been worth it for one female who only screamed and gnashed her teeth at me were burning through the ranks like an untamed fire.
That was Kloran’s problem, though—and Haelian’s.
Just as this new human female was mine.
As I stood in the darkness of the Avant Lupinia’s bridge watching the guns fire a blazing shot off into the night for each of the fifty-some warriors we had lost, I let out a slow, thin breath. We would not fire a shot for Ero, but watching each of the other white-purple blasts cut across the night sky always brought me some sense of ease. I was a healer now, less likely to die in battle. But it comforted me to know that for as long as I did my duty, if I did die, I would be remembered like this. Honored by a bright light in the darkness, brief but gloriou
s. Each shot made my tired eyes, exhausted from being in the bright lights of the ward all day, ache a little, but when each shot faded into the sky, the deep black that engulfed it made me feel at ease once more.
I blinked as I considered that thought. Metaphorically, it was a little dark—
But perhaps darkness was what we needed right now. Not all problems could be solved under the glare of bright, blinding light.
I rushed to the medical bay and took up a plate of food. I knew that the female would not eat raw meat as we Lunarians did, but as she had ripped her IV out a few days ago and I had been unable to put in a new one, I hoped that this time she would accept my offering of greens and fruit without flinging it at me.
This was a long shot, I knew, but the plan was simple enough that it would not hurt to try.
“I am coming in,” I called through the door of the exam room. I only hoped she had not gotten hold of a pair of scissors again—the last time she had done that, she’d nearly gotten them through my throat before I’d been able to wrench them away. “I will not hurt you. Kindly do not try to kill me this time.”
I opened the door slowly. To my relief, she was huddled in the corner of the room. Her arms were wrapped around her knees and her head was turned away from me.
From what I could see of her eyes, they were clenched shut. Same as always.
But perhaps, for once, I had finally thought of something that might help that. If only a little bit.
“I am going to turn the lights off now,” I told her. My words came clear and slow. I did not want her to think this was some kind of trick—though, given her previous treatment and her great distrust of me, there may not have been any avoiding that. “I have food for you, if you wish to eat. I would like to speak with you as well, if you will allow me to. But I will not force you to do anything you do not want to do.” I rubbed at the mound of flesh just beneath my thumb that she had left marked by her teeth. “Bite me again, though, and I will—”