by Poppy Rhys
“What is it?” Jruviin barked, causing Kiven to send her disapproving glare at him.
“I will be back after the scan is analyzed.” In a huff, she toted the machine away. They were all left staring at each other.
“I do not have a good feeling about this,” Jru said first, peering around the glass divider to eyeball Kiven’s retreat.
“She looked at me like I pissed in her drink.” Excuse her for contracting a deadly parasite and wanting to get rid of it!
Dania didn’t really know if that’s what she had, but her brain wouldn’t let it go. It had settled on an invading critter that was slowly gorging on her guts while they were forced to sit there and wait.
The receptionist whirled around the corner, her blue hair whipping back and forth like a windstorm only she could feel was swirling around the room.
“You have to leave.”
Alarm shot through her. “Why?”
“You’ve violated Sau-sai law and policy states this facility must report the crime. If you leave now—”
“We have committed no crimes,” Val’Koy protested, his tail lashing as he squeezed her hand a little too tightly.
The receptionist huffed and cocked her head. “It doesn’t matter if you committed the crime here or off-hub.” She continued to rush them, making shooing motions. “Interspecies breeding is strictly prohibited!”
“What?” they all three exclaimed in unison.
“The punishment is a hefty fine and deportation if the court is lenient, otherwise they will force a termination, and Una is not a ward known for leniency.”
Dania’s eyes bugged and her jaw sagged. “I-I’m pregnant?”
The receptionist huffed again. “Did you not know?”
“Obviously not!”
“Well congratulations, but you have to leave now if you want to keep the fetuses!”
They all stilled, much to the impatient receptionist’s annoyance.
“More... than one?” Hesitation saturated Jru’s husky voice.
“How many?” Dania asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, stomping her foot and yanking on her hair as if she were riled up. “I’m trying to save your skin here and you aren’t even listening!”
Val’Koy hauled Dania up, as if the weight of the receptionist’s words were finally registering. Forced termination? She was still wrapping her head around the idea it wasn’t a parasite—well, in the literal sense—invading her body, but a baby.
No, babies.
Holy fucking shit.
Holy shit.
HOLY SHIT!
Dania gripped her middle. She didn’t have time to sit there gawking about the news. This lady said it was illegal. The lives inside her were proof of a criminal offense whether intentional or not.
“There’s a back entrance,” the lady said. “Hurry, before medic Kiven returns.”
“Why are you helping us?” Dania asked as they followed her through the busy room.
“I have my reasons. Not all of us agree with forced termination, no matter the law.”
“Thank you...”
Another ripple of pain and Dania curled over her middle, clutching Val’s neck tighter.
“She needs medication,” Val’Koy grated.
“I can’t help you with that, I’m sorry.” The receptionist swiped her key-card and opened an exit to a side street. They moved past her, cold rain splattering against their skin and clothing. “Leave Sau-sai as soon as you can, and do not come back.”
The door slammed shut.
FORTY-EIGHT
VAL’KOY
Hope. That one emotion he’d hammered down into the deepest recesses of his mind drilled through his mental barricade with a renewed enthusiasm.
Val’Koy squeezed Dania closer to his chest as she directed their next turn, following a path only she could see with her synthetic eye.
The Therran hissed a breath.
“Sorry,” he quickly apologized, and loosened his grip on her body.
His instinct was to keep her close, especially with the recent news. Maybe a little too close. It wasn’t that he forgot her fragility, her delicate bones and tender flesh, but this time... this time, he wouldn’t let her go.
Another corner turned, and a lift taken down multiple levels. They were closer to the industrial district where the repairman’s shop was located. More androids and grease stained people populated this area compared to the main shopping hubs. The damp air smelled like burning engines and fuel.
If he’d only known...
He couldn’t have known. Couldn’t have predicted she’d be in a breeding state. How had this happened?
“Well, you put A into B and, sometimes, C—”
“What?” Val’Koy asked, staring down into her darkly lit eyes beneath her black hood. The whites glistened with unshed water, but humor danced in her bewitching gaze.
“You asked how this happened.”
He’d said that aloud?
Dania’s soft body tensed in his arms and, although she didn’t scream—thank A’Drast—the skin around her eyes crinkled and her face morphed into one of silent torment.
Val’Koy wanted to strangle someone. And maybe bash his own head into a wall, Jruviin’s too. They’d put her in this mess...
Or did they?
“Trik and Raim—”
“Didn’t do anything to me,” she hurriedly said, gusting a held breath like her wave of pain was temporarily gone. “Didn’t do what you’re thinking, anyway.”
And Val’Koy was back to wanting to bash his own head into a wall.
“I thought we were incompat...”
Ahh.
His gaze darted to Jruviin as they walked with a speed that was just below running. The feathers along the Draekiin’s exposed tail-end puffed up, ready to do damage with his barbs. Val’Koy’d bet Jruviin’s spine quills would be raised in agitation now, too, if he were topless.
Maybe Therrans and Melier weren’t compatible, but perhaps Draekiins were.
All at once, Val’Koy felt a wash of envy. Dania carried Jruviin’s offspring. That was the only explanation.
Wasn’t it?
“Are you truly human?” he blurted, perplexed that he felt envious the life inside her may not be his.
Nonsense.
His annoying reaction aside, he knew he’d treat Jruviin’s offspring as his own. They were a part of Dania too, after all, and he loved her. Wounded pride that—if anyone was going to tag her—he didn’t tag her first. That was it.
It was almost a relief that he hadn’t completely lost his selfish desires. Despite everything, he had changed, but was still himself. Though wanting to impregnate their mate first was a new one, and a bit petulant in the bigger scheme of things...
Yet here we are.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I think. As far as I know.”
“You sound unsure.”
“Well I haven’t exactly tested my DNA, but I think one of my doctors would’ve told me by now.” Dania whimpered and rode another spasm. “Wait, what day is it?”
Zed spouted off a date from the system Dor Nye used to track time.
Dania gasped.
“What?” By Jruviin’s gravelly tone, Val’Koy got the sense he’d been thinking about the same thing: self-head-bashing.
That made Val’Koy feel better.
“My restriction serum. I-I was due for a boost over a month ago!”
Restriction serum. That was the injection his brother Val’Zun had told him about. A human contraceptive.
Val’Koy sifted his memories.
“I’m on the restriction serum anyway...”
Dania said that on their first encounter.
That damned hopeful emotion lit up again. The same one he’d felt when he’d seen the Therran in her red coat carrying a bag of treats and an infant in her arms.
Maybe her serum was what prevented offspring between them their first time together. If they were incompatible, he didn’t think his b
ody would’ve locked them in an implantation hold. That had never happened with anyone he’d coupled with—no matter the species.
Maybe, just maybe, Dania carried his offspring too...
“That means I’ve... I’ve been gone for nearly half a year.”
****
DANIA
There’d been a reason she hadn’t asked Zed how long she’d been gone—and this was it.
If she didn’t think about it, somehow time and space would’ve shifted, and she could pretend it was just a couple weeks off-planet. She’d go home when it was all over and pick up right where she left off.
She might’ve had to grovel to her boss, but he’d let her come back to work even if she couldn’t take any personal days for a couple months just to get on his good side again.
But after that doctor visit, she finally had to know.
And knowing how long she’d been gone... it made all of this too real.
Her shitty apartment had definitely been rented out, and her measly belongings were definitely given away, trashed or sold.
Her mattress! That lovely, expensive gift—it probably sat in someone else’s shitty apartment now because anyone who could afford to pay thousands of credits for a mattress would buy it new.
And they probably didn’t live in a shitty apartment.
Why did it matter? A Melier prince held her right now and, not only did he claim her as his mate, but the ex-arms dealing Draekiin did too.
Dania couldn’t really go back to normal.
Even if she tried, the overly protective wolvenk loping behind Jru and Val would make things difficult. She didn’t think her boss would let him chill behind the bar while she worked. He’d scare off the customers!
All of that aside, she’d been knocked up.
This wasn’t in her five-year plan. Maybe her eventual plan, but not the five!
She’d planned to save up money, move to a nicer apartment, meet a sweet guy that wasn’t named Terry. Said sweet guy would have a real residence where generations of his bloodline had lived before him. They’d get partnered and live a nauseatingly happy life and have one boy and one girl.
That was her plan. Settling on Dor Nye had always been her plan. She’d finally broken away from the nomadic life she’d been born into and had begun to settle. Then she’d had that one-night stand and...
“Just when I thought I was out,” she groaned, “they pull me back in.”
“Who?” Val’Koy and Jruviin asked in unison.
“It’s the Godfather.”
Dania blamed Terry.
If he hadn’t dumped her, she wouldn’t have been rage buying candy and run into Val’Koy for the second time. They wouldn’t have bumped uglies and Dania would’ve blissfully gone on with life never knowing what a Trepnil was.
Even as she thought all that, a lump lodged in her throat at the idea of never knowing the two men who’d fought and bled to keep her safe on Tundrin and every day since then. She never would have met River. She had almost died, several times now, but this new life... could it be more than she might’ve had on Dor Nye?
She hoped so.
“Thanks Terry,” she dejectedly sighed.
“Who is Terry?” Val’Koy growled at the same time Jruviin asked, “Who is the Godfather?”
Even the next twinge of muscles in her middle couldn’t completely sweep away her small smile.
She was done complaining. All she had to do was work it out in her mind, inwardly vent a little, and then she could move on. Because when it all boiled down, she wasn’t mad at Terry. Or that she’d been dragged back into a nomadic existence, even if it might be temporary.
Or the bounty on their heads and the mercenaries chasing them with the same guns Jruviin’s family had supplied because, somehow, the sweet Draekiin she’d fallen in love with was a fucking arms dealer in his previous—
She’d derailed again. What had she been getting at?
Dania was... happy. Amid all the chaos, she was with three guys she’d come to love in different ways and soon, stars willing, there’d be mini versions of her mates running around.
She patted Val’Koy’s chest and shook her head. “He’s no one.” Eyes darting to Jru, she grinned. “I have a vid collection you’re going to want to watch whenever we’re not being hunted.”
Her mates shared a glance. They probably wondered if she’d officially lost her marbles. Joke was on them, ha ha. She’d lost her mind nearly six months ago.
The repairman’s shop came into view, looking more like a hangar. Just like all the ‘shops’ on this side of Sau-sai Hub.
She leaned into Val’Koy’s chest. The exhaustion ate away at her. These cramps were sapping her energy.
She watched as Jruviin flagged down one of the repairman’s employees. His gray jumpsuit was covered in darkened damp spots over his humanoid body. Except he had this long third arm that jutted from between his shoulder blades. When Val’Koy asked about their ship, that third arm scratched the top of his bald, horned head as if he were thinking.
Dania bit back laughter.
“Not repaired,” he finally said after checking his grease smeared tablet.
Her humor died.
“How much longer?” Jruviin asked, his impatience barely masked.
The humanoid opened his mouth to answer, but a red energy bullet exploded from between his eyes.
A hot spray of blue blood splattered her face, causing her to flinch.
Dania screamed.
****
VAL’KOY
His eardrums seized when Dania’s high-pitched shriek pealed through the air while he held her close. Immediately, he clamped a hand over her mouth and swayed on his feet, afraid he might actually pass out.
River’s viciously predatory snarl ripped loose right before a torrent of energy bullets.
One grazed Val’Koy’s thigh, jolting his mental facilities back to normal.
Jruviin grunted and stumbled forward as a bullet caught him in the shoulder.
Dania screamed again, her cries muffled under his hand.
He turned.
Booted feet pounded the hangar floor, and the swarm of red armored mercs spilled through the door.
It all happened so quickly, it took seconds for Val’Koy’s instincts to catch up.
He clutched Dania and ran toward the nearest craft. The enormous shop was packed with them and this one perched directly on the ground, giving them cover.
Jruviin slid around the side of the craft, less coordinated than his usual self, and clutched his shoulder. River was right behind him, his back feet skidding out when he rounded, but he didn’t appear injured.
“Why am I always getting lanced while you get grazed?” Jruviin roared, breathing heavier. No doubt it fucking hurt, yet Val’Koy felt his lips twitch into a grin. It quickly died when Dania—mouth still covered—glared at him.
He removed his hand.
“Jru, are you okay?” she asked, reaching out for the Draekiin as if his wound were more important than the scorched slit in his own leg that tore open and bled when he ran.
Val’Koy scowled.
Jruviin smirked when Dania wasn’t looking.
Fucker.
Sparks flew when someone shot a generator, ripping his thoughts back to the immediate danger. This time they were truly without weapons and the mercs had the advantage.
His eyes scanned along the back of the hangar. No doors were visible, only an office in the back corner. They’d only be trapped in a tighter spot if they headed there.
River got closer than Val’Koy would’ve liked when he sniffed Dania’s face, checking on her. And then he started licking away the blood.
Wolvenks.
A deafening clang of metal against metal had them all flinching. The thrown merc slid down the far wall and crumpled into a heap.
“What the—” Dania murmured.
A battle shriek that sounded like a bird of prey pierced the air. Jruviin sat up straight, his tail barbs stiffe
ning even further.
“What is it?” Val’Koy didn’t like it when the Draekiin looked uneasy. Not much scared Jruviin in the time he’d known him. Not since the Drae had accepted death was unavoidable. There was an eeriness to a male that didn’t fear dying, so when Jruviin appeared nervous, Val’Koy had the healthy sense to worry.
He didn’t get an answer as a wave of gunfire clogged the air with a roaring that would leave his ears ringing for a good few hours.
Who were the mercs shooting at? Dania’s flimsy, blunt fingernails dug into his jacket at the shoulders, and she buried her face in the side of his neck.
Perhaps an employee managed to call the authorities—
A’Drast’s fucking mane.
That was another entity they were trying to avoid.
Silence descended and his thoughts came to a screeching halt. His body tensed, preparing for another fight to keep Dania and their offspring alive and out of the grasp of Sau-sai’s misguided courts.
“Jruviin, I know you are here,” someone called with a hoarse voice similar to that of his partner.
Val’Koy’s brow pulled low over one eye when he glimpsed Jruviin.
“It is safe,” it called. “We have killed the threat and my ship is prepared to take you wherever you need.”
Who would offer that? Who even knew his partner’s name on this hub? Or would kill—
The pieces linked together at a slower rate than usual while Jruviin got to his feet and stepped out from behind the craft. It had to be lack of sleep and a saturation of adrenaline.
“Father,” Jruviin ground out.
Well, fuck.
Dania tensed in his arms, pulling back her head to narrow her eyes. Val’Koy had the suspicion she was remembering that conversation on Tundrin where Jruviin had revealed to them both how he’d ended up there.
And she didn’t look happy.
****
DANIA
This couldn’t be right. The gunfire turned her partially deaf and she’d obviously misheard what Jruviin said.
Jruviin’s father hated him. Why the hell would he lift a finger to help?
Val’Koy stood, unfolding his hard body from a crouch, and stepped out from behind the craft. Dania’s fingers twisted farther into his black coat at what she saw.