by Jarli Grey
Alekyn smiled, tugging his sarai closer. Jamie had taken one look at him with Syfern a muddled mess at his feet and burst into tears. Once he was freed from his seat and his bands were unclipped, he’d dragged Alekyn to him and tucked himself under his shoulder. They were cuddled up together in their bed back at the pard’s den, and Jamie was clinging to him now as if he would never let him go.
He would, Alekyn decided, like to rescue Jamie every day if this was how he was rewarded.
“Well, not so much a spy as an undercover agent reporting on possible subversive activities.”
“Same thing surely,” Jamie yawned and ran his hand sensuously down Alekyn’s tight eight-pack. “Whatever, I’m glad he was able to contact you and stop Syfern from taking me to wherever it was he was taking me.”
“The temple of Nemta in the northern polar belt. His clan has a castle in the Yurin Mountains.”
Jamie shivered. “Glad I didn’t end up there. Ice, snow, blizzards — so not my scene.”
“Actually the region is more like your Earth’s tropics — it’s warmer than most of Naferis because the top half of our planet tilts more than the southern towards our sun.”
“Weird world.” A thought occurred to him. “Why didn’t Caris warn you — or someone — before Eled was drugged and I was grabbed?”
Alekyn grunted. “He had no time. He went undercover months ago on Arakin’s orders. He infiltrated the priestly ranks until he was placed close to Syfern, but he still wasn’t important enough to know what was going to happen. No, he knew nothing until he was told to rendezvous with Asfer, who directed him to you in the crowd. Then he realised what was going to happen, so he played along.”
“Asfer,” Jamie sighed. Sitting along in that godforsaken room, he’d realised pretty quickly he’d been set up by his tutor. “He seemed so nice, I find it hard to believe he’d parcel me up for delivery to Syfern.”
“Religious mania is hard for normal people to understand,” Alekyn murmured. “He is currently being questioned by intelligence services.”
That sounded ominous. “He’s not, um, being ill-treated?” It was awful to think that anyone, even a person who was happy to betray him into sexual servitude, was being tortured.
An amused snort was his reply. “Don’t worry, sarai, Asfer is eagerly cooperating in his interrogation. In fact, they haven’t been able to shut him up, no matter how hard they’ve tried. He genuinely believes you are a gift from Nemta and that he and Syfern have done nothing wrong. It’s unlikely he’ll receive anything more than a slap on the wrist and some counselling. Well,” he corrected himself, “probably quite a lot of counselling.”
Jamie shifted his hand to his tummy. It felt strange — a bit bloated. Not how he usually felt. Probably stress, he decided. Being grabbed and imprisoned and threatened with a forced mating with a mad religious leader probably had something to do with it.
Then something else occurred to him. “If Caris couldn’t warn you, how did you find me so quickly? I know you got back from the space station through the void, but even so Syfern seemed to think he had plenty of time before you would catch up with us.”
Alekyn didn’t say anything and Jamie flicked him a glance. His Sarat looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Alekyn? How did you find me so soon?”
The big body stretched alongside his tensed. “Ah, well, now, sarai...”
“So how did that work?” Jamie’s voice sharpened. Some sixth sense was jangling away, warning him that he wasn’t going to like what he was about to hear.
“It might have had something to do with the tracker I had placed in your arm when your neural implant was upgraded.”
Jamie’s eyes widened and he swatted Alekyn’s hand away.
“What did you say?”
Alekyn swallowed nervously. He was momentarily reminded of the time he inadvertently cornered a wild maffen protecting her young. He’d escaped, but he had an interesting scar to show for it. The bones she’d broken only ached occasionally nowadays.
There was nothing for it but to fess up. “I asked Tiff to place a tracking device in your arm when you were sedated for the neural upgrade.”
Chapter Nine
JAMIE BREATHED IN SLOWLY through his nose; a white ring around his tightly compressed lips.
“I had no choice,” Alekyn heard the tremor of appeasement in his voice and tried to sound more authoritative. “So many people were interested in you, and I knew it was just a matter of time before someone grabbed you so — don’t look at me like that, sarai — it was a good idea and, look, we managed to stop Syfern claiming you and even though I didn’t ask you, it was still sensible of me to do it —”
There was that, Jamie conceded, as the red mist of rage cleared from his vision. “It would probably be a good idea if you stopped talking now. You did the wrong thing for the wrong reason and it turned out to be right.”
Alekyn relaxed somewhat.
“But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to make your life a living hell anyway.” Jamie said sweetly.
Oh fuck.
“Starting right now.” Jamie flicked him a wicked glance and then stretched slowly, arching the top of his body, sensuously flexing and rolling his torso in a display that made Alekyn’s eyes narrow appreciatively and his dick, which had been still at half-mast from their earlier play, now harder than diamond, bolt upright and leaking cum onto his abdomen. A fresh wave of musk permeated the air, intoxicating and full of promise. Well aware of the effect he was having, Jamie half-smiled and then, ignoring Alekyn, reached down for his own cock, palming it with smooth, sensuous strokes from base to tip. He breathed in deeply and his long fingers crested its increasingly reddening crown as his cock bobbed, but he seemed absorbed in his own pleasuring.
Alekyn, his nostrils were filled with Jamie’s enticing scent, couldn’t help reaching for him, pulling him into his arms, his mouth finding his sarai’s soft lips, sucking his tongue. He groaned and shifted his body over his sarai’s and then was stunned when with a quick flick and twist of Jamie’s strong legs he found himself heaved into the air. He landed with a thump that whooshed the air from his lungs. He stared at Jamie, mouth opened in shock.
“Yeah, big fella, feels a bit strange, doesn’t it, being on the receiving end of a not very nice surprise? Serves — ” Jamie leaned forward laughing, “ — you right, furball.”
There was a heartbeat’s pause and then suddenly Jamie’s face changed, almost comically, as he fell back against the bed, grabbing at his stomach. “Shit! That hurts. Alekyn, something’s not —”
Alekyn was on his feet in an instant, his rising anger subsiding as he took in his stricken sarai’s face. “Jamie, my love, what’s wrong?”
“My stomach,” Jamie panted, his face white and blotchy with sudden tears, “It hurts, Alekyn, it really — ” He broke off with a scream, his head lolling backwards.
Alekyn scrabbled through the muddle of their discarded clothes. His com was in here somewhere, for gods’ sake. He found it and pressed the emergency medical call button, then yelling for his pardmates, he lurched to his feet, grabbing a sheet to wrap Jamie in. His beloved was unconscious but moaning, with tears running down his cheeks, and Alekyn had never before in his life been so afraid.
_________________________
“IS THE PARDLING LOST?” Bram put his arm around Alekyn’s shoulders, hugging his pardmate leader, giving him as much strength as he could. Alekyn shook his head, his eyes tormented.
“The nurse healer said the babe’s all right, but I thought I was going to lose Jamie...”
He choked down a sob. “It’s my fault,” he whispered. “I was too rough —
“Rubbish,” interrupted a stern voice. They glanced up. Tiff was standing beside them. “You had sex, which is normal and healthy at this stage in a pregnancy. No, this was not your fault, Major Alekyn. This was just circumstance. In any event, the pardling is safe, as is Jamie.”
“Thank the gods,” whispered Alekyn. “But wha
t happened?”
Tiff snorted. “I’d say it was partly a reaction to the shock of being kidnapped and partly because throwing your full grown, considerably larger Sarat onto the floor can cramp abdominal muscles, something your obstreperous sarai is currently realizing.”
“He doesn’t even believe he’s pregnant,” murmured Bram. “So he doesn’t realize there are things he should not be doing.”
“Within reason he can do almost anything at this stage but engaging in wrestling matches is not advised.” Tiff harrumphed, “We will need to show Jamie his child — he must accept the reality of his situation.”
__________________________________
JAMIE STARED AT THE PORTABLE device with its large screen. Just like an ultrasound machine, he thought, and then Maist, his hands gentle, smoothed gel over his tummy. What the hell was with this sudden swelling? Did he have a tumor? Just as well the Naferi could cure cancer.
“Seriously,” still he felt obliged to insist, “it’s not hurting anymore. You really don’t have to do this.”
Maist smiled. “Not up to me, Alekyn-sarai.”
He nodded at Alekyn, who was holding Jamie’s hand as if he would never let it go. He looked deeply distressed still and Jamie felt a stab of compunction.
“Listen, I’m sorry, Alekyn — I was just teasing you and then, I dunno, I must’ve pulled a muscle or something.”
His sarai shook his head. “Not a muscle, dearest one” he murmured, “Our child…”
Jamie’s face reddened. Not this again, he thought crossly. He just couldn’t convince them that he wasn’t going to be carrying any children, not unless they were in his arms and he was carting them around. His attention was caught by a flashing green light.
“Ah, were ready to go,” Maist positioned a small wand against Jamie’s belly and started to move it slowly.
Jamie’s eye’s widened. “What the hell?”
Naferi medicine was extraordinarily more advanced than human medicine. The image showing up on the screen was not fuzzy nor did it come in a range of gray shades. Jamie was stunned by the clarity of what he was seeing, almost before he realised what he was seeing. Jesus, if that was his insides, they’d been seriously rearranged. The image sharpened yet again and then he whimpered…dear god, that looked like —
“Yes,” whispered Alekyn, bending near to smooth a kiss under his ear, “that’s our child, Jamie, our pardling.”
Jamie’s mouth opened and closed, but for the life of him he couldn’t say a word. He just stared in amazement, his whole view of himself and what it meant to be a male shifting on its axis.
He grabbed the wand from Maist and ran it over his belly once more. Yep, kidneys, large intestine, bowel, stomach, baby…
Baby.
He was pregnant. The wand dropped from his hand and was scooped up by Maist, who nodded at Alekyn. Jamie couldn’t take his eyes from the screen.
“That’s…that’s a child,” he spluttered wildly. “In there…in me! That’s a baby!”
Alekyn chuckled. “Yes, my dearest one, it’s a baby — our baby, our little pardling.”
Jamie pressed his hand to his tummy, his eyes still shocked. “Not so little,” he breathed out. “It’s huge.”
“You’re four months pregnant, Jamie,” his mate responded, “and Naferi pregnancies only last seven months —”
Which seemed like a helluva long time to Jamie, but he guessed it was all relative.
“Baby,” he repeated, shell shocked, his disbelief disintegrating in the face of the scan and the tiny moving image. A little hand waved from the screen and he had to stop himself waving back. Then a small foot flexed and Jamie felt the kick. He stared down at his belly and watched a slight ripple run across its surface. “I’m pregnant,” he breathed, and a huge smile wreathed his face as he gazed up at his Sarat. “Our child.”
A tear ran down Alekyn’s face. “Yes, my love, our child.” Then he overreached himself, “The first of many —”
“Hold that thought,” Jamie grabbed him by an ear and hauled him close, “until this one’s born and I decide whether I want another one.”
___________________________________
JAMIE HAD BEEN SPENDING most of the time reading in the garden, his belly getting bigger by the day, but now Naferis” seasons were turning. All the rose-like flowers had melted away into sad little dried clumps of brown that were being tumbled to the ground by increasingly colder winds. One morning he’d opened the French doors into the garden and found a white, snowy world.
Which was why he now found himself in the library, reading quietly while Bram and Eled studied. Alekyn and Tig were on duty, which was where Bram would join them later. Eled, still recovering from being poisoned, would be staying with Jamie when the rest of the pard went back on patrol, although the baby’s due date was rapidly approaching.
The television was murmuring away quietly, unheeded by any of them. Suddenly, Eled gasped and reached for the television remote.
“No, wait!”
The screen was showing an artist’s representation of a Zill battle fleet craft waiting in space.
Eled put the remote down. “Jamie…,” he began but Jamie ignored him, his attention fixed on the screen and the voiceover.
“The situation in the Solris void is becoming dire. Reports from the new world of Terra — ” That’s what they were calling Earth now; he guessed they didn’t know it had the same meaning in two different languages. “ — indicate that Zill forces are massing on the far side of one of Neptune’s small moons. So far the inhabitants of Terra, the humans as they call themselves, are refusing to negotiate with PanGal representatives, with the sticking point the humans’ refusal to allow Naferi to select sarai, unlike every other known world…”
The commentator’s amazement was not feigned. Why were the humans being so unreasonable? Didn’t they know how carefully the Naferi looked after their sarai?
Silly humans, thought Jamie sourly, wanting useless things like freedom and self-determination.
Sensing his interest the television screen bulged outwards reforming into a hologram of huge circular space cruisers, which within nanoseconds were disgorging silver ships shaped like darts. They looked small against the space cruisers, but Jamie knew that meant nothing — those small ships would be bigger than anything ever built on his planet, and there were masses and masses of them, thousands of thousands of them, millions of them, swarming in a huge, impenetrable cloud heading off …
… to wrap itself around a small defenseless blue planet, which disappeared in a swirling mass of cold silver that undulated slowly like a snake consuming a rabbit. Then abruptly the swarm retreated, its constituent parts speeding back to their motherships, leaving a dead planet in their wake.
As he watched, the hologram showed what was left of the planet dissolve into cinders that crumbled into the dark void of space, leaving nothing, not even a memory behind …
Jamie stared at the empty space where once a world had been. The Lyrians, he thought, numbed to the bone with sudden realization — this was what the Naferi wanted him to understand, wanted the humans to understand.
He thought of those he loved — of Matt and Theo, and of Glynn and some of his other friends. He thought of the Earth herself, and the complex wonderful play of life she sheltered and nurtured, the storms and shadows and sunlight that made up the lives of every creature that lived, small and great, seen and unseen, known or unknown.
Memories flashed rapidly and randomly through his mind, their significance not knowingly measured at the time of their creation — his mother holding him by the hand as he toddled with her to feed the chickens and pet the latest sheepdog puppies; the big soft eyes of a poddy calf he’d raised when he was twelve; his first kiss — with Glynn, behind the bike shed at school — sunlight-drenched paddocks and the sound of magpies caroling; the scent of the earth after rain. Petrichor.
All of it flashed into his mind, overwhelming and unmanning him. His stomach
roiled, acid filling his throat as he accepted the reality now facing humankind.
His kind.
Because all life as he’d known it would end — that beautiful world, with all that it meant and all that it could be, would be consumed by the Zill’s insatiable rapacious appetite before they fixed their attention on another world, and another world and another world beyond that.
For as long as infinity lasted.
The baby moved, as if reminding him of all the children who would die and all the children who wouldn’t be born if the Zill reached Earth. He stood up, swaying. Bram sprang forward and grabbed him before he could fall. He thought he heard Eled talking to someone on his communicator…but another need was overwhelming him.
“Bathroom!” he muttered urgently and strong arms helped him to the nearest toilet, where he proceeded to lose his breakfast.
He felt so sick, so shaky. A gentle hand was stoking his head, which he had dropped to the toilet seat.
“I’m okay. Just give me a minute. It’s just a shock,” he muttered weakly. “I didn’t think they were so close.”
Bram sighed. “Yes the news is not good, but it could be worse. “
Jamie stood, his knees wobbling. “I just know you’re going say it could be worse because they haven’t attacked yet. Why haven’t they attacked yet?”
Bram grunted. “The Zill are an insectoid species and they are led by queens. They won’t attack until their queens are ready to brood.”
“What has that got to do with it? Don’t the queens just send the troops out to do their dirty work?”
“Well, yes, but it’s for the…er…” Bram hesitated, his face wary, and then added resolutely, “The drones will eat almost anything, but the queens need fresh food to brood, Jamie — to fight among themselves for the best males and then to raise their young.”
It took a moment for his words to penetrate Jamie’s brain, and then he instantly turned back to the toilet, his stomach spasming violently.