by C F Rabbiosi
“Granted he has the capability to survive in this world with his mother’s human immune system, he needs lung development enough for a breathing chamber to oxygenate him. Two months. I would not chance any sooner.”
“And if her condition deteriorates before then?” I almost don’t ask in front of her, but it’s not in my nature to be gentle, and she needs to be a part of the decision.
“If her organs collapse, we may be able to heal them with the nanobots, but that will not sustain her for long as the child will continue to tax her body.”
Many things plague me as I hold Scarlet’s clammy hand. She is dear to Calypso, and though the child is dear to me, Scarlet matters as well. The child may still suffer from the ill effects of this world with alien biology. Though we believe the mother will grow and pass on the necessary microorganisms as was in the case of Calypso, there could still be unforeseen complicating factors.
“I don’t want to die,” says Scarlet. “But I promise I’ll try to save him, Kassien. Will you let me die?” Her desperate grip locks around my wrist.
I sigh inwardly and hate myself for the lie. “No.”
“I know you love Caly, but you and I have something too. Between us.” She gulps hard and licks her lips. “I think about the night we—we mated and this life within me was created. I wasn’t able to be good for you, I was so nervous and unsure, but I think about how it could have been. I think about how it still can be. With us.”
Laying with the girl was a duty, nothing more, my desire driven only by the need to have a son, someone who could be a testament to my life once I’m gone. Still a spark exists when I remember the act: her tight, slick walls, the trembling of her body as I held her and knotted deep inside. Mating of any woman by my sexually dormant species cannot exist without an element of passion. To mate a woman, any of them, regardless of age or body type is a true gift, with their unique features and vivid coloration, their softness and perfectly wanting crevices. The way their faces light up when they laugh, the way their voices waver with excitement when they tell a story. I never knew beauty until Calypso, and now she has brought it out in every woman I meet. It would have been impossible to mate Scarlet without loving her on some level, for any Koridon with newly opened eyes would be lost inside her laugh.
“We can be happy. I’m right, aren’t I?” That lovely smile peeks through Scarlet’s misery, and it’s more beautiful than can be possible.
25
Calypso
Dawn’s soft glow glistens upon the crashing waves below our room. Arek kisses blond Alice’s cheek and carefully gets out of her bed. She stirs as he sneaks away.
“Don’t go.” Her whisper floats through the dark. “He doesn’t haunt me when you’re near. I would never sleep if you didn’t lie with me at night.”
“I must go,” he says gently. “There are so few of us now, and with the servants having been released, we must hunt this morning. But Kjartonn is nowhere to be found.” Alice cringes upon his name. “Vaerynn and Finn are standing guard at all times. Especially when I have to be away.”
“I understand,” she says quickly. “We’re not thriving, are we?”
“We will be all right.” He lifts her chin. “Now that a new order has been enacted we will soon be placed together. If you will have me.”
“I can’t—” She pulls the covers up, and his touch falls away. “Please understand, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to—”
“Of course I would never.” He pulls her face toward his. “I will never feel you in that way after what you have suffered. I—” His mouth brushes her bottom lip, and a shudder rocks through him. He breathes her in, the roundness of her breasts visible beneath the thin bed shirt.
“But, maybe someday.” She presses her lips against his and he devours her kiss, an unbearable thirst quenched.
The bed squeaks as I turn over, my large belly stretching, and a tiny foot digs into my lungs. “Sorry to wake you, little one,” I say out loud to my quickly growing baby, who I can’t for the life of me figure out a name for. I wish Brekter didn’t taint every thought of the little one, and because I can’t see him, or hold him, I can’t find who he is. He was created out of the worst circumstances, but it wasn’t his fault, and I still feel the love of a mother welling up within my being even though a wall keeps going up that I must break down.
Arek pulls away and nods toward me as he leaves, and blond Alice rolls on her side toward the wall. Mary-Shelly may have turned away from her, devastated that Arek loves her, but I never will. I sit up and press my fingers against my belly where a little nudge pushes against the inside of my abdominal wall. Again and again I feel him kick, and a smile creeps up my cheeks. I wonder if Scarlet can feel this yet, or if she’s too sick to enjoy it.
“Arek is really wonderful.” I tilt my head toward Alice, though I don’t expect a response. “Somehow, through the tiniest chance of fate, you two have found each other. The odds of that, the chance that this happened is just profound, don’t you think?”
She sniffs and faces me. “So is it fate then, or just chance?”
“What you’re feeling is more than luck, Alice. Don’t ever doubt how special we are.” I groan and pull myself up to get dressed.
“You were possessed by a Koridon against your will as well. How did you manage to live again?” She hugs her pillow, preparing for another day of being forced from her bed to join the rest of us by Vaerynn. “You know I can’t trust Arek, no matter how true his heart. He’s a beast, he’s one of them, and we aren’t meant to belong to them.”
“Being part Koridon, it’s easier for me. I am one of them, but even still, belonging to the beast who hurt me… It’s unbearable.”
“Any chance he won’t recover?” she asks, the twisting of her expression showing the memory of his sudden mutilation into floating pieces. That image of Brekter is one I still see every day. The gore. The smell.
“Kassien tells me he will be among us again soon.” I slip on a silky gown and stare at myself in the mirror. My stomach’s heavy, but I feel strong, energy pulsing through my blood. “I may be having his child, but he won’t be allowed to touch me again. Not with Kassien being here now.”
“Are you angry at Scarlet? Like Mary-Shelly is angry at me?”
I pause with my hand around the door knob. “No. She didn’t ask for any of this. None of us did.”
“I just feel like with Kassien, she could have denied him. Don’t you think?”
I scrunch my brow and try to force away the painful images of my best friend and my love engaged in pulse-pounding coupling. “Maybe.” With Drakon still around, not complying with the agreement could have brought trouble upon both of them. But, I guess that trouble was worth more than me.
Alice sighs lazily. “So are you off to breakfast and Nazi physical training now?”
“No,” I say thoughtfully. “I’m going to see my friend.”
* * *
Spring’s dew drips from the trees in crystalline drops around me as I make my way to Drakon’s huge grounded ship. The forcefield immediately disintegrates as I touch it to pass through, as Kassien ensured in case I ever needed to get to the med bay in an emergency.
The ship looks exactly like the one Kassien kept me in, and though I’m eyeballed by several Koridons on the way through, I find Scarlet easily. She lays staring at the ceiling through the sparkle of the barrier.
“Hey.” I step through slowly and give her a hesitant smile. “How are you?”
She touches her belly and says bleakly, “There’s not much time left.” Her eerie words strike me hard, and I can’t hide the concern in my face before she sees it.
She drops her thin, shaking arm back to her side and I note the nutrients running through an intravenous line into it. She appears so tiny compared to the obscenely stretched stomach that forces her over to her side. “Do they know when the baby can be taken out?”
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll pull it once I’m dead.”
; “No.” The awkwardness and discomfort fades and I rush to her side. “I promise you I won’t allow that. Kassien would never allow—”
“He has to!” She coughs weakly. “He has to allow it because the child is all that matters to them.” A confusing feeling of relief floods upon knowing that Kassien values his child more than his wife, and I instantly feel guilty for it. What kind of person am I, that I still think of love while my best friend lies in her death bed?
“I don’t care,” I say, taking her hand. “Whatever I have to do, that baby comes out this day.”
She removes her hand, though every bit of the effort taxes her. “Soon you’ll have him back.”
“That doesn’t matter to me anymore, Scarlet!” My cheeks burn and I tamp down the frustration that rises. “I want us to have our children together, I want to share this with you.”
“It’s okay. You’ll have Kassien to share it with. Maybe you two can raise him together.”
A whirlwind of anger and sadness twists within me. Why are you giving up? Why are you so hateful of me when I’ve always loved you no matter what? So many thoughts pound into my mind, but I would never utter a single word of it.
“That night in the forest, when we were taken from the village by Alexander and his men…” Scarlet pulls me from my tumultuous thoughts. “He came for you. He saved you. It’s always been you. And here I am, the mother of his child yet nothing but a dying wretch. I can’t even get up to touch his hair or laugh with him. I can’t brush out my own hair or look pretty for him.” Her sunken in, bloodshot eyes gloss over. “Being with him felt like a betrayal to you, but that’s not really fair, is it? I guess I did think for a moment about having a family with the prince of the Koridons. About being happy. I grieve those wonderful thoughts.” She breaks down, and I lean over to hug her as she cries.
“You were never betraying me, I understand.” I’m unsure if I ever did feel betrayed by her, but I truly mean it now. “You’re going to live, and you will have those wonderful thoughts, Scarlet. You will have your dream, so don’t you give up.” My tone is severe as I grip her bony shoulders. “Do not allow yourself to slip away.” I have to go to Gerakon who time and again has shown passion for her. Even if he must be coerced by his love for Scarlet to save her, he must. But then Kassien will suffer too. This situation is merciless.
“Go on,” Scarlet whispers. “I’m tired.” She turns away to hide her tears.
“I’ll go, but don’t worry anymore. We’re going to figure this out.” Gerakon should be in the lab, so I immediately go to find him. We need to discuss the options for Scarlet. I’ll have to talk to Kassien too. Is there a right answer? If tomorrow I found myself dying because of my baby, what would I do? Would I be willing to die so that he might live?
“Calypso. My… love.”
The blood freezes in my veins, and I find myself stopped in front of a room. I should run from that voice, that loathed sound, but instead I slowly peer inside. “Brekter. You’re looking well.” Unfortunately. He gets up and stands with his elbow cocked against the wall, his movements holding an underlying weakness he tries to hide.
“You have gotten so big,” he smirks.
“I guess your hair follicles weren’t restored with hair, were they?” I ask. “When all your pieces…parts snapped back together?”
He smooths back the short raven locks of only a couple months’ growth and stands tall. “Are you ready to take your place at my side? Where you belong?”
“This child doesn’t make me yours.”
“No. That trembling pussy I tear up does.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You like it.”
I walk away with fury overtaking my senses. I fucking hate him. “Come near me ever again, and I’ll kill you!”
“My death already awaits!” he yells. I stop dead, knowing I’ll regret this, but I don’t care.
I rush back to his quarters. “Tell me more. I like where you’re going with this.” I force the hot tears of anger back and level out my expression to show him nothing.
He comes forward, so close I question the forcefield between us. Fear trickles down my spine as his fingers outstretch toward my face. “Since the moment I breathed you in, you infected my system, and I knew our only path would be through fire. Burning, screaming. I knew our destiny would lead to being thrust straight into the ground.”
“For once, I agree with you.” He kindles passion from torture and bends pain into pleasure, and to be near him hurts because of what he’s turned me into.
“It’s worth the agony,” he whispers. “You fight me at every turn, but I always get you. You are mine.”
I shake my head sadly and step back. “You like the fight and thrive on my pain. Brekter, this isn’t love, and I’ll never be her. I’ll never be your first.”
“I have no desire for her. Not since you.”
“You desire me only as a way to feed the thing inside you that still wants to hurt her.” He was so new to the world when she scarred his soul. He hadn’t even mated one of his own kind yet when she taught him passion and dealt him ultimate pain.
“Stay with me,” he whispers. His hand drags down the barrier and I feel it somehow, descending along my chest.
“Goodbye,” I say weakly.
“Wait!” he growls. “Come back to me!” But his cries fade away as I leave the ship.
26
Ocean foam pours over the large rocks along the shore as morning tide comes in. The gale tosses my icy blue locks around my face, and the scent of a fresh new day by the sea fills my nostrils. I’ll find Gerakon soon, but after seeing Brekter again, I’m too shaken to fight for her. Scarlet doesn’t have the time, and yet I need just that. A moment in time, alone, just my feet sinking into the cool sand.
Another set of footsteps crunch into the wet ground, and my pulse spikes.
“Calypso.” Kassien puts a hand up for me to wait. My pulse continues to soar. “May I walk with you?”
“Of course.” I say goodbye to my quiet moment and man up. “I need to talk to you anyway. Scarlet is going to die, Kassien.”
“We are doing everything we can to avoid her demise.”
“Not everything.”
He stops and puts his arms behind his back. “You would have me sacrifice the child?”
“I don’t want that, but Scarlet was forced to conceive. She didn’t ask for this, and preserving your species isn’t a good enough reason to watch my best friend die.”
“When our newborn was lost, I turned away from my mate and my true hatred for this planet, for life, grew.”
“Your newborn?” He hinted once that he’d had a child. It explains why he pushed so hard for me, so driven by that need to replace the one he lost.
“No,” he says, knowing my thoughts. “Though despair overtook me as another conception was unlikely, meeting you took all the pain away. I needed you with every ounce of my being and could think of nothing else. Not until I was hanging by those hooks did reality revisit me, and my focus returned.”
The reality that love wasn’t important, but creating life was all that mattered. I understand— he could do that with any human. Now he’s finding that as his mate lies dying, it won’t be that easy.
He touches the side of my neck, a light brush that springs chills to life down my arms. “I still feel it when you are near. A deep, overpowering craving…”
Familiar, sickening disappointment eats at my stomach as I think about what could have been if only Brekter hadn’t impregnated me. That one factor takes my life from wonderful to completely hopeless.
I shrug sadly. “It’s the same for me.”
“Everything I’d been denying myself came flooding back when I touched you, and all that joy at once possessed me. I killed for you without a thought and tore my own brethren apart.”
Then why don’t you kill Brekter? And kill that hideous Drakon? If not for them, Scarlet may have had a girl with Gerakon, and Kassien and I could raise m
y child together. I look down at my feet. If he’d still have me. But maybe raising another’s son would be unacceptable or dissatisfying.
“But when I heard the child’s heartbeat within Scarlet’s belly, and felt him moving…” He places a hand on my stomach and his warmth fills me with happiness. “Everything hit me again: love, hope, just how it felt when I was with you.”
I’m devastated for him, because he’s losing that precious little life slowly and nothing is going to stop it. “Kill Brekter,” I say just above the sloshing of the waves. “Be with me, where you belong, and let Scarlet have her life back before it’s too late for both of them.”
He brings me into his chest but keeps a hand planted against my stomach. I will him to connect to my child, to feel that same breathless loyalty for him that he has for his own. He is still a Koridon child. He is the future.
“You would see Brekter dead?” he asks, his tone rocking me with how quickly it turned cold.
“Of course.”
He squeezes me and his breath warms my ear. “You have been with him several times since. He claims you are more than willing.”
Shame flushes my cheeks and I yank back, only to be held tight by his massive arms. It tortures me that I’m sexually aroused by my tormenter, a man I’m supposed to hate, and it’s humiliating that Brekter told him about it. I’ve never wanted to sink into the earth like I do now. “How dare you say this to me, after the night you stormed the mansion and saw what he was doing to me during the ceremony!”
His eyes flash with dangerous jealousy.
“I have been used for the pleasure of others more times than I’ve—” The words sting on my tongue and I fight with my thoughts. More times than I’ve been taken in love. “I hate him and he knows it, so he makes me feel things I can’t control.”
His embrace tightens and he heats up against me. “I am heavily distracted these days, but when he told me that you bend until you break beneath him, my world turned red. In one small moment I decided to rip his head off, the consequences meaning nothing.”