Beth's Stable

by Amanda Milo

  Angie’s eyes pop wide. “Um, I hope not.” Her gaze shoots to mine. “Beth? You’d have told me if you were preggers with twins, right?”

  Laughing, I fall back on Ekan, relieved to tell her I’m not pregnant with twins. Ekan’s arms tighten around me, his fitted under my mine as I hold my baby so that it feels like we’re cradling her together.

  Prow exchanges a look with Oquilion, both clearly puzzled. “Then why…”

  Angie shrugs. “Afterbirth, man. All the stuff that held the baby for nine months has to come out now.”

  The guys tense—all of them, even Angie’s aliens.

  “It isn’t over?” Prow just took my hand again, and when my fingers spasm around his, he squeaks a little, making me want to laugh.

  Angie shakes her head. “Nope. And yep. It hurts her too.”

  Qolt puts his big hand on our baby’s back to gently keep her in place as I go to work expelling the less-fun stuff.

  Remembering more birthing war stories, I gasp, “Don’t push on my stomach.”

  “Don’t push on her stomach!” Prow repeats, frantic I think because he’s sure his fingers are going to be goners this time.

  Angie gives him a patient look. “I got it—I wasn’t going to.” Then her forehead wrinkles and she looks to me for direction. “Do we do that?”

  Qolt passes a cooling cloth over my forehead. I send him a grateful look then glance back to Angie. “Ha, guess you don’t with goats, eh?”

  Qolt starts gently attacking the tear tracks on my face next, and my lips curve, a feeling of true relaxation starting to hit me. Everything’s going to be okay.

  When he returns my smile, my heart lurches. Qolt looks like the day’s been about as much of a strain on him as it’s been on me, but he’s happy—genuinely happy. He leans in to kiss the side of my face, and I tip my cheek up to better receive that goodness.

  Angie’s answering me. “No. You stroke her back if she is having trouble, but you let her do it when her body is ready.”

  I explain, “In class, some of the women had…” I breathe deep through the weird slooshing movement happening in my insides, “Done this before. Some said the nurses would push on their stomach to expel the placenta and they said it hurt worse than giving birth! I was so freaked.”

  “There’s that word again,” Tiernan murmurs, and I smile at him.

  “Look how big that baby is!” Angie declares. “You popped it out fine—I think you’ve got this, Mom.”

  I grin at her. “Don’t you mean… maaaaahhhm?” I do a pretty good baby goat impression that has Angie’s lips quirking.

  “Hey now. Don’t knock it. I could have been totally clueless down here instead of being relieved that I didn’t have to worry about horns.”

  Her alien seems pensive, growing super worried for all of goat-kind. “My people only have hornbuds at birth so that the mother is not injured.”

  “No, I was kidding,” Angie assures.

  “Ha!” I gasp.

  Arokh tightens Angie’s ponytail for her as she keeps her red-stained gloves up and clean. She adds, “I was just teasing her—goats don’t have horns either when they’re born. The buds erupt about three days later.”

  I manage one last heave and out comes the afterbirth.

  “What is that?” Oquilion has the misfortune of asking right as Ekan does.

  Tiernan’s hands crack them both in the back of the heads.

  A tray of dirtied rags topples to the floor; Ekan’s bad luck-boomerang at work.

  And although Prow didn’t say anything out loud—he cuffs himself in the back of the head too.

  Qolt snorts.

  I chuckle up at him, then I get a look at Angie’s stained gown. She’s even got a little baby handprint—and it’s so cute, I might ask one of the guys to cut it out and save it for me.

  Maybe that’s gross. I’ll think about it. “You’re a mess,” I tease her, voice a bit shaky.

  She looks down at herself. “Yeah, but you should see the other girl.”

  I grin.

  Rough fingers gently tease a sweaty tendril of my hair away from my face, before tenderly tucking it behind my ear. Lips brush my temple and I lean into Ekan, absorbing his touch.

  They say that there's a flood of oxytocin released during birth and while breastfeeding. I may not have started the latter yet, but I'm coasting on some seriously good feels. All of us are okay. My family—my crew.

  “I’d appreciate if you didn’t spill this confession to Tiernan,” Ekan murmurs to me, “But that placenta looks like a raw flatcake. With a tail.”

  I snicker at him. “Think of that the next time you eat flatcake.”

  He rubs my back. “That is precisely what I’m afraid of.”

  Tiernan’s ears twitch and his eyes slide in Ekan’s direction like he knows Ekan’s earning a brain-duster.

  Ekan grumbles into my hair. “He’s got some sort of sixth trouble-sensing sense.”

  Impulsively, I twist enough to tug Ekan in for a kiss. Mostly to stop his mouth from getting him into any further bedevilment, but also because I’m Happy. I’m Content. And I’m so in love with my family, it’s unreal.

  Prow, close enough to hear us, eases closer and whispers, “I’ve declared it before; Tiernan’s a latent luck source, it would explain so—”

  He stops talking, staring at us with dread. “He’s behind me, isn’t he?”

  We nod.

  Prow ducks—and cuffs himself upside the head before Tiernan can have the honors.

  I’m biting my lips, trying not to laugh.

  I’m shocked out of the impulse to do it when Ekan sits me up and asks Qolt, “You want this spot?” indicating where he’s propping me up at my back.

  Even as Qolt’s body lurches forward, Qolt asks suspiciously, “Really?”

  “Yeah. Come on.” Then Ekan grins. “You’ll slide in easier—you’re smaller than me.”

  Qolt rolls his eyes. “Tevek off.” But he takes the spot from his brother with no hesitation now.

  Dohrein looks from me, to the baby, to the afterbirth, and asks Angie what we’ll do next.

  Angie licks her lips, thinking. “Clean up and let Mom sleep. Oh! Need to get the baby to nurse first.”

  I cover my face. “So help me. If you call them udders—“

  “I would never!”

  I drop my hands in favor of leveling her with a supremely skeptical look.

  Angie tips her head in a conciliatory nod. “Teats. We farmgirls also call them teats.”

  I start to laugh—but then I’m grabbing my stomach. “Oh shit! That hurts. Don’t make me laugh, don’t make me laugh!”

  “Sorry. And hey—I just remembered—a baby nursing helps release chemicals that can help with afterbirth delivery.”

  I stare at her.

  She shrugs. “Whoops!”

  My jaw juts a little.

  Angie holds up her hands. “I’ve been off the farm a few years; I forgot the order a little. If that kid had come out with four hooves, I promise the first thing I’d have done was set her under you and help her latch on.”

  “I said—no making me—laugh!” I reach for my stomach again—and my nether region. Ow ow ow ow...

  Angie winces for me. “Sorry.” She motions to my chest. “Want help? I’ve never done it with a woman before but I’m pretty sure we can figure it out.”

  Five sets of Na’rith ears perk up.

  Behind Angie, even her alien’s long ears have raised. But he looks more challenging. I’m going to guess that Rakhii don’t share their mates.

  I raise my eyebrow at Angie. “Why does that sound so dirty?”

  We share tired smiles, and we get my baby girl fed. The guys manage cleanup duty, and when Angie dusts off her hands and grabs the babyleftovers bucket of ‘flatcake with a tail,’ she asks how we’re going to dispose of it.

  It’s her alien, Arokh, who puffs out his scales a little and shares, “Our people bury ours. It’s a rite that the father per
forms in thanks to the Creator for each little pup.”

  I can’t help it. I smile like a fool. It sounds so cute.

  “That’s actually cool,” Angie muses. “Unfortunately, we happen to be fresh out of soil, but maybe—“

  Tiernan straightens. “We have soil. There is a greenhouse on deck four. We grow fresh fruits and vegetables there.” He looks around at the other guys, and finally, at me—and our tiny baby girl. “I would like to claim the honor of performing thanks for Beth’s little one.”

  Angie makes a face. "Mmm, carrots fertilized by Beth’s truly. Tasty.”

  I don’t think she means any offense. But by the pinch of Tiernan’s eyebrows, I think he’s puzzling out why a gift of thanks set to fertilizing the earth would be unpalatable once it’s all leafed out on a plate. “That sounds fine, Tiernan. Thank you,” I tell him with a grateful air kiss, and he takes the bucket from Angie with a formal grace that attests to his intention to perform this task with honor.

  Angie peels off her outer layer of gloves and makes her way to me. “So, is there a daddy back home who’s missing this?” she asks softly.

  Five Na’riths freeze in place.

  Angie’s aliens go equally still—I think because they’re gauging the temperature of the room.

  I sag against Qolt’s suddenly tightened grip with relief. “No. I know it sounds crazy, but Angie? For that reason alone, I’m glad that I’ll never have to see Earth again. And I’d be freaking the fuck out if it wasn’t for my guys here.”

  Angie’s relief is plain. Her grin is unrestrained. “So you like them?”

  Soaking in the comfort of having my crew around me, my lips curl up in amusement. “Like them? I think I might be in love with them.”

  Angie leans her hip against the medical table.“I’m glad for you.”

  Then she looks around at my guys—at Tiernan’s retreating back, and at the four still doting on me. “So… six weeks before you can get frisky.”

  Giddiness fills me as I realize I have an opportunity for a modicum of girltalk. She leans in when I whisper, “You want to know a secret? Where they come from, they don’t have blowjobs.”

  She jerks back from me.

  “I blew their minds,” I tell her with a cat-who-ate-the-tasty-cum-canary grin.

  Wide-eyed, she glances around at my guys, and she doesn’t miss their growing, smug grins—because they can hear our girltalk just fine. She turns back to me, still owlish. “And you’ll be doing that a lot for the next six weeks. You’ll be so ready for some action of your own—”

  I groan. “No way. I can’t even think of having sex right now. Ouch…” I adjust my hold on my darling bundle, who’s out like a light. I guess she’s had a pretty big day too.

  “Yeah,” Angie agrees with a grimace.

  “Yanak pies. Let me see that coin,” Oquilion hisses, and I glance to my left to see him huddled with Prow. Prow tosses a coin up in the air and Oquilion snatches it, growling when it must show two different faces, meaning Prow won whatever game by fair and square means.

  Prow sings, “My turn!” and makes one of those not-nice Na’rith gestures to Qolt to indicate he should amscray. To sweeten the deal, he draws a blaster pistol out of some pocket from somewhere, and if I’m not mistaken—this is the pistol Ekan teased me about, saying he wanted it badly enough to trade me for it.

  Qolt’s turned into a birddog behind me, body taut.

  “Go for it,” I whisper.

  Qolt jumps on it, almost literally.

  Prow claims the spot behind me, very carefully cupping me between his knees and encouraging me to lean against his strong torso. When he starts rubbing my shoulders, my eyelids sink closed, and he adjusts us so that he’s holding our baby with me, his arms under mine.

  It’s sweet. It’s so sweet.

  I lift up one of his hands and kiss his knuckles.

  Then I think of something else I want to mention to Angie. “And hey?” My voice slurs a little from exhaustion.

  She sounds similarly beat when she answers. “Yeah?”

  I cover my yawn with the back of my hand. “Have you tried giving yours a hickey yet?”

  Angie’s back to resembling an owl. “Noooo…”

  I stir enough to manage a depraved grin, and send it in her direction.

  And if the playfully coy glance she gives her alien is any indication, the pair are in for some fun times.

  CHAPTER 55—BETH

  BETH

  Her name is Annalise.

  And she hasn’t been set down once.

  From the way her little fists are clinging to Prow’s shirt as she dozes, and the way Oquilion is silently gesturing for Prow to hand her over because it’s Oquilion’s turn—

  (Yes: They’re on rotation, and serious as shit about keeping track.)

  —it looks as if this girl is going to grow up with no idea what her crib even is because she’s never been set down in it. Someone is always holding her.

  I just nursed her for the second time a bit ago, and that surge of baby-bonding hormones really exists because nursing my baby girl makes me feel quietly euphoric.

  It also helps take care of my pesky milk-leaking problem, and Annalise sucking down some of the fullness makes my breasts happier. Everything feels right in the world.

  “Beth?” Ekan whispers against my face.

  He’s wedged on Tiernan’s bed with me while Tiernan and Qolt pace in front of the command screens in the wall. They’re keeping an eye on our ship from here because nobody wants to be too far from the fun.

  I roll into Ekan more. “Hmm?” I murmur into his neck.

  Long, strong fingers tease my hair behind my ear. “Can I get you anything?”

  I take his hand and hold it to my cheek. “If there is ever a next time? Drugs. Get me all the drugs. Got it?”

  He exhales a laugh, his eyes moving to Annalise’s back, no doubt recalling the hours of labor just like I am. “We’ll get right on that. Got a trip planned for your Earth anyway, remember? But I was thinking you might want food. When was the last time you ate?”

  “The Iechdymaw party. Maybe a bite or two since, but I wasn’t very hungry.” Once Annalise joined the world, the guys glommed to her, cooing and watching over her so that I could get some much needed sleep.

  “Give me purpose,” Ekan says seriously. “Are you hungry?”

  I smile at him. “I could eat.”

  With a kiss to my nose, he gets up, and with Oquilion on shift quietly doting on Annalise, I drift into a doze.

  My eyes tug open again when I hear something fall to the floor. Heart hammering, I shoot upright, ignoring the flash of pain—everywhere—but thankfully, Annalise wasn’t dropped.

  The sound is thanks to Ekan, whose arms are filled with EVERYthing from the kitchen.

  My eyes light up as I see this also includes two packages of caramel iiwykia.

  I beam adoringly at him and Tiernan, who snorts and turns back to his command screen—but not before I see him unsuccessfully hiding a smile.

  I clap my hands at Ekan. “Iiwykia first, please, and what took you so long?” Yes, I snoozed while he was gone and didn’t miss the time passing, but it’s Ekan. He can handle ribbing.

  Using his nose to nudge back a half bag of bread-type rolls from tumbling off the pile he’s precariously gripping, Ekan’s grin is roguish. “Trust me narra, you wouldn't like it if I came early.”

  I roll my eyes. Then I do a double take. “What happened to your face?!”

  Prow follows him in, answering for him, wonder in his voice. “Get this—the Rakhii attacked Ekan!”

  That giant, scaly, horned monster?! “Are you okay?! Is the Rakhii...” Oh my land, how’s Angie handling this? “What did your luck do to him?”

  Oquilion looks crestfallen. “I missed Ekan getting the piss pounded out of him by a Rakhii?”

  Prow raises his brows cooly. “Shoulda let me keep Annalise.”

  Oquilion’s gaze drops to her, and a tender smile tr
ansforms his face. “Nope. Not even watching Ekan take on a Rakhii would be worth missing this.”

  Prow nods grudgingly, like he can’t argue that. He turns to me. “Evidently, Rakhii aren’t affected by a luck source’s powers.”

  “WHAT?” I gasp.

  “It’s incredible!” Ekan crows. “Oh, Beth.” He opens his arms, dropping all the food to the floor—including my iiwykia, how dare he—and he takes me—carefully—by the shoulders. “We have to get one.”

  Prow’s picking up food behind him, and Oquilion’s glowering at Ekan, checking Annalise to make sure she wasn’t disturbed by the noise. I point to Ekan’s injured face and tell him firmly—the same way you would dissuade a dog who wants to dance with a porcupine—“No.”

  “Please! Female, you don’t understand—the POWER we’ll have over everyone in the galaxy, other luck sources included, if we—”

  “Ekan,” I try in my most rational voice—something he could sorely use, clearly—“A Rakhii could kill you. Seriously, you could have died.” My eyes rake over him, wondering how badly he got trounced.

  Ekan scoffs, offended, then he pounces forward. “Bah, narra, no! That’s the thing about Rakhii: if he’d wanted me dead, I would be. He didn’t come near to killing me.”

  “Hold fast—you’re certain the Rakhii didn’t suffer any bad luck?” Tiernan asks. “Are Rakhii immune to you?”

  Prow raises a hand. “All in favor of testing this? Say Aye.”

  “AYE!” four guys shout—one of the voices being Ekan’s.

  “Cog-damn it,” mutters Oquilion, “Would you lugheads take your shouting somewhere else?”

  The other guys look properly chastised, and we’re all frozen, watching Annalise for a few heartbeats. She twitches and burbles, but ultimately, falls back to sleep.

  “Whew,” Ekan whispers, relaxing. Then he cuts me a grin. “She’s been hearing us bicker for rotations. She’s already a female who won’t rattle easily!” He’s so proud.

  And? He’s probably so right.

  CHAPTER 56—OQUILION

  BETH

  My hands are shaking.

  “Treasure,” Oquilion whispers into my hair, “They’re going to love you.”