by K. Webster
When he starts for the door, I rise from my chair and rush after him. I grip his bicep, halting him. “Leave it for now. Breccan’s not an empty-nogged mortarekker. He’ll figure out what Avrell’s done. Stay out of it. We have enough chaos in the facility as it is. Besides, Avrell has been beside himself worrying over the alien who hasn’t woken despite being pulled from the cryotube. His focus needs to remain on her.”
Jareth shows no signs of calming, so I bring my palm to his face and nuzzle my nose against his.
“Please. Let it all fall where it may,” I urge.
He lets out a heavy, frustrated sigh. “Grace will give birth one solar and…”
“And what?” I ask, pulling away to look at him.
His features fall, heartbreak flashing in his eyes. “And you’ll rush to father the mortyoung.”
“There’s no changing the fact I am the father,” I remind him.
“Breccan will encourage you to officially mate with her.” His nostrils flare, fury once again flashing in his black eyes.
“Breccan has his hands full with Sokko at the moment. And no one can force me to mate with Grace. Not to mention, you saw how she was.” I flinch when at the memory of what she’d called me.
A rapist.
A Kevin.
“She’s volatile,” he agrees. “I certainly don’t see her jumping at the chance to mate with you.” His tense body relaxes marginally so.
“Just because I don’t want to mate with her doesn’t mean we shouldn’t befriend her. You saw her, Jare. She was terrified. Beneath the fury was terror. And she’s carrying my mortyoung. I may not want her, but I do want what a part of me created. The part she carries within her.”
“Sokko is pretty rekking cute,” he admits with a chuckle. “Yours would be cuter.”
I flash him a wide grin. “That’s a given.”
“What if it’s a female?” Jareth asks, his eyes widening. “I don’t even hardly remember what our females looked like.”
“Still half human, though. Maybe my mortling would look more like Grace,” I ponder aloud.
“Grace is feral. If your mortling is like her, it’ll be like having a baby sabrevipe. We could send it after Hadrian when he annoys us,” Jareth jokes.
I pull him to me and embrace him. “We will figure this out,” I vow. “Together. Let me make peace with Grace. Promise me you’ll try to behave.”
His palm slides to my rump over my minnasuit and he bites his claws into me just hard enough to threaten to puncture the material. “I would never promise such things. Behaving isn’t a word that rattles around in my nog.”
Grinding my hips against him, I revel in his harsh intake of breath. “Learn the word and use it. Then I’ll reward you for it later.” I brush my lips against his and then I leave him with his cock straining against his suit.
My heart is racing, the urge to go back to him and strip him bare overwhelming. Barely, I refrain. Tilting my head up, I call out for Uvie.
“Where is Grace, Uvie?”
“Good solar to you, Sayer. Grace is in the sub-faction with Emery.”
“Are they decent? Can I go see them?”
“They just finished a meal and are whispering.”
“About me?”
“Your name comes up often, sir.”
Anxiety floods through me, but I swallow it down. It’s in my nature to make peace. Jareth is filled with warring emotions and I’ve always been the one to calm that war. Dealing with Grace shouldn’t be much different than dealing with my mate.
I walk into the sub-faction to find Emery and Grace sitting beside each other on a sofa. When they see me, Emery smiles and Grace hisses.
Most definitely like Jareth when he’s in one of his moods.
“Emery. Grace.” I give my nog a slight bow as I greet them both. Imploring with just my eyes, I beg for Emery to leave me with Grace. Thankfully she understands and rises.
“Grace, if you’ll be okay here with Sayer, I need to excuse myself for a bit. I’m feeling tired and would like a little nap.” She pats her stomach. “This little one is draining me. I’m due to go into labor any day now.”
“Maybe I should nap too,” Grace bites out, glaring my way.
Emery shoots me an apologetic look and I simply nod at her to let her know it’s okay. As soon as she’s gone, I sit down in Emery’s vacated seat, angling my body toward Grace.
“We haven’t had a chance to speak properly,” I start out softly.
She tenses, shooting me a venomous look. “Now’s your chance.”
“I understand how terrified you must be—”
“Terrified? No. Infuriated? You bet your ass, freak.”
I wince at her words, and her eyes flash guiltily for one moment before she hardens them again.
“You’re angry. Rekk, I would be too. How we got here—with you humans—it’s less than ideal,” I agree, frowning. “But we’re here. And instead of letting the anger consume us, we must adapt. That’s what our kind has been doing for ages. Adapting. To the climate changes. To the mutations. And now, to social changes. While we’re advanced in technology and medicine, we’re lacking in many other areas due to our circumstances. Ten males. That’s all we had for a long time, Grace. Give us a chance to learn and get better. All of us want to be better. I can speak for every mort here.”
“It’s hard to be angry with you when you talk rationally,” she huffs.
“I’m the linguistics specialist. It’s sort of my expertise,” I tease lightly with a small smile.
“You are the master,” Uvie chirps.
Grace snorts. “Ummm, what?”
“That’s Uvie,” I explain. “She’s my creation.”
“What does she do besides spy on conversations?”
“She’s great with algorithms. Right now, she’s running a series of complicated calculations trying to triangulate Molly’s daughter’s location.”
“I saw Molly briefly but haven’t officially met her,” Grace says. “She talks a lot.” She says this as though she’s annoyed, but a smile touches her lips.
“Molly is wonderful, as are Aria and Emery. We are incredibly thankful to have you all here. Hope thrives in a place that was once losing a battle to loneliness and despair.”
“You seem happy,” she retorts. “Everyone else seems anxious or nervous around me, but you seem content. Is it because you got what you wanted?” Her palms press to her stomach, indicating her pregnancy.
“I was one of the few who were happy before we ever procured any females,” I admit, my eyes darting to the doorway.
Grace narrows her eyes at me. “How did you find the key to happiness while everyone else was stuck outside of that door? Or with whom should I say?”
“Sayer and—” Uvie starts, but I cut her off.
“Offline, Uvie.”
Grace lifts a brow in question. “Hit a nerve, did I?”
My eyes flit to the doorway once more and I lean in toward her. “It’s not something I talk about.”
She opens her mouth like she might ask more questions, but then she gasps. “Oh, God, it feels so damn weird. Like aliens have taken over my body.” She rolls her eyes. “That’s right. They have.”
I tilt my head to the side in confusion. “Are you not well? Do I need to take you to see Avrell?”
Her nostrils flare as though she wants to keep in her words, but with a heavy sigh, she reaches over to grasp my wrist. “Here. Feel this.” She draws my hand to her stomach, letting my palm settle over the swell.
Something nudges my hand and I jerk my stare to hers, my heart racing in my chest. “It’s moving.”
“Your son or daughter. It’s not an it.”
“You just called it an it, too.”
“To tell you it wasn’t an it!”
I grin at her. “What do you think? Male or female?”
“This one is fussy. Kind of reminds me of someone. I’m going with a girl.”
The mortling nudges my hand aga
in. I let out a small laugh. “This is amazing.”
Her smile falls and she pushes my hand away. “Good. So happy you feel that way. Once I push her out, she’s all yours. I never wanted children. I was married to my career.”
“Grace,” I growl, shocked at her words. “You don’t mean that.”
I’ve seen how Aria is with Sokko. She loves him. And Emery seems thrilled about her mortling’s coming.
She glowers at me. “I mean exactly that. I’ll deliver this child, but then I don’t want anything to do with her. This pregnancy was a decision forced on me. Giving her to you is my decision. You can deal with the repercussions alone.”
It wounds me that she’d so easily hand over our mortling as though it means nothing to her. I’ve barely felt its life pressing against my hand, and I’m smitten.
“Stop looking at me like I’m the worst human you’ve ever met,” she snarls, tears filling her silvery eyes.
She is the worst human I’ve ever met.
“A mortling needs a mother,” I whisper. “Grace…”
“A baby needs someone to love it,” she chokes out. “I can’t do that. I’m not a mother. I’ll never be mother material.”
My hand shakes as I tentatively reach for her stomach. “May I?”
She gives me a clipped nod.
I hold her stomach and make a silent promise to my mortling.
I’ll love you enough for both of us.
And where I’ll lack, Jareth will fill in those holes.
I won’t give up on you, little one.
“You’re not my mate,” I say stiffly. “But I will provide for you, Grace. If you need anything, you tell me. Call out for Uvie and make your demands. My seed has put you into this position, and I’m responsible for both of you. If you’ll allow me, I’d love to bond with the little one since…”
Since you don’t want to.
Tears well in her eyes and she bites on her bottom lip, trying and failing to look fierce.
“Since I can’t love it. Call a spade a spade, Sayer.” Her bitter words send the tears falling silently down her cheeks.
Gently, I reach up to her cheek and swipe away the tearstain on one side. She flinches at my touch but doesn’t pull away. “I want to be your friend,” I tell her. “If you’ll have me. For this to work, give me that. I know you hate me and our people, but do this one thing and I’ll be forever in your debt.”
“I’m already pregnant with your baby, freak,” she says, her voice softer and not as bitter as before despite the name she calls me. “I think that makes us friends.”
I can’t help but grin at her as I stroke her stomach again. “You hear that, little one? I’m going to get to see you a lot more.” When I lean forward, nuzzling her stomach with my face, she pops me in the back of the nog.
“Too soon, freak.”
But she didn’t say never…
3
Grace
“You all right, sugar?”
I turn away from the window to the sound of the twangy accent and find the curvaceous woman I had yet to meet standing in my doorway. Molly. The talkative one. Aria had issued a special room for me in the area of the facility with the biggest window, her concession for my raging about being locked up—and knocked up—against my will. I don’t like being pitied and loathe gifts with strings. Clearly this was meant to rugsweep my complaints and assuage their guilt, but I wanted the view, so I let them baby me.
For now.
“I’m fine,” I answer.
What is it with everyone in this place trying to make friends with me? This isn’t some big old happy family.
They took me.
Took everything from me.
And I’m going to take it back.
I turn away from her and back to my window, hoping she’ll take it for the dismissal that it is. Her friendly smile only makes me want to grind my teeth. I detest friendliness. It’s usually a disguise for condescension.
From my vantage point, I can see a rise of mountains in the distance. I make a mental note of their location in reference to the facility and the trajectory of the bright sun. I don’t know how I’ll use them to get out of here, but as I’ve always known, information is the key to escape.
Information is what got me away from my lonely past and it’s what will get me out of captivity.
“You don’t seem fine. I know I sure wasn’t when they pulled me out of that thing.”
I roll my eyes. “So, what? Are we supposed to magically forget what they did to us? All of you make me sick. Their twisted experiments are psychotic and you’re delusional if you think any differently.”
She says nothing, only sits at the foot of my bed and studies me like I study a printout of data or a sample under a microscope. My skin crawls in response. How ironic that I’d be so unnerved being the subject instead of the observer.
“You can leave,” I say bluntly.
But she doesn’t, at least not for a while.
The same routine happens daily for two weeks. Molly drops by, not always in the morning, the schedule varies, but the only constant is the script. She’ll ask me how I’m doing, I’ll reply, “I’m fine,” then she’ll sit with me for a time, sometimes an hour or more, until I’ll get frustrated with her constant scrutiny and bark at her to leave. The duration varies and even when I’m downright hostile it doesn’t deter her from coming back the following day.
Until one afternoon when I realize she hasn’t come to visit.
I tell myself it doesn’t matter. Her giving up is the best outcome for everyone. Nurturing ties to these people will result in nothing good. As soon as I get their spawn out of me, I don’t plan on staying long anyway.
But that logic doesn’t deter my mind from wandering and wondering.
Has she finally given up on me?
Everyone does, sooner or later.
The thought shouldn’t bother me, but it does. I’d grown used to having her chattering about nonsense as I stared resolutely out the window. Sometimes she’d talk about her mate, Draven, or the goings-on around the facility that I was so determined to ignore. Without her bright voice to fill the nothingness, my own loneliness seemed to press in on me. The window doesn’t even seem to help.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say to myself. “You don’t need her.”
But what if something is wrong?
The thought is pervasive.
I shouldn’t care, not after what they did to me. They don’t deserve my concern since they certainly didn’t show me any when they pulled an immaculate conception. But…what if the aliens hurt her? Of course, they say the big, hulking freaks dote on the women and wouldn’t harm a hair on their heads, but I know better. Words are just that, words. Actions matter, and so far, their actions have only proven consent is far from the top of their priorities. It will take a lot more than their pretty words to convince me otherwise.
I tell myself this for over an hour past the usual time Molly visits. I say over and over, but that doesn’t stop the nagging worry that something is very, very wrong. What if she’s being held against her will? She’d made it a point to explain how much the women love their mates, but it could be a lie. They could be fed those ideologies like some sort of freakish sex-cult.
My curiosity is going to be the death of me. With a heavy sigh, I push myself to my feet and step outside my compartment door for the first time since it was assigned to me. The hallway on the other side is empty.
I remember Sayer’s comments from a couple of weeks ago about the computer operating system. He’s briefly come in to visit me—or the baby I should say—here and there, but when I’m in a mood, which is more often than not, all I get is a nod of his head and he bails. I smack my forehead. Why hadn’t I thought of it sooner? The shock must have sapped every iota of intelligence straight from my brain.
“Uvie?” I say aloud, feeling somewhat foolish talking to thin air.
“Yes, Grace,” her automated voice responds.
Forge
tting myself momentarily, I say, “You know who I am?”
“Of course. Sayer programmed me to answer your voice patterns and to answer any questions you may have. Would you like me to page him for you?”
“No,” I blurt, then say more calmly, “No, thank you. I’m wondering if you can tell me where Molly is?”
I didn’t want to think about Sayer being considerate. He must have known I’d come out of my self-imposed isolation at some point and it irked me that he thought he knew me at all. I didn’t want to be indebted to him in any way possible, but the show of consideration made me feel it all the same.
“Molly is in the command center. She fell asleep waiting to hear from her daughter.”
Her daughter.
I brush the thought away, although it takes root like a bitter-tasting seed in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t selfish of me to be concerned with my own needs, my own fate after having everything ripped from me so cruelly, so completely. I didn’t ask for this. Even so, my cheeks run hot as I navigate the halls looking for Molly through the small windows in the doors.
Two of the freaks pass me, but I keep my eyes forward, my nose upturned. One of them was the freak with the crazy hair—Jareth. Today his knuckles are bloody. The sight of them from the corner of my eye nearly causes me to do a double take, but I don’t dare look back at him. Of all the aliens, he’d been the only one who actively seemed to hate me. The feeling was mutual, but I didn’t quite understand why he disliked me so much.
Musing over it allows me to forget my shame until I come to the right door. Using the armband I’ve been given, I wave it over the sensor as I’ve seen the others do, and the door glides open. Molly is slumped over a control panel, snoring slightly. The glow of lights from the monitors flicker over her face. Even in sleep, I can see the dark smudges underneath her eyes, the deep shadows in the hollows below her cheeks. Her bubbly personality, the light that seems to shine when she’s awake, has dimmed and I can see behind the cheerful façade. I’m not the only one who’s had something taken from me.