“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“What are you doing?”
I frowned. “Nursing her with my milk. Don’t coldblood women do this?”
“No, I’ve never seen a baby do that,” he said, evidently stunned. “On Vysanthe, we’re fed on blood as soon as we’re born. It usually doesn’t come from the mother, though there are myths that it used to be what our species did, long ago, when they first started to populate the planet. I never believed it, but now… well, now I’ve seen everything.”
“I’m just glad Mort isn’t here.” I chuckled, trying to push away thoughts of how weird it felt to be nursing a baby. “Do you think this means she prefers human food?”
“Maybe. I guess only time will tell,” he replied thoughtfully, trying hard not to stare at my boobs. I stifled a giggle, focusing on Nova instead.
Chapter Thirty-Four
As soon as she’d finished nursing, the screaming started again almost instantaneously. I dressed her in the clothes that Mort had delivered to the room. I wondered if she was cold or uncomfortable, but nothing changed the quavering, distressed pitch of her screams. I tried rocking her, but it only made the screaming worse. Navan tried, too, but nothing either of us did seemed to help.
An hour blended into two, then three, then four, but Nova’s wails didn’t stop; they were incessant, making my eardrums rattle, my whole body on edge. I was already tense enough from needing my fix of sweetblood, and my patience was wearing thin. I felt anxious, terrified that I was going to snap at Nova. I didn’t want to be the kind of mom who shouted at her kids when she was coming down or craving a hit. I’d been that kid; I didn’t want that for mine.
Even so, the screams were getting harder and harder to bear. Navan had administered two of the shots that Lazar had given him to inject me with, putting them both into the side of my neck, but they’d done nothing to help my longing for sweetblood. Mort kept saying he’d bring some of the blackwatch tea, to take the edge off, but he’d yet to appear with any. It was disappointing, but I guessed the shots didn’t have any of the sweetblood substance in them. Navan had assured me that neither of the serums contained any stimulants; he’d heard of them during his apprenticeship days, and knew they were safe.
“Is it just me, or is this not normal?” Navan asked, on the cusp of hour five of relentless shrieking.
“I don’t know what coldbloods do, but I’m pretty sure human babies don’t cry for this long without any stopping at all,” I replied, feeling unbelievably naïve. This was the kind of stuff I’d thought I wouldn’t need to know for years to come.
“Should we get Mort or Lazar to check her?”
I gazed at the contorted face of my beautiful baby, her cheeks almost scarlet with exertion. A shiver of panic shot through my spine, lighting a paranoid fire in my brain. What if Nova’s crying had something to do with the side effects of the growth serum? If the silver root had somehow entered her system, too, making her susceptible to stimulants, then it stood to reason that the sweetblood would be affecting her, the same way it was affecting me. Only, she had no way of communicating her suffering, other than to scream it from her tiny-yet-effective lungs.
“I think we need to get Mort,” I whispered, feeling tears rise. I’d done this to my child. I’d infected her body with the silver root and made her addicted to the sweetblood. This was all my fault.
“Are you okay?” Navan asked, steadying me with his strong hands.
I nodded. “I think… I think she might be addicted to the stuff in the growth serum, like me.”
A wave of fear washed over his face. “I’ll get Mort.”
Less than five minutes after us calling out of the intercom for someone to fetch Mort, the familiar beep of the retinal scan sounded in the hallway beyond our room. As the hefty blast door opened, I stood up with Nova screeching in my arms, expecting to see the familiar face of Mort. Instead, Ezra strode across the threshold, a menacing look on his face. It seemed, after our face-off in the clinic, he was now intent on observing our every move, where Nova was concerned, at least.
“You can hear that thing through the walls of this place,” he said sourly. “For five hours, we’ve listened to it howl through the vents. Can’t you shut it up?”
“That’s what we called Mort here for,” I replied. “He’s the one who can help, not you.”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?”
I frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The child is half-coldblood—it needs blood, not whatever you are giving it. I’ve read horror stories of what your kind do to feed your young. A nasty, filthy business. This child doesn’t need any of that. It needs good, nutritious blood.”
I imagined Ezra was the kind of guy who’d complain in a coffeeshop if he saw a woman breastfeeding, and I wanted to wipe the smug look off his face for thinking it was nasty. What did he know? His people drank the blood of other beings. As far as I was concerned, he was the weird one, not me. Naturally, I excluded Navan from my angry thoughts, since his habits were closer to eating meat than other alien beings.
“You’re not feeding her blood,” I said.
“Navan, would you talk some sense into your pet?” Ezra sighed, brandishing a small vial of something red and viscous. I didn’t want to know where it had come from, though I knew it couldn’t be human blood. Back in Texas, they’d said it was too potent to consume raw.
“My wife,” Navan corrected him.
Ezra rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. Whatever she is to you, tell her that creature needs blood.”
Navan turned a sheepish glance in my direction. “It couldn’t hurt to try… Maybe she needs both.”
I eyed the vial of blood with uncertainty, but knew Navan was right. Nova was half of both of us, and I had to come to terms with everything that entailed.
“Fine, but Navan can give it to her,” I insisted.
With surprising willingness, Ezra gave the vial to Navan, before covering his ears and taking a step back. It seemed Nova’s screams were enough to silence a man as powerful as Ezra. Had my head not been ringing, I would’ve laughed.
Taking Nova from me, Navan held her in his arms and tipped the vial toward her lips. The scarlet droplets dribbled into her mouth, her screams quieting as she swallowed the viscous substance. I watched her with bated breath, praying it worked, even if it meant she had to drink blood for the rest of her life. I mean, she could be a coldblood like Navan, sticking to the blood of animals.
A moment later, the red liquid came bubbling back up, gushing across Navan’s shirt. Her screams resumed a split second afterward, the sound garbled as it pushed through the blood left in her mouth. Her tiny hands balled into fists once more, flailing against her dad’s chest. It hadn’t worked.
“Get out!” I screamed at Ezra, stalking toward him. “Take your crappy ideas and get the hell out of this room!”
The rebel leader lifted his hands and backed away without another word, disappearing out into the hallway, retreating to a safe distance. I didn’t care if they could hear Nova’s cries everywhere else on the station; if we had to listen to it, after what they’d done to us, then so did they. This was all their fault, forcing the growth serum onto me. I just prayed, for Nova’s sake, that something could ease her torment—something that didn’t involve more of the growth serum. If her withdrawal was anything like mine, I wanted to take the pain from her.
“I’m sorry, Riley,” Navan said softly, bringing Nova back over. “I thought it would work.”
“So did I.”
A few minutes later, the chamber door opened once more with the strangled beep of the retinal scan. Every sound was grating on my already-overwrought ears. I braced myself, ready to scream at Ezra until he retreated again, but it was Mort who stepped into the space. He looked frazzled, his skin dangling at his elbows with more floppiness than previously.
“I came as quickly as I could,” he gasped. “Jeez, she’s got a pair of lungs on her, has
n’t she? You can hear her from the other end of the station. Must be driving you mad.”
I gave him a hard stare. “You think?”
He hurried over and brushed back the downy, dark hairs on the top of her head. Even with the screams, he was still clearly besotted. He had a bag in his hand, which he lay on the bed, retrieving a couple of unusual devices.
“You know what’s wrong?” Navan asked, surprised.
“She’s been screeching for five hours, grayskin. I had a pretty good idea something was up.”
“What do you think it is?” I wondered, getting more worried by the second.
“I’ve been having a think about that,” he replied, sifting through his bag until he found another of the small, circular devices that seemed to be used to take blood samples. “I wonder if it might have something to do with all that gunk in your bloodstream, affecting little Nova the same way it’s affecting you.”
“Looks like all that pretending is finally paying off,” Navan said. “You almost sounded like a doctor then.”
“All right, Captain Snark, I’m all you’ve got, so zip it.”
“Can you test her for the silver root?” I bit my lip, the nerves getting the better of me. I didn’t want to be responsible for her suffering.
He nodded. “Why else would I have a bag of medical goodies with me? I’m not lugging it around for my own amusement.”
He was nervous too; I recognized it in the curt tone of his voice.
Taking out a circular device, he pressed it to the crook of Nova’s elbow and took a sample of her blood. There was a small screen on top, like the pregnancy test, though this one was colored blue. I wondered if that meant it tested for something specific. A few moments later, a list of symbols popped up on the screen, causing Mort to furrow his already-wrinkled brow.
“The test is inconclusive,” he said, exasperated. “Looks like there’s only one thing for it.”
My heart began to race. “What?”
“I need to give her some of that stuff they’ve been injecting into you, see if it calms her down,” he replied reluctantly, evidently hating the thought as much as I did.
“No, you can’t do that,” Navan interjected.
“It’s the only way to know. I’m aware it’s a pretty freaking messed up thing to do, but what’s the alternative? You want her to keep howling this place down? It’s only going to get worse, especially when the pair of you can’t sleep. I’d offer to help, but I need ten hours a night or else my skin puffs up,” he said, entirely serious.
I gulped. “He’s right… He’s right… We have to see if that’s what the problem is.”
“Lucky for you, I’ve come prepared.” Mort plucked a small bottle from his bag and brandished it triumphantly. “Swiped it from that one-eyed guy’s stockpile while his head was turned. Don’t think he likes me much.”
“What is it?” It was an almost-glittery substance, champagne colored and flecked with silver particles, not like the usual golden serum that Lazar had been administering.
“Raw sweetblood, direct from the veins of a Saccharine. Not sure which type, didn’t bother to check, but I know it’s the good stuff,” he explained. I looked at it hungrily, knowing I’d snatch it from his hands and down it in an instant if he and Navan weren’t watching me.
“She threw up the blood Ezra brought,” Navan said nervously. “I don’t want to make her sick.”
“This isn’t like that. There’s almost no viscosity to this stuff. It’s not thick and gross, like most blood. That’s why species across the universe use it to sweeten their food and drink. Can I hold her?” Mort sounded overly eager, his eyes fixed on Nova’s screeching face.
Navan nodded, flashing me a glance to make sure it was okay. I nodded back. Mort wasn’t going to harm our little girl. Everyone else on the station might want to, but he wasn’t one of them. As he cradled her awkwardly in his arms, he lifted the bottle of raw sweetblood to her lips and trickled in a few drops, letting the mixture settle on her tongue before putting the bottle down. He rocked her gently as we all waited for the verdict.
A minute or so later, Nova quieted, her features softening to a contented calm. Her fists relaxed, her eyes seeking out the shifter’s face. Either Mort was a magician, his rocking sending her to sleep, or the sweetblood had worked.
“I did this to her,” I whispered, realizing the truth. “She’s addicted to it, like me.”
Mort shook his head. “I think it might be more than that, Riley.”
“What do you mean?”
“I hate to be the bearer of crappy news, but I think this might be an innate part of what she needs to survive,” he explained. “Coldbloods need blood to survive, right? And she is half you, half him—human food is never going to be enough. She might be able to eat it, to a certain extent, but so can coldbloods. They can stomach it, but it doesn’t give them the goods, so to speak. I doubt it’ll ever be enough to satisfy her. I imagine she’ll need this stuff for the rest of her life, in order to properly exist.”
“How do you know?” I gasped, hoping it wasn’t true.
“Look at her cheeks. They’re all pink and healthy now. Were they when you nursed her, or whatever it is you weirdo humans do?”
I shook my head.
“Exactly. I hate to say it, but I think the wee one needs this stuff to survive.”
Navan put his arm around me, holding me close. “Hey, it’s not the end of the world,” he said. “If Nova can only consume this type of blood to survive, then that’s okay. This stuff is plentiful. There are multiple Saccharine species across the universe—the Satang tribe, Seoltang tribe, and Satou tribe are the most commonly found, and they’re an intelligent, humanoid species like you, but there are a few smaller groups, too, dotted around, like the Halu and Alsukar tribes. They’re not quite as humanoid, more like merevins, but their blood is just as good.”
“Says the connoisseur,” Mort quipped.
“What I’m saying is, she won’t go hungry,” Navan continued. “Those first three are similar to the elves you find in human mythology. Not the festive kind, but the magical, elegant kinds. They’re a strong, intelligent race who’ve taken to selling their blood voluntarily as an export, as a means to develop their civilizations.”
Wherever the sweetblood came from, it seemed that Nova would forever depend on it to survive. She couldn’t live without it, and it was all because of Ezra and Aurelius, forcing her to grow at an unnatural rate inside me. I would make them pay for what they’d done to us, to my family. If it was the last thing I did, I would make them suffer as we had.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mort brought several vials of pilfered sweetblood in the days that followed, leaving enough to get Nova through the day and night, and bringing more every morning. The scent of it drove me crazy, my body somehow recognizing the smell of the substance it craved. I was still nursing her, though she grew more and more disinterested in what I had to offer, preferring the sweetblood above all other things. I couldn’t be near whenever Navan fed her, retreating to the far side of the room and sitting there, miserable, as he tipped each vial into her mouth. I wanted to be close to her, wanted to be the one feeding her, but she didn’t want my milk.
Barely three days had passed, and I was struggling with my own addiction to the sweetblood. It was worse than I ever could have imagined, my body feeling hot and uncomfortable every second of every day. It was like an itch I couldn’t scratch, and it was driving me insane.
“There’s no easy way out of this,” Mort said, as he arrived to drop off the morning’s vials. I was sitting on a chair in the corner, shaking through the aftereffects of my addiction.
“I’m well aware of that,” I snapped, hating the hunched, furtive monster I’d become.
“Addiction is a tricky bastard, by all accounts. It’s deep in your bones and doesn’t want to be booted out.” He smiled apologetically, pausing to coo over Nova. “If anyone can kick its ass, though, it’s you.”
“No problemo, sweet-cheeks!”
“Hey, I’m a mother now. You can’t go around calling me sweet-cheeks,” I teased, though my heart wasn’t in it.
“Not that you should be going around calling anyone that,” Navan interjected, looking up from feeding Nova the last of yesterday’s vials.
Mort grinned. “Killjoy.”
They had been getting along much better since Nova’s arrival, the two of them bonding over a mutual adoration for the tiny, scarlet-winged creature. I was just grateful that everyone was still alive, thanks to Lazar’s quick thinking. Nova had her mom and dad, and Mort had a family to hang on to. It seemed fitting, considering he’d lost his along the way, due to his own foolishness. Perhaps this was him making amends for the mistakes he’d made.
“Have you seen the gruesome twosome today?” I wondered, thinking of Ezra and Aurelius.
He shook his head. “Nah, they’re nose-deep in elixir stuff, trying to get a formula to work. They’ve been cooped up in there since this little one arrived. I’m starting to hope they might’ve died—toxic fumes or something.”
“A nice thought,” Navan agreed.
I nodded. “At least they’re leaving us alone. I was sure they’d come back as soon as Lazar headed back to work.”
“Looks like you aren’t the center of the universe anymore,” Mort teased. “Speaking of which, I have some business to attend to, teaching these gray-skinned morons about human anatomy. Those idiots actually think I learned something from you! All I know is, if a human woman is giving birth, do not look down the barrel of that gun. It’ll scar you for life. It probably has scarred you for life, right?”
I shot him a disapproving stare. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
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