by Roxie Ray
“What’s it like?” I asked.
“At first, it was nothing. Just being really, really tired. You know? Every sleep felt like I never wanted it to end.”
“Well…we’ve all been pretty tired lately,” I said. I certainly had. “Between keeping food on the table, keeping an eye out for attackers and looking for Marisa, we’ve been dealing with a lot.”
“I’ve been a little sick to my stomach, too—that’s why I’m trying the eggs for breakfast. I’m hoping the protein might help.” Ora grabbed a metal ladle we’d salvaged from the ship and fished the eggs out of the boiling water. She dropped them into a second pot of water to cool, one by one. “So far, it feels like I’ve tried everything, but the only thing that really makes me feel less queasy is being close to Pax.”
“That could be stress, though.” I grabbed a couple of thick leaves to protect my hands as I moved the pot off of the fire. “My stomach’s been pretty messed up too lately. Being close to Gallix…it lowers my anxiety or whatever, I think.”
“Yeah, but my stomach…it’s so weird, Eve. I feel like I’ve got a rubber band inside me that’s been pulled so tight, it might snap any moment, and I have to move super carefully to make sure it doesn’t.” Ora sighed. “I hope that’s not a bad sign.”
“Me too,” I said slowly as I moved my hands over my stomach.
I wasn’t saying it for Ora, though.
I was saying it for me.
“You want an egg, then? I think they’ll be good.” Ora smiled at me and nudged an egg my way. “There might even be a little salt left over to eat them with. I can check if you want. Unless… do you think salt is healthy for the baby? Maybe I should skip it.”
“I’m not sure. But actually… I think I need to go talk to Gallix real quick.” Now, I was feeling more nauseated than ever. Definitely too nauseated to eat eggs—or anything else for that matter. “I’ll be right back.”
Pregnant. Everything Ora had just described, I’d been feeling. As I headed back toward Bessie’s wreckage, I even caught myself taking soft, gentle steps across the grass. When I thought about what might happen if I fell, I ended up taking even more gentle ones.
Crap. This…was hopefully nothing. Hopefully.
But if it was something…
I just hoped it wasn’t something bad.
As I tiptoed toward the canteen inside the ship, I tried running over what to say to Gallix in my head.
Hey, Gallix! Remember how you deflowered me and now we’ve been going at it like rabbits beneath the chemical sheds?
Nope. Definitely not. That wasn’t right at all.
Gallix, I don’t know how to tell you this—so far, so good. Totally true. But I had no idea what came after. That was the problem.
I think I might be pregnant?
I’m pretty sure I am pregnant?
There’s a feeling in my belly like a rubber band about to snap?
There was no good way to say this. I hadn’t been tracking my periods like Ora did, but I knew that mine usually showed up around the same time as hers. Benefits of living in a bunkhouse with twenty other women, I guessed. If we had a pregnancy test I could take…but I didn’t.
How could I tell Gallix that I was pregnant if I didn’t even know for sure it was true?
I took a deep breath outside the canteen and prepared to head in. Whatever I was going to say to Gallix, I’d just have to come up with it in real time.
But then, from inside the canteen, I heard my name.
I hesitated. I leaned close and listened in.
Gallix and Ronan must have been having their conversation. And as worried as I was about how to tell Gallix that we might have a little half-Lunarian baby on the way…
I was also desperate to know what they were saying. About our future. About what happened next.
About me.
“Eve,” Ronan said. “Did she put you up to this?”
“It’s not just Eve, Ronan. Pax has mentioned it to me too.”
“Then Ora has also convinced him.” Ronan’s voice was incredibly cold. “The two of you have allowed yourselves to become corrupted by these females that you have claimed. Illegally, might I add.”
“Oh, eat dung, Ronan. You ask me, these women weren’t acquired legally in the first place. Eve was terrified when she signed that contract. Didn’t know what they’d do to her if she didn’t. That sound legal to you?”
Gallix was defending me. My heart swelled with…not love, maybe. I wasn’t sure about that yet. But something close.
“It does not,” Ronan admitted. “But your dalliances here will have repercussions. You must know that. Is that why you do not wish to leave? So you are not held accountable for what you have done?”
“What I’ve done? Moons. Listen to yourself, Ronan. What I’ve done is provided comfort, and support, and protection for a terrified female ripped from the only place she’s ever called home.”
I drew back a step. That wasn’t…exactly the profession of love and affection that I’d been hoping for from the father of my maybe-child. At all.
I wanted to walk away then and there—but I couldn’t.
I had to keep listening.
I had to know more.
“Do you truly think I care about what she was before she came into our care, Gallix? Protection is not what you were offering her. Protection does not require you to exist between her thighs every night—or am I wrong?”
“Fifteen days, Ronan! That’s fifteen damned years on Lunaria! You know what the state of things were when we left. That brainless fop for a king! The high lords, haughtier and more entitled than ever!”
“I know that the brainless fop you speak of provided our generals with ships to rescue human females from the Rutharians. As for the high lords, they have brokered a solution to our population problem. Does that mean nothing to you, Gallix?”
“They didn’t want a solution, Ronan. They wanted virgins. Doesn’t that mean something to you? Because it sure as nine hells does to me—and nothing good.”
“Ah. So it comes out.” I could hear the disdain in Ronan’s voice. He was dripping with it. “You are concerned with what they will do to you when they find out you have damaged their property.”
“Their property? Blood, Ronan! She’s not property—she’s a person!” The rage in Gallix’s voice was…a little reassuring, at least. “We’re Lunarians, damn it! Not Rutharians. We don’t own people.”
“No. We own contracts. Which she has signed. I am sorry, Gallix, but I am not following you down this path. You are just lucky she is not pregnant.”
I gulped. Oh, if Ronan only knew…
“Besides,” Ronan continued, “it does not matter in the end. You have orders, Gallix. You are not a husband. Not a father.” Not yet. “You are a soldier, like your father before you. You have been given orders. You must follow them.”
“Those same kinds of orders got my father slaughtered, Ronan.”
I pressed my hand to the wall. My heart panged at Gallix’s words. I could hear the hurt in his voice.
I could feel that same hurt echoed in my chest, too—even if I didn’t entirely know why.
“Then I suppose you need to decide what you want, Gallix. I cannot help you with this. If you want to stay, I cannot force you to go. But if I cannot force you, then this decision is one that you can only make for yourself. Your duty as a Lunarian warrior…or her. You cannot choose both.”
I retreated from the ship like it was on fire again. I didn’t want Gallix and Ronan to know that I’d been listening to them—but I also didn’t know if I could handle hearing what Gallix chose.
Pax had already affirmed his love for Ora. She knew where she stood with him. She knew that she had his baby in her womb. But with Gallix and I…
I took a few deep breaths and braced myself against the ship’s outer hull.
I didn’t know if Gallix loved me. I didn’t even know for sure that I was pregnant. I didn’t know what the future held, whet
her it was here on Edon…or somewhere else.
I didn’t know what was more important to him. His duty…or me.
“Hey, bright eyes. You still want to hit the jungle with me today?” Gallix came out of the ship looking slightly pale, but I could tell he was trying his best to put on a good face.
“I’m…actually not feeling well,” I told him. Which was true. “I wasn’t able to eat breakfast. I might…stick around here today, I think. Is that okay?”
“Course it is.” Gallix moved my curls behind my ear and stroked his thumb across my cheek. “You gonna be all right here alone, though? You’re looking pretty pale…”
“I’m fine,” I assured him as confidently as I could. “And I won’t be alone. Ora is here, and Ronan. Pax isn’t far away, either. And you need to find Marisa.”
“Right. Well, that saves me the trouble of finding you some new shoes, at any rate.” He pulled me to him and kissed my lips gently. “I don’t want to worry about you too much while I’m gone, though. Stay safe for me, okay?”
“Of course.” I licked my lips and nodded once as I took a step back from him. “You too.”
I watched Gallix disappear into the jungle. He gave me a final smile over his shoulder before the trees engulfed him—and nearly tripped over Ronan’s alarm system for his efforts.
It was…annoyingly cute of him. The worrying about me. The smile. The stay safe.
But he hadn’t mentioned his discussion with Ronan. Hadn’t said anything about what would happen once Marisa was found at all.
Which meant that he either hadn’t made up his mind yet…Or he didn’t know how to tell me that he’d chosen following his orders over me.
I placed my hands over my belly and tried to imagine what it would look like if I was pregnant. If my suspicions were real.
It made me want to cry.
“Eve?” Ronan’s voice was calm and serene again as he limped out of the ship on his makeshift crutch, a branch Gallix had carried back from the jungle and whittled to fit Ronan’s height. “Are you all right?”
He sounded so calm, in fact, it was like he and Gallix had never had the conversation I’d overheard at all.
“Do you really think I’m property?” I asked him. I couldn’t confront Gallix about what had been said. Not yet. Not until I knew how he felt. But Ronan owed me an apology for some of the things he’d said. Even more, he owed me the truth. “I heard what you and Gallix were talking about. Don’t yell at me for eavesdropping, either. I had every right to listen in.”
“I was not planning on yelling at you, Eve.” Ronan turned his head to the side and frowned as a renegade tear rolled down my cheek. “And of course I do not think of you as property. That was cruel of me to say. I offer you my apologies for it. Please, do not cry.”
“That’s not what I’m crying about,” I told him.
“No?” Ronan limped forward a little closer. “You may tell me what worries you, Eve. I was…frustrated, when he came to me just now. It impeded my judgment and twisted my words.”
“Frustrated because you don’t have a partner here? A… mate?” I’d been guessing, on top of Ronan’s injuries, that was the reason he’d been so withdrawn and grumpy the entire time we’d been here.
“No. Not at all. Ever since we approached this planet, and especially ever since we visited that cave… I have been having strange dreams, is all. It is nothing.” Ronan looked away. I couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed by his dreams, or just troubled by them—and either way, he didn’t give me a chance to ask. “Now. What is wrong? Why are you crying? If Gallix comes to me again, it may help me better advise him. To be a better friend.”
“It’s just…” Don’t tell him! Don’t tell him! a little voice in my head was screaming. But my secret—my suspicion—was bubbling up inside me with even more force. Either I was going to let it out, or I was pretty sure I was going to puke. “I think I’m pregnant, Ronan. I’m not sure yet, but—”
“You’re…” Ronan reached his hand toward me instinctively, like he wanted to touch my belly. But before he could make contact, the air between us whistled. Ronan yelped in pain and quickly pulled his hand away. “What in the moons—”
Ronan raised his hand to his face and looked at the webbing between his fingers, puzzled. There was something sticking out of his skin—a short, thin splinter with bright pink feathers tied tightly to one end.
“What is that?” I asked, reaching for it. I plucked it from his skin with a little tug. It had been buried deeper than it looked. The sharp tip was red with Ronan’s blood, but a little further up, it looked like it had been painted black.
“Nothing good.” Ronan gasped for breath and stumbled forward. I tried to catch him, but it was like he was putting every ounce of his weight on my body. When Ronan’s eyes met mine, they were hazy. His pupils were dilated so big, his irises were almost completely black. “Rutharians. Take Ora, Eve. Now. Run.”
But before I could even step away, the air whistled again, and I felt a second splinter pierce my neck.
A few seconds later, my stomach churned violently, and my vision went black.
16
Gallix
Some soldiers fought for valor. They lived and died for the glory of battle, no matter the cost. Some fought for honor. They would never back down, even in the face of impossible odds. Others still fought out of duty—to their people, their platoons, their commanders. Some fought because fighting was all they knew.
Some fought for love.
My father hadn’t made any distinctions between any of those things. When he flew into Rutharian territory that final time, I’d only been a little younger than Pax was now. I’d heard the story from his best friend, my moonfather, Lahar. They’d been outnumbered. No hope for reinforcement. No support. Their comrades had been shot down one by one, but the orders had been clear.
No mercy. No retreat. They were to finish their mission, or never return.
Lahar was the only soldier from my father’s squadron who’d made it back at all.
Lahar had begged me not to, but I enlisted the next day anyway. I’d always seen my father as a hero. He’d shown grit in the face of impossible odds. Courage in the face of adversity. Bravery in the face of fear.
As I trudged back toward camp that night, empty-handed once again, I certainly didn’t feel brave.
Nah. I was scared, and I wasn’t ashamed to admit that. I’d learned this fear in my first battle, and I’d feel it in my last.
Difference was this time there was no battle to fight. No enemy to kill. This was just between the orders I’d been given and me.
Unfortunately, standing in the middle of it all was the pretty auburn-haired human who’d become my entire universe these past weeks. Between me and my orders was Eve—and unless I chose one or the other, I’d have to forsake them both.
“How’s things, little cousin?” I swung towards Pax through the graveyard of wrecked ships with heavy boots and a heavier heart.
“Poor.” Pax grunted in frustration as he threw his salvaged wrench to the ground and mopped the sweat from his brow with the bottom of his shirt. “Even if I had all the years of my life and yours combined, at this point I do not see how I could possibly put a functional ship together from this…this mess.”
“Mess is a pretty good word for it, sure.” I came to his side and stared up at the ship Pax had chosen to carry us home. The vessel itself was mostly intact, but one glance at the engine told me it was a long way from being ready for the stars. “Anything I can do to help?”
“Gallix. We are of the same blood. Do not pretend with me.” Pax signed and slammed the covering of the engine shut. “We are in the same predicament here. You do not want to leave this place any more than I do.”
I stared at him for a moment, then let out a sigh of my own. “No. No, I don’t suppose I do.”
“Then why are we wasting our time on this?” Pax threw his arms wide. “Ora does not want to leave. I imagine Eve is of a si
milar mind.”
“And even if they did want to go, we’d have no idea what we were delivering them to.” I clapped him on the shoulder. “I know the score, Pax. But our orders—”
“Mean nothing.” Pax didn’t even flinch as he said it. Didn’t hesitate. He might have been spending his days out here trying to fix the ship to get us home, but now I realized he’d never actually intended to leave with us. Not now that he had Ora to think of as well. “Do you not love Eve, Gallix?”
“Of course I do.” I gritted my teeth and turned away. That cursed little word was what I’d been skirting around for days now. Maybe since the moment I first saw Eve, if I really thought about it. When I found the right words to say so, I’d tell her that myself. “But things aren’t as simple for me as they are for you. You signed up for this because it’s expected of you. Of your family. Your position. When I took my vows for Lunaria, I meant them. Every single word.”
“And you think that I did not?” Pax’s laugh was bitter and harsh. “I may be of higher birth than you, cousin, but I remember the sacrifice your father made for our people.”
“But you think this sacrifice is different,” I guessed.
“I would give my life for Lunaria,” Pax assured me. “But Ora? No. I would not give her up for anything. I am surprised that you do not feel the same about your Eve.”
I blinked. I’d never fancied myself a particularly smart soldier. I didn’t have Pax’s education or Ronan’s faith. It was why, when the battle was raging and it seemed like all was lost, I fell back on my orders like they’d been written in my own damned blood.
But when he put it like that…
“You’re right, you flaxen-haired baz-terd.” I shook my head and let out a laugh of my own. But where Pax’s had been sharp, mine was made of pure relief. “Of course you’re right. Forget the ship. We’re staying.”
“You will support me in this, then? I wanted to tell Ronan this morning, but—”