Kallie shrank away, laying her head on Tara’s breast as she watched Shelley with suspicion.
When Tara turned away a little, as if to protect Kallie from her, Shelley burst into tears. “Oh God. They don’t know me. My babies don’t know me!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hastion laid his hand on the back of Shelley’s neck and kissed her hot, damp temple. He’d never felt so helpless in his life.
“Shelley, please be calm,” the minister told her in a soothing tone.
“No, you be calm!” she sobbed into her hands. “I want my babies.”
“And you shall have them if you’ll just be patient.”
Dropping her hands, she wailed, “I have been patient—for five days! Five whole days!” Then she flopped over onto her side. “This is all your fault, you big, alien…baby snatcher.”
The minister’s jaw tightened but he wisely didn’t point out that she’d been unconscious for almost four of those days. “You’re upsetting the twins.”
“Well I’m upset too, so sue me,” she cried as the storm of tears continued unabated.
“Shelley’s body has just been through a tremendous upheaval and it could take weeks for her hormones, and therefore her emotions, to stabilize,” Tysan sent, looking around at all of them. “We must resolve this for her as quickly as possible. She’s in no condition to resolve it herself.”
“What can we do?” Monica asked.
“Let me talk to Tiber. For now, take the twins home and let her cry. She’ll probably sleep. When she wakes, she needs to eat.”
“Can I lie with her?” Hastion asked.
“If it doesn’t upset her further.”
He immediately climbed onto the bunk behind Shelley. Before he could wrap her in his arms, she turned and curled into his chest, weeping as if her heart were breaking. Hastion hugged her close, his own heart breaking for her.
Still holding his unhappy son, Cecine looked at Hastion with poorly concealed irritation. “Everything will be fine, Ensign.”
Hastion stared back. “If you say so, sir.”
Cecine’s eyes narrowed, but he turned on his heel and departed with Tara, leaving them in blessed silence but for Shelley’s muffled sobs. He held her until she cried herself to sleep, and then he and Monica took turns flaring to their houses to clean up.
When Shelley woke, her mood hadn’t improved. Hastion sat on her bunk, rubbing her hip through the thin blanket that covered her from head to toe.
Sighing, he said for the third time, “Shelley, you’ve got to eat something.”
“I told you, I’m not hungry,” came the dull, muffled reply.
Leaning against the next bunk with her arms and legs crossed, Monica said, “You know Tysan’s not going to let you out of here until you’ve eaten solid food.”
“What do I care? It’s not like anybody needs me.”
“I need you,” Hastion said at once. “And Wyatt and Kallie need you too.”
“Shelley, they’ll come around,” Monica told her. “Probably sooner rather than later. They just need a little time to adjust to your new appearance.”
“What if they don’t?”
“They will. But not if you don’t come out from under that blanket,” she added. “And not if you waste away to nothing. Now get your ass out here and eat.”
“I hate Garathani food.”
“Well I’ve got news for you—it’s not Garathani food. I sent that back and got you something from our house.”
An arm flopped the blanket down and Shelley blinked at the light. She looked terrible—her eyes were swollen, her nose red and wisps of her hair had worked loose from her braid.
“What is it?” she asked apathetically.
Monica pulled an orange box from behind her back and shook it. “Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch.”
Though Shelley’s stomach growled, her expression betrayed no interest. “Where’d you get that?”
“I think Kellen hijacked a delivery truck before we left Earth. He surprised me with a whole pallet of this stuff.”
“That beats the hell out of what your father surprised me with,” Shelley said petulantly.
“Yes, it does, but starving yourself won’t change it.”
Shelley sighed and sat up. “Got milk? And a bowl and spoon? Or do I have to eat it out of the box?”
Hastion rose and picked up the tray off the counter. “Empran, raise the head of Shelley’s bunk to eighty degrees.”
“Affirmative.”
When she’d settled back comfortably, he set the tray in front of her and helped her fill her bowl.
“This is cow’s milk, right?” she asked with a suspicious look when he poured it from the decanter.
He smiled. “One hundred percent Terran cow. Holstein, if I’m not mistaken.”
She took one unenthusiastic bite and then began shoveling it into her mouth with gusto.
“Hey, take it easy,” Monica said with a wide-eyed laugh. “You don’t want to puke it up, do you?”
Shelley shook her head. “Sorry,” she mumbled around a mouthful of the little beige balls. “But they’re so good and I’m so damn hungry.”
When Hastion plucked one out of her bowl and popped it into his mouth, she gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “You’re lucky this isn’t a fork or your hand would be pinned to the tray.”
He shuddered as he chewed it up and swallowed. “Don’t worry, I won’t be stealing any more. It tastes like pure sugar.”
“The breakfast of champions,” Monica agreed.
He frowned. “Wasn’t that Wheaties?”
She frowned back. “Okay, so it’s the breakfast of overworked medical professionals. How’d you know that, anyway?”
“I like Terrans and spent quite a lot of time studying them,” he said with a shrug. “Before the compound was destroyed, I’d considered requesting permanent assignment there.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Monica told him.
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “You’re a maverick.”
“Takes one to know one,” Shelley said dryly as she picked up the cereal box and shook a few more balls into her remaining milk. When Monica opened her mouth, she added, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to puke.”
Monica raised a brow at her. “I was just going to say, damn right I’m a maverick and proud of it. But just in case…” She grabbed the cereal box and closed it.
“Mine,” Shelley protested with a full mouth.
“You can have the rest when you get home. We need to do a few things to help the twins get used to you again.”
Shelley’s face fell again. “Like what?”
“Well, for one thing, get you back in your normal setting and put you in some regular clothes. Oh, and take down your hair and wash it so it’s curly again.”
She touched her braid. “I never thought of that.”
“Scent,” Hastion said. “That’s probably the most important thing. We need to get them close enough to recognize your scent. It would be nice if the twins would still drink from your breast.”
“Yeah, that would be a great plan if there were anything left to drink,” Shelley said dryly. Then she gave a puzzled frown and looked down at her breasts.
“What?” Monica asked.
Shelley’s frown deepened. “Why am I feeling letdown reflex?” Then her eyes widened. There were two small wet circles on her gown. “And how could I be leaking milk? The twin-powers weaned themselves weeks ago.”
“Oops, sorry about that,” Monica said. “I forgot to mention that the neogenesis process got the lactation ball rolling again. We’ve had to change your gown a couple of times a day to keep you dry and comfortable.”
Shelley’s face was pink when she glanced at Hastion. “Lovely.”
“Tysan wanted to give you something to stop it but my father refused. He said you’d be crushed if it kept you from ever nursing again,” Monica told her. “Did you know Garathani women don’t lactate anymore?”
“T
hey don’t? Why not?”
“Breast-feeding fell out of favor centuries ago,” Hastion explained, “and after countless generations used chemicals to prevent lactation, their mammary glands ceased to function.”
“Well that’s just sad,” Shelley said.
Hastion squirmed, and not just because her sudden burst of pheromones was making his mouth water, his pulse pound and his blood pool in inconvenient places. She obviously didn’t remember what had happened that night. After the way she reacted the last time they kept something from her, he’d probably better just tell her now before she found out on her own.
Monica was watching him and her brows went up. “Now what?”
“May I speak to Shelley in private?”
“Uh-oh. Am I going to come back and find her curled in a fetal position again? Or ready to kill someone, probably my dad?”
“Possibly,” Hastion admitted. “Though I hope not.”
Monica sighed. “Fine, but Shelley, whatever it is, try to remain calm, okay?”
“I make no promises.” Shelley hadn’t taken her wary eyes off him. After Monica left, she said, “Spill it. What’s he done now?”
“Actually, it’s what you did that might upset you.”
Her eyes widened in dismay. “Oh crap. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“All right,” he said at once with a relieved sigh.
Her eyes went even wider. “Oh God, it’s that bad?”
“No, it’s—”
“Okay, tell me.” She braced visibly. “I can take it.”
Hastion collected his thoughts before saying, “Do you remember your second evening here, when the minister and I eased your pain with our pheromone streams?”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again with a frown, tilting her head to one side. “I don’t know. What happened?”
Hastion squirmed. He didn’t really want to describe what the minister had done to him, but he didn’t want her to be the only one who felt embarrassed.
“To stimulate our pheromone streams, the minister restrained me, stripped me and played with me,” he said baldly. “He—”
“Bit you all over,” Shelley said, her eyes wide. “And then went down on you. And then you guys had sex.”
He nodded. “You do remember.”
“I thought it was a dream.” A hot, amazingly detailed wet dream. “I’ll say this for him, he knows how to put on a show. I don’t remember feeling any pain after that.”
“What else do you remember?”
She frowned again, obviously trying to dig out the memory. “He talked to me, I think. Right?”
“Actually, he went down on you too—at your invitation.”
Her eyes closed as color surged up her neck into her cheeks. “Oh jeez. And I suppose I enjoyed the hell out of it, didn’t I?”
“You did. That’s when your milk returned.”
She opened her eyes wide and said, “And…?”
Hastion braced himself. “And you invited him to partake.”
She let out a short scream and covered her face with her hands. “Oh my God, you guys have got to quit dosing me with those damn pheromones,” she moaned. “What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
She lifted one hand to peek at him. “Nothing?”
“His mouth was, er…otherwise occupied.”
“Oh God,” she whimpered, hiding behind her hand again. “He did it?”
“You did offer. In fact, you pulled his head down.”
Her whimper rose to a wail. “I’ll never be able to look him in the eye again!”
“Shelley, he was far from unwilling. In fact, he drained them both. More than once. With great enthusiasm,” he added for good measure. “I’m fairly certain that’s why you didn’t require medication. It seemed to ease you and help you sleep. Of course, it stimulated both our pheromone streams too, which helped as well.”
Hastion watched her carefully. She might not admit it, but she was aroused. Her own pheromone stream was spiking deliciously.
After a few moments, she asked without uncovering her face, “Did you?”
“No.” When she dropped both hands to look at him with a question in her wary eyes, he said, “You didn’t invite me. Otherwise, he’d have had to wrestle me for the privilege.”
Shelley leaned her head back on the bunk, her chest rising and falling more rapidly, a reluctant smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Thank you for telling me,” she finally said. “And thank you for making Monica leave. I don’t think she’ll ever be ready to hear a laundry list of her father’s kinks.”
“You’re welcome.” He finally reached out and rubbed her thigh gently. “Would you like to get dressed? Now that you’ve eaten, Tysan should be releasing you soon.”
“Do I have something to wear?”
“Monica brought you some of her clothing.”
Shelley finally gave in to the smile. “Good old Monica. What would we do without her?”
He gave a mock shudder. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
Dinner that evening was a nerve-wracking affair. Even though she was back in the setting the babies were used to seeing her in, she’d changed into Monica’s jeans and T-shirt, and her hair was flying around in an unbelievable mess of wild curls, they still watched her with suspicion. It hurt enough that she had a hard time swallowing her lovely dinner of fried chicken and mashed potatoes.
“Why didn’t you serve this stuff before?” she asked morosely.
“I thought it best for you all to become accustomed to our food,” Cecine said.
“So why tonight?”
He shrugged. “You need to eat.”
Tara didn’t have any trouble stuffing her face, although she looked a little hostile again. Maybe it was time to think about sending her on to her mates, whether she liked it or not. As much as she loved the twins, her moodiness was getting old. Shelley had erratic moods of her own to deal with—she didn’t need attitude from the nanny too.
Cecine seemed a bit out of sorts himself tonight, though he put on a moderately happy face for Wyatt and Kallie, both of whom wanted to be held by anyone but her at all times.
Only Hastion seemed halfway normal, but there was something different about him too. Not in how he treated her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but he just seemed…bigger, somehow.
After dinner, she watched, hollow with longing, as Tara and Cecine took her babies upstairs and put them to bed. It was hard not to cry, and when Hastion put an arm around her and pulled her against his side, she did shed a few quiet tears.
“This is only temporary, Shelley,” he reminded her. “They will recognize you, I promise.”
She nodded. “Is something going on between you and Cecine?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. Something just seems…different tonight.”
Hastion sighed. “The night we eased you with pheromones, I terminated my sexual service to him.”
Straightening, she looked at him. “Why?”
“In light of everything that’s happened, I felt it best.”
“Because of me?” she asked with a frown.
“No. Or not only because of you.” He sighed. “I just… It wasn’t healthy for me. I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
“Oh, Hastion.” She hugged his neck, stroking his hair. “I know. I do. And I’m sorry.”
After about a minute of that, she started to nod off and Hastion chuckled. “I believe it’s your bedtime too,” he said. “You’ve had a very big day.”
“I am really tired,” she admitted.
He walked her to her room and helped her get changed into one of the new, longer nightgowns that now filled one of the drawers in her wardrobe. After she’d cleansed her teeth, he put her to bed and tucked her in. She was asleep before he left the room.
Sometime later, she felt movement on the bed and then Hastion shook her shoulder lightly. “Shelley,” he whispered
.
Blinking in the dark, she whispered back, “What?”
“Sit up against the pillows.”
Suddenly a scent hit her like a punch to the breastbone, and she sat up quickly, fighting back tears. Her babies were here. They smelled like warmth and soap and sleep.
Hastion’s hand felt for her and then he laid her son in her arms.
Wyatt was awake. He seized a handful of her hair and yanked on it. “Mama,” he murmured.
The tears got away from her then, sliding down her cheeks as she hugged him to her breast. “Hi, sweetie.”
Unbelievably, he started rooting and Shelley wasted no time pulling aside her gown. He latched on at once, and it was all she could do not to sob as he sucked lazily, obviously more for comfort than sustenance.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You’re welcome,” Hastion whispered back.
She laughed quietly. “I was talking to God, but thank you too.”
The bed jiggled with his silent chuckle. “You’re welcome anyway.”
There was movement on the mattress between them and then Kallie crawled over her brother’s legs.
“Mama me, Mama me,” she cried, putting her arms around Shelley’s neck and laying her cheek against Shelley’s wet one.
Shelley took a shuddering breath and held her close too, kissing her ear. “Oh, my sweet girl, I’ve missed you so much.”
When she finally fell asleep again, hours later, her babies rested safely between her and Hastion, and she kept a hand on each of them.
Reduced once more to spying from the security of an observation flare, Cecine watched with his jaw clenched as Hastion and Shelley slept facing each other, the twins sprawled between them.
He was unwelcome here, an outsider in his own home. The knowledge was humiliating and infuriating, and so painful he could hardly draw a breath. Neither of them wanted him—Shelley’s desire had been induced by pheromone intoxication, and Hastion’s reluctant capitulation motivated by his need to protect Shelley. They were only his so that they could be each other’s.
He’d known these things, and yet somehow he’d managed to forget them. When had he let his guard down and allowed himself to care? When had he begun to crave their respect and approval?
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