“It is good, isn’t it?” A wide smile spread on Tairan’s face at my delight.
Promptly getting off the couch, he moved to the food compartment and punched something in. “I’ve used a small loophole in the coding of your food unit. Now, you can order Kealan desserts or other foods you like. Just don’t do it too often and take care not to eat too much at once to avoid sudden changes in your blood content, which may trigger their alarm.”
He took a small bowl from the unit and another spoon from the cabinet then returned to me on the couch.
“Since you liked the luldai egg, you may like this, too.” Sitting next to me, he offered me a spoonful of cream-coloured substance with small brown balls mixed in.
The smell lured me in, and I took a tiny bit off the spoon. Sweet and crunchy, the dish turned out to be just as good as the egg, even if of a slightly different flavour.
“These here are—” Tairan started, but I didn’t let him finish.
“Nope.” I quickly shushed him, covering his mouth with my hand for good measure. “I really don’t want to know.”
He just laughed, and I picked up the spoon, digging into the dessert in peace. “As far as I’m concerned, this is extra crunchy, puffed coco rice in vanilla yogurt. And I’m sticking with that.”
THE WHOLE EVENING ENDED up being bittersweet for me. Tairan was here, the dinner was great, and there were moments when I almost forgot where we were. Except that the minutes kept ticking by, bringing the morning closer.
In bed, Tairan rolled to me. Curled in his arms, the sad feeling overtook me again.
“You know I’ll miss you,” I whispered quietly.
He raked his fingers through my hair, holding me close.
“I’ll miss you, too, Isabella. When they told me they found a match, I had no idea how this would go. At most, I hoped I would be able to make it through without hurting you in any way. I never thought it would be me hurting to leave you at the end.”
I slid my leg between both of his and snuggled tighter.
“Promise me you’ll come to the gardens, Tairan. I can’t wait for a whole month to see you again. Maybe,” I added carefully, “together, we could figure something out?”
Like what? An escape plan? Would Tairan agree to help me with that?
Where would I go if he did?
Earth’s government had given me to the Kealans. Even if I somehow managed to survive the harsh Antarctic winter and make it to any of the other continents, there would be the populations of two planets searching for me to bring me back.
“Beware of false hopes, Isabella,” Tairan cautioned me.
Would he consider coming with me, away from his own people and into the unknown?
There was hardly any place on Earth outside of this facility where he wouldn’t be blinded and burned by the Sun. And Keala was too far away, even if I was willing to share a cave with chicken-sized spiders on that planet, just to be out of reach from Ricread’s prodding equipment.
“Oh, trust me,” I sighed, “I’m really struggling here to have any hope at all.” I leaned my forehead into his chest. “What kind of a future is there for us, Tairan? I was told there is hardly any chance of a pregnancy during this phase, whatever that is. How about after? Since a pregnancy is the ultimate purpose of this whole thing, will they keep breeding us until it happens?”
Stroking my hair gently, he didn’t reply, which was probably for the best anyway. Continuing this conversation held a real chance of plunging me into despair and ruining whatever little time we still had together.
Instead, I made an effort to shove the gloomy thoughts aside as far as I could.
“Well,” I said, keeping my tone lighter this time, although some sarcasm seeped through. “At least I’d be guaranteed a chance to see you regularly. We’ll have dinners each month and maybe even get to have some walks in the gardens.”
He kissed my hair with a chuckle. “You have the ability to turn dark into light somehow.”
“Oh, but that’s why you like me—I make you smile.” I giggled in reply, playfully shoving at his chest. “Admit it, you like me,” I teased.
“I do.” The smile left his face. “As hard as I’ve tried not to like you, I failed way too quickly.”
My heart skipped at his confession. I opened my mouth to reply, but he didn’t give me a chance, bringing his lips to mine.
The kiss was slow, unhurried, as if he tasted me, savouring every second. Pressed tight against his chest, I closed my eyes, melting into this moment with him.
He slid his hands down my back, and I felt him grow hard against my thigh. Breaking the kiss, he moved his lips down my body, but I stopped him. “My turn.”
Before he could protest, I pushed him to his back, then trailed light kisses down his belly, following the ridges of his abs. The thin line of fine stubble on his stomach below his navel let me know Kealans were not naturally hairless in their pubic area. He must have been groomed the way I was before coming here.
For ease of access for the technicians and their equipment.
I resolutely shoved the bitter thought to the background. The experiment had nothing to do with what I was up to right now. Diverting all my attention to the man who was here with me, I licked down that happy trail all the way to his rising erection.
I slid the tip of my tongue along a raised bump under the silky skin of his shaft then took him in my hand, sitting up.
“Night light,” I ordered the strip mounted into the top of the headboard to turn on then stroked Tairan’s arm. “I’ve got to see it up close. Do you mind?”
“Not at all.” He shifted on the mattress, stretching his tall, muscular body, awash in the soft light. “Just . . . keep touching as you look,” he added, with a wicked smile.
Still at half-mast, his shaft was already considerably longer than my hand. His skin, white as bleached paper, seemed to be decorated with swirling designs in silver-grey running along his length.
“What is this?” I marvelled as the pattern seemed to swell and bulge in a raised relief the harder he got in my fingers. The silver lines thinned and paled until he was fully erect, like a magnificently carved piece of ivory in my hand. “This is real art, Tairan!”
“It better be,” he laughed. “It cost me a fortune to get it done back in the day.”
“So, you weren’t born with this pattern?”
“Of course not. A lot of us went through a phase in the last couple of years at the Academy.” He shrugged with a chuckle. “They said girls liked it, and we were young and stupid enough to believe that, wanting to impress them.”
“Well, I am impressed. And I definitely loved the way it felt. But how could it even be done? I mean . . .” I traced along one of the thick lines curling around in an elegant swirl. “It’s so detailed and absolutely perfect.”
“A harmless substance is injected under the skin in the pattern of your choice. It reacts with blood flow and temperature . . .” He trailed off with a grunt, lifting his hips to thrust into my hand, as I kept stroking along the pretty lines of his body art.
“Does it react to moisture, too?” I wiggled my eyebrows and licked where my finger had touched.
“That definitely gets the blood flow going,” Tairan’s voice sounded strangled.
I hummed in agreement, taking the tip in my mouth then sliding my lips up and down the raised pattern.
Lying on his back, Tairan bent his knee with a groan, pressing the heel hard into the mattress as he thrust his hips up, fully invading my mouth. I tightened my lips around him, swirling my tongue along the hard ridges.
My palm flat on his lower belly, I felt his abs tense, hard as stone. His hand fisted in my hair, as if he needed to hold on when the climax surged through his body.
With a few last swirls of my tongue, I released him the moment he sagged on the mattress, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths.
“I definitely like what you did to your penis,” I announced, licking my lips.
<
br /> His hands on my waist, he dragged me up to him. A teasing glint danced along with the shades of purple in his eyes as he stroked my bottom lip with his thumb.
“That was a waste of prime genetic material, you know.”
“It was, wasn’t it.” Eyes wide, I faked an expression of horror. “Ricread would totally lose his shit if he knew I swallowed his precious research resource!”
I giggled and Tairan followed me with a chuckle.
Wrapping his arms around me, he rolled us both on our sides, facing each other.
Slowly, he drew me closer, his hand brushed by my breast then slid down along my side, and I stopped him, by grabbing his wrist.
“You don’t need to return the favour. I don't want it right now.”
“What do you want?” he asked softly. “Anything?”
I draped his arm around my waist. “Can you just hold me, please? While I fall asleep?”
Silently, he hugged me to him, tugging the blanket over us, and I snuggled into his warmth and scent.
Tomorrow I’d be alone.
IN THE MORNING THEY took him away, right after the tests.
Lying in bed, with my hand clenched into a fist, as if that would preserve the lingering sensation of Tairan’s fingers held in mine just moments ago, I only had one thought bounce through my brain.
Now what?
A long and lonely month lay ahead of me.
Chapter 11
“I WILL NOT HAVE YOU dictate to me how to do my work.” Ricread’s eyes had narrowed to slits, his voice as cold as ice.
“Yet you dictate to me how to live every moment of my life!” I yelled, jumping off the bed.
God knew, I’d attempted to reason while trying to convince him to let me out of these rooms. Every time he showed up here for whatever tests they needed to do on me, I asked him for permission to go for a walk.
I’d used honey, begging him sweetly.
After having done some research, I’d presented him with facts on the benefits of exercise for human health.
When none of that worked after nearly a week of trying, I realized it might not be entirely about logic or science to Ricread. Standing over me, hands crossed, legs in a wide stance, he regarded me with detached interest, making me feel like nothing more than a lab rat, indeed. And he obviously enjoyed every moment of having that power over me.
“Your life is no longer your own,” he tossed at me on his way out. “It belongs to Keala, just like mine does. For as long as my planet has no future, you have no right to have one either.”
THE FOLLOWING DAY I stayed in bed for hours. What was the point of getting up if I knew there was nothing but another empty day ahead of me? Nothing to look forward to and no one I wanted to see.
As the new week started, they fitted me with my own armlet, similar to the one they all wore around their forearms. Zavis was the one to put it on me. She demonstrated the features I was allowed to use. However, from her explanation, I realized the main purpose of the device was to continuously track my vital functions.
Apparently, they had been getting my heart rate and body temperature through the translator installed in my ear, but now needed more detailed and varied data, including my blood pressure and composition.
“Why?” I asked her, glad that someone was actually explaining to me what was going on.
“We have been tracking the progress of the embryo traveling through your fallopian tube, but it’s in the uterus now and we don’t want to miss the moment of implantation,” she explained casually, fiddling with some raised buttons on my armlet. “We need to do continuous scans for that.”
“What embryo?” I blinked at her, hoping I had heard her wrong.
She tossed her short braids over her shoulder, darting a glance at the wall leading to the corridor as if expecting someone to burst through it at any moment.
“There have been no explicit instructions on not sharing this with you, although no directive to share came in either,” she sounded as if debating with herself, excitement clearly ready to erupt in her expression. “This is an incredible advancement for us. It is the first successful insemination in years.” Her eyes wide with delight, she leaned into me. “The first human-Kealan embryo ever!”
I stared at her in shock. It felt like she was talking about some event that was happening outside of my body.
“You mean it worked? Already?” I pressed my hand to my stomach through the fabric of the white dress I’d started using as a nightgown after they took Tairan away. “Am I pregnant?”
I’d been told the chance of it happening was miniscule, and I had believed them. The news blew all my thoughts and feelings into disarray, as if a hurricane swept through my mind.
“Yes!” Zavis nodded her head vigorously, sending the braids flying wildly about her head. “We went all the way to sixteen cells before it entered the uterus,” she said proudly, as if she had personally added all those cells together. “The implantation will be happening anytime now. This is so incredible to watch!”
“I bet it is,” I mumbled, barely able to form words, the revelation still floating through my brain in a cloud of shock.
“Of course, the pregnancy is not expected to last long.”
“It’s not?” I jerked my hand away from my stomach, as if even that slight contact had the power to attach me to what would be inevitably lost. “How long will it last?”
Zavis shrugged a shoulder.
“There is no way to tell for sure.” Her face brightened again. “But at this point, every day is a gift. This stage has been a success beyond belief.”
“Does Tairan know?”
Her expression shut down immediately. “The focus of the entire experiment is solely on you at this point.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“There are instructions to keep you away from the male subject for the time being. Some risks have been identified from engaging in certain physical activities, and intercourse has been deemed undesirable at this point.”
“I’m not asking for intercourse.” I drew in a measured breath, forcing myself to remain calm in hopes of getting some more information from her. Although, anger and frustration seethed inside me. “I’ve been asking to see him, not begging to jump his bones.” The calmness was swiftly evaporating, despite my best intentions. “Can you at least tell me how he is? And whether or not he knows what is happening here?”
Zavis drew her thin white eyebrows together, a frown of concentration settled on her delicate face.
“Well, there are procedures being conducted on the male subject, parallel to the main course of the experiment, to continuously improve the compatibility of his genetic material with your—”
“How is he?” I repeated slowly, my voice vibrating low in my throat.
“I’m not authorized to provide the details on his status to you. With your level of clearance—”
“Oh, God, not this again!” I jumped off the bed, yanking my arm out of her hands. “All I’m asking is for you to tell me how Tairan is doing. Do you know what it’s like to sit here alone, day after day, wondering how much suffering you all are putting through the only person who’s ever showed any kindness or understanding to me in here?”
“Um, Isabella . . .” Zavis rose from the mattress. The screen of her armlet extended as she rapidly shuffled through charts and graphs flickering through it. “Please, calm down.”
“You want me to calm down?” Unable to stay still, I stomped into the living room, and she followed me like a shadow, punching things into her screen.
“It is imperative that you do so,” Zavis insisted, only annoying me further. “The readings of your vital signs and the body functions that we’re monitoring are highly volatile. The numbers have been barely within the acceptable range since the day you got here, but now they’re crossing into an area of concern . . .”
“Are they? So that’s what makes you concerned? The numbers?”
“And the extreme fluct
uations between them.” She nodded. “Our research has shown that we need to keep the readings even, in order to ensure the best environment for the embryo and, hopefully, the soon-to-be fetus. The risks are extremely high.”
The air left my lungs with a long sigh as I sank onto the couch, feeling suddenly deflated.
“I’m not a doctor or a scientist, Zavis, but I’ve talked to Ricread about the benefits of my wellbeing. I’ve begged him to let me out of here . . .”
“The instructions are to keep you in a controlled environment. While you are in these rooms, we know exactly every particle of the air you breathe, the food you eat, the amount of energy you exert, and the waste you expel.”
“And how has that been working out for you, Zavis? It doesn’t help in keeping my numbers even, does it?” I grabbed a flower-print cushion off the couch and hugged it to my chest. “Do you think you would feel calm and serene, locked in a ‘controlled environment?’”
I hoped Kealans were close enough to humans for Zavis to understand my stand on forced confinement. Tairan seemed to have emotions I understood. But then again, Ricread appeared to be void of any feelings whatsoever.
Zavis swept the room with her gaze, as if considering something.
“Well, this is, by far, much more space than I’ve ever had back home,” she said slowly. “But we knew that people on Earth are generally used to having more room to move around, so we made it spacious. We got some Earth plants in here.” She pointed at the shelves, lined with greenery. “And do you like the cushions?” She pointed at the one I kept crushing in my arms.
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