Crouching down to her eye level, I reach out to take her hands in mine. “I apologize for my inconsiderate behavior. I forget that you’re only human and unused to the Starling race. While our women look exactly like human women, the men are indeed different and difficult.”
Trixie gives me a shy smile. “You’re not upset that I’m not experienced in this department?”
My eyes narrow slightly, and my blood begins to simmer. “No. You are mine and mine alone. If anyone is to teach you about the male specimen, it will be me.” Her eyes sparkle with mischief as she scoots closer to the edge of the bed, crawling on her knees as she reaches out toward the lower half of my body. My hand catches her wrist gently as I study her intently. “Are you sure you wish to?”
Her hesitation is brief. “I want to learn.”
“Once I start, I won’t be able to stop,” I tell her softly. Her eyes flicker from my waist to my face. “I’m trying to control myself just to say these words to you. I might be rough; you are the first for me as well.”
Trixie bats her eyelashes and takes her bottom lip between her teeth. I fight the urge to groan as she nods a couple times. “I know.” I release her, then she’s reaching for the cloth wrapped tight around my waist. I take several uneven breaths as I grab the hem of her dress and begin to tear it apart.
She gasps as the fabric comes away and leaves her wearing pads over her breasts and a black thong that had to belong to my sister; only she had dangled such atrocities in my face before. I try not to picture Zona wearing the thong and instead trail my eyes across Trixie’s body as I climb onto the bed and knock her gently on her back so that I’m on top.
My members are free from the cloth and at attention, waiting impatiently to demand Trixie’s body as their own. Trixie’s eyes trail the lengths of me, and a smile worms its way onto my lips. Her eyes dilate in the dimly-lit room, and I know she’s pleased by what she sees, even if she doesn’t breathe the words.
“You are beautiful,” I whisper as I trace a hand across the valley between her breasts and trail my fingertips down her stomach and finger the black silky thong, tugging on it gently. Her heart races, and her thighs press together tightly. I can feel the energy shifting in the air. Static causes the hair on the back of my neck to rise as I stare down at my beautiful new bride. I want to claim her, but I also don’t wish to hurt her. “You tell me at once if I hurt you in any way,” I demand in a gentle tone.
Trixie’s eyes flicker up to mine as she wiggles beneath me and grasps one of my members. I jerk forward at her touch, and a hiss escapes past my clenched jaw. “I promise.”
I swallow hard and, in one fluid motion, use a taloned finger to shred the thong and move a leg up in between her legs to push them open. “Make sure to scream my name,” I say and plunge forward.
Trixie
“Zayton, please, calm down.” I watch Zayton pace anxiously at lightspeed, whirling like a tornado in a medical room that allows patients to view their babies.
We traveled for two whole months to get to Earth when I realized my period never came. Knowing I could possibly be pregnant, we made an appointment under false names and had gotten to see the ultrasound technician. The news she’d given us is a bit…hard to process.
“How can you expect me to calm down?” Zayton snaps, and I chew the inside of my cheek until I taste blood. “I have more to offer than any human man, yet you’re only having one. One baby!” he shouts, shoves open the door, and storms out.
I sit up and press a hand to my stomach. “He doesn’t mean it, my precious baby.” The baby bump still feels unreal. “He just doesn’t understand what’s going on.”
I don’t understand it either. The Starling race normally has twins, triplets, or, at one point in history, quadruplets. To only have one baby is strange and inconceivable. But maybe it didn’t work out well enough. He’d put both of his penises inside me—two exceptionally large ones, I might add—and still, only one egg produced; and here we are, two months later, wondering what to do.
I know for a fact that Zayton isn’t mad at me, just the situation. He’s been nothing short of sweet and cherishing, letting me want for nothing. There isn’t any ultrasound equipment on SaxZon, hence the reason for coming to Earth. We’ll have to go back eventually, but I need the reassurance as a new mother of knowing that my baby is going to be okay.
“Don’t worry,” I say to my baby as I clamber off the hospital bed, glancing at the monitor that shows a small baby, which is already developing faster than the average baby in a woman’s body. Starling develop faster, making it a complication for women that aren’t of the Starling race. The baby could be born earlier than nine months, assuming I remember what the SaxZon medical books said about this. I’d done lots of studying, from the geography maps of SaxZon, to the plant life, to the Starling race itself. “We’re going to love and cherish you.”
Zayton
“You called her? Why?” Trixie asks, frowning and rubbing her stomach.
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Because Zona is the only one that can help figure out this situation.”
Trixie shakes her head. “You can’t continue to hound your sister every time we have an argument!”
“We’re having an open and frank discussion,” I say, trying not to glare at her. “What else was I supposed to do?”
“Maybe talk about it?” Trixie snaps and turns, walking back to her quarters.
For the past month, we’ve been living in separate rooms on the spaceship. I don’t want to live like this; I want to share the bed with my wife, my mate. But how can I when she knows as well as I do that I’ve failed as her mate?
As Trixie’s mate, I’m supposed to have given her multiple offspring, not just the one. What will Zante and the others say when they discover that in all of Starling history, my sperm is only capable of giving my mate one baby when others have had multiple babies at once. I’ve failed her, and I don’t know how she can forgive me for what I’ve done.
I sigh heavily and press a button on the control panel system, allowing Zona to be beamed inside. When I hear her feet hit the ground, I turn to find my sister giving me a hard glare. “What did you do?”
I hold up my hands in surrender. If looks could kill, I would be dead twice over. “It’s not what I did, but what my penises did.”
Her nose wrinkles. “Ugh. I don’t need a mental image in my mind.”
“It’s the truth.” Zona gives me a pointed look. “I swear it on the royal crown, Zona.” I drop my arms and look away from my sister. “My sperm only managed to create one baby.”
“Not possible. We’re of royal blood. Maybe the humans made a mistake,” Zona states.
I shake my head and turn, snatching the crumped up ball that had been left on the control panel from the minute we’d returned to the hovercraft a month ago after having the ultrasound appointment. I throw the paper at Zona, and she catches it, smoothing out the wrinkles as she stares down at the only picture the ultrasound technician had taken of our baby. “They don’t make mistakes.”
Zona holds the paper up to inspect it closer, and her lips are pressed into a thin line. “They did make a mistake.”
I frown. “How? The nurse was very clear.”
Zona moves closer and holds up the picture for me to see. “No, I mean it. Look.” She points to a shadow figure that looks like a second hand directly behind the baby’s. It’s quite smaller, but I hadn’t noticed it on the monitor, nor had the technology been able to spot it. Starlings have different abilities. Another one of the royal family had been heightened senses, so it was a wonder that I missed it in the first place. “Go back and make a second appointment,” she says smugly. When I go to snatch the picture away from her she adds, “I plan to show this to Mother.”
“If you must.”
Zona sends a wink my way. “Oh, and I thought you should know, Zante and Latesha are expecting.”
“Not surprising.” I turn to press a few buttons, getting ready for
Zona’s departure.
“They’re having quadruplets.” My hands freeze where they are hovering above the control panel. “Nobody’s had quadruplets in centuries,” she adds after a couple of minutes of awkward silence.
“Good for them.” My voice sounds strained, and I’m trying extremely hard to remain collected in front of my sister, even if I feel like bashing my head against the protective glass in front of me.
Zona stands directly behind me and gives me a sour look that reflects from the glass. “Look, I know it’s hard, but you could at least pretend to be happy. You’re having a baby, possibly twins. Zante and Latesha are having their own family.” She wraps her arms around herself. “At least you both have someone to share it with.”
“Zona.” It breaks my heart, hearing her words of surrender. How could I not know that my own sister wishes for the same thing our brother and I have? A mate, a family, that’s all Zona’s ever wanted. I turn to embrace her but find I can’t. Our family, we’ve never been the emotional support for one another. We’ve never hugged or been close in all the years since we’d been born.
“No, just don’t. I said my piece. Now, go apologize to your wife.” Zona turns without a word and lightspeeds to the center, where her body becomes nothing but a tiny, pixelated version of herself.
I glance over my shoulder and watch as a decent size blue hovercraft takes off at lightspeed back to SaxZon. A frown settles over my lips. “I’m sorry, sister,” I whisper, although I doubt I’ll ever say it to her face. Zona wishes for a mate, and here I’ve been treating my own like a piece of trash. I’ll do things the correct way and do as Zona advised. I’ll apologize to Trixie.
Trixie
“This is impossible…” The ultrasound technician, Sheryl, rubs more jelly across my abdomen and uses the wand to press against my skin. The jelly is lukewarm and soothing as she moves the wand back and forth, her face turned toward the monitor.
On the screen, there’s not just one baby, but according to her calculations of how many heads she counts, there’s five. Five babies. I’m happy with just one or two, but five?
Sheryl sets down the wand and stands up, turning to look at Zayton and me. He’s holding my hand, and I can feel the warmth radiating from his beautiful alien body. “I will be right back with the pictures.”
When she leaves the room, Zayton squeezes my hand again. “Five babies. Trixie, can you imagine having five?” I glance at him and note that his eyes are pooling with tears.
“Are you sure there’s five?” I look at the monitor and then down at my stomach, puzzled. “I don’t ever recall there being five babies born for the royalty. Trust me, I did my homework.”
It doesn’t make any sense. In all the historical texts I read about the Starling race, none ever mention a royal family member whose sperm could have their mated woman give birth to five babies. Quadruplets sure, but five?
Zayton rubs his thumb across my hand in soothing circles. I tilt my head back against the medical chair and stare up at the ceiling. “I checked the monitor while the technician used it. Believe me, there’s five.”
“Damn your heightened senses,” I mumble bitterly.
He chuckles and leans over to press a kiss on my cheek. “Trixie, you are beautiful, and our babies will be too.”
“I know, but five? I can think of a couple names for a boy and a girl of twins or so but not five altogether.” I pat my stomach with my free hand. “How do we even know if I can carry five, let alone give birth to them?”
I’ve always thought that giving birth to one baby is terrifying, especially after receiving the “talk” from my foster parents before I left Earth for good and moved to SaxZon. Giving birth has to be scary, and I don’t know if I’ll be ready for it when the time comes.
“You will. I believe in you.” Zayton’s voice is sweet and puts a smile on my face. “We should head back to SaxZon. It’s a long journey, and you’re already on month five. My mother and sister will help you with the deliveries.”
“You’ll be there too, right?” I glance at him. Some future dads don’t want to be in the same delivery room; some Starling fathers don’t want to either.
Zayton nods and helps me up from the medical chair. “Every single moment. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.” His smile sends my heart fluttering.
Zayton
“No, no, no!” I pound my fists against the control panel in a fit of rage. “You piece of shit, work!” The hovercraft turns over like a vehicle from Earth having its engine trying to rev, and all it does is make a loud croaking sound.
Trixie’s voice calls out a couple of rooms over. “Zayton? I felt the ship stop. What’s going on?” My entire body is trembling. I don’t want to face Trixie; I can’t right now without possibly shouting at her too. It’s not her fault the hovercraft decided to conveniently run out of fuel during our lightspeed journey back to SaxZon.
I rest my forearms against the counter of the control panel and sigh heavily. Tilting my head up, I catch my worried reflection in the glass. Straightening up, within a nanosecond, I’m down the hall and standing outside the bedroom doorway. Her eyes are full of worry as she stares at me, a hand pressed to her stomach as she lays stretched out on the bed. “We ran out of fuel.”
Trixie hasn’t gotten much sleep these last few days, always saying she’s sore or in slight pain. Her discomfort has me on edge, and now with the hovercraft out of fuel, all we’re doing is floating in space. “Don’t we have extra somewhere?” she asks in a quiet voice.
I shake my head and glance up at the ceiling. “No. I thought we had enough. This is my fault.”
“I’m not blaming you.” I turn my gaze back to her and she’s offering a hand. I move forward and grasp her hand gently.
“Can’t we call someone to come and get us?”
“I’ve tried, Trixie.” My voice sounds strained. “The next ship is leaving now, but with it already having taken several months to get from Earth to where we are now, I doubt you’ll make it in time to deliver on SaxZon.”
I can feel her hands tremble, but her voice is steady. “I’m only on month eight. I’ve got another month before they’re due.”
“Starling babies tend to grow at a rapid rate, Trix.” I trace my thumb in circles across the top of her hand. She chews on her bottom lip. She does that from time to time when she’s nervous or anxious about something. “You’ve been getting less sleep and feeling more pain. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came early.”
“We can’t know for sure.”
I nod in agreement. “You’re right. I’m no doctor, but we’ve both done our research. We should prepare for the worst case scenario.”
Her face pales. “We don’t have medical supplies.”
I think for a moment. A frown tugs at my lips as I begin to pace. “Your body needs all the rest and help it can get. For medical supplies, I know we have a first aid kit in the shuttle room.”
“I didn’t know we have a shuttle room,” Trixie says as I stop pacing for a brief moment before using lightspeed to go into the shuttle room a couple doors down from the quarters.
I come back with the kit in hand. “It’s for emergencies, the shuttle room. It’ll take us in a pod in case the hovercraft gets ready to explode or we have some unexpected guests show up.”
She shivers and pulls a green threaded blanket higher up and under her chin. “I forget sometimes that the Starling have enemies.”
“We don’t encounter them very often,” I reassure her. “The only problem is that we normally use lightspeed so we’re harder to track. But right now, we’re vulnerable out in the open like this with no fuel and no means of protection.” I set the kit on the bed beside her and notice her face is an unusual off-white. “Trixie? What’s wrong?”
Her lips part, and then she snaps her eyes close, squeezing them tight. Trixie’s body trembles from head to toe. I snatch the blanket back and notice how the top half of her body is bowing forward a little and her hips seem to
shift slightly. She lets out a loud groan and presses a hand to her stomach, panting. “Damn, this pain is getting worse.”
Frowning, I place a hand on her stomach, tossing the blanket on the floor beside me. I can sense the energy in her body shifting, moving. My eyes widen, and I drop my hand. “Shit!” I breathe out, and in a blur, I’m whirling like a tornado on Earth, using lightspeed to grab random things from the quarters and then out into the other adjoining rooms on the hovercraft.
“Zay…ton?” Trixie calls out but stops when she groans loudly again.
I’m back in a couple nanoseconds, arms full of random items I could find. A couple more blankets, a small bucket that we’d been using as a chamber pot, and a couple of small chairs. I set them on the ground and get to work, twisting the blankets into the chairs to make small baby baskets.
“What’s going on?” Trixie asks in a raspy voice. I don’t glance at her as I try to finish the chair baskets I hope are going to be big and strong enough to carry two babies each. That leaves one baby without one, but if I have to guess, either Trixie or myself will be holding onto one or two babies at a time.
“They’re coming.” I hope my voice doesn’t sound shaky or strained. If she’s nervous about giving birth to our offspring, then I’m anxious about helping her deliver them. I’ve never done something like this before, and I pray to whatever God is in the heavens that things go well.
Trixie
“Now, when I tell you to, I need you to push as hard as you can. Breathe through the pain. Okay?” Zayton’s voice is firm but gentle. Sweat beads my forehead, and hair is plastered to my face.
“I don’t think I can push anymore. The pain is too great.” My breathing is heavy, and I spare a glance at the babies already born. Three babies have entered this world, but two more are still trapped within my womb. All three babies are girls; Xenia, Ximena, and Xaviera.
A Very Alien Christmas: A Limited Edition Collection of Holiday Alien Romance Page 24
