“Fake seed?” Meg frowned. “That sounds really fishy to me, hon. Are you sure he’s not using the real stuff on you? Because if you’re getting sick every morning for no reason…”
“That’s crazy!” Sammi protested. “Roark would never—”
She stopped abruptly as an idea flashed across her brain.
Roark had told her that he was using Beast Kindred compounds in the precum in order to help her open up for the huge phalluses he was using on her. Sammi assumed the compounds were extracted from real precum—what if some live sperm had somehow slipped through the extraction process? All it would take was one to do the job, especially since Roark was injecting the compounds directly into her womb. So what if…
“What if I’m pregnant?” she whispered. She tried to take a sip from her mug but her hand shook and mint tea spilled all over her plate and the table. “Oh, my God, what if I really am?”
“But you can’t get pregnant by a Kindred unless you’re bonded to him,” Meg protested. “That is, I don’t think you can,” she added with a frown.
“But what if I somehow am?” Sammi demanded. Now that the idea had taken hold in her mind, she found it impossible to ignore.
A host of other signs and symptoms began occurring to her. Her breasts and nipples had been increasingly tender lately and her peaks had gotten larger and darkened from a pale pink to a much deeper shade. Sammi had assumed it was because of how long and how often she wore the nipple caps, which teased and stimulated her constantly, but what if that wasn’t the reason?
What if her nipples had gotten larger and more tender and turned a darker shade of pink because she was pregnant?
And then there was the fact that certain foods she used to enjoy made her nauseous now. She couldn’t stand the smell of eggs or beef or jarred spaghetti sauce. She’d tried to eat a steak just last night and had nearly gagged on the first bite. What was that all about?
Also, why was she suddenly craving pickles? Not the dill kind—the sweet, bread and butter kind her mom used to make from scratch? Sammi had made herself a big batch just for something to do when she had first moved into the Mother Ship, assuming they would last her all year. But for the past week, she’d been eating a jar a day—sometimes more. Why would she crave something so badly that she usually only ate a few times a month?
Also, she had been wanting sauerkraut lately which she normally hated. She—
“Come on.” Meg was tugging on her arm.
Sammi looked up at her in confusion.
“What? Where are we going?”
“To see Liv—that nice girl I introduced you to when you first came on board,” Meg told her. “She’s a doctor and she can get you a test.”
“What—like a pregnancy test?” Sammi asked. “I don’t know, Meg—maybe I’m just being crazy and there’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Then the test will be negative and you’ll have put your mind to rest. Come on,” Meg said firmly. “You have to know, Sammi. Because if you are pregnant, somebody has a lot of explaining to do!”
Well, that was certainly true, Sammi thought faintly. She allowed Meg to lead her away from her uneaten breakfast and march her down the hall to the Med Center where Liv worked. Outwardly she was calm but inside, her stomach was a mass of butterflies.
It seemed that Roark’s insemination machine might be working better than he thought—better than either of them had ever thought possible.
Thirty-Six
“Well, you’re pregnant all right.” Liv handed Sammi two little flowers—both of them pink. “Twin girls—do you have any idea how rare that is when the father is a Kindred? It’s like a million to one shot. Who is the father, anyway—if you don’t mind me asking,” she added.
“I…I don’t know,” Sammi said numbly. Now that her hunch had been confirmed, she didn’t know how to act. She looked up to see Liv staring at her blankly.
“You don’t know?” she repeated, frowning. “Are you dating a human, then?”
“I’m not dating anyone,” Sammi said and burst into tears.
“Oh, Sammi!” Meg exclaimed and put a comforting arm around her shaking shoulders. “It’s okay, honey,” she told Sammi. “Just let it out—let it all out.” She looked up at Liv. “I’m sorry—but could we have a little time alone?”
“Of course.” Liv patted Sammi’s shoulder. “If you need anything at all, I’ll be right outside,” she promised.
“Th-thank you,” Sammi stuttered. But the minute Liv left the room, she really let it out. ”I don’t know wh-what to d-do,” she moaned through her sobs. “I don’t understand what’s happening. How can this be?”
“I’ll tell you what you do.” Meg was scowling. “You march straight to that lab and demand that Commander Roark tell you what exactly was in that ‘fake seed’ he was giving you! Because it obviously wasn’t fake! And how was he giving it to you, anyway?” she added, frowning.
Sammi couldn’t answer. She was too busy trying to get hold of herself and think how to deal with this crazy problem.
A plan—I need a plan, she told herself desperately. Any time she had an issue she had to solve, she always felt better once she had a plan.
Well first of all, Meg was right—she had to talk to Roark. She could tell him her theory about the babies she was carrying being a product of a stray Beast Kindred sperm. It occurred to her that maybe this wasn’t such bad news. They had talked, in a round about way, about couples who couldn’t conceive, adopting children. Would it really be so different if she had babies that weren’t Roark’s biologically?
Maybe this would even make him decide they ought to be together as more than just boss and assistant, Sammi thought hopefully. Maybe they could make a life together and raise the two little girls and have a happy home.
A picture of the four of them bloomed in her mind—two little girls staring adoringly up at their adopted father and Roark laughing and playing with them while Sammi rocked them to sleep and read them bedtime stories. She had always wanted to be a mom—always wanted a big family. And now maybe she had a chance to do it….
“You know…” she said, sniffing and swiping at her eyes with the handful of tissues Meg had given her. “I think you’re right—I need to go see Commander Roark right now.”
“That’s the spirit!” Meg said, giving her shoulders a squeeze. “And I’ll come with you for moral support.”
“No.” Sammi shook her head. “No, this is something I have to do on my own, Meg. Thank you, though,” she added, giving her friend a watery smile. “You’re the best friend a girl could ask for.”
“I know,” Meg said cheerfully. “And soon I’m going to be the best aunt a girl could ask for—two little girls, in fact.” She gently patted Sammi’s tummy. “Go on now—go straighten this out.”
“I will.” Sammi lifted her chin. She was determined to get to the bottom of this…and hopefully come out in a better place on the other side. Visions of a happy family still dancing in her head, she left the Med Center and headed for the lab, taking the two tiny pink flowers with her.
Thirty-Seven
“You’re what?” Roark looked at her blankly.
“You heard me.” Samantha lifted her chin. There was a defiant gleam in her green eyes that said she fully expected him to believe her.
“You can’t be,” Roark said flatly. “There’s no possible way.”
“What do you mean? After all the times you’ve strapped me into that machine and inseminated me?” Samantha demanded.
“The seed I used—” Roark began.
“I know, I know—it was fake seed,” she interrupted him. “But what about the Beast Kindred compound you used to help me open up? If you extracted it from real precum, don’t you think a live sperm might have gotten through? And I was ovulating and twins run in my family so—”
“The compounds are not extracted from real Beast Kindred seed,” Roark snapped, frowning. “They are made in my lab—they’re only based on Beast Kindred emis
sions. So there is no possible way you could get pregnant from them.”
He was also certain there was no possible way she could get pregnant from his own seed, though he had injected copious amounts into her. He had injected copious amounts into Amanda too—back when he was still trying to bond with her. They had tried everything and nothing had worked—his seed was completely nonviable.
“You must be mistaken,” he told Samantha. “There’s no possible way you cold be pregnant.”
“Oh, no? Then explain these!” She thrust out her hand, shoving two little pink pregnancy flowers at him.
Roark stared at them blankly.
“Pink? As in females? Twin females?” Now he knew the babies couldn’t be his. Even if his sperm had been viable it would have been impossible.
“That’s what the test said.” Samantha’s voice was both shaky and belligerent. “And Liv, the doctor who did it, said the pregnancy tests here aboard the Mother Ship are one hundred percent accurate.”
“Samantha…” Roark strove to keep his voice low and controlled, though he wasn’t feeling very in control at all. “Do you have any idea what the odds of you getting pregnant with twin girls with a Kindred father are?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged uncomfortably. “Liv said about a million to one? I know it’s rare.”
“It’s so rare as to be nearly nonexistent,” Roark told her icily. “The odds are approximately one in four point seven billion—roughly the same odds a human female has to conceive quintuplets naturally with a human male. It simply doesn’t happen.”
“But…” Samantha shook her head. “But how do you explain this, then?” she nodded at the pink flowers in her palm again.
“I’ll tell you how I explain it,” Roark growled. “I think you were already pregnant when you took the job as my assistant. Probably by the lover who left that note in your old domicile. You pretended not to be because you wanted the job and hoped I wouldn’t notice until it was too late for me to fire you because you already knew too much of my research.”
“What?” Samantha’s eyes grew wide.
“Either that, or you’ve been sneaking off to Earth to meet with him and you got pregnant after you and I started doing experiments together,” Roark went on grimly. This was a much worse scenario but after Amanda had left him for another male—one who could get her pregnant and give her children—he wouldn’t put anything past a human female.
“How can you say that?” Samantha’s eyes were wide and hurt. They almost made Roark feel bad…but then he remembered that she’d been cheating on him. Cheating and trying to pass the babies off as his or as a result of their experiments together.
The thought hardened his heart.
“Well I’m happy to inform you that it’s not too late for us to end our association,” Roark told her, barely keeping his temper in check. “Because as of this moment, you are fired, Ms. Grey. Kindly clean out your desk and leave my lab.”
“What?” Samantha’s eyes were filled with a mixture of fury and tears. “How can you say this to me, Roark? How can you treat me like some…some experiment that went wrong you just want to throw in the trash? You got me pregnant!”
“I did not!” he roared, his fury overcoming his icy demeanor.
Samantha drew back from him, her eyes wide with fear this time.
Roark took a deep breath, forcing himself to be calm.
“There is no possible way I made you pregnant,” he said coldly. “Because I never Claimed you—we are not bonded.”
“But then how is this possible?” She shook her head. “And no, don’t accuse me of cheating on you again. I would never do that. Never.” She swiped at her eyes, which were red with crying. “I did everything you asked me to—I submitted to you completely because I hoped it would make you love me like…like I love you.” She took a deep shaky breath. “What a fool I was.”
Roark glared at her, trying not to let her words pierce his heart.
“Samantha—”
“No.” She put up a hand. “Don’t say anything else. I’m leaving. And don’t worry about me coming around and bothering you for child support—I never want to see you again.”
A sob caught in her throat and she turned quickly, but not quite fast enough for Roark to miss the way her lovely face crumpled into tears.
Keeping her back straight, she marched out of his office and out of his life.
And though Roark told himself it was good riddance, he couldn’t help feeling a stabbing pain in the region of his heart when the door slammed shut behind her.
Thirty-Eight
Blinded by tears, Sammi hardly knew where she was going. She only had one destination in mind—away.
By the time she finally looked up, she saw that she had wandered all the way to the Docking Bay. She started to turn around and leave but then a tall Blood Kindred pilot said to her,
“Excuse me, Miss. Are you looking for a ride down to Earth? I’m about to go in ten minutes.”
“You are?” Sammi swiped at her eyes.
“Yes. Are you wanting to go down and visit your family?” he asked, giving her a look of concern.
“Family…yes.” An idea began to form in Sammi’s mind. “Yes, I need my family around me now.”
She would go to her Aunt Vicky’s house. It was noisy and crowded since Vicky had four kids, but they would put her up somewhere until she could find a new place. She’d be safe there, too—her Uncle Steve had been a linebacker in college and he was almost as big as a Kindred. Nobody would dare to bother her there—not even Roark.
Not that he would want to. He’d made it perfectly clear how he really felt about her.
The thought nearly made her break into fresh tears and she had to take a deep, gulping breath to push them back.
Her distress must have showed on her face because the Blood Kindred pilot looked more concerned than ever.
“Would you like to sit down, Miss?” he asked. “My ship is just over here?” He nodded at a sleek silver shuttle just inside the Docking Bay.
“Yes, thank you,” Sammi managed to say.
“All right then.” He escorted her to the shuttle and stowed her safely in the back seat.
Sammi sank into the plush cushions gratefully and closed her eyes. Everything was too much right now—she just needed to get away and be with her family. Later she could figure out what to do and how she was supposed to raise two babies on her own. But for now, she just wanted to turn her brain off.
Thirty-Nine
The trip down to Earth didn’t take long. Before she knew it, Sammi was standing outside the Human/Kindred Relations building in downtown Tampa, watching the traffic whiz by.
After living in the temperature and humidity-controlled Mother Ship for so long, the muggy Florida heat felt like a punishment. Her blouse was already sticking to her skin and everything felt clammy. Ugh, she needed to get out of here!
Sammi reached for her phone and realized that she had come down to Earth with absolutely nothing on her—her purse with her money and cell phone and wallet—everything was back aboard the Mother Ship. She had been so upset at Roark’s reaction to her pregnancy, she had left without even taking the basic necessities with her.
She didn’t have a ride either. Sammi groaned inwardly. What had she been thinking? Now she would either have to go all the way back to the Mother Ship to get her things, or call her Aunt Vicky and ask her to come give her a lift. Or maybe one of the Kindred warriors would drive her?
She turned hesitantly back towards the plate glass doors of the building. She could see several on-duty warriors standing around, waiting to greet people. Surely one of them might be willing to drive her? She really didn’t want to have to go back up to the Mother Ship and risk running into Roark again…
“Professor Grey?”
The voice was vaguely familiar and when Sammi turned around, she saw a vaguely familiar face to go with it. But the name escaped her.
“Oh, um…” She stalled for
time. The young man who was standing there was so nondescript it was almost impossible to place him. He had brownish hair and brownish eyes and he was around 5’9 and seemed to be average weight—not scrawny and not fat. Who in the world was he?
“It’s me—Bernard Chelising? From your Biology class at USF?” he asked, smiling hopefully.
“Oh, uh…right—of course!” Sammi smiled at him. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah, it has. What happened to you? They said you were taking a leave of absence.” He gave her a concerned look.
“Oh, well…” Sammi cleared her throat. She had left the class in the middle of the semester but she’d gotten a replacement professor to teach in her place and the USF management had been very understanding.
“I mean, the new professor is okay but he’s not nearly as good as you,” Bernard continued.
“I just had some, uh, personal issues,” Sammi explained, feeling guilty for leaving a student behind. “And I got a job offer with the Kindred—up in the Mother Ship,” she added. Which only made her think of Roark and want to cry again. Grimly, she held the tears back.
“Really? What a coincidence!” Bernard exclaimed. “I’m working for the Kindred now, too!”
“You are?” Sammi frowned uncertainly.
“Oh, yeah—they’re great guys.” He lifted a hand and waved at one of the warriors inside the HKR building and the warrior smiled and waved back. “Always so friendly,” Bernard remarked, smiling.
“Yes. Most of the time,” Sammi said in a low voice. Roark had never been friendly or approachable at all, but somehow she had still managed to stupidly fall in love with him…
“Of course, it’s not like a real career or anything,” Bernard said, derailing her train of thought. “I just take people back and forth from the HKR building to wherever they want to go. Kind of like a Kindred Uber driver.”
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