by Renee Rose
“She…”
“Completely disregarded it.” My anger is so all-encompassing that I can hear the blood roaring in my veins. I grab the device from his hand and scroll through the images. In one, the small creature seems to be smiling, and I don’t care for the curve of its jaw—nothing like mine. Or Danica’s. “Does it have…claws?” I peer at the screen, scowling.
“It appears so, yes. The Akronian males have sharp retractable claws. They usually use them to rip open their mate and, if necessary, the female young after—”
“Stop.” Nausea roils in my gut, and I can’t tell if it’s over Danica’s deception, or my disappointment that the young isn’t Zandian. “I need to tell Benn. I need—veck.” I toss the comms unit onto the nearest surface, the doctor’s workstation, and bury my face in my hands. When I look back up, Dr. Daneth is beckoning to Bayla, who comes in, eyes full of concern.
This makes me further enraged—I was tricked by my mate, and stars, now everyone is going to know it. “You can wipe that sympathy away,” I snap. “I don’t need it, or your pity. Benn and I will deal with—this.” I wave my hand at the comms unit, the images. “I assume you already notified King Zander?”
Dr. Daneth shakes his head. “We need to, of course, but I wanted to tell you first. We’ll keep this a secret until we determine what to do.”
“Veck.” I look at the comm, as if it has answers.
“Take it.” Dr. Daneth clears his throat. “You’ll want to show Benn. And Danica.”
“Right.” I snatch up the unit and stick it into my satchel, hands shaking. “I…”
There’s nothing more to say, so I stride out, unable to focus on anything but this revelation, and how my life is falling apart in front of me.
Benn
Danica’s off visiting our neighbor, Janette, and picking up supplies for her electronics work, and I smile as I glance at the low, long table she uses for her workstation. I’m so proud of her—she’s proven to be smart, efficient, and seems to really care about helping Zandia move forward. And now, a young! I start humming the strange tune she sang the other day, and I’m startled when the door bursts open to reveal Gorde, eyes wild, face red with anger.
He holds up a comms unit and waves it. “The young isn’t ours.”
“What?” I step forward. “You’re not making any sense. Who?” But from the sick look on his face, I already know. “That can’t be true.”
“Dr. Daneth confirmed. The young’s nearly full grown and it’s Akronian, not Zandian. See for yourself.” He tosses me the device, and the pictures, one after another, immediately confirm his words.
“Veck. What is this?” I move to a chair and sit, dizzy.
“I told you,” he snaps. “An Akronian. Apparently a vicious, warlike creature that kills its mates after they bear young. And kills all female young, too. Our mate”—and he emphasizes the word with heavy sarcasm—“brought us a mating gift inside her body, Benn. An alien species, a kind which we would kill before allowing on our planet. And she snuck it in. Into our home. Into our lives.”
My head swims. “It’s a female.” I look at the little being. In one picture, an enhanced three dimensional image, it looks almost real, like it’s in front of me. I swear it has Danica’s smile. But the eyes, the face, the ears—utterly foreign.
A weariness of the likes I’ve never known settles over my heart. I sink back into the chair, let my head fall back, and close my eyes. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Maybe we should send her away.” Gorde’s voice shakes.
My eyes snap open. “Where would we send her?” But I don’t even want to see her right now, so I exactly understand his emotions.
“Jesel, I suppose. I don’t vecking care where. She deceived us. I couldn’t care less where she ends up. But I can’t talk to her right now. If I look at her face, all I’ll be able to see is that mongrel young.”
A clatter from the doorway startles us. We both whip our heads around and there stands Danica, a stricken look on her face, mouth open in a silent O.
Her voice shakes. “You know?”
“We do. And I don’t understand how you think you would have kept this from us.” Gorde stands up and paces, practically steaming.
Danica steps backward. “I didn’t—I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice is pleading, but also firm. She stands tall and puts both hands on her belly. “And it’s not a mongrel. It’s mine.” Her tone is fierce. “It has nothing to do with Akron, not anymore. It’s different. She’s different.”
“But you admit that you did know you were carrying a violent species’ young when we met you. Before we mated you.”
She nods, slowly. “That’s accurate.”
“That’s deceptive.”
“I tried to get away from you.” Her voice cracks. “You brought me back. I was going to get on the transport ship, Gorde. But you took me back.” She looks up at us, eyes wide, face pale. “You made love to me. Told me you wanted me.”
“That was before we knew.” Gorde whirls around and punches the wall. “Veck.”
“If I had stayed with Akron, he would have killed me. And the baby.” She coughs. “That’s why I escaped, but I was caught by slave traders and put up for auction. Then, you two came along.”
“And you used us as your lifeboat.” Gorde’s voice is bitter.
“I love you.” Her voice is pleading. “I didn’t expect to, but I did. I do. That has to mean something.”
I can’t untangle my emotions. “Why didn’t you tell us that you were already carrying a young?” I demand, approaching her. As I speak, the full weight of my ire comes out in my tone. “We might have taken you back anyway. Who knows. But now?” I shake my head. “Knowing you tricked us? It’s impossible to go on like before.”
“I was panicked. I didn’t have any other choice.” She wipes her eyes. “But you chose me.” I hear the abject plea in her voice. “You cared for me.”
“No longer,” Gorde snaps. “How can I feel the same way after what you did? I can’t understand it all all. The utter deception.”
“We thought it was our young. We—” I shake my head in disgust. “Everyone thinks it’s ours. What in the galaxy do we do now? Tell everyone we have a mutt baby? Veck.” I bury my face in my hands.
Tears well up in her eyes, and she nods, slowly. “Someday, you two will have a real young of your own.” She looks from one of us to the other. “And then you’ll understand why I did it. And I hope when that day comes, you can look back on me with sympathy and maybe even forgiveness.” Her breath catches in her throat. “I’ve come to care for both of you and I love you, I truly do. That’s why it was so hard to lie to you, this whole time.”
“How can you keep saying that you love us?” I roar.
She blinks and flinches. “Because I do. I love you both, and Zandia. I love the friends I’ve made. I love being able to do real work for the future. I love not being a slave.”
“But it was all built on a pretense,” Gorde snaps. “Veck, Danica, what are we supposed to do?” He sounds as uncertain as he is mad.
“I don’t know.” Her voice catches on a sob, and she clears her throat. “But I won’t allow you to kill my young. I won’t.” Her voice gains strength. “I’ll go to the king, if I have to, and beg for our survival. You can send me away to Jesel or somewhere else, but I will not let you hurt this child. She’s smart, Gorde. Benn. She’s powerful. She’s—she’s changed me. And I’ve changed her.” Her voice is wild and fierce. “She’s not Akronian anymore, not really. At least not in her heart. I can feel it. I can sense it.”
“We wouldn’t kill it!” I’m astounded at her words. “Why would you say that?”
“You kill violent species. You told me more than once. You showed me.” Her voice is low. She swallows hard. “I needed to give her a chance. To see if she could be okay. I didn’t want to lie to you. Mother Earth, it killed me, day after day, to keep this a secret. I wanted to tell you every singl
e second. I know you deserved the truth. Please believe me.”
“You’re full of lies.” Gorde sneers and strides to the door. “How can we trust a single thing you say from now forward?”
“She was the one who helped save us all from Taxx.” Her voice rings out and Gorde stops, as if frozen.
“Remember that?” She sniffs and wipes her eye. “Everything happened so fast, and he was going to hurt me, I could tell. He didn’t want to, but his hand was so shaky on that gun. And then, I don’t know how, but the baby and I—we made him stop. We held him in place so you could take him down.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I didn’t think so, either.” She swallows hard. “But I can—do things I couldn’t before I got pregnant. I’m not the same, anymore. But she’s not, either. And she likes you. She already knows you.” Her voice and eyes plead with us. “She’s not like her father. I swear it.”
“I can’t handle this right now.” The word father undoes me entirely, and suddenly I’m at my limit for strange new words and stories. All I want is to get away from this place, this situation, this horrible mess. “I’m leaving, and I don’t want to see you when I get back. I don’t want to ever see you again.”
Gorde roars out a curse. “I don’t want to see you again either, or that young. Never in my lifetime. Vecking waste of air.” He leaves the dome, slamming the door behind him, gets into our transport, and zooms away.
Last time it was Gorde who had to exercise, but today I’m the Zandian who needs to pump my demons out of my body. I take off running, going as fast as I can, in any direction that reveals itself open, until I’m miles away, lungs burning. Trying to outrace my mind, and the images of her in my head.
Chapter 14
Danica
I’m in the clinic alone, wondering if I can take the supplies I need and go somewhere in private, and the squeezing feeling comes again. This time I know it’s a contraction. My entire belly clenches, and the pain—like nothing I’ve known before—screams through my nerve endings like liquid fire.
I whimper and sink to the floor, clutching my stomach. My knee twists as I sink down, heavy, and my joints pop and groan, but that’s nothing. All I can feel is the knives stabbing me from the inside.
“Guh!” My vision is all dots and static and I vomit, a thin stream of watery liquid that’s warm on my chin and breasts.
“Danica? Mother Earth.” It’s Bayla’s voice. I can’t see her, because everything swims in front of me, bursts of red and black and yellow. “What are you doing here?”
“I was looking for—aaaah,” is all I can manage. Another contraction seizes me and I fall into it, crying out for mercy, for relief. There’s no way I could have done this alone, and I’m glad beyond belief that she’s here. “Help me, please.”
“I’ll get Dr. Daneth,” she calls out. “I’ll be right back. You’re going to be fine.”
Her voice does something funny, trailing off into deep low waves of meaningless noise, and I shut my eyes against the flashes of light, as if that might dull the pain.
Time warps, and now the doctor is back with Bayla. I’m on an examination table, and the lights are bright, like the sun, but I’m freezing, shivering, my whole body jerking and twisting from the convulsions.
“Call Gorde and Benn,” some being says.
“Lift her up so we can inject the solution into her spine. Now.”
Then the pain is magically gone and I’m in a half-slumber, a lovely twilight where all the sounds and colors in the room are magical, gorgeous, relaxing.
Then it’s like my dream, that nightmare and I wake up, because my baby is here and she’s crying for me, reaching for me, and there’s so much blood. They’re taking her away, her little face and those pretty little arms with the delicate green scales.
“No!” I scream with all of my might. “No! Don’t hurt her! Please, I beg you, just give her a chance. Please!”
Hands hold me back, push me to the table, forcing me away from her, and as she disappears from my vision, I scream and scream and scream.
I open my eyes and don’t know where I am, or what happened. I’m lying in a bed, not my own. White coverings on me. There’s a soft beeping sound, and I’m so tired. More fatigued than I’ve ever been. Suddenly it rushes back and I sit up, wincing at the pain across my entire belly, a dull fire, like some being is pouring salt into a wound.
I gasp and touch my body, only to find bandages. Did they cut me open after all?
“Help,” I gasp.
Bayla materializes with a fluid tube. “Sip this,” she murmurs, and raises the tube to my mouth.
I push her hand away. “Where’s the young. Where is she? Did you hurt her? I need to go get her. I need to get out of here.” I try to stand, but even swinging my legs over the bed is an impossible task. I gasp and fall back, panting. “Please, Bayla.”
She touches my hand. “Your young is fine, Danica. She’s in an incubator because she’s having breathing issues, but nobody is going to hurt her.”
“But Zandians kill violent species. None are allowed on the planet. I need…to protect her.” I’m out of breath and the room spins.
“King Zander said that nobody is to touch her, Danica. Until he’s able to talk to you and your mates.”
“Nobody will touch her ever.” I try to sit up again.
“Danica, stop! You’re making yourself ill. Please, relax.” Bayla gestures to the vitals comm, which flashes up my pulse and blood pressure. Both high.
“I need to see her.” It’s the only thing I care about right now. Her, and my mates. Except I won’t get to see them again, most likely. Such a deception? They won’t forgive me. They’re probably already talking to King Zander to dissolve our mating. They’ll choose someone else. Maybe they’ll find their mythical Zandian woman they originally wanted, or a better human. A female who can bear them full Zandian young.
Tears prick my eyes, because it will kill me to see that. Well, if I even get to see it, before I’m sent away.
“Drink the fluids and I’ll bring you to see her,” Bayla says, so I drink it and toss the container aside.
She puts me into a hover chair and takes me across the room, and there, I lose my heart all over again. Because in the pod, which resembles the med pod on the shuttle, with lights flashing green and red, lies the most beautiful little creature I’ve ever seen. When I approach, she opens her eyes and smiles, and I start to cry.
“Baby girl,” I whisper, and I feel her listening to me, intent on my words. “I love you,” I say.
Love you too, comes back, even though I’m not sure I hear her. But I know she feels it.
“Can I touch her?”
Bayla hesitates. “I suppose so? Her vitals are stable, although the levels are different from any other being I’ve worked with. Her pulse and blood pressure are entirely unique from Zandian/human babies.”
She pushes a button and the pneuo lid hisses open.
The baby calmly lifts up her small hands, six perfect fingers on each one, and looks at them. She sticks out her claws, retracts them, then smiles. She pulls the oxygen mask from her face and takes a deep breath. Then she touches her head, brushing away her long silky hair, blonde like mine.
To my utter surprise, she has purple eyes, like a Zandian!
“What?” Dumbfounded, I turn to Bayla, but she’s as stunned as I am.
“How can this be?” I reach down to touch my daughter, and at the first contact of my skin to hers, I begin to cry with emotion. I reach down and pick her up, and she nestles into my arms making little happy sounds.
“She’s not Zandian. How can she have purple eyes?” I blink at Bayla.
“I don’t know. Look she’s trying to nurse.” Bayla touches the child. “Apparently she no longer needs the supp-ox.”
Bayla adjusts my gown and helps the baby latch onto my nipple, where she’s soon sucking furiously.
“I didn’t tell anyone.” I’m filled with guilt and sham
e. “But I was a sex slave.” I shudder with disgust, because being forcibly taken by Akron was nothing like the loving passion I have with my Zandians. Had.
“To an Akronian. I escaped because their species kills the female breeder after she gives birth. I had to get away. Give my baby and myself at least a chance.” I look down at the being in my arms, feeling overwhelming love for her. “I know no being can understand it, and I apologize for the trouble I’ve caused by accepting mates here. I know I’ll have to leave. We’ll leave.” The baby mewls, pulling away from my body, at my sudden tension.
“No, Danica. You won’t go anywhere.” Bayla puts her hand on my arm.
“Are they going to put me into prison?” My heart accelerates. “Just send me away, all right? It will be cheaper and easier, in the long run. I can go to Jesel, where humans are free. I’ll take my child and make a life there.”
“Danica.” Bayla sits down and looks me in the eye. “We understand more than you know.” Her voice is full of emotion. “Every human woman on this planet has been in an impossible situation. I’m not judging you. The lives we’ve led, the places we’ve been? Well, they lead us to decisions that are all too easy to second guess.”
“I’d do it again.” My voice is soft but firm. “Even knowing they’re going to leave me. I had to do it, for her. She deserves the chance to be more than I am. Than her…father was.” I hate calling Akron father, but like it or not, he did provide half of her DNA.
At least, to start.
I glance down at my daughter. Oddly, the green scales on her arms are shining purple. “I don’t know how this is happening.”
A voice at the door rings out. “Danica?” Dr. Daneth strides in. “I may have an answer for you.”
He hovers next to my sleepdisk. “Your previous mate was an Akronian. The females of that species are able to mix DNA from multiple sources, even after the embryo has formed. It’s unique in the galaxy.”
“So when Gorde and Benn and I…ah…” I wave my hand, flushing.
