Wicked Mate

by Zoey Draven

  “I feel well, luxiva,” he murmured. “Perhaps humans are more sensitive.”

  Her eyes widened. “Do you think that meat made anyone else sick at the restaurant yesterday? I had, like, nine or ten customers yesterday.”

  “There is no way of knowing, luxiva,” he said, trying to calm her down. “However, I find that most beings do not sicken from poor quality food.”

  “Poor quality,” she repeated, squeezing her eyes shut and sighing. “Just when I was starting to get somewhere.”

  “Cara,” Devix said, cradling her cheeks in his palms. “I do not understand why you are upset by this.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “Because it’s important to me that I don’t serve ‘poor quality’ food to paying customers. I had a good reputation back home about the quality of my ingredients, like most chefs I know…or knew, at least.” Her shoulders sagged and to his horror, liquid welled up in her eyes.

  Devix dragged her in his arms on the floor of the washing quarters. “Do not do this,” he murmured down to her, wiping away a stray drop of liquid when it rolled down her cheek.

  “Cry?” she asked, wiping the top of her cheekbone with her wrist. “I want to right now. I’m just feeling sorry for myself and I figured I’ll get it all out now.”

  “Do you…” he trailed off, swallowing, not knowing if he should ask the question. But not knowing would almost be worse to him. “Do you have regrets, female?”

  “About what?” she asked, looking up at him with her wet eyes.

  “About choosing Rozun over Earth,” he finished, gritting out the words. “About choosing me over Earth. Is that why you are sad? Why you cry?”

  Cara’s lips parted, her body freezing for a moment before her eyes narrowed. “No! How could you say that?”

  “You mentioned your reputation back ‘home.’ You mentioned these chefs you knew and got sad,” he explained.

  A breath wobbled out of her along with a sniffle. “Devix, no. No, of course not. I just…”

  Her tears began to stop and she wiped the last of them away, though her brown eyes remained glassy. Luxirians did not ‘cry,’ so it was strange and disturbing to see, especially when he knew it was from her sadness.

  “Listen to me,” she said softly, catching his attention. “I have never, not once, regretted staying here with you. Rozun is my home now. You are my home now and it doesn’t matter to me where we are in this universe. I’m sorry for making you think that. I’m just adjusting to life here and it will take time. And I just get frustrated sometimes thinking about starting all over with this restaurant. And when I’m frustrated, a small thing can seem so big, when it’s really not in the grand scheme of things.” She reached up to touch the bone of his jawline. “Okay?”

  His arms squeezed tighter around her. “Tev.”

  Cara sighed in relief and dropped her forehead to his shoulder. “I guess I ruined our lazy morning in bed by throwing up and crying all over the place, huh?”

  “The morning is still new,” he said. “We have the whole span ahead of us, with no responsibilities. We can still be ‘lazy.’”

  Cara wrapped her arms around his middle, her cheek still pressed into his body.

  “My favorite kind of day.”

  * * *

  Three days later, however, her sickness didn’t pass. And every morning and even sometimes in the afternoon, she would bolt to the bathroom.

  Cara had been convinced the first day—and even the second day—that it was just food poisoning and it would pass eventually. But by the third day, she finally gave into Devix’s pleas that they leave for the capitol earlier than planned so that he could take her to a healer.

  So, they left the third day to return to Rozun’s center and as Cara watched their dwelling get smaller and smaller in the distance, as she tried to keep her nausea under control when she felt saliva begin to fill her mouth, she couldn’t help but worry that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

  FOUR

  “I DON’T LIKE this,” Cara whispered under her breath to Devix, despite the fact that no one spoke fluent English on Rozun.

  “Trust me, luxiva,” he murmured, his hand squeezing her waist when they halted in front of a metal door in a narrow alleyway. “Pol’krec is a good healer, from a planet called Ukrevip in the Third Quadrant. They are famed healers.”

  His words were clipped, but she knew his cold tone wasn’t directed at her. If anything, it indicated to her how worried he was, how shaken he was from the possibility that she could be sick.

  “Okay,” she said, blowing out a nervous breath when Devix lifted his fists to pound on the metal door. It was in the middle of the afternoon, Cara guessed. They’d traveled all morning and when they’d passed through the market, the vendors had been in full swing.

  The healer’s dwelling was located in a narrow alleyway towards the south end of the capitol, next to the council building, an area of Rozun that Cara had never explored. It was clean and quiet, but being there still had her on edge. She’d always hated going to the doctor’s office. An alien doctor’s office made her even more nervous.

  Cara straightened when she heard movement from the other side of the door and it creaked open on heavy hinges. An alien stood in the doorway, a species that she’d seen before in the marketplace. A large population of them lived on Rozun, it seemed.

  The male in front of her was short and stout, almost Cara’s height, but with limbs the size of tree trunks. His skin was an interesting shade between brown and gray and was mottled with streaks and patches of ebony. His features were slim. Three eyes, set in a row blinked at her, the color of a sunflower. His nose was flat, with thin slits at the base. His mouth was pulled back around sharpened teeth that looked frightening on first glance.

  Her heartbeat skyrocketed and she swallowed, inching closer to Devix.

  In Rozian, Devix spoke to Pol’krec. She only recognized a few words, but she was too busy trying to get her heart rate under control.

  Pol’krec listened to Devix without saying anything and then when her mate was done speaking, the alien turned his three eyes onto her.

  A jolt of shock raced through her when Pol’krec said, in English, “Come inside. I will examine you.”

  “You speak my language?” Cara murmured in shock. It was so strange to hear the familiar words flowing from his lips, his voice and accent so incredibly different from Devix’s.

  “I am on the Rozian council,” Pol’krec said, his voice raspier and lighter than Devix’s. He pronounced his ‘r’s in a different way and emphasized his ‘c’s. “We were made aware that a human had joined our population. It seemed an intelligent and logical decision to have a language implant, since more humans may join our colony.”

  “More humans?” Cara repeated, blinking.

  “Earth is a known planet now,” Pol’krec said, stepping back from the doorway to let them enter. “Even Rozun is aware of what the Krevorags are doing. You are our first human, but it is likely you will not be our last. Come inside.”

  Cara glanced up at Devix, who was studying Pol’krec with an intensity of a warrior. When he gave Cara a brief nod, she stepped forward and Devix followed closely behind, never breaking contact with her body.

  “Mated?” Pol’krec guessed, eyeing their proximity. “Interesting. I had heard rumors, but you never know their validity.”

  “About us?” Cara questioned. Their relationship wasn’t secret on Rozun. Many beings had eyed them whenever they were in the market. Cara’s customers would look at Devix like he was underneath a microscope whenever he entered their restaurant.

  But Pol’krec surprised her by saying, “No. I see it clearly. I was speaking about others of your race, Devix.”

  Devix stiffened and Cara felt the way his muscles shifted. “What have you heard?”

  Pol’krec grew quiet, studying her mate. “You know I cannot say. You are in exile. Matters of your race do not concern you any more.”

  The tension radiating off Dev
ix filled the room and Cara placed a hand on his arm. Addressing Pol’krec, she said evenly, “I’ve been sick for the past few days—uh, spans. It’s been…worrying.”

  Pol’krec nodded and Cara cast another glance at Devix. What did Pol’krec mean when he’d said others of his race? Did it have to do with the Luxirian warrior she’d seen take that human woman back in the Pit?

  Cara stilled. Were there other Luxirians mated to humans?

  Pol’krec ushered them forward with a shuffling motion and closed the door behind them with a heavy thud. The dwelling was surprisingly well-lit for being tucked back in an alleyway. Clean but sterile, which Cara supposed it had to be if he ran his practice out of his home.

  Pol’krec showed them to a small back room with colorful vials lining the shelves recessed into the white wall. There was a small cot and a black bench and some kind of computer system that was projected onto one of the bare walls. The writing wasn’t Rozian, so Cara guessed it was his native language, made up of crossed, flowing lines and triangular shapes.

  “Sit,” he ordered, gesturing over to the cot. Devix helped her sit, but he hovered by her side, his muscles coiled tight underneath his arm. Pol’krec tapped the projection on the wall and, like a touch screen, it responded. Turning to her, he said, “Tell me what you have been experiencing while my Coms refresh.”

  “Nausea and vomiting mostly. I may have had bad meat a few days ago, but now I’m not so sure,” Cara explained. “Some cramping as well. But it might be that my period’s coming soon. My menstrual cycle, I mean,” she corrected when she saw Pol’krec cock his head in confusion.

  Realization made him nod. “Humans are in heat how often during a lunar cycle?”

  “In heat?” she repeated slowly, her cheeks flushing. She cast a look at Devix but he still wore the same grim expression. “Well, ovulation is once a month typically. But humans…we bleed as the old egg is, um, shed.”

  Pol’krec made a chirring sound in the back of his throat. “Interesting.”

  Jesus, she felt like she was being studied for an experiment.

  Cara blew out a short breath. “I’ve had cramping and nausea during my period before, but never this severe and it only lasts for a little while. That’s what worries me.”

  “I do not know much about human biology,” Pol’krec admitted, “but I will scan you and see if your internal functionings match any known, established species.”

  “Okay,” Cara said softly. “Will it…hurt?”

  Another chortling sound from Pol’krec. “No. It is harmless.”

  Cara nodded and watched as Pol’krec pulled a round, white device from underneath the cot. It was the size of a bowling ball, but it had some sort of slitted, clear lens on the front. He fiddled with a screen she spied on the back.

  “Lay back,” he ordered and Cara did as he asked. She had to let go of Devix’s hand but he stayed near the side of her head and his scent and warmth helped to comfort her. She stared up at the white ceiling, at the glowing silver orb that lit the entire room like a small sun.

  She heard a whirring sound and saw a flash of blue light in her periphery but she felt nothing, just as Pol’krec said. A moment later, she perceived him stepping away and hesitantly, she sat back up.

  Devix murmured down at her, “You are well, luxiva?”

  “Yes,” she said, smiling lightly. He was almost at jittery as Cara and she was the one on the cot. Devix evidently didn’t like doctor visits either.

  Cara’s lips parted when a moment later an image of her body showed up on the projected screen. Except, it was more detailed than an x-ray.

  “Is that…is that my heart?” she asked, watching wide-eyed as she saw it beating on the screen. She could actually see the blood flowing, every vein clearly highlighted. “That’s—that’s amazing.”

  “Similar biology to Luxirians, strangely enough,” Pol’krec noted, peering over at the two of them before returning his gaze to the screen. Placing his fingers on the wall, he stretched the image until it was zoomed in on her heart. The beating was on a loop, like a GIF, taken in real-time when he’d scanned over her body with the bowling ball device. “Or perhaps not so strange, considering.”

  Pol’krec studied her heart, zooming in on the veins around it before zooming out and focusing on another section. He was silent as he did it. Next, he zoomed in around her stomach, which she could clearly see outlined, weirdly enough. She’d thrown up what she’d eaten that morning so it was empty.

  Next, he zoomed in on her lower abdomen.

  Her brow furrowed when she saw a flicker of something.

  “Wait,” she breathed. She pointed her finger at the small, bean-shaped object she spied. “What…what is that? Is that…”

  Oh my God.

  Something flickered again inside the bean, on a loop. And again. And again.

  Cara’s head swam.

  It was a heartbeat.

  Because there, clearly on the screen, was the oval-shaped outline of her womb, similar to many ultrasound print-outs she’d seen from friends or in movies or online. And there, in her womb was a bean. The bean.

  Her wide eyes found Devix’s, a million thoughts racing through her mind all at once.

  “What is it, luxiva?” he rasped.

  “It’s a baby,” Cara whispered, her brain going into auto-pilot. “Devix, I—I think I’m pregnant.”

  “It would appear so,” Pol’krev chimed in, peering intently at the bean, zooming in and out and in again.

  Devix’s eyes dilated instantly and he steadied a hand on the cot, his fingers clenching into the thin cloth that covered it.

  “Are you certain?” Devix asked the healer, whipping his head in his direction.

  “Like I said, there were rumors,” Pol’krec said, giving Devix an unreadable look.

  Cara shook her head, trying to clear it. She pressed her cold hands to her warm cheeks before they fell into her lap, the tips of her fingers brushing her belly…where there was a baby. Their baby.

  “I’m pregnant,” she whispered, her vision swimming with unexpected tears. “The nausea…it was, it was morning sickness. Oh my God.”

  Devix knelt next to the cot but he was still eye-level with her. He wiped his fingers across her cheeks, dashing away the tears. “You are sad about this, luxiva?” he asked, his voice slow and gruff. His eyes were pained.

  Oh God, he thought…

  “No,” she whispered, shaking her head, throwing her arms around his neck, mindful of his horns. In his ear, she whispered, “These are happy tears. I promise. Humans cry when we are happy too.”

  “Confusing creatures,” he rasped, but his shoulders relaxed and his arms wrapped around her body, crushing her to him.

  Cara let out a laugh, pulling away after a brief moment and wiping her face. She blew out a breath, trying to wrap her head around what they’d just discovered. She looked at Devix, her eyes softening when she saw the expression on his face.

  She remembered thinking, when she’d first arrived on Rozun, that he’d never wanted to be alone, though he’d isolated himself in the southern region. She remembered thinking that he’d wanted a family, a child.

  And now, she could give him one.

  Before, she hadn’t thought it was possible. He’d told her that he knew of no Luxirian that had successfully produced children with another species. Hell, she believed that they couldn’t which was why the thought had never even crossed her mind.

  But there they were…

  “We’re going to have a baby,” she whispered, a fresh wave of tears spilling from her cheeks and she smiled through them.

  “Tev, luxiva,” Devix murmured, his voice gruff and more rough than it’d been just moments before. “We are. You honor me, female.”

  Pol’krec made a sound and Cara snapped her head in his direction, almost forgetting that he was still in the room.

  “Oh,” Cara said, sniffling and wiping her face again, using the hem of her emerald colored tunic to blot away
her tears. “Sorry, Pol’krec. We’re just…surprised is all.”

  The healer studied them and Cara’s gaze strayed past him to the projection on the wall. She watched the heartbeat flicker over and over again, but then she frowned, remembering when one of her co-workers got pregnant.

  “Wait,” she murmured, brows furrowing. “I had my period…when was that…it was a little over a month ago.” She looked to Devix for confirmation, remembering when they hadn’t had sex for close to a week because Cara had been too self-conscious. He nodded, clearly remembering. “Which would mean that I could only be a couple weeks along, maybe three. How is the baby this developed already? Back on Earth, a baby looks like that on ultrasounds closer to two months, not two weeks.”

  “What is a cycle of pregnancy for human females? How many lunar cycles?” Pol’krec questioned.

  “Nine,” Cara answered.

  Devix cast her a look before saying to Pol’krec, “Luxirian females gestate offspring for three lunar cycles.”

  “Three?” Cara exclaimed, looking to her mate in surprise.

  “Tev.”

  “Luxirians grow at an accelerated pace,” Pol’krec explained. “One of the quickest cycles out of the majority of known species.”

  “Three months,” Cara whispered to herself. “And that’s why it’s possible I could only be two or three weeks along and the baby looks twice as developed as it would be if…if…”

  If the father had been human and not Luxirian.

  Devix’s chest rumbled and he addressed Pol’krec, “Do you believe it would be dangerous? Will the offspring cause her harm?”

  “I am neither Luxirian nor human,” Pol’krec said slowly. Cara’s heart leapt when she saw the grim expression return on Devix’s features. “Hybrid species are always…unpredictable. It is hard to say what the pregnancy will do to her health, but it is clear that human females are not accustomed to Luxirian cycles.”

  “Vrax,” Devix cursed softly, running a hand over his horn.

  “Devix?” Cara asked, suddenly nervous. “It will be okay, won’t it?”