Devotion

by Harmony Raines

  “I love you, Tikki. And I do not regret a thing.” He kissed her, his arms holding her tight as though if he loosed his grip, she would drift off back to Earth.

  With a sigh, he released her, pulling her to her feet, and they set about packing the food away. Tikki called Charlie and he came back to them, his cheeks flushed with colour. “You look happy,” she said to him as he ran around in circles dragging a long stick along the ground behind him.

  “This is fun. Can we come again?” he asked breathlessly.

  “I expect so,” Okil answered, but he knew he couldn’t promise. For once his life was so uncertain he had no idea where any of them would be tomorrow, let alone in a few days’ time. Because Elissa having a girl, instead of a boy, did nothing to change the fact that he had smuggled a human child onto Karal.

  Chapter Twenty-Two – Tikki

  Tikki was nervous about visiting her sister. When she had seen her earlier today, she had seen how happy and content she was living here on Karal with Marin. Now her world was about to turn upside down. Hell, they were about to turn the whole planet upside down. Once news of this got out, there was a chance the Karal would return to their old ways and go to Earth, steal away the women they needed, lock them up, and make them have baby girls to kick-start the species.

  She had heard so many times how the only reason Karal was interested in Earth and saving humans was that they needed to breed, and soon. With Okil, she had never felt like a brood mare, but that was what she was. The only reason she had been allowed to set foot on the planet was to make a child.

  “Are you sure?” Tikki asked Okil.

  “I thought this was what you wanted?” Okil asked, frowning at her.

  She cast a glance back at the cruiser where they had left Charlie. It was such a risk, the whole thing. What if he cried out in fear as the night came in around them? Tikki had no idea how long they might be inside. A bombshell like this was not going to be over quickly.

  “Now I’m not so sure. What about Charlie?” She held Okil’s hand, seeking strength and confidence in him when hers began to fade.

  “Let’s do this. Then you and Elissa can decide whether or not you tell the others. If you do, then you can all decide about telling the council. It is a risk, because will be harder for the others to keep the secret from the men they love. But they may also give us an insight into the reaction of the council members, something we cannot know ourselves.”

  She trembled a little as he knocked on the door. And right up until the moment Marin opened the door, she was tempted to tell Okil to forget about it and go home.

  “Okil, Tikki. We were not expecting guests.”

  Tikki wanted to apologise, say they would call another time, and then run as fast as she could away from here. Okil must have read her mind, and sent her soothing sensations through his hands, leaving her feeling relaxed and confident. Who needed a drug-fuelled high when you had a Karalian holding your hand?

  “May we come inside and talk to you and Elissa?” Okil asked.

  Marin looked surprised. “Is this about the man who threatened Tikki?” So Elissa had shared that with Marin.

  “No. That is not why we are here,” Okil said.

  “Why don’t you come in.” Marin moved out of the way for them to pass. Tikki had the feeling that guests at this time in the evening were unheard of, a fact confirmed by the look on Elissa’s face.

  “Tikki, what a surprise,” Elissa said coming over to hug her, Tikki couldn’t help but look at her sister’s huge baby bump and wonder if they were doing the right thing. “Hello, Okil.” She kissed Okil on the cheek, her hands on his arms. Almost immediately, she took a step back. “What’s wrong?”

  Okil tried to comfort her. “Nothing. We just have some news to tell you.”

  “Tikki can’t be pregnant already. Can she?” Elissa asked.

  “No. Or at least I don’t think so.” Tikki felt tears misting her eyes; she hated doing this to her sister.

  “So you are here for more information on Harri? I think I told you all that I know,” Elissa said and then went quiet. “Just tell me, please.”

  “It’s about your baby. There’s nothing wrong,” he added quickly when he saw her panic.

  “Okil, I think it’s best to just come out and say it,” Tikki said.

  “Say what?” Elissa asked, her hand covering her baby bump like a shield.

  “When you had your scan today. Darl discovered that you are having a baby girl.”

  Silence. Marin and Elissa looked at each other, and then back to Okil, as if trying to understand his words. Tikki went to her sister and hugged her; Elissa placed her arms around her and hugged her back.

  “That’s good news,” Marin said, his face relaxing. “It means that our species is rejuvenating itself.”

  “But it means that you will not need my species, Marin,” Elissa said quietly, and then she said, “I need to sit down.”

  Tikki held her hand and went with her to the sofa. There they sat hand in hand, Tikki feeling her sister’s emotions through her hands. This was the reason they were here, the skin covering her sister’s hands. She remembered it so vividly, the surprise on Elissa’s face when the first lottery was drawn, the hot simcoff burning her skin, the hospital.

  “I’m sorry, Elissa. This whole thing is my fault. It all started the day I entered your name into the lottery. I shouldn’t have done it, and now it looks as if I am going to be the downfall of the human race.”

  “No, honey. Oh Tikki, please don’t think that. We have options.” Elissa pressed her hand against Tikki’s face. Letting her soothing touch chase away her pain. “We can find a way to make this work. Come on, we are skims, we always make it work.”

  “How?” Tikki asked. “How do we turn this in our favour?”

  “Let’s start from the beginning. Marin repaired my skin. I got Karal DNA, obviously,” she said, holding her hands up. “That somehow worked its way into my body and made it possible for me to conceive a girl. Right?”

  “Yes.” Okil nodded and then said, “Darl never looked at gender, it never occurred to him. But now he has, he thinks he has isolated what he would need to do so that more girls are conceived.”

  “But you still need boys too?” Elissa stated.

  “Yes.”

  “So human females still need to come here and the Karal have to persuade them to go through whatever it is that Darl needs to do. Not many of them will be willing to do that. I mean, alien experimentation. Not high on anyone’s list of things to do.” Elissa thought about it. “You will still need females. And you will still need the colony.”

  Marin and Okil looked at each other and then Marin spoke very gently to Elissa. “The council will not ask. They will take.”

  “You mean they will pin us down and make us?”

  “Yes,” Tikki said. “Okil believes that too.”

  “Then we don’t tell them. We don’t tell anyone until the mission to find a new Earth has left.”

  “We thought about that. But even if we hang on long enough for the mission to leave, there is nothing to say that once your baby is born, they will actually support the movement of humans to a new colony. And your baby is due in three months’ time.”

  “Damn it,” Elissa said. “There has to be a way.”

  “Listen, I think you should sleep on it,” Okil said, and Tikki was glad he had decided to cut the visit short. She was so worried about Charlie alone in the cruiser. “I have to go to the tower first thing, so perhaps Elissa can call on you tomorrow morning and you can discuss your options. Mainly whether to tell the others.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought about that. If we tell them, then the council may find out. I trust them but this is a huge secret. On the other hand, this is not just our decision, Tikki.”

  “I don’t know the other women. But you do; if you trust them, so do I. I do agree, though, this has to be a joint decision.”

  Tikki hated leaving so quickly but allowed Okil to hurry
her out, because little Charlie was in the cruiser, and time was not their friend.

  Chapter Twenty-Three – Okil

  “Goodnight, Charlie,” Tikki said bending down to kiss the boy.

  “I will go and get the bed tomorrow. I promise.” Okil had completely forgotten to go to the breeding house today; his mind had been too full of other things. Although, after telling Tikki about the mothers, he didn’t relish the thought of going to the breeding house alone and facing the ghosts of his past.

  “He would sleep anywhere tonight, he is so tired,” Tikki said.

  “And are you so tired?” Okil asked as he took her hand and led her to the bedroom.

  “That would depend on what you had in mind.”

  “I thought I would embark on a little bit of alien experimentation of my own,” he teased, pulling her to him and kissing her. His hand fisted her hair and he pushed his tongue into her mouth a sudden desire to claim her filling his body and awakening the man in him.

  Tikki gasped as his hand cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing her nipple feeling the small, taut bud grow harder with each stroke. She pressed her body against his, and slipped her hand down to wrap around his cock and squeeze him just right. Damn, he wanted her. Wanted to be inside her and let the feel of her body chase all his doubts, all his fears, away.

  They fell onto the bed. He tugged at her clothes, and she eagerly helped him to remove them. He stripped, dragging his clothes from his body, his eyes filled with a hunger for her as he threw them aside. Then he moved to cover her with his body, to press his finger inside her, feeling her warm and wet and ready for him.

  He pressed deep inside her, bringing her arousal to a point where she was begging him to enter her. Knowing she was so desperate for him, he moved between her thighs and guided himself towards her. The head of his cock breached her outer lips and then he surged forward, the head of his cock stretching her inner walls. She cried out, her fingers digging into his back. At first he thought he had hurt her, but then he understood she was spurring him on; she wanted this as much as he did.

  As he thrust into her, he recognised they were one, joined in so many ways. Physically they fit together perfectly, and now they had secrets to share that threatened them both. This was a test, they had to rely on each other, and that same reliance would carry forward to when they were parents and they had the shared responsibility of a child.

  Tikki rose to meet him stroke for stroke, urging him on. The tumultuous day had left them both tense and now they had found the perfect way to release that tension. Okil pulled out of her, twisting his hips to spread her inner walls, hearing Tikki cry out as she came around him. As her sex pulsed around him, the head of his cock swelled, holding him in place as he came.

  His seed spurted deep inside her, and the fusion of their bodies meant the chances of Tikki becoming pregnant were increased. She cried out as she throbbed and pulsed around him, and he kissed her lips, drowning out her voice so that she didn’t wake Charlie.

  For now, he wanted her all to himself. He intended to spend a sleepless night finding out exactly what she liked. Her body fascinated him, the way she moved, the way she liked to be touched, and as he breathed in, even the smell of her ignited a flame inside him that he never wanted to extinguish.

  Chapter Twenty-Four – Tikki

  She woke and stretched, opening her eyes to see Charlie standing looking at her. Not exactly what she was expecting, and her heart rate registered the shock. Sitting up, she pulled the covers up around her and let her brain fire into life. The first thing to register was just how dark it was outside, which meant it was too early for him to be up.

  “What’s wrong, Charlie?” She sat up. “Did you have a bad dream?”

  “Teddy did,” Charlie said, cradling his teddy in his arms.

  “If you back to your room, I’ll come and sit with you for a while.” The little boy turned and left the room, while Tikki pulled on a shirt. Then she left the warm bed and a sleeping Okil, and followed Charlie.

  “There, you cuddle teddy and he will feel better soon.” She smoothed Charlie’s hair while he lay with his eyes wide open staring at the window.

  “Teddy is scared bad men will come and take him away.”

  “No one knows teddy is here,” Tikki said. “He doesn’t have a tag, so no one can find him.”

  “Yes he does,” Charlie said.

  “No, we checked, remember, it has been removed.” Tikki’s hand automatically went to the nape of her neck where the small wound had nearly healed. She would have to ask Okil about having a new one put in.

  “Teddy has one. Charlie doesn’t.”

  Tikki made her hand keep moving in a steady rhythm over Charlie’s hair. Calm, soothing, she tried to slowly let out the sharp breath she had taken, so that she didn’t scare him. “Why does teddy have a tag?”

  “So that he can keep secrets.”

  “What kind of secrets does teddy know?” Tikki asked lightly. “The kind about what Charlie’s favourite cookie is? Or whether Charlie has tidied his room?”

  “No. Those aren’t important secrets.”

  “And teddy has important secrets?”

  “Yes.” Charlie turned to look at her. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Sienna Mommy doesn’t know I saw her put the tag into teddy.”

  “Why weren’t you supposed to know?”

  “She told Funny Daddy that it was dangerous, that it might get you killed.”

  “Me? Get me killed?”

  He nodded and then threw his arms around her. “I don’t want you to get killed. Can’t we take it out and throw it away? Will the doctor be able to take it out of teddy?”

  “Let me see if I can take it out. Wait here.”

  She went to the kitchen and got a small knife, and then she came back and asked Charlie, “Can I cut the seam on teddy? I promise I will sew him up as good as new.”

  Charlie clutched teddy tightly to him and then handed him to Tikki. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “I’ll be really careful. Do you know where the tag is? In his neck, the same as mine was?”

  Charlie nodded and then hid his face in his pillow while Tikki cut the cotton that held the old stuffing in. Then she very carefully took looked inside. The problem was the tags were so small it could be anywhere. Carefully, she felt her way through the soft downy stuffing, thinking Charlie had made it all up. And then her fingertip touched something hard. Very carefully, she pulled out a tiny tag.

  Staring at it, she couldn’t believe that Charlie had been carrying it around with him all of this time. Had it been used to track him, to track them both? Why would Sienna risk placing the tag in the teddy, if she wanted to keep the boy safe?

  Wait, what had Charlie said? The tag might get her, Tikki, killed.

  “It’s all done, Charlie. I have the tag. Teddy is safe now. So you cuddle him gently and I will wake Okil and find out if he was a needle and thread, OK?”

  “Yes.” Charlie looked up and then took teddy from Tikki.

  “Charlie. I don’t want to upset you. But I need to know. What happened to your mommy and daddy?”

  “A bad man kept them prisoner. He made them do things that made mommy cry.”

  “OK.” She dared not ask what kind of things.

  “Sienna Mommy took me so that they didn’t have to do bad things anymore.”

  “As far as you know, your mommy and daddy are still alive?” It was a difficult question to ask.

  “Yes. Sienna Mommy and Funny Daddy came to help my real Mommy and Daddy. They took them from the bad man. They said it would be safer if me and teddy went far away from them. They took out my tag, and Mommy and Daddy’s tag. Then they took me away.”

  “And you lived with Sienna?”

  “Yes, but then the other man found her. Sienna Mommy told me to hide. But she was scared he would come back. She said she knew someone who would keep me safe.”

  “Me?” Tikki asked. “So your mommy and daddy are still alive somewher
e on Earth?”

  “I think so.” And then he burst into tears. “I want to see them again. I never wanted to leave them but I had to be a big boy and not miss them, but I do miss them.”

  She held Charlie close, and rocked him as he sobbed. A few minutes later she heard Okil get out of bed and come into the room looking sleepy. “What’s wrong?”

  Tikki held out the tag to him and said, “I think that holds the answers to who Charlie is and why Sienna gave him to me to look after.”

  “What’s on it?” Okil asked, picking it up very carefully.

  “I have no idea. It was in teddy. Charlie said it was his tag.”

  Okil held it up and examined it. “This is not the same as your tag. It is not designed to fit inside a person. It is a data chip.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I think that is what Harri was looking for. He must have known it was with Charlie, goodness knows how he found out.” Tikki thought back to the face staring down at her from the StreamScreen and wondered what Harri had done to the man who Charlie called Funny Daddy. Had they tortured him to find out what Sienna had done with Charlie and the information he carried?

  She let the small boy out of her arms, and he sat down on the bed, still hiccupping. “Don’t worry, Charlie. We will find out where your mom and dad are. And if they are alive, I will get you back to them.”

  Okil raised his eyebrow in question, and then said, “I need to go to the tower to see if I can read this. Stay here.”

  “You’re leaving now?” Tikki asked.

  “Yes, the tower will be quiet; it’s not unusual for any of us to go in at night, but the council members are rarely there. Now would be a good time.”

  “Then go. I’ll wait here for Elissa to come by in the morning. I think it might be a good time to ask her about Sienna and maybe about Harri again. She might know something else.”

  “Are you going to tell her about Charlie?”

  “Yes. I think it’s time all the secrets were out.” She looked at Charlie, her heart aching for him. “If she was deep in the resistance than she might have some clue as to what was happening. She may even know what happened to Charlie’s parents.”