by Bethany Aan
“That’s why we don’t want him cooking,” Rom groaned. “Because whoever cooks doesn’t have to clean.”
“Rom and Erik hate washing dishes,” Bev giggled, standing beside Ri to watch her men. “So they’ve figured out how to make almost everything using only the bare minimum of utensils and pans.”
“And the last time Trey cooked in my kitchen,” Jace growled from the island, having admitted defeat himself, “He nearly burned our home down!”
“That was thirty years ago, you ass,” Trey called with a grin. “Let it go.”
“And it was Mom’s house, not yours,” Hunter pointed out, just to needle his brother.
“Yes, but we were all living there at the time!” Jace stormed. “Someone could have been killed.”
“Hey, I was the only one hurt,” Trey said. “Everyone else was down by the pond, fishing, if you recall.”
“I have a question,” Ri said, cocking her head and looking at Trey with confusion. He looked up, his eyebrows raised. “If you’re a master chef, why in the world didn’t you guys have leavened bread? That makes no sense to me.”
He colored, looking at Jace. The physician scratched his head. Hunter snorted, waiting for their answer.
“I didn’t think to try to catch wild yeast,” Trey finally admitted. “We had starters, just like you made, back home, for our bread. And of course I know how to use and maintain a starter, I just never thought about catching yeast. We didn’t have a good sugar equivalent until yesterday.” He shrugged helplessly. “I thought we were pretty much never going to have bread like this again.”
“You mean with all your masters programs, all your considerable intelligences, and your advanced technology, you guys couldn’t come up with one little yeast to grow?”
“When you say it like that, it sounds… well, not very smart.” Trey grinned sheepishly. Then he sobered a bit. “Besides, warriors train hard and back home we tend to save bread this good, all those tasty treats, for special occasions with our families. We have had so little to celebrate over the past decade that being able to make this kind of bread was… unimportant.”
“Oh,” Ri sighed softly, her eyes tearing up. Trey saw the tears and started shaking his head in alarm.
“It’s all right, Commander Ri!” he said, hurrying to reassure her. “It’s all right. This is a reason to celebrate! You and Bev, the babes on the way… this is a reason to break bread, as you put it, and it far outshines any other celebration we’ve had here, over the years. You and Bev make this special, make us a true family again.”
“The other men will feel the same way,” Hunter told her quietly, holding her close as she sobbed. Damned pregnancy hormones! “And truly, we did not search for sugar or yeast simply because back home, those things are special and reserved for the women’s arts. You will see, once you start learning more about our traditions. In the meantime, let us enjoy dinner as a family, with a proper dessert for the first time since we left Thorsan!”
The men cheered the idea, then moved the coffee table out of the kitchen and tried to keep up with Trey as he dirtied one dish, then another. The smells he created, though, had Bev and Ri salivating. Chelsea gathered her precious batch of starter and headed home to hopefully create bread herself. The men teased and tortured one another, and at some point there was a sudden outbreak of flying legumes, though when questioned by the matrons in the room, the origination of said vegetable missiles could not be ascertained. Seeing that they were not needed, Ri and Bev removed themselves to the living area, settling on the couch with a good view of the men.
“They’re just so… pretty,” Bev sighed, sipping on her third glass of muskywine that Erik thoughtfully brought over to them.
“That they are,” Ri grinned, leaning her head against Bev’s shoulder. Bev sighed happily and leaned her cheek on Ri’s head. They sat like that as the men all joined in to help Trey finish dinner. Though the meal was a delight to the senses, everyone rushed through it, just to get to dessert.
Ri was given honorary goddess status that evening, in honor of her sticky buns.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Arianna explained the concept of a rest day to Hunter and Jace, who embraced the idea, now that they had reason to want to stay home for a day or two and spend time with their mate. It was during one of these ‘weekends’ that Arianna, Hunter, and Jace were enjoying a leisurely breakfast in bed after a night of incredible sexual indulgence. The men were hand-feeding Arianna, ‘accidentally’ dropping fruit on her naked body or squeezing juice onto her nipples and chasing down the sweet, sticky drops. Ri giggled and pretended to fend them off, getting her own little caresses in, as well.
Her tongue was chasing down a rivulet of the intoxicating juice on Hunter’s cock as Jace was testing the saltiness of her core, for science of course, by inserting a firm piece of fruit into her body and using his mouth to tongue the fruit out and savor its flavor with her essence on it. Just as they were all about to forget the food and just enjoy each other, a frantic pounding on the door of their quarters had both men leaping from the bed and hurrying into the living area. Arianna, a bit too befuddled to hurry, wrapped a blanket around her body and sighed in frustration.
Rest periods were a nice thought, but that kind of interruption happened often. She decided that being mated to the two top-ranking warriors meant no rest for them if a true problem arose. Occasionally, the knocking was for her, one of the girls with a question or a desperate need for reassurance about her pregnancy, or a complaint about Amy. Ri got used to it, but she didn’t have to like it. More often than not, she would get all worked up, then spend the next hour trying to calm down, as one emergency or another called away the men.
And she could not get enough of her boys. Pregnancy hormones had her horny all the damn time, and while Hunter had no problem with this, Jace was run ragged with the constant worries and questions from the young ladies who were expecting but had never been around pregnant women or babies. This frankly baffled the medic. His society made sure that youngsters were comfortable caring for their younger siblings, cousins, and friends. Once a girl reached the age of seven or eight, she could be trusted to change and feed babies, and at ten, she could watch the younger kids and take care of them on her own.
But he had to remind himself, often, that their societies were very different. When he finally broached the subject to Hunter, the older brother merely shrugged and suggested they talk to Arianna.
“Well, in my society, there are so many germs, illnesses, and evil people that enjoy hurting children, most moms and dads keep their babies very close to them, and trust very few with their care. It’s against the law to leave children with anyone below the age of twelve years. I guess the days of growing up knowing how to take care of children is passing by. Too many of our women, and men, learned to raise children by reading books, instead of asking their elders.”
The men shot looks of shock at each other then grinned at her.
“What?” she asked, suspicious. Hunter chuckled.
“How would you like to teach a class on the matter?” he asked. She took a moment to think about it. Hunter mistook her silence for something else, though, and straightened from the kitchen counter. “You do know how to care for a babe, do you not?”
“Of course I do!” she rushed to assure him. “I had a big family at one point, remember? I helped raise my little cousins, my brothers and sisters… I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to prepare a bottle or change a diaper. Mom said I changed my first diaper when my brother was born. I was three years old.”
A pang of grief hit her then, as she thought about her family, the void in her soul that their loss had created, and the fact that even though she’d been kidnapped, there was no one left to miss her, other than friends. And now that she was pregnant herself, she missed her aunts, and her cousins who’d already had children. But most of all, she keenly missed her mother, who would have been delighted to finally be a grandmothe
r. She would have been by Arianna’s side in a moment, if she could. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones that were making her more emotional, or maybe it was just that she finally felt safe enough to bare her soul, but Arianna couldn’t stop her tears, and for the first time since the accident, she felt like she wanted to share the grief, to get it out. Hunter already knew, and that had helped a little. Jace would listen, as well, as many times as she wanted to talk about it. She knew that they had once had large families that they loved deeply and missed just as much as she missed hers.
“Ri?” Hunter asked, his face pale from the grief he felt in her. Even knowing her story, having seen it for himself and heard it from her, the sorrow was overwhelming. She shook her head, forcing a smile.
“It’s in the past, Hunter,” she said softly. “It happened a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is us, our baby, and the new lives we’re making.”
The men exchanged uneasy looks at that, but allowed her to get away with not letting her grief out. Perhaps if they had not already known, they would have been more insistent. Healing took time, and everyone was different. She would talk about it when she was ready, and they wouldn’t force the issue.
Taking their cue from her and changing the subject, they sat down and made lists of what needed to be covered in a class about being pregnant and having babies, then more about what the new families would need. While the men generally had a clue about the needs of their families, the girls were thinking only of the cute little outfits they could make, not of the piles of diapers and sturdy everyday clothing that would need to be made for about thirty children.
It was evident that Hunter, Jace, and Arianna had an uphill battle almost from the start. The girls, though eager to have the babies, were not nearly as interested in learning what would happen to their bodies, nor were they worried about what could happen since the babies would surely be larger than they would normally expect back on Earth. The men were huge, everything about them was huge. It only stood to reason that their babies would also be rather large, and Arianna needed to prepare the girls for that possibility.
Alarmingly, most of the girls had not one clue about the messes babies could make. They mostly seemed to have an idea that they would be getting cuddly little bundles of joy, and weren’t ready to hear about how much work those bundles would be. Hadn’t any of them watched sitcoms with babies in them?
Finally, Hunter instructed his men to take their women in hand, and through a rather graphic computer slide-show, he shocked the girls into sitting down, shutting up, and paying attention. At last, the girls listened to Arianna. A few, timidly at first, asked her questions that Arianna felt most women should know by the time they were twenty, but then, most women didn’t grow up in families as large as hers, and to be fair, most of the girls were barely twenty themselves. So she plastered a smile on her face, took her patience firmly in hand, and answered everything as best she could.
By the end of the first day, she was exhausted, mentally and physically, but felt good about their progress. She’d promised to start teaching the girls to knit and crochet little layettes for the babies, while Hunter scheduled a series of workshops for the men, so that small groups would be using the woodworking equipment at a time, making cradles, high chairs, and other furniture that the babes would need.
Jace, not to be left out, decided to hold classes on what the women could expect during their pregnancies, how to care for newborns, common issues, and most importantly, when to bug the medical staff and when things were just normal and could be handled at home.
Most of the men wanted to do things the old-fashioned way for their culture, which meant only the family group would be present at the birth, the baby being born into its father’s hands and introduced to the other ‘dads’ in the family before anyone outside the family group got to bond with the child. It was apparently a very important aspect of their belief system, and it took the concerted efforts of Ri, Jace, Hunter, and Trey to convince the girls that they did not need a full medical staff and doctors around them when they gave birth, unless there were problems.
Jace reminded them all that each team had a medic that was fully trained for emergency situations, which included childbirth. And if there were issues, the med center was close enough that the women could be taken there quickly and easily, and Jace and his staff could handle it from there.
The first day’s workshop ended on that note, with the girls looking a bit apprehensive. Hunter and Arianna pooled their mental abilities to cast a wide ‘net’ of reassurance over the women, but realized that they might have to keep doing that for awhile before some of the girls believed it.
That evening, tired as hell, Arianna let Hunter rub her back and shoulders as Jace massaged her burning, aching feet. She laughed ruefully at herself, leaning back against Hunter’s chest.
“What is it, little one?” he asked in her ear, rubbing deeply into the muscles that led from her shoulders to her neck. She moaned in pleasure.
“I’m not even two months along yet,” she said, “And already my back hurts and my feet are killing me!”
“You have not stood in one place for as long as you did today, in a long while,” Jace reminded her. His long, strong fingers on her feet were working wonders. He had the most amazing hands.
“True,” she murmured, closing her eyes and enjoying their touch. “I feel like an achey, limp noodle.”
The men chuckled at that. Hunter grazed his lips over her temple and kept rubbing her shoulders. Jace’s hands moved slowly upward, kneading her calf, digging deep into the muscles and hitting points that made her legs feel like new. She sighed happily.
“Tomorrow, you will sit on a stool, at the very least, or you will talk to the girls under the tree in the courtyard. Or in our balcony garden. I will not have you standing for so long again.”
“Oh, Hunter,” she said, tilting her head back to look up at him. “I’m fine. I used to work jobs where I had to stand in one place for nearly eight hours at a time, with only a half hour break halfway through. I just need to get used to that again.”
Jace paused, frowning at her. “That isn’t good for your back. Who would make you do such a thing?”
“Everyone,” she blinked at him. “It’s a common thing in my world, actually. People stand up to work at many jobs. It’s just how it works.”
“It is inefficient and damaging,” Jace spat. “If you stand still all day long, how do you then manage to take care of your home, your young? If you are this tired and aching after one afternoon, how bad was it when you had to work a full shift?”
“It hurt,” she admitted, “But I didn’t have kids to take care of when I got home, just myself.”
“That sounds… lonely,” Hunter murmured, wrapping his arms around her and cradling her to his chest. She reached up and ran her hand along his muscled fore-arm, loving his embrace, his tenderness, his masculine, wild scent.
“It was,” she agreed after a long moment, her defenses down for once. “I hated it. I was used to having a large family to come home to, to talk to, to play with, younger brothers and sisters to cook for and help with their homework. I was used to helping get them in bed, then sitting with my parents and my older sisters and brothers and talking into the night. It was so much easier, with so many to take care of each other. And it was so wonderful to have someone to welcome you when you came home, or someone to look forward to coming home so you could take care of them.”
“You wish to have a large family?” Hunter asked, his embrace tightening. She nodded.
“I would have ten kids, if I could, so that none of them would ever feel alone, like I have. Then again, I had eight brothers and sisters, and I ended up alone… So you never can tell, I guess.”
“How did you lose your family, Arianna?” Jace asked quietly, moving to her side. She was too relaxed to wave it off this time, feeling too loved, too safe. With Jace holding one of her hands and Hunter’s arms around her, she finally felt
safe. Tears welled even before she started. By the time she had related the tale to Jace, Hunter was holding her more tightly, kissing her head. He sent love and healing to her through their mental bond.
“A few of my family members survived for a little while,” she finally murmured after a few minutes, surprising Hunter. She hadn’t told him this part. “But their burns were too bad, and none of them were willing to fight through that much pain when their own immediate families were gone. You have to have something to hold onto when you’re healing, you know. I sat with them, each of them, as they waited to die, and when they asked me if it was okay to go, I smiled, told them I loved them, and that it was okay. I understood. And I kept smiling until they were gone and I felt their spirits leave their bodies.”
“So you were the only one who lived?” Jace asked, appalled and heartbroken for her. She nodded once. “Arianna,” he breathed, surging up to add his arms to Hunter’s embrace, surrounding her with their support. She was enveloped in their strength. She was warmed to her soul and felt so loved.
“It took me awhile,” she finally went on, “And a lot of therapy. It happened nearly ten years ago. I finally got past it, moved on, and tried to make a life for myself. I was even engaged to a man, when I had a miscarriage and ended up with the hysterectomy. He left me when he found out we couldn’t have a family of our own blood, and I’ve been alone since then.”
“Friends?” Hunter asked. She shook her head.
“Not many. It’s hard to keep friends when you can’t tell them how to help you, or let them. And it’s hard to make new ones when you’re afraid they’ll just end up leaving you. I’ve had some rather strong abandonment issues since the accident.”
Hunter understood now why she had been so hesitant to open up to them. Oh, she’d laughed and talked, shared much about her world, her interests, and other things, but letting them know her feelings had been difficult for her. He knew that hearing her admit to loving them in the med center those weeks ago had taken much more for her than it would have for him. She had been afraid to say the words, afraid that admitting to loving her men would mean losing them at some point. But still, even with all that fear and doubt, even with very good reason never to turn her heart over to another’s care, she had. She was so very brave, his little Arianna.
