by Lizzy Bequin
Ika thought about this for a little while.
“Alyx, when a little ukkur is born, how does it come out?”
“The same way it got in there,” Alyx answered. “Through the hole between your legs.”
Ika’s heart lurched at this news and her throat went dry. Through the hole? Gods, she’d had two thick ukkur cocks in her at the same time, and that had been a challenge, but it sounded like nothing in comparison to what Alyx was talking about. Suddenly, that tiny little ukkur she had seen Alyx nursing before did not seem so tiny anymore.
“Doesn’t it…doesn’t it hurt?” Ika asked.
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Alyx said. “I’m not going to lie to you, Ika. Giving birth is a very painful experience. Back on Earth there were drugs that a woman could take to ease the pain a little, but we do not have those drugs here. You will have to endure it all. But I sense that you are strong.”
Ika swallowed past her dry throat. She appreciated Alyx’s vote of confidence, but she was still very nervous.
“And you said it will happen tomorrow?” Ika asked.
Alyx nodded. “Most likely. Back on Earth, it used to take nine months for the baby to grow in the woman’s belly before coming out. But when ukkur are involved, things are different. Their sap is stronger than a human man’s, and it makes babies who grow very fast.”
Ika took a minute to let that sink in. She thought about Rolf and the mate that he had found. Kate. Ika wondered if they would make babies too. Then an idea came to her.
“Alyx, why are there no ukkur women?”
“The ukkur are the original inhabitants of this world. The nith only came here after they had ruined their own homeworld through wastefulness and war. But the nith had better technology than the primitive ukkur, and they were able to enslave them. They got rid of all the females because they only wanted the physically stronger males. They used their nith technology to grow them in tanks instead of letting them reproduce the natural way. Later, after the nith encountered humans, they started combining human genes with the ukkur to make hybrids that were more intelligent. But this plan backfired, and some of these new ukkur figured out how to escape their bondage.”
“Genes?” Ika asked.
“That’s a complicated topic. Let’s save that one for later, okay? There will be plenty of time to talk about this more.”
Ika agreed. But already her mind was abuzz with dozens of new thoughts. Alyx had answered so many questions about the world and about Ika herself, but each answer led to even more questions.
Ika decided to stick with something close at hand.
“Alyx, why do they call you the First Woman?”
“I was the first human woman to escape from a nith slaughterhouse. Well, actually, I thought that I was until I heard Rolf’s story about your mother.” Alyx chuckled. “Maybe you should take on the title of First Woman, Ika. After all, I believe you are the first human to be born on this planet.”
“Oh, I couldn’t take that title from you,” Ika said.
Alyx scoffed, “I hate that dumb title, actually. But…it doesn’t matter. What really matters is the work we are doing here.”
She looked at Ika very intensely.
“Ika, you should understand what you and your mates are becoming a part of. There is a war going on. We are growing our numbers so that we can someday reclaim this planet from the nith. It will not be an easy life, Ika. Your male offspring will grow up to be warriors, and the females will have the difficult task of raising another generation, just as you will do. It will not be an easy life, but it will be for a good cause.”
Ika thought about this for a moment. She thought about her mother, Mara, alone and pregnant like she was now, fleeing for her life in the wilderness.
“I can handle it,” Ika said bravely.
Alyx touched her shoulder and smiled.
“Yes…yes, I’m sure you can.” She glanced back toward the canyon and the campfires glowing within. “Come on. We had better go back. Are mates are probably getting worried about us.”
EPILOGUE 1
Just as Alyx predicted, Ika went into labor the following day. It was late in the morning when her water broke, and in short order Ika was whisked off to a tent that was set up especially for the purpose of bringing little ukkur into the world.
Alyx was in charge of the procedure, but all of Ika’s companions were there to support her. Thusar took up position behind, cradling Ika’s reclining body against his muscles and whispering his encouragement in her ear. Gunnar and Slaine knelt on either side of her, and they offered their strong hands for Ika to squeeze whenever the contractions wracked her body.
Muk was a ball of anxious energy, so Alyx tasked him with being her assistant, which involved retrieving some clean rags and boiling some water to make it sterile for use later.
As for Rolf, he was a nervous wreck, so Alyx gave him the duty of standing outside and guarding the tent so that no one would try to disturb them during the birth.
Ika was scared, but the fact that she was surrounded by her steadfast ukkur mates helped to soothe her somewhat, and so did the cool, confident way that Alyx dealt with the situation. She had clearly done this before, and she knew what to do.
Soon the contractions sped up, coming faster and harder. Whenever that painful, squeezing sensation clutched Ika’s insides, she could not speak or move, sometimes for a full minute until the feeling passed.
“You are doing amazing,” Thusar whispered. “Stay strong, Ika. It will be over soon.”
Ika breathed through the end of a contraction and steeled herself for the next one, which she knew was coming a moment later. Muk was there with a small wooden bowl of cool water, and Ika managed a quick sip before the next contraction turned wrenched her insides.
She had never experienced pain like this, and it was growing more intense by the moment.
Then something shifted inside of her. The weight of her baby had dropped lower in her pelvis. Ika felt an overwhelming urge to push. She grunted, bearing down as she used her inner muscles to shove the baby out of her.
“Don’t forget to breathe,” Alyx reminded her. The woman was positioned between Ika’s open legs. Ika was grateful the expert on bringing infants into the world was a woman, because her possessive ukkur mates would never have allowed a male to be in that position.
Ika did the breathing exercises that Alyx had taught her the night before, then tensed and pushed again.
“Good,” Alyx said. “Keep it up, Ika. Keep pushing.”
Ika breathed and shoved harder. The pressure down below was so intense that it felt as though she were being ripped apart. She grunted through her pain and squeezed hard on Gunnar’s and Slaine’s hands as she pushed again and again.
Then she felt her hole spreading and stretching far beyond anything she had experienced before, and she let out a loud scream.
“Gods!” she cried out. “Gods, it hurts!”
“I know,” Alyx said in her reassuring voice. “Don’t give up, Ika. You are almost there. The baby’s head is starting to come through.”
Gunnar leaned over to take a peek between her open legs, and his eyes widened with amazement.
“Gods…”
Ika screamed again as the burning pain around her hole intensified.
“Be strong, Ika,” Thusar purred. “Keep pushing. Keep pushing.”
“I am pushing, gods rot your eyes!”
On any other day, Ika knew that speaking so disrespectfully to her pack leader would warrant a sound thrashing of her hindquarters. But today she got a free pass. Thusar held her in his arms and purred at her ear to soothe her.
“The baby is almost out,” Alyx called. “Just one more good push, Ika. Come on, you can do it!”
Ika sucked in a deep breath, then she bore down hard and pushed with all of her strength.
Out. I need this baby out of me…right rotting now!
Suddenly the intense pressure and pain between her legs was replaced by
a sensation of emptiness and relief. Ika slumped back into Thusar’s muscled body, panting and sweating and limp with exhaustion.
“She did it,” Gunnar muttered. “Ika, you did it! Look!”
Ika didn’t look at first. She felt so tired that all she wanted to do was just fall asleep right then and there in Thusar’s lap. But then the sudden, sharp wailing of a tiny voice snapped her eyes open. Between her legs, Alyx was holding the tiniest little ukkur Ika had yet seen.
She could hardly believe it. Everything was just as Rolf had described it in his story. There was a little tube connected to the baby’s belly, and its skin was slippery from being inside of Ika. A moment later, one last bit of mushy stuff fell from Ika’s hole connected to the other end of that tube.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Ika asked weakly, using the Earth words she had learned from Alyx the night before since her own language had no words for such things.
“It’s a girl,” Alyx said with a smile.
Muk helped Alyx cleanse the newborn with warm water and clean rags. Alyx then removed the belly tube and the other weird stuff attached to the end and gave that to Muk to dispose of. Then she brought the little squirming, crying baby to Ika and placed the child in her arms. Right away, the baby got quiet.
The four ukkur gathered around to admire their new daughter.
“She’s so beautiful,” Gunnar said.
“Beau-ti-ful,” Slaine agreed, gently petting the baby’s head.
“What are we going to name her?” Muk asked.
The infant’s tiny hand brushed against Ika’s chest and touched the metal ring that was hanging around her neck.
“I would like to name her Mara,” Ika said. “That was my mother’s name.”
Thusar hummed with pleasure, and she felt the vibrations of that sound ripple pleasantly through her body. Perhaps the little baby felt that reverberation too, because she seemed to relax a little more. It was as if she knew that she was safe and sound now, surrounded by her protective ukkur daddies.
“Mara is a perfect name,” Thusar said. “A perfect name for a perfect baby.”
The other ukkur all grunted in agreement.
Slaine gently touched the baby’s chubby little cheek and said solemnly, “Slaine protect Mara forever.”
“Yes,” Thusar added. “We all will. It is our duty to protect Mara, just as it is our duty to protect Ika.”
Ika felt so warm and happy in that moment, with her healthy newborn daughter in her arms and her strong and protective ukkur surrounding her. She remembered what Alyx had told her before, that their life would not be an easy one, and she knew that it was true. She knew that she would have many more children, and she knew that every time would be hard and painful. But she also knew that it would be worth it, and she silently vowed to care for each of her little ones with all of her heart.
Suddenly an idea occurred to Ika, and she gasped.
In all the commotion and excruciating effort, she had forgotten about her own childhood caretaker who was still standing guard outside the door.
“Rolf,” she said. “Please, someone get Rolf. He needs to meet Mara.”
EPILOGUE 2
Rolf heard Ika’s screams of pain inside the tent, and his body jolted in response.
It was happening. The thing that he had feared for so many years was finally coming true.
His Ika was dying.
The woman named Alyx had promised him that Ika would not die, but she had also warned him that the process of birth would be a painful one. Rolf knew that was the reason why he had been given the duty of standing guard outside the tent. Alyx thought he would not be able to handle the sight of his Ika in such intense pain, and she was probably right. Just hearing her screams now was almost more than Rolf could bear.
He was terrified for his Ika.
His new companion Kate was there. The beautiful human woman with curly red hair. She was trying to soothe him, stroking his shoulder with her little hand. Rolf appreciated the gesture, but it did little to set his frayed nerves at ease.
With each fresh scream from within the tent, his anxiety mounted.
Rolf’s mind went back to that night so long ago when he had first found Ika in his den. Ika and her mother who had died from giving birth. For such a long time, Rolf had been terrified that the same thing would happen to Ika, and now that seemed to be coming true.
“Oh-kay,” Kate said reassuringly.
She seemed as confident as Alyx that everything would be fine, but Rolf couldn’t believe it.
He was going to lose his Ika. And with her, he would lose that warm, beautiful, painful feeling in his heart. The feeling for which there was no word in his language. The Ika feeling.
Suddenly, Ika’s screams stopped, and a moment later other screams started. A different voice, tiny and loud, just like the one that Rolf had heard all those years ago.
His heart sank into the depths of his stomach.
It had happened. His Ika had died, he just knew it. She had given her life to the little ukkur that had come out of her belly.
Gradually, those tiny cries faded away too.
For a long time, Rolf just stood like a stone statue staring at the ground. Kate tried wordlessly to console him, but he was inconsolable. It took many minutes before he was mentally prepared to face the devastation that he was certain lay within that tent.
At last, Rolf turned and reached for the tent flap to peer inside.
But before his hand reached the tent, the flap was pushed back from inside, and the woman Alyx was standing before him. There was some blood on her hands, but her face was beaming, and that gave him hope.
“Rolf, come inside and meet your granddaughter.”
Rolf was not sure what that word meant. He was about to ask, but as he stepped inside and his old eyes adjusted to the darkness, that question slipped from his mind. Only one thing mattered now.
Ika.
She was alive and she was smiling. The other four ukkur were there surrounding her and looking after her.
Rolf’s heart jumped in his chest, and a massive grin flashed behind his beard.
“Ika!” he gasped. “Ika, you’re alive.”
He rushed to her side. She was sweaty and exhausted as if she had been through a great ordeal, but she was alive and healthy and happy.
“Of course I am,” she said in a soft voice, and glanced downward.
There on her breast lay a tiny, yawning creature.
Rolf’s mind was transported eighteen years into the past, to a night when he had sat by the fire in his den with an identical creature snoring softly on a pad of fur in his lap. A night that had changed his world forever and given his life new meaning.
Now it had happened again, but this time Ika had survived.
Rolf’s heart ached with pure joy.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Her name is Mara,” Ika said happily.
Mara. It was a beautiful name.
“She’s…she’s a woman like you, then?”
Ika nodded and giggled. “Yes. A girl Rolf. A baby girl.”
Rolf was so overcome with emotion that his heart felt like it would burst from his chest.
He glanced around at the four younger ukkur who had become Ika’s new protectors. They were good ukkur, brave and strong, and Rolf knew that they would protect baby Mara too.
He turned his attention back to Ika.
“Can I…can I touch her?”
Ika nodded again.
Rolf gently placed his hand on the baby. She was so tiny that his palm covered her completely. He had forgotten just how tiny a brand new human could be. It was hard to believe, but his Ika had been this tiny once, on that stormy night when fate had deposited her in his cave.
Gods, so very tiny.
But the infant’s heart was strong. He could feel it thumping beneath his palm, like a finger tapping against a wall.
Rolf moved his hand, and his blunt fingertip grazed the infant’s little palm
. Instantly, the impossibly tiny fingers latched onto him, holding his fingertip in a surprisingly strong grip.
A familiar feeling surged in Rolf’s old heart. A feeling he had first felt eighteen years ago. A good, warm, painful feeling that brought a mist to his eyes.
It was the Ika feeling.
“Rolf,” Ika said. “Rolf, your eyes are leaking. Are you unhappy?”
Rolf grinned and chuckled past the lump in his throat. He reached out and touched Ika’s cheek. His little Ika, all grown up now into something more beautiful than he could have ever imagined. A woman. A mother.
“Just the opposite, Ika,” Rolf said. “I’m very happy. In fact, I think I’ve only been this happy once before in my life.”
“When was that?”
“When I found you, my Ika. When I found you.”
THE END
Want to read Alyx’s story? MEAT is an ultra-steamy, action-packed reverse harem novel: Click here to read!>>
Sign up for my newsletter and get a FREE sci-fi reverse harem novella: Click here to join!>>
MEAT
Available now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited!
Also by Lizzy Bequin
Hybrid Mates:
Meat
Feast
Quarantine Omega Series:
Marked Omega
Shared Omega
Ruined Omega
Sci-Fi Romance Standalones:
Their Human Vessel
Machine
Alien Warrior’s Bounty
Claimed in the Alien Arena
Primal Alphas Series:
Primal Urges
Primal Impulse
Primal Needs
Primal Alphas Collection
Dragons of Arcturus Series:
Alien Dragon’s Spawn
Alien Dragon’s Brood
About Lizzy B.
Hailing from the Deep South, Lizzy Bequin enjoys writing dark and steamy romance stories that explore the primal side of love and lust. When she’s not writing or reading, Lizzy is serving the whims of the two evil feline overlords who rule her home.
For more info and news about upcoming releases, visit me online!
