by Roxie Ray
“Already talked to him. He’s already admitted that he can’t make us leave.” I threw my arm around Pax’s shoulders and guided him back toward camp. “C’mon. Let’s go tell the females first. We can break it to Ronan together—all four of us. If he still wants to leave without us, we’ll help him however we can.”
“I…thank you, cousin.” Pax’s shoulders slumped slightly beneath my arm. He was looking pretty relieved himself. “Ora will be ecstatic. I have not heard from her all day.”
“She didn’t bring you lunch?” My stomach rumbled at the thought of food. I’d grabbed a few pieces of fruit for myself, but now that it was getting dark out, my gut was making it deeply apparent that it expected a proper meal. And soon.
“I assume she is sulking,” Pax admitted. “It will be good to see her smile at me again.”
“Nothing like the smile of a lover to wash away the guilt of forsaking our vows, huh?”
“We can make new vows here,” Pax said. “Better ones.”
As we neared camp, the sun was setting in a blaze of glory. The birds sang love ballads to the dusk. My heart felt lighter. Freer. As I fell in step with its strong, steady beats, I felt like I was marching toward a good night and a better tomorrow.
We’d find Marisa. We’d get Ronan home. Then, we’d start new lives here on Edon. Pax and Ora. Eve and I.
Just like Pax had said. Better ones.
But when we stepped into the clearing, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, stiff and electric. I was overwhelmed by the unshakable sense that something was wrong.
Very wrong.
“Fire’s out.” I moved to the fire pit we’d built with rocks from the bottom of the pool and nudged one with the toe of my boot. The fire had burned down to embers. Aside from its weak glow, the only light was that of the moon overhead. “You see Eve and Ora anywhere?”
“Gallix,” Pax hissed. When I turned to him, he was crouched over a dark form by the ship. “It’s Ronan. He is not conscious.”
“Breathing?”
“Just barely.”
I rushed over, careful to keep my footsteps quiet. Now, my heart was beating erratically. So much for a good night.
When I pressed my fingers to Ronan’s neck, he had a pulse. True to Pax’s word, his breath was shallow, but there. His eyes were closed, but nothing would wake him. I slapped him until my hand hurt and…nothing.
In the end, it took a pot full of water from the pool to open his eyes. Ronan gasped for breath and sputtered as he sat up.
I didn’t need the light of the fire to tell that his pupils were red.
“The females. Are they here?” The words burst from Ronan’s lips like he’d been holding them in the whole time he’d been unconscious. He looked around wildly, like he was searching for Ora’s blue eyes or the dark flames of Eve’s hair.
“No,” I told him. “We haven’t seen them since we left this morning. Where are they? What happened?”
“Rutharians. Baz-terds! They sent out sleep-darts from the trees—knocked me out. Eve…”
“The Rutharians? You’re sure?” Now, my heart had screeched to a panicked halt. My entire body felt achingly cold. “Ronan, where—”
“Eve, Gallix.” Ronan grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me down to him. “They have taken her. I am sure of it. She is pregnant, Gallix.”
Pregnant. Taken. The words took a second to register in my mind—but just the one.
When my heart started beating again, every bone in my body was flushed with fury. If I could have held a mirror up to my eyes, I knew damned well they’d be bloody red.
“Leave me,” Ronan rasped. “Go. I will follow as quickly as I can.”
I looked up to Pax, who was backing away from Ronan with his fingers curled into fists.
“You were supposed to protect them, you useless—”
“No, Pax.” I gritted my teeth and let out a growl as I pulled myself upright. “Not now. He’s right. We need to go.”
Pax and I raced through the jungle, so quickly that the night and greenery all around us warped and blurred. Every time I breathed in now, her scent was faint in my nose. Not just the gentle florals and citrus of Eve’s normal scent, but something darker and deeper now too. Stronger.
Pregnant. Eve was pregnant with my cub. I didn’t know why I hadn’t realized it earlier. The way her scent had shifted all those days ago, her nausea, the way she clung to me—her desire to stay here and nest—it all made sense now.
But too late. Far too late.
“Lavender.” Pax’s nostrils flared as he drew in deep, labored breaths. “Ora’s scent—I can almost taste it. She has been this way, or close.”
“I smell Eve too. But we’re not hunting mutts, Pax. We can’t track them down by scent alone.”
“We have to try.” Pax raised his nose to the air and closed his eyes as he breathed in.
I did the same—but as it turned out, I didn’t need to.
A scream pierced the night like a knife to the gut.
It was a scream I would’ve known anywhere.
Eve.
“This way!”
Pax and I shot off through the trees again in the direction of the scream. Eve’s scent was growing stronger now. All the normal notes, and these new, deeper ones too.
“Pretty thing.” A Rutharian growl stopped me in my tracks. “This hair…yes. You will make for a most enjoyable mate, little human.”
“And these eyes…so blue,” a second Rutharian purred. “Perhaps you will pass them onto our young.”
Next to me, Pax shot forward with a snarl. I struck an arm out to stop him.
Just through the trees, I could see shadows shifting. We were close enough to get the jump on these Rutharians. Close enough that we could end this quickly. Three quick strikes with our knives, three shots from our blasters, and these female-stealing snakes would be dead where they stood.
“Don’t look at me like that, Eve.” Marisa’s voice. It was husky, oddly pleading. “It’s not that bad. They can be…gentle lovers. Nurek has never hurt me. Just…just don’t fight them. Give them what they want.”
Marisa. A snarl formed on my own lips as I took in her words. All these days I could have spent in the sun with my pregnant mate—mine—I’d been out here looking for her instead. But now I had to wonder…had she been working with them this whole time?
I looked to Pax and held a finger up to my lips. We crept closer, to the edge of the tree line. Close enough that I could see Eve and Ora on the ground near a Rutharian ship. They were lit from behind by the ship’s glow, their hands behind their backs, their feet bound together.
Marisa stood near them, clinging to the arm of a tall, horned Rutharian berserker. The other two Rutharians were crouched near Ora and Eve. One was running his black-tipped claws down Ora’s face. The other was stroking Eve’s hair and chuckling to himself.
I gripped my blaster hard.
Before I killed him, I decided then and there, I’d make him watch me take that hand.
“After seeing how much Nurek enjoys his human mate, it was only natural that we claimed our own,” the Rutharian nearest to Ora whispered.
“Treat us well, and we will make you our brides,” the other Rutharian said. He kept petting Eve’s hair like she was some kind of well-behaved chickling he was trying to coax into laying eggs. “Would you like that, pretty one?”
“Leave us alone,” Eve snarled at the Rutharian closest to her. “We want nothing to do with you. Let us go.”
“You are a lovely thing, little human. But you talk too much,” the Rutharian growled back at her. “Let us see if you have so much to say when I put those lovely lips of yours to better use.”
“Try it and I’ll make you bleed.” Eve bared her teeth, shining and white. She didn’t have fangs like mine, but I had no doubt that she’d still bite hard and without mercy.
That’s my mate. Mine. Brave. Strong. Ferocious.
As much as I admired her pluck, though
, I wasn’t going to let anything come to that. With a nod to Pax, we drew our blasters and took aim.
Poor baz-terds never even saw us coming. Two shots, quick and well-aimed. Their heads exploded into a burst of black blood.
My only regret as I stepped out of the clearing was how much of that blood had ended up on Eve’s and Ora’s faces.
“Gallix!” Eve gasped. Her entire body relaxed in an instant. “You came for us.”
“Course I did.” I gave her my best dashing smile, even though my nerves were still pretty well wrecked.
Thankfully, before I had to muster up my masculine charms, there was one more thing to deal with yet.
As Pax rushed to Ora’s side and began untying her wrists, I turned my blaster to the Rutharian that held Marisa.
“Step away from the human and pray to your gods.” I gestured for them to part with the tip of my blaster. “But not for mercy. I won’t be giving you any of that for what you’ve done.”
“No!” Marisa cried out. She threw herself in front of the Rutharian—Nurek, she’d called him. “Please, Gallix. Don’t!”
“I’ll deal with you in a second. What was it that you called Eve? A slut, I think it was.” I cocked my head to the side. “And yet, here you are, betraying us all for some Rutharian dick. Tell you what, Marisa, if you don’t regret that already, you will soon.”
“I do regret it!” Marisa’s voice was high and panicked. “Please, Gallix. I do. But Nurek—please. You can’t shoot him. I’m begging you. I won’t let you.”
“It is all right, my golden one.” Nurek placed his hand on Marisa’s shoulder and stepped out from behind her. He met my eyes and gave me a nod. “Do what you will with me, Lunarian. But please, do not hurt my mate. She has not betrayed you. In all of this, she is innocent.”
I blinked. That was…unusual. Every Rutharian I’d ever spoken to had called me a dozen different names in their language and tried to cut my head from my neck.
Rutharians didn’t beg. And they certainly didn’t say please.
I looked to Eve, who seemed about as uncomfortable about all of this as I was.
“He…hasn’t hurt her. Or us,” she said with a shrug as Pax and Ora untied her wrists and feet.
“He hasn’t hurt anyone! He saved me, Gallix!” Marisa was currently tangling with Nurek, both of them trying to force their way in front of the other. “He found me in the jungle—killed two beasts and he saved me.”
“That’s…nice.” But I wasn’t interested in that. “Still a rapist and a Rutharian thug, though. Step aside so I can shoot him.”
“He didn’t rape me!” Marisa cried. “We…well, obviously we had sex. But he didn’t force himself on me, Gallix. He protected me from the others, too.” Marisa wound her fingers into the spaces between Nurek’s and looked up at him adoringly. “I love him. If you kill him, then you’ll have to kill me too.”
I glanced between them, then down to my blaster, and shrugged.
“All right, then.” I shifted the tip of my blaster between the two of them. “You have any preferences about which one of you dies first, or should I—”
“Gallix.” Eve came to me and put her hand on the top of my blaster, pushing it down. “I think we’re done here.”
“He’s a Rutharian, Eve!” I didn’t understand what she was missing here. “Scourge of the galaxies! Ruthless killers one and all!”
“Well…not this one, I guess.” Eve looked up at me with big, pleading eyes. It was hard to say no to a gaze like that.
Specifically coming from the mother of my child.
“They killed my father, Eve,” I argued gently. “Hardly a scar on my body that a Rutharian didn’t put there.”
“I know. But he didn’t try to hurt us, Gallix. And he isn’t hurting anyone now.” Eve pushed my blaster down harder and placed herself in front of me. “I know there’s some, ah…some bad blood between your race and his…”
“Bad blood’s one way to put it.”
“But we’re safe. Thanks to you. Marisa is safe too.” She bit her lip and placed my hand on her stomach. “And I’d really like to talk to you for a second without you threatening to kill anyone.”
I shifted my fingers over her belly, feeling for something too small to even sense yet, and let out a sigh.
“Ronan, er…kind of already told me,” I admitted. “You’re pregnant? You’re sure?”
“Not entirely. But Ora and I…we’ve both missed our periods, and we’re both having the same symptoms…”
“Ora too?” Pax’s eyes grew wide as he blinked down at Ora. “You are…”
“Yeah. Pretty sure.” Ora took Pax’s hand and moved it to her stomach as well. “I think we both are.”
“So…as the probable mother of your future child, put the gun away and let’s go home?” Eve asked, sweet as the first rain of spring.
“Fine,” I grumbled. I holstered my blaster. “But not for him. Or for her, for that matter.”
“For me,” Eve said with a nod. “For us.”
“Thought I’d lost you, Eve.” I pulled her against me—keeping a close eye on Nurek as I did it. If he came at me, my blaster could easily be drawn again. “What’d I tell you about scaring me?”
“I’m trying to stop,” Eve said with a laugh. “From here on out, I’ll definitely be doing my best. Happy?”
“Not quite.” There was a big Rutharian problem in our midst still, for one thing. I wasn’t too pleased with Marisa right now either, for that matter. “But I’m doing my best.”
I kissed her then, hard as I could. Her lips moving against mine were an assurance. A point of pride.
Once again, I’d saved my mate. But this time, Eve was so much more than just the person I was mating with. She was brave. Strong. Kind. She was the mother of my child, moons willing.
She was the love of my life, and any life I had after this as well.
17
Eve
The dried leaves of the jungle floor crunched beneath my feet as we headed back toward camp. I had to keep my eyes on the ground as I moved to make sure I avoided twigs and bugs—and quicksand, for that matter.
All we needed right now was another disaster. As far as I was concerned, we’d faced enough of those so far on Edon for a lifetime.
“Here, vringna. Let me carry you.” Before I could protest, Gallix moved in front of me, knelt down, and wrapped my arms around his neck. I was left with no choice but to curl my legs around his waist too as he stood up again. “There. That should give your feet a rest. Guess I’m going to have to fashion you those boots after all.”
“Does that mean…we’re staying?” I asked hopefully. After the impromptu kidnapping, all of this will-we-won’t-we stuff seemed kind of frivolous now…but it wouldn’t be for long.
If I was right, we had a baby on the way. It didn’t matter how much time passed on any planet—if I was pregnant, then in nine months of my body’s time, we were going to have a child to think of, too.
“Well…we need to talk about that, I reckon.” Gallix curled his fingers around my wrists and gave them a gentle squeeze. “Now, before you went and got yourself kidnapped by Rutharians—”
“I didn’t get myself kidnapped! They kidnapped me!”
“Fair enough.” Gallix chuckled. “I was coming back to tell you that I’d made my mind up. Wherever you go, I go, bright eyes. I should’ve told you that the second you asked.”
“But…that was before I was taken.” I frowned at the way he was wording this. It felt like there was a catch coming. One that I wasn’t going to like. “I told you, Gallix. I didn’t get kidnapped intentionally! If that changes something—”
“Naw. I know it wasn’t on purpose. What changes something is the fact that I went and bred you like a thoughtless baz-terd. And if we’ve got a cub on the way…” Gallix sighed. “You sure you want to give birth here?”
“Oh.” My frown deepened. “I…actually hadn’t thought of that.”
“But you see w
hy I’m a little more hesitant now, right? You’ve got some experience as a healer, sure, and I know a thing or two about playing medic in dire situations if I’ve got to, but…I dunno, vringna. A midwife, proper medical attention…might be nice.”
“Crap. I…didn’t even think about any of that.” But now that Gallix was pointing it out, it was like being hit in the head with a brick. “I was so focused on staying here, I wasn’t even considering…”
“You were nesting, vringna.” Gallix turned his head slightly to rub his cheek against mine. “Completely normal. But now…you’re not gonna make me get all belligerent about this, are you?”
“I can see your point, at least,” I admitted. “Can we take some time to think about it? Make a decision together?”
“’Course we can. Very reasonable of you.” Gallix turned his head to the side and laid a kiss on my wrist. “See, things like this are why I love you.”
I blinked.
Did he just say…
“You love me?” My heart was playing hopscotch in my chest and missing just about every square. “Do you mean that?”
“’Course I do. Why in nine hells would I say something I didn’t mean?”
“Well, it’s just…I don’t know how things work on Lunaria, Gallix, but that’s kind of a big thing to just say all…casually like that, don’t you think? At least on Earth, it would be.”
“Aw, fuck Earth. Pardon my Lunarian, of course.”
“I think the word translates,” I said with a tense little giggle. “But…”
“What? Don’t you love me too?”
“Of course I do!” I blurted out. Crap. My face was on fire. My cheeks were burning so red I bet Gallix could feel them radiating heat.
“Well, what’s the problem, then?”
“This just…well…” Ugh. I knew what the problem was. I just didn’t want to say it. “This isn’t how it went in my romance novel, is all.”
“What? You want to try it again? I could find us a nice mountaintop to scream it from, maybe. Or would a rainstorm be more appropriate?”
I rolled my eyes and hugged him a little tighter with my arms and legs alike. This ridiculous, impulsive man…how could I not love him back? “No. That was…actually so, so perfectly you, Gallix.”
