by Octavia Kore
Jun wouldn’t have called the Grutex ship small, but when you had mates the size of hers, it was difficult to go anywhere or do anything without at least one of them breathing down her neck. There was no doubt in her mind that she was attracted to her males, but there was something in her that balked at the idea that she might not have been in control as much as she would have liked.
“You’ll be alone?” Jun didn’t know why the idea of him being on his own for a month on this ship bothered her so much.
“Nuzal volunteered originally, but as you can imagine, Esme didn’t care for that idea.” Brin shrugged, his eyes sliding up her suit covered legs.
The heat in his eyes made her shiver, and though she tried her best to stifle the moan, it managed to slip past her lips. Nuzal’s rattling began anew, and Jun was sure they’d be able to smell her arousal soon if she didn’t get herself under control.
“You’ve been sick lately,” Nuzal murmured, clearly misinterpreting her moan. “How are you feeling now?”
“I’m not sure why you care,” she huffed quietly, turning to toss the damp towel into the sanitizing bin inside the bathroom. “It’s none of your business.” The soft rattle stuttered before stopping completely, and Jun glanced back over her shoulder to see their eyes locked on her. Brin’s narrowed in a way that made her pulse jump while Nuzal simply watched her with those unnerving red and violet eyes.
“What was that, Shayfia?” Brin’s tone was soft, but the look he gave told her his words were a challenge—a dare.
With a deep breath to steel her nerves, Jun lifted her chin and answered him. “I said it’s none of your business, and I asked why you cared.”
The vines around Nuzal’s face began to move, slowly at first until they were thrashing around his shoulders. He was off of the bed before she could blink, and by the time she realized that she was in his path, he’d already hauled her up and against his chest. A gasp escaped her a split second before his mouth descended on hers. Long, rough fingers fisted her hair, arching her neck as she moaned against his lips.
God, yes. She kissed him back, pouring every drop of her anger and frustration into the battle their mouths were raging. A second set of hands slid down her back and over her hips before cupping her ass. Brin’s mouth drifted over her neck, his sharp teeth scraping over her skin followed quickly by his tongue.
“Everything about you is our business,” she heard him say against her skin as Nuzal’s growl rippled through her chest. “We care how you feel because we don’t like seeing you distressed or in pain. We want to make it better.”
Nuzal tore his mouth away, turning her in his arms so that she was sandwiched between her mates. Her lips were free for only a moment before Brin’s mouth was ravaging them, his tongue slipping inside to brush against her own as his hand moved over her ribs. Nuzal’s warm breath fanned the side of her face, and her body clenched when his rough tongue swept over the shell of her ear.
“You can have the time you asked for, little one, but that doesn’t change who you are to us. Nothing will ever change that. Do you understand me, mate?”
God, if she hadn’t been desperate from them to touch her before, she was certainly feeling it now. Jun pressed her hips forward, wrapping her legs around Brin’s torso as Nuzal slid his arms around both of them. Just as she was entertaining the idea of actually letting them go further, someone cleared their throat, startling Jun. She jerked away from Brin and slammed herself into Nuzal’s hard chest.
“Shit!” she hissed, looking up to see Telisa standing in the doorway, her shoulder popped against the frame and a grin on her face as she took in the scene.
“Ready to take off?” she asked, her grin growing wider as Jun’s face flushed.
“We’re ready,” Nuzal answered.
Jun could feel the heat of their gazes on her, but she didn’t dare to look up just then. Slowly, Nuzal stepped back so that Brin could slide her down his body. The loss of their heat made her want to beg them to take her back into their arms. When she’d been between them, with Nuzal rattling and Brin’s mouth on her, she hadn’t felt sick. It was the first time in over a week that she’d felt anything like herself, actually.
Maybe the act of dominance from them should have annoyed her or added to her anger, but she found herself more at ease, for the moment at least, than she had since discovering the pheromones. Jun smoothed a hand over her belly and took a deep breath, trying her best to regain her composure.
“Aren’t we closer to Earth than we are Venora?” Jun asked as she put distance between herself and her mates.
“We are, but if we return, we risk capture not only from the humans, but also from the Grutex.” Brin shook his head. “The risk is too great.”
“Not to mention the One World Council would most likely hold us once they get a good look at us. Roman, Xavier, and the others with less than human features might be too tempting not to run tests on. It wouldn’t be above them if they thought they could use them to their advantage.”
Jun hated that Telisa was right. She missed her family so much, and from the chatter among the humans, she knew she wasn’t the only one.
“What about cloaking ourselves?” Roman had mentioned it during one of his talks with Nuzal.
“We might be able to cloak ourselves from the humans, but there is a chance we wouldn’t be hidden from the Grutex ships we might encounter.” Nuzal responded.
She turned to see him rubbing his vines, something she’d come to understand was a nervous habit, and felt herself soften. A few months ago, she would have never found anything a Grutex did to be soft or sweet, but she found this habit to be endearing.
“Give me some time to secure an alliance with the Venium before we risk our lives with our own people. If we bring them a readymade solution to the problem, then maybe we won’t end up in Area 51.” Telisa laughed, but Jun knew the threat of being experimented on again was serious, and it was something she’d like to avoid if she could.
“All right, so we go to Venora. What happens once we get there?”
“I was actually just coming to ask our brave and fearless leader that exact question.” Telisa smirked at Brin, who rolled his eyes at her teasing.
Jun loved that Telisa gave Brin just as much snark as he dished out, if not more a good portion of the time. She hoped she and Amanda got along once they reached Venora.
“Once we land on the surface and exit the ship, we’ll have to take pods to the main dome. The Venium live beneath the surface of the okeanos—like Earth’s ocean. We should be prepared for an armed escort at the very least.” Brin gestured broadly around the room. “Coming in on a Grutex troop transport vessel is going to ruffle some scales, so we need to play this right and do as we’re told.”
“Follow instructions. Got it.” Telisa mimed checking something off of a list. “What about social etiquette? Religious beliefs that we need to respect?”
“I don’t see religion being an issue, but the majority of Venora worships the goddess, Una and her mates, Ven and Nim. They play a prominent role in our society, but none of the other aliens who travel to the domes for political or business reasons are hindered by it. The thing is, even though the Venium have offworld allies and encourage trading among our people, many of the elders still dislike having outsiders within the dome.”
“So we’re walking into full-blown xenophobia?” Telisa arched a brow. “That’s wonderful.”
“It’s not how everyone thinks––”
“Wait, you and Oshen told me that Amanda would be safe on Venora, and now you’re telling me that I let my best friend leave Earth to go live in a place where the old people are going to treat her like crap?”
“Oshen wouldn’t have taken her back if he thought she’d be at risk.”
With a dramatic flourish of her hands, Jun narrowed her eyes on Brin. “Send your best friend to Venora, they said. She’ll be perfectly safe there, they said.”
“Shayfia, she’s mated to Oshen. He would die
before he let any harm come to her.”
Jun huffed, but if the way Oshen treated her when she’d stayed with them was any indication, she knew Amanda would be looked after. Still, Venium heads would roll if she found out her best friend had been treated poorly.
It took them another full day to gather enough food to last Brin the entire trip and to get everyone on board with the plan. Esme didn’t like the idea of Brin being the one to care for them during their cryosleep, but she disliked the idea of Nuzal filling the role even more.
At her insistence, Nuzal agreed to be the first to go into one of the pods. He reached out to touch Jun’s hair, but caught himself. He curled his fingers into his palm as he moved toward the large machines that lined the wall where there had once been a row of seats.
“Nuzal.” Jun’s hand shot out, grabbing hold of his wrist. He looked down at the shimmering display of colors before his eyes moved to her face, waiting for her to speak. She hadn’t exactly thought this one through, but she didn’t want him going into the pod thinking she didn’t care at all. “I’ll see you when we get there,” she said lamely, kicking herself when he inclined his head and stepped into the chamber.
One by one, the humans were loaded in and secured. It took many of them only moments to fall asleep, their faces were peaceful and calm behind the glass on the door. Brin held out his hand to her and Jun looked around, realizing she was the last one awake.
“Your turn, Shayfia.”
She let him lead her to an empty pod next to Nuzal’s, and she took a deep breath as she stepped inside. Anxiety raced through her, and for a terrifying moment, she thought she might be sick. “Brin, I can’t.”
“It’s all right,” he whispered, leaning in to drop a sweet kiss on her forehead. “I’ll be right here the whole time. I won’t let anything happen to you.” When she nodded, Brin stepped back, closing the door to her pod before initiating the sleep sequence. “Sleep well, Shayfia,” she heard as her lids dropped over her eyes. “We’ll be home soon.”
One month later…
Jun felt like she was wading through sludge. Her arms and legs were heavy, and she found she barely had the strength to move them. Fog rolled through her mind as she struggled to understand what the voices she heard were saying. They sounded familiar, and the deep tones made her heart race with excitement as she began to pick out and recognize their words.
“Are you sure?” one of the voices asked.
“I’m positive. We discovered these hormones during the earliest experiments on humans,” the other deeper voice said. “What should we do?”
“We tell her.”
Brin and Nuzal, her mind supplied, finally catching up. Her body practically vibrated as it came to life, excitement moving through her at the recognition of her mates. God, why was she this way anytime she was around them? Because their bodies basically drug you? Right, there was that.
She felt a tingle in her breasts as her nipples hardened, and all she could think about was having their hands on her, running down her chest and over her belly until they reached the juncture of her thighs. Just the memory of Brin’s finger circling her clit and the way Nuzal’s knuckle had felt when he pressed against it had her moaning out loud.
Get it together. This is an incredibly bad time to be horny, she mentally shook herself. Was it possible for this to still be the work of the pheromones? How long would they affect her?
“She sounds like she’s going to be sick,” Nuzal said.
Jun felt something warm brush over her cheek, and she turned her head in an attempt to follow it. At her side, her fingers began to twitch as she fought to open her eyes.
“How do you think she’ll react?” Nuzal’s voice seemed to get further away, as if he’d put some distance between them.
Was that nervousness she heard in his voice? What was going on? She felt her legs and arms begin to respond slowly as she pushed further through the fog until she was blinking into a blinding white light.
“We’re about to find out.”
She brought her hand up to shield her sensitive eyes, groaning as she attempted to sit up. Her stomach churned as she turned on her side, threatening to empty itself. God, was it like this for everyone when they woke up from cryosleep or was she just incredibly unlucky? Jun gagged, slapping her hand over her mouth as she tried to swallow past the lump in her throat.
When she finally managed to clear her vision, Jun gazed around the room, noting that the others were still asleep within their chambers. Brin and Nuzal stood together on one side of the pod, their twin looks of concern directed at her.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Did we make it to Venora?”
They each offered her a hand to hold as the pod began to slide up, moving her back into the upright position she’d gone to sleep in. She took deep breaths to try and control the nausea, holding onto her mates like lifelines as her head swam. I’m never doing this shit again, she promised herself.
“Nearly there. We’ll be waking the others soon,” Brin told her as they helped her from the pod and guided her to one of the seats.
Nuzal crouched down in front of her. “How do you feel, little one?”
“Like I might puke,” she murmured. Jun rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes, waiting until the wave passed. “What were you two talking about?” Her mates shared an uneasy look. What the hell was going on? Nuzal’s xines wriggled restlessly, and his eyes slid down her body as he shifted to his knees.
“Nyissa, bring up vitals taken during Jun’s cryosleep.”
“Yes, Master. Sending you the data logs from Jun’s cryochamber.”
A projection appeared on Brin’s wrist, but she couldn’t read the language. “I don’t know what this is, Brin.”
Nuzal slid his finger across Brin’s arm, pointing to a grouping of characters. “This here indicates higher than normal levels of human chorionic gonadotropin hormones within your body.”
Jun frowned as the words began to echo in her mind. She could hear Brin speaking, saying something about how he’d woken Nuzal the moment he realized something was off with her vitals, but she couldn’t stay focused long enough to hear the rest of his story.
Higher than normal levels of hCG.
For God’s sake, she was a nurse. She knew exactly how babies were made and that it only took one time for it to happen, but to say Jun was shocked was an absolute understatement. She wished Mama and Papa were here with her right now. They’d be so excited to know that there was going to be a grandbaby. Her mind was flooded with a wave of emotions as she placed her hand on her belly, taking note of the slight bump that hadn’t been there when she’d gone to sleep.
“How am I…” Jun frowned down at her stomach. “A month of travel and two weeks on the planet—I guess that’s assuming two weeks there is about the same as two weeks on Earth—I’d only be about six weeks. I’ve never known anyone to show this early.”
“Early? How long are human pregnancies?”
“They vary from person to person, but most people deliver around forty weeks, give or take a few in either direction.”
“Forty weeks?” Brin’s eyes widened.
“About nine months. Most people I’ve known haven’t even found out they were pregnant at this point.”
“A Venium pregnancy only lasts four months.”
A huff of surprise burst from her mouth as she stared at him. “Four? That would mean I was almost halfway through!” She looked at Nuzal and paused. Oh, God, she hadn’t just been with Brin that day in the forest. “What about the Grutex?”
He shook his head. “I can’t recall. None of our females are fertile, and none of human pregnancies…”
“None of them were viable,” Jun finished for him when Nuzal trailed off, concern passing over his face. “Is there a way to find out which one of you is the father? I can’t imagine that you guys have all of this tech and no ultrasounds.”
“Shayfia…” Brin’s jaw clenched as he scrubb
ed a hand over his face and knelt on the ground in front of her. “I can’t be…” His fushori pulsed, the blue lights reflecting off of the cold metal floors as bent over to rest his forehead on her thigh. “I can’t be the sire.”
Jun’s lip quivered as her eyes filled with tears over his anguish. She’d known where he stood on the subject, but she hadn’t thought about protection at all during their mating, and she’d let herself get so caught up in her hurt afterward that it hadn’t even crossed her mind.
“I know this isn’t what you wanted, but if the baby is Venium then––”
“What he means is that it’s impossible.” Jun watched as Nuzal placed his hand over Brin’s where it rested on her knee. A look passed between them, as if Brin was giving Nuzal permission to speak on his behalf. “When Vodk and Raou took him that day, they performed an unauthorized sterilization.”
The blood drained from her face as she stared down at their mate. “Brin––”
“They thought they were hurting me, Shayfia, but all I felt was relief.” He looked up at her and she saw the truth of his words in his eyes. “I’ll never have to worry about continuing the line or passing on Brega’s legacy. It’s over.”
When she turned to Nuzal, she found him watching her carefully as if he wasn’t sure what her reaction might be. None of them were viable. Erusha had told them about his mate and all of the babies they’d lost on the ship. Would it be the same for them?
As if he sensed her thoughts, Nuzal rattled softly. “You are not Erusha’s mate, little one. I will do everything in my power to protect you. Both of you.”
She rubbed her thumb over her belly and fought back the urge to cry over the uncertainty of their situation. They’d created this tiny life that day in the forest and her body had kept them safe this long, but Jun prayed Nuzal was right.
Chapter 33
Nuzal
He was going to be a sire.
The term was foreign to him, but Brin had used it before and he mulled it over in his mind now. The Grutex didn’t have what Jun had referred to as parents, nor were they raised by anyone who had cared for them beyond the basics. His people were mostly brutal, violent, and at their best, unfeeling. Erusha was the only one he knew who might not fight that mold, but from the way the humans spoke of him, Nuzal wasn’t so sure they considered him any better than the rest.
