Epilogue
Three months later
Raiza
I rounded my hands on my swollen belly. I was only a few months along, but I felt as big as a house. If the father had been human, I would have several more months to go before the baby came to term.
Her father wasn’t human though.
He was an alien. My alien.
I sighed and leaned my head back, enjoying the feel of Talyn’s strong hands massaging my sore feet for probably the thousandth time. He was very excited about the prospect of a child between us. He’d been waiting on me hand and foot ever since the body scanner had discovered the pregnancy.
“I want you to relax for me, Raiza. I can still paddle that perfect ass bright red if I need to,” he threatened.
“Yes, sir,” I murmured, blushing hard. I was far more sensitive these days and it didn’t take much for him to teach me a lesson if need be. I did my best to melt into the couch, taking his direction as much as I could.
The two of us had been working together for weeks to negotiate an agreement with the remaining humans living in the old city of New York. If they agreed to work with him, Talyn would not send in his army.
Most of them surrendered without a fight, especially when offered shelter, medical care, and consistent food sources. Many were placed in useful trades throughout Zenarkin or in various alien houses as servants and maids.
A few groups needed to be subdued with force at first, but that lessened over time. Eventually, Talyn took the entire city under his rule.
He began to build his own legacy in its place.
Somewhere in the warmth of his hands working on my feet and the weight of our child in my belly, I reached up without thinking and touched the collar.
It had been there long enough that I couldn’t remember how my throat felt without it.
Long enough that in my dreams, I dreamed I was wearing it.
It was simply part of how I was built now, like the scar on my left palm from a raid that had gone badly, like the way I always entered a room watching the door.
His thumbs pressed into the arch of my foot and I exhaled.
“My pet,” he said softly. He didn’t look up from what he was doing.
I smiled.
Three months ago, I would have said something difficult about that.
Six months ago, I would have made it worse by saying it twice.
Now I turned it over in my chest for a moment—his pet, the woman who had tried to kill him, who had dragged him behind a tourist shop and pressed her jacket against his throat, who had ended up here against all reasonable predictions—and found that what I mostly felt about it was right.
He had known what I was before I did.
He called it Anauria.
When I asked him what it meant, he’d smiled wistfully.
“I know much of the history of the various alien species that have been spliced into my human DNA, but only a little of their diverse languages that they speak. One of them is known as the Venerathi. To them, Anauria is a special word. It means to my love, with love,” he explained.
He’d dedicated the city to me.
He took my hand and squeezed it. “To forever,” he murmured.
“Together,” I answered and he devoured my lips in a kiss.
The End