Chapter 19 Dorie 999
Diarmuid rose from his stone chair to rush over to her wooden one while Aengus argued, “Dorcasss, you know thisss isss a promissse we cannot make.”
Aengus had lost control of his sibilance organ again.
They’d been eating the midday meal Dories always insisted on when their pregnancies progressed past three or so moon cycles. Then their mate grimaced, her entire pain center lighting up inside her head, and the sight of it was enough to undo him.
“He isss our prime,” Aengus reminded her.
“I don’t care.” She gritted her teeth. “Just let him be. That’s an—aaaggghhh, fuck you, Diarmuid! Fuck you all the way to hell, you fucking pile of shit.”
This version of Dorie used much stronger language than any of the others. But this was excessive, even for her.
Her outburst let Aengus know that Diarmuid had godspoken her before she could unleash Reverence upon Aengus the same way she did when she commanded him three moon cycles ago to show him what was in that locked closet.
Dories rarely abused their power over them, but when they did, it was often during these late stages of pregnancy.
Aengus hated to see her upset. But contrary to Dorie 999’s orders, he wasted no time contacting their prime via an eyeline.
Omicron: Her first contractions have started. Are you in the lab above?
Prime: No, I am at the Western Station, running the final trial on the solution we previously discussed.
Omicron: She does not wish you to come. She fears your upset.
Prime: It would upset me more to not be there on her final day. Make her comfortable.
Omicron: We will try.
“Fucking traitor!” Dorie 999 said as soon as Aengus unglassed his eyes.
“We had no choice,” Aengus insisted as Diarmuid scooped her out of the chair and lowered her to the floor nest they had made for her to undergo her labor. “He is prime, and you are in the throes of labor.”
“I will never forgive Dorie 512 for teaching you to talk like this. It’s like arguing with a Shakespearean play—aaaaghhh!”
Another burst of white flared across her skull and the sides of her rounded belly as Diarmuid lowered himself into the nest behind her. “Reverence, you must calm your temper and focus on your labor.”
This suggestion elicited more swears from Dorie 999.
Diarmuid merely kissed her damp temple as he settled her back against his chest. He then pulled her knees up to either side of where the eggless baby was visibly wriggling beneath her distended stomach.
Taking that as his cue, Aengus positioned himself between her legs, opened the front bottom flap of her jumpsuit, then snaked his tongue into her female works to conduct a thorough investigation of how her labor was progressing.
On any other day, this would have been his favorite part of the day.
He was still smarting from Dorie 997’s refusal to engage in sex with either of the variants, and he appreciated that Dorie 999 had continued to enthusiastically receive all of them after her first heat, save for the several day cycles it took to recover from finding out about the broken circle.
He liked not only ensuring that she and the baby drakkon she carried were in good health but also giving Dorie pleasure in the process.
The examinations were pleasurable for all three of them. For Aengus, who got to taste her. For Dorie, whose pleasure burned so brightly as his mouth worked. And for Diarmuid, who was tasked with the job of holding her still while Aengus conducted his exam.
Technically, the check only took three or so wingbeats. But more often than not, the three of them ended up taking much longer than that, with Diarmuid palming her breasts while his dominant male works joined Aengus’s tongue inside her canal.
This midday, however, the mood was much more somber.
Aengus could not only see the burn of the pain radiating up both sides of her stomach, he knew this was likely the last exam he would have the honor of conducting. The last day her mates would get to spend with her before descending into yet another long period of Widower’s Madness.
She’d made the full gestation period that Fenrir Prime had designated for her species, even when carrying a drakkon. And that put her in the top ten percent of Dories.
But there was no guarantee that Diarmuid’s plan to increase her conditioning and stamina would yield the results they wanted.
It was not, as their Prime had pointed out, replicated science.
“Annggghhh!” Dorie’s entire torso lit up with pain as the hatchling they had endeavored to turn so he would come out tail first wriggled into position above what Dorie referred to as her cervix.
Aengus retracted his tongue and eyelined their prime once again.
Omicron: She is close. The hatchling is already positioning himself for presentation.
Their prime immediately answered.
Fenrir Prime: I am almost there.
Flying as Fenrir Prime was now, Aengus could not see his heat signature. But he did not need to read their prime’s flame to know what he was thinking.
983 deaths upon the day of her labor.
The statistics were not on their side.
Cycle 1000
Twice Aengus had lost variants of Dorie to unmet heats.
He now feared he would have to do so again. Perhaps in the same horrific manner as Dorie 346, the zookeeper who had been on an unsanctioned outing to see the bear shifters for herself when she went into heat.
Drakkon were born with natural internal clocks, but time seemed to click slower as they waited to be released from the Reverence thrall.
The moons rose in the sky shortly after her departure from what Dorie 999 had called the Library of Me, striking another chord of fear in Aengus’s heart.
This Dorie did not use such coarse language, but she was even more cunning than any of the Dories that had come before her.
Instead of running from Fenrir Prime’s quarters when she first had the chance, Dorie had explored, finding her way into a room that had only ever been reluctantly revealed to her in previous cycles.
She’d also used Reverence to command Aengus to tell her all about how it worked before Fenrir Prime’s arrival.
And so, though Dorie 1000 had no means of tracking chronological time, she knew how long she had to hide her burn from them.
Dorie 346 had been the first to die of heat denial, but not the last. Dorie 988, the stay-at-home mother, flashed before his eyes.
She’d snuck away in the night so as not to betray her past mate and daughters. By the time they found her, it was too late. Under the force of two full moons, her heat had come on so strong, her heart had given out immediately.
Who knew how far the current Dorie variant had gone this time?
“Letting her die instantly when her body broke from the fall would have been a kindness,” their prime pointed out from his frozen position. “If she dies in the same manner as Dorie 988, I will never forgive you.”
Aengus would never forgive himself.
If she died like that, tortured and alone in her heat, he would hand the knife to their prime and request for him to use it to end this cycle of his worthless life.
Finally, the Reverence thrall wore off.
Fenrir Prime being closest to the door was the first to turn and dash away, as if he’d been straining against the thrall’s effect from its start.
Diarmuid and Aengus raced after him, only to nearly run into his back a few tail lengths from where his cavern let out into the gallery their East, West, South, and North sleep quarters surrounded.
The entire space smelled of her distinct electricity, processed grains, and unknown chemical components.
And there in the middle of it lay Dorie.
Mid-crawl and completely naked. Her hand outstretched in the direction of Fenrir Prime’s door. The chamber she’d shared with him for all but this variant’s cycle. Even the ones where she made him sleep on the floor before the start of her heat.
Aengus’s core flame guttered, and his male works abruptly dropped with a painful burst from the webbing that covered his lower belly.
All of their male works would have descended. Their prime had revised her heat to emit in stronger waves over the cycles—a biological klaxon. After Dorie 386, they never again wanted to be unaware that their mate was in heat.
Aengus cut their prime a sideways look, remembering what he’d said about killing her before the rise of the full moons and she went into heat.
Would he truly end her life?
Or had it already been done for him, by his own biological design?
This was the moment of decision.
And yet, Fenrir Prime remained frozen where he stood. His entire flame burned so white it nearly hurt to look upon him. Not rage. Not murderous intent. A pain beyond both that Aengus had no classification for.
“Come,” Diarmuid said, taking the first steps forward past their unmoving prime.
Aengus joined his fellow variant, concerned she might be worse than passed out from her unmet heat.
However, she was neither.
Her head lifted as they neared, and she once again reached out. Straining her hand toward them, her face contorted in pain, confusion, and most of all, plaintive need.
“I don’t…” she croaked. “I don’t understand.”