30. Chapter 30
thirty
Hue
As it turns out, Sor’en had every right to be worried. We’ve spent the last few days receiving healers from other domes, every elder that also possesses a vagina, even some that don’t, and of course, the Balla’mar’s constant support.
His boasting that his dome was the first to bear a hybrid child was hardly balanced.
Sor’en hadn’t been technically wrong either when he scanned my biology shortly after we arrived.
Of course, I was… not awake nor aware of the scan, but it was good thinking on his part.
Humans can bear Xyrelith children, but not without help.
It is a highly taboo thing for a mated female to receive toxin from someone who is not their mate.
For both parties, so much so that it was quickly decided to do so under the veil, so nobody knew just who was sharing.
The females hadn’t hesitated, though. Extracting their own maternal toxin to keep me alive.
Something of a protective barrier against the toxins our child is making.
It’s one hell of a double-edged sword having a Xyrelith baby.
In the past few solars, our little death omen has rapidly been producing toxin to get me ready for the big shebang.
Which is great, his rapid growth would hemorrhage me otherwise.
On the other hand, without outside help, the very same toxin will also kill me since I lack any natural way to dilute it.
Fun times.
My body is worn, in a constant state of exhaustion, random sudden bursts of violent illness nearly gluing me to the beds of the temple until we’d worked out the correct dose.
It is only because of that borrowed toxin that, thankfully, they can produce at will and a near constant dose of happy flowers that I am a halfway functional being.
But that wasn’t the only change. I waddle toward our bed, grateful to finally be home, and glimpse myself in the mirror.
My sides are bruised deep purple, along with my lower stomach and pelvis.
Stretch marks line every inch of open flesh from my thighs to my breasts.
I look like I was just in a vessel crash.
It was not the easiest thing to see your body change so rapidly, to have so little time to adjust to an ever-changing concept of self.
From a grieving daughter to space trash, breeder, to kidnapping victim, to the mate of a death-touch alien, grieving friend, and now a mother.
It is… a lot to process, and I’m not smearing shit on the walls, so I think on a scale between doing well or doing terribly, I’m somewhere in the high upper middle.
Sor’en helps me onto the bed as I fail to stifle a wince.
“You are supposed to tell me before the pain reaches this level,” the male in question scolds softly.
Scolds me! While my body is being ripped apart by his creepy little alien baby.
I grimace, patting my stomach. “Sorry, you’re my creepy baby too.”
“What?”
I glare at him through the mirror as he adjusts the pillows behind my back. “Not talking to you.”
He ignores me, pressing a kiss to my head that makes my insides feel all warm and snuggly before his datapad dings, indicating it's time for another dose. Sor’en is beyond careful as he removes the dropper from his pocket, lifting the heavy curtain of my hair to smear the correct dose on the back of my neck.
We both give it a few long moments, ensuring my body has absorbed everything like a freaky little sponge, before I’ll let him touch me. Because I’ll be dead and damned before he gets any other chick’s toxins on him.
“Can I have some flamet, please? I’ve been craving it for days. Now that my appetite is finally back, I think I’ll cry if I don’t get some soon.”
Lowball but worth it for some yummy white mushy food.
He hesitates. “I would have to go into the city for more. I am out.”
I make the biggest, wettest, because the tears are fixing to be real, puppy dog eyes ever.
He sighs. “I do not wish to leave you.”
“I just got my dose, and I’ve got Melion. It’ll be fine. You have to work the fields at some point anyway. The cuttings we took the other day are probably useless by now. The other domes will be here for their orders tomorrow and—"
“Fine, I will go.” He relents.
I peek up from underneath my dark lashes. “I love you.” I didn’t mean to say it, but I can’t bring myself to regret it either.
My palms are nice and cool on my heated cheeks as the stunned male simply stares down at me. My heart is working itself up to a gallop, and currently it has nothing to do with the baby. “You’re supposed to say it back, you ass—"
“I love you, Hue. More than words could ever describe.”
That shuts me up, that and his heated kiss. By the time I open my eyes, he’s gone.