Some Assembly Required
I woke up warm.
The warmth reached me first, sitting low in my belly and radiating outward, a slow pulse of heat that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. The containment space was the same as before, the same padded walls and low ceiling, but my body felt different inside it.
I lay still for a moment and went through it, piece by piece.
Skin: sensitive. I could feel the weave of the fabric beneath me, every individual thread pressing against my back and arms. The blanket I'd pulled over myself at some point was almost too much, the weight of it a dull pressure it hadn't been before.
Temperature: elevated. Not feverish, exactly, but warm in a way that felt permanent, as if someone had turned up my internal thermostat and thrown away the dial.
Breasts: heavier.
I sat up and looked down at myself.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me."
They were bigger. Noticeably bigger, straining against the fabric of my station coveralls in a way they definitely hadn't been before I went to sleep. I cupped one, and immediately regretted it, because the sensation that shot through me was sharp and electric and entirely too much.
"Fantastic," I muttered. "Brilliant. Love this for me."
I swung my legs over the side of the pallet and stood. The room spun briefly, then steadied. I was hungrier than I'd ever been in my life, my stomach cramping with it, and underneath the hunger was that warmth, pulsing and persistent.
The hatch slid open.
Keth ducked through, and the smell of him hit me like a wall.
I'd noticed his scent before. That warm earth-and-musk that had started all of this, the one that made my body do strange things without my permission.
But this was different. This was layers: the base note I already knew, and beneath it something richer, something that made my mouth water and my skin prickle.
I could smell his mood, I realised. Calm, with an edge of anticipation. Warmth.
I could smell that he was happy to see me.
"You're awake," he said.
"Obviously." I crossed my arms over my chest, which was a mistake, because it pressed my newly sensitive breasts together and sent another jolt through me. I uncrossed them. "How long was I out?"
"Thirty-six hours."
"Right." I looked down at myself again. "And in that time, my body has apparently decided to–" I gestured vaguely. "Grow."
His eyes dropped to my chest. Not with hunger, exactly, more as if he were noting the changes, weighing them.
"The serum is working," he said. "Your body is adapting."
"Adapting. Yes. That's one word for it."
He crouched in the doorway, bringing himself down to my level. It was becoming familiar, that motion, the way he folded his massive frame to meet my eyes rather than looming over me. I wasn't sure if it was consideration or instinct.
"Are you in pain?" he asked.
"No." I thought about it. "No, not pain. Just–" How to describe it? The sensitivity. The warmth. The way my body felt as if it belonged to someone else, someone who hadn't bothered to leave instructions. "Everything's very loud. Sensory-wise."
He breathed in. "Your scent has changed."
"Has it?"
"Yes." His tail moved faster, a quick flick. "Stronger. Sweeter. You smell–" He stopped, and the small translator disc at his throat hissed static where the word should have been. He wore it always now, a dark coin on a cord; I'd half stopped noticing it.
"I smell what?"
"Ready," he said, and the word landed strangely, loaded with meaning the translator couldn't quite carry.
I decided not to ask ready for what. I had a feeling I already knew.
He brought me food.
Real food, not the nutrient bars I'd been eating for the last few days.
Some kind of grain, cooked soft, and strips of meat I couldn't identify and decided not to ask about.
Vegetables that were the wrong colour but tasted like something between carrots and sweet potato.
I ate until my stomach ached and then kept eating, my body demanding fuel for whatever changes were still happening inside me.
Keth watched.
He did that a lot, I was learning. Sat nearby and watched me with those huge dark eyes, his attention fixed on me as if I were the most interesting thing in the universe.
It should have been creepy. It probably was creepy.
But there was a quality to his watching that made it feel less like surveillance and more like–
The closest word was reverence, which sounded ridiculous. You didn't revere someone eating alien porridge in a padded cell.
"You're staring," I said, around a mouthful of grain.
"Yes."
"It's weird."
"I don't understand weird."
"Strange. Unsettling. Makes me want to throw food at you."
"You should not throw food. You need to eat."
"I know I need to eat. I'm eating." I shoved another spoonful into my mouth for emphasis. "I'm just saying, the staring is–"
"I like looking at you."
I choked on the grain.
He moved before I'd finished coughing, crossing to me in one stride, his hand coming up to hover near my back. Not touching. Just there, ready if I needed it.
"I'm fine," I managed, waving him off. "Wrong pipe. I'm fine."
He crouched beside me, close enough that his warmth radiated against my arm. That scent rolled over me again, rich and complex, and my shoulders dropped without my meaning them to. My body leaning towards him like he was the last warm thing in the universe.
"I should have warned you," he said. "I will not–" He searched for words. "I will not hide what I feel. It is not our way. Among my people, a mate is–" He went quiet, hunting for it. "Everything. You are everything. Looking at you is–"
"Okay," I said. "Okay. I get it. You can stop."
But he didn't stop. He just looked at me with those dark eyes, and I realised with a sinking feeling that he meant it.
Every word. He wasn't staring because he was assessing me or sizing me up or planning something.
He was staring because he genuinely couldn't help it. Because looking at me made him happy.
I went back to eating. It was easier than working out how to respond to that.
My breasts were fuller by evening.
I noticed it when I tried to fasten my coveralls after using the small hygiene alcove Keth had shown me – a corner of the ship with running water and something that functioned as a toilet, all sized for him, which meant I had to climb onto things and balance precariously and generally feel like a toddler learning to use the facilities.
The coveralls had fit fine that morning, if a bit snug.
Now the zipper wouldn't close over my chest.
I stood in front of the small reflective panel that served as a mirror and stared at myself.
My breasts were visibly larger. Not just fuller but heavier, sitting lower than they had before, the skin stretched tight. When I pressed a hand to one, it ached with a deep, strange pressure that wasn't quite pain.
"You're filling," I said to my reflection. "You're actually filling. With–"
I couldn't finish the sentence.
The hatch opened.
"Mara." Keth's voice, from the doorway. "We will arrive soon. You should–"
He stopped.
I was standing there with my coveralls unzipped to the waist, my hands cupped under my breasts, staring at my own reflection with what I'm sure was a deeply undignified expression. His eyes dropped to my chest, and his tail went absolutely still.
"They're bigger," I said, because someone had to say something. "Since this morning. They're bigger and they – hurt isn't the right word. They ache. They feel full."
His breath caught. When he spoke, his voice was lower than usual.
"May I see?"
I should have said no. Should have zipped up my coveralls and told him to mind his own business and handled this the way I handled everything else in my life, which was alone and without help.
Instead, I dropped my hands.
He closed the space between us in two strides and crouched in front of me, putting his eyes level with my chest. His tail had started moving again, a slow sweep that I was learning meant intense focus. His hands came up, hovering just in front of me.
"May I touch?"
"Yes," I said, and I didn't know why I said it, except that the ache was getting worse and some part of me thought maybe he could help.
His hands were huge. Warm. One of them could have cupped both my breasts together with room to spare. But he didn't do that. He touched me gently, his fingers brushing the underside of one breast, then the other, weighing them.
"Full," he said. "Beginning to fill. Your body is preparing to produce."
"Produce." The word came out flat. "You mean–"
"Milk." His eyes lifted to mine. "For feeding. But also, among my people, an omega's production is sacred. It is not only for offspring. It is–" He stopped, searching for words. "A gift. A bond. I would–"
"You would what?"
"When you are ready. When the production is established. I would help you. Tend to you. It would be–" He turned the word over, searching. "Meaningful."
I stared at him. He was kneeling in front of me, his huge hands still hovering near my breasts, telling me that drinking my milk would be meaningful.
"This is insane," I said.
"Yes," he agreed. "But it is also true."
He meant every word of it. That was the part I couldn't get past.
We arrived at Khorreth three hours later.
I'd spent those three hours in the cockpit with Keth, watching his world grow larger in the viewport.
It was beautiful, I had to admit: blue-green oceans, vast swathes of rust-coloured land, swirling white clouds.
Not so different from Earth, if you squinted.
If you ignored the fact that you were about to land on an alien planet full of giant bull-people who apparently considered you a sacred commodity.
"There," Keth said, pointing to a shape on the nav display. "The landing port. And there–" He pointed to another shape, smaller, on the outskirts of the settlement. "My dwelling."
"Your house."
"My dwelling." His eyes warmed. "Our dwelling, now."
I didn't correct him. I was too busy trying not to throw up.