Chapter Eighteen
Roan
I rolled over among crisp, clean sheets and reached an arm over to pull the nearest body into mine and inhaled deeply.
Zurok’s peppery scent inundated my senses, and our tails twined with comfort until Wallace’s joined ours, and Liru, somewhere, snored, his foot somehow jamming into my side. But I didn’t mind. Not at all.
Between the twist of bodies, I reached around, grateful for internal genitals as my hand flopped over Liru’s groin in my search for our eggs.
“Mnnn…not until we’re in our bed, Zuu.” Liru squirmed, and I was awake in a way I really wish I wasn’t.
I sat up and glanced about because something was bothering me, an urgent and alert sensation mired with frustration.
As I found the plainer of the two eggs I birthed, I found it rocking and pulsing.
“Liru?” I shook his leg and earned a soft whimper and mewl. Zurok jerked awake and sat up, searching about with a sleepy sort of hunger in his eyes that immediately swept from his gaze as he saw my egg.
As part of the census and tracking, we’d been obligated to let the medical center scan the egg to see what the gender would be, but we wanted a degree of mystery, so we’d agreed to know the genders, but not which of our eggs was which.
So, as we pushed our eggs together and stared, we waited with bated breath as I slapped at Wallace to wake.
Maybe alphas weren’t as attuned? I wasn’t certain, but he blinked up at me with unfocused eyes and shoved someone’s arm out of his space before leaning over, staring down at our fidgeting egg.
The whole process moved so fast that I wasn’t certain what to expect, and I had little time to prepare.
The little one would sleep with us, and really only needed space to climb and run—as it’d spend its first year learning hunting and mobility fully, while language would develop fast. Creativity and problem-solving—which would require toys and play—would come later.
Still, we had no idea what was really good for Naleucian hatchlings.
We weren’t even sure that what Vil and Noel were doing was technically correct. Nexus could snatch strix out of the air and do a backflip on the way down with his little underdeveloped wings.
“What ya thinking, Roan?” Wallace nudged my shoulder.
“We’re not letting them hunt vermin.” I cringed as I said the words out loud, earning a sidelong glance from Liru, as if the very suggestion was as disgusting as I found it.
“Then how will they learn to hunt?” Zurok blinked in surprise.
I restrained every urge to say a word more and resigned myself to the fact that my child would grow up like a feral animal.
As the struggle within his shell grew more intense, Risel’s egg shook and pulsed, a singular motion at first, as if he were getting comfortable, but no matter how the little one within shifted, it couldn’t seem to sit still.
“Siblings are said to hatch simultaneously due to motion of their sibling in the nest.” Liru watched with wide, glistening eyes, and I swallowed hard. One more minute, two. It made no difference as we watched our little one pierce his shell with a singular ripping claw.
Another swipe and shred of claw chipped away a leathery chunk as dark slime pulsed within the pale flesh and dark scales of a little one within, bright golden eyes staring up at us as a head pushed free, gasping for their first wet breath.
Instinct took over as I pulled the little one to my chest and cleaned off his face, squeezing his nose a few times to make sure his airways were unobstructed.
Little scales like hydrocarbon fuel on water on a dusky evening, oil slick washed up on a beach, gleamed under the slime over skin a shade darker than my own, certain to gain pigment as time went on to something of a creamier shade than Wallace’s lovely amber flesh.
Little wisps of hair, the same shade as my own, dark and inky blue, stuck up all different ways.
And right away, I could tell he wasn’t omega by the absence of internal genitals.
The only question was… I felt down his back, and little spines bumped under my fingers, much like Wallace’s. Alpha. Which meant the beta…
We smiled down at our little one and glanced toward Risel as his shell split.
Silvery scales glittered over his arm, tanned flesh still soggy.
And beyond that, a mess of dark hair and pretty pink eyes—a little beta.
Liru and Zurok took him into their arms to share, wiping the mess from his lips and nose. “Risel is a beta.”
“Beautiful.” Zurok touched over the little one’s face and stumpy tail, letting him squirm and claw at the air with little whimpers for comfort.
“Damn, they’re kinda cute for someone as ugly as me.” Wallace laughed and earned a dubious glance from everyone else.
I almost wanted to take credit for their good looks, but recalled an omega donated fairly little to a child born.
And I wouldn’t dare say that Robard was responsible for their beauty.
Wallace was an extremely handsome male, especially by Naleucian standards.
With the last of his transformation, his bronze skin and dark lips were not uncommon among the Naleucians, but they viewed pallor differently.
Wallace took our child from me and stared him down with amazement dancing in his wonderful eyes. He blinked tears away and held the squirming youth to his chest. “There’s a tradition.”
“Alpha colony. Alpha born. I’m an N03 transition… First generation born. AL…” I twisted my lips as Wallace leaned down to kiss our little one’s head. “How many eggs have hatched so far?”
“Nine so far. We have eleven more on their way.” Zurok opened a window in the air to peruse the reports.
“AL3 10…” I grinned. “X is roman numeral…”
“Alex. I don’t think it means anything Naleucian.” Wallace frowned. “There’s talex, which is this floral nectar I like for sweetening. Alexna, which is the distance between stars…”
“Alex is a wonderful balance of sweetness and the distance in our stars.” Zurok nodded in approval. “He will not be shunned for his name like Wallace.”
Wallace’s eye twitched.
“Not my fault your name means fork in their language.” I laughed as he leaned over with a grin.
“Certainly, it is not the worst name, even among the newborn.” Liru frowned. “Gorm has chosen a partner—they are not mated at this time, but he named their young one.”
That was news to both Wallace and me as we glanced up. Wallace frowned and hesitantly waited to hear.
Zurok shrugged. “Toast.”
“What?” I blinked to be sure I heard correctly. It was not a Naleucian word at all.
“He does like toast,” Wallace nodded with a sigh.
We turned our attention back to the newly born of a species long thought extinct in its purest form.
One we finally belonged to.
I had riches untold in a world that I didn’t belong to anymore, a world that had treated me and all of my kin like broken tools for far too long. All of us, machinations and creations made for war. Which made what was coming next the hardest thing that needed to be done.
“We need more betas and alphas.” My voice cracked as I said it, and Zurok nodded in quiet agreement.
I stared at my little one and caressed his hair with a gentle stroke. “I want a few months for him to grow stronger.”
“And what will you do?” Liru stared at us expectantly.
“Alex and I will go pay the church a visit. And I’m going to rip those TOADs a new asshole before laying down final judgment and bringing you each and every alpha and beta that wants nothing more than to belong somewhere, and to be treasured by an omega.
” I sighed, but didn’t lose my resolve when Wallace leaned over and hugged me, sharing Alex with me once more.
“And once my finances are locked down, I’ll set up a sanctuary for those who want to travel and come home where I belong. ”
“A lifetime of paradise,” Wallace said, a promise on his sweet lips as he kissed my neck over the mark we shared.