Chapter 20 #2
“Not anymore.” Sophia reached out and caught one of his fluffy mandibles, giving it a wiggle. “You’re actually quite cute.”
He chittered and brushed her hand aside. “My broodlings are cute. I am handsome. Shir has said so, so it must be true.”
Everyone laughed and chittered.
Lacey looked in Telok’s direction. He remained in the same place, watching them.
She longed for him to join, had even begged him to when they first arrived, but he’d said he wanted her to have time to speak to Sophia, and that hearing about so many human things he wouldn’t understand would make his head hurt.
That still didn’t make her feel any better about him excluding himself.
“So, how did you guys wake up? Some kind of malfunction like mine?” Sophia asked.
Lacey turned back to Sophia. “No. A shadowstalker named Ketahn found our part of the ship.”
“He fell into a big ass pit,” Cole said, pantomiming Ketahn’s fall with a hand and a little whistling sound.
Lacey chuckled. “Basically, yeah. Turned out to be pretty lucky for all of us because that pit was the impact crater from our crash. He found our pods inside and accidentally initiated the wakeup process on Ivy’s pod. She woke the rest of us later.”
Sophia’s brows rose. “Us? How many of you survived the crash?”
“Originally, there were eight of us…” Cole said.
With uncharacteristic solemnity, Cole told Sophia about Ella.
And at the woman’s gentle prompting, he continued into the rest of their story, with Lacey joining in to recount both the hardships and unexpected joys they’d found in this alien world.
It felt surreal to be talking about all of it to another human who hadn’t been there with them.
For nearly eight months, they’d thought the seven of them had been the only ones left.
“And you’re all in Kaldarak?” Sophia asked.
Cole tossed a piece of roasted whiteroot into his mouth. “Yep. Diego, our own personal doctor, is shacked up with Will, who was a computer tech from the crew. And Ivy, Ahmya, and Callie all live with their vrix mates.”
Sophia’s eyes flared, and the nearby winddancers fell suddenly silent.
“What… What do you mean their vrix mates?” Sophia asked.
Cole glanced at the others, looking uneasy with so many eyes upon him. “Uh… Exactly what I said. Isn’t that the word the vrix use? The whole nyleea, luveen thing?”
Tas leaned closer to Lacey. “You said the human who killed the shadowstalker queen lives in Kaldarak with her mate and youngling.”
“I did,” Lacey said. “Ivy’s mate is Ketahn, and the youngling is their child.”
Jerking back as though he’d been struck, Tas stared at Lacey in stunned silence, mandibles spreading wide and twitching.
Everyone else was staring at her too. Lacey’s skin itched, but she kept her hands in her lap. She wasn’t sure if their reactions were purely out of shock, or if revulsion was mixed in.
Cole gave a nervous laugh. “I take it you guys didn’t know vrix and humans can fu—er, mate and have kids?”
“No,” said Ohn, who was sitting next to Tas. Her red eyes flicked between Lacey and Cole. “We are so different. You are human. We are vrix.”
“Yeah, well, I guess the parts fit.”
Lacey looked at Sophia. “Have you noticed that male vrix act differently around you when you’re ovulating?”
The woman’s jaw dropped, and her cheek darkened. “Oh, my God.”
“Yeah. Apparently we put out some pheromone or something that makes them horny.”
“I mean, I knew they reacted that way, but not that we could actually…” She shook her head. “Okay. Wow.”
Cole chuckled. “Yeah, took us by surprise too when we found out Ivy was pregnant. I mean, a lot of us were freaking out thinking that she was going to lay eggs.”
“Did she?” Sophia asked, looking horrified by the prospect.
“No,” Lacey said. “She gave birth to a baby vrix. The gestation time was shorter than a human’s, and he’s very much vrix in appearance with a few human characteristics. But he’s proof vrix and humans can procreate.”
“How is that possible?” Tas asked.
“We don’t know for sure, but Diego thinks it’s from the injections we got before leaving Earth.”
“All those shots for our immune systems or whatever?” Sophia asked.
“They were meant to help us adapt to our new environment. But, well…they apparently also allowed our bodies, our eggs, to adapt to vrix sperm.”
“Ahmya and Callie are pregnant now too,” Cole said.
Quiet but excited conversations broke out amongst the winddancers.
“We hope to one day meet them and see for ourselves,” Tas said. “This… It can only be fate that humans and vrix have come together. It must be.”
Lacey once more found herself looking at Telok.
Of course this was fate. To have journeyed across so many light years of empty space only for something to hit the ship at the exact right moment, in the exact right way, to send pieces of it to this planet, with people still alive inside, and then for two of those pieces to be discovered by an intelligent species…
And on top of that, for three of those survivors to find love with those aliens, and then be able to have children with them?
How astronomical were the odds of all that happening?
And I might be the fourth…
Telok was staring back at her, head canted, mandibles subtly twitching. She doubted he’d heard any of the conversation, but he must’ve seen the reactions of Sophia and the winddancers.
“So you mentioned the other humans and their mates.” Sophia pointed her finger back and forth between Cole and Lacey. “Are you two…?”
“Fuck no!” both Lacey and Cole exclaimed.
Then they looked at each other and said, “No offense.”
Sophia laughed. “Really?”
Lacey smirked. “Yeah. We’d kill each other.”
Chuckling, Cole awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t go that far. Lacey and I are just friends.” He jabbed his thumb toward Telok. “But he would totally kill me.”
The winddancers turned their attention to Telok.
Telok narrowed his eyes and straightened his head, posture tensing.
“You’re not supposed to stare at him,” Cole whispered.
In the most conspicuous way possible, the winddancers looked away from Telok like they hadn’t even noticed his presence.
“Telok is your mate, Lacey?” Tas asked.
Lacey’s cheeks flushed as all those eyes again settled on her. “Um… Not…really?”
Cole snickered. “You telling him, or asking him, Lace?”
“We’re not mated.”
“Not yet.”
“There’s…mutual interest.”
Cole snorted. “They eye-fuck each other all day, every day.”
Lacey poked him in the side, making him jump away. “Shut up! We do not.”
He laughed.
Sophia chuckled, eyes falling on Cole. “So, you’re not…with anyone then?”
All Cole’s humor drained through a gaping breach in his normally confident demeanor. “I’m uh… No. I’m not.”
Lacey’s brows rose when Sophia’s smile turned seductive. The woman leaned forward, placed her hands on the blanket, and slowly crawled toward Cole. He watched her, wholly entranced.
Raising a hand, Sophia touched her fingertip to the underside of his chin, keeping his gaze locked with hers. His eyes rounded, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
Lacey grinned. She’d never seen Cole so speechless, so flustered, so damned bashful.
Sophia eased closer until her nose was almost touching Cole’s, her voice falling to a sultry whisper when she said, “It just so happens that I’m not either.”
“Oh fuck,” Cole rasped.
Damn. That’s some impressive directness.