But I knew the risk of this pregnancy. I was not an omega.
Looking at his handsome face, I cried. “Take the fuel cells. You need to get out of here. I’m just going to weigh you down,” I said.
“Ship is still here!” Juliana yelled. “Got the fuel cells out. Ready when you are.”
He was never really looking for love. He was just trying to survive. This was me letting him go. This was me giving up what could have been for what I thought had to be. Lost in the center of the universe, what could I do? Love was selfish. I had to let him go.
“Fifty... forty-nine...”
The clock was still ticking down the time until our annihilation. I pretended not to notice it, but it was nearly impossible to put out of my mind. Amidst the red, I looked into his eyes and felt the tears painfully sting. Nothing felt right anymore. My balance had been stolen from me. He lifted me and carefully started to walk downstairs.
“I’m not leaving without you,” he growled.
He cradled his hands against my bruised cheeks, muttering about how he was going to murder Cade all over again for what he had done. I sank into him, heaving in big and exhausted breaths, trying to heal my heaviest emotions. Anxiety was nothing compared to this. This was like feeling a freight train crush your soul.
“Oh, Talis,” I wept. “What are we going to do? You can’t save me. I can see it in your eyes. You’re not a doctor.”
But part of what made Talis such a good recusant was the fact that he didn’t internalize pessimism. He was brutal. He was dark and brooding. But he was also understanding. That’s what allowed me to let him take me.
He looked at Cade’s body, still in the last spasms of death. “You worry too much,” he said. “Cade is gone. My ship may be a piece of shit, but it has a first-aid room. The AI robotics will help you deliver along the way.”
That wasn’t exactly how I pictured having a baby, but I was in the throes of labor. As we reached the cargo hold, Talis laid me down on a blanket Juliana had prepared. He ran to install the fuel cells as I tried to breathe through the contractions, but time was running out.
Juliana pressed the bottom of my stomach, feeling the thickness of the skin. She slowly lowered my pants and said, “Old pal, we’ve done a lot of weird shit up here, but I never thought we’d go this far.”
“Juliana... don’t... mess... with me... right now.” I could feel the life draining from me. Weakness attacked me. It was my child. It was taking everything from me, and even though I knew it wanted me to die for its sake, I was slowly becoming more and more okay with that. I came to bring another version of humanity into this world. My child would live on without me.
Juliana lowered her palm, checking more of me out. Her smile quickly disappeared. ”Okay, first thing’s first. Keep your head on straight ’cause you’re not about to enjoy what you’re going to hear.”
My body was stiff. I was going to be forced to give birth to this monster without the use of any drugs. ”Just tell me what’s going on,” I snarled like a jaguar.
Juliana frowned but wasted no time. “You’re about nine centimeters dilated, which is pretty fucking unbelievable considering you two fucked like a day ago.”
“We made love,” I corrected her. Dark, passionate, and fetishistic sex is still making love. “You don’t understand, Jules. He’s an alpha. His biological design is to—”
“Make love?” she asked.
I blushed and coughed. “His cock... it was fucking massive, Juliana. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take it.”
“Go ahead. Keep bragging.” She laughed and helped me breathe some more.
“He knotted inside me,” I admitted, knowing it sounded a million times weirder than bad.
She swallowed strongly and breathed, carefully gathering everything that I might need to endure this childbirth. “He whatted inside you?”
Okay, I had to laugh because the whole idea was so insane, yet it all happened. I experienced the pain, the pleasure, and the warm hold his come needed to flow through me. “Every alpha carries his knot inside him. It is the mechanism that gets an omega pregnant. It buries deep into the--”
Juliana zipped up the rest of what we’d need. ”Don’t need to know about all of that,” she said.
Of course, I was leaving out all of the fun bits, such as when his cock actually opened and split in two purely to service my clit. A man who recognized a female’s orgasm was rare. And now, I was dying on the cross of my decision to let him seed me.
“You really thought your system could handle him?” she asked.
“Things here weren’t going as planned. I wasn’t thinking. Can you blame me for thinking of this as a way out?”
All of a sudden, Juliana winced in pain and fell over. She pulled down the front of her jeans. On her thigh was a deep wound, but it was nothing compared to the blood leaking from her arms and side.
“Juliana!” I tried to stand up, but she wouldn’t let me. She sucked in her pain and held my legs down.