He laughs and walks backward, making sure to make horrifying gestures pretending to do said piercing that have me shuddering. “I want my ring back later. Find it, Say.”
Ignoring him, I storm over to my comms room where Molly sits in Draven’s lap. They’re sitting there tense as can be while they listen to the same transmission over and over again.
“Anything new?” I ask.
“No,” Draven grumbles.
“How many times have you listened to the same transmission?” My eyes dart between them. Molly’s shoulders slump and Draven won’t make eye contact with me. Clearly the entire time I’ve been in my meeting.
“Fifty-seven times,” Uvie chirps.
My brows lift and Draven grumbles.
“Tattletale,” Molly huffs.
I let out a heavy sigh. “You look exhausted, Molly. Why don’t you let Draven take you back to your quarters and get some rest? I promise I will notify you the moment I know anything.”
She frowns and opens her mouth like she might argue, but Draven must agree with me because he’s already standing with her in his arms. “Thank you,” she utters a moment before Draven stalks away with her.
Once the door closes behind them, I relax. It’s difficult to work with them staring at me. I busy myself for the next couple of hours, reading through Uvie’s data on the screen concerning the pings on the transmission as I attempt to triangulate a location. The pings are scattered. At first, it appears to be as though the vessel Willow is on is moving. But then, I realize it’s a mask covering a location. The pings, I quickly uncover, are in a pattern. I tap away on my computer, trying some different calculations to see if anything begins to make sense. Since there are easily thousands of pings, I run a command for Uvie to work through them using my calculations. If there’s a pattern, we’re going to discover it. And then we’ll be able to pinpoint exactly where she is.
From there, I’m not sure what will happen.
The door slides open and Jareth rushes in, his chest heaving.
“What?” I demand, panic rising up inside of me.
“I don’t know,” he pants. “Avrell said to come get you. It’s an emergency.”
I’m out of my chair and bounding after him in the next moment. We rush down the corridor, our boots pounding on the floor resounding around us. He whips out his keycard and the door to Avrell’s lab slides open.
Screaming. All that can be heard is mad, female ranting like she’s got a case of The Rades.
“—hell no! Hell no, freaks. This is not happening!”
Jareth comes to a screeching halt just inside the doorway and I bump into him. Peering over his shoulder with my palm pressed to his lower back, I take in the scene. On one table, an alien human remains sleeping despite having been pulled from her cryotube. The other one, though…
She’s feral.
Despite wearing one of the medical gowns, she’s anything but weak or sick. This alien is fierce and furious. For being two nogs shorter than Avrell, she points up at him with her filed down claw like it has the power to flay him like a magknife. Avrell’s jaw clenches as he bites back his words.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Emery tries. “But if—”
“No,” the feral female growls. “I heard this three times already. You want to take me to something called the sub-faction. Everyone is nice. Who cares if they’re big fucking freaks because you all want to have their babies. Yeah, got all that.” She seethes with rage, her long, dark brown hair swishing back and forth with her movement. “The part I’m not getting is how this one”—she pokes Avrell in the chest—“says I’m fucking pregnant!”
Jareth stiffens. I meet Calix’s stare and his jaw clenches.
Pregnant?
“Listen, honey,” Emery starts again.
“Grace. My name isn’t honey or alien,” she snarls, her words directed at Avrell. “It’s Grace Miller. AND I AM A FUCKING VIRGIN! My name isn’t Mary and this guy here isn’t God! This is not happening!”
“She’s pregnant,” Jareth mutters, his voice a mixture of fear and awe.
As though she’s a geostorm chasing the sun from our world, she slowly turns around, darkness burning from her eyes the same color as Jareth’s cock ring. Dark silver. Strong. Piercing.
Rekk.
“She is pregnant,” Calix agrees, finding his voice. “And the mortling belongs to you.”
Jareth freezes and shakes his head in disbelief. But Calix isn’t looking at him. His intense stare is on me. I peel my eyes from his to scan down her body. Her stomach isn’t as big as Emery’s, but it’s swollen. Obviously so.
Rekk no.
Rekk no.
Rekk no.
“Yeah, you’ve said that,” Grace hisses. “Three times.”
I wince, realizing I said it out loud.
She walks our way and her steely eyes burn with fury, melting me with just one look. “You did this to me?”
I blink at her, understanding her meaning. As though I pushed myself on her while she slept. “I, uh—”