Chapter Seven
He has no way of knowing it, given that I have been angry since he took me captive, but my mood over the last week or two has been incredibly fractious. My temper is one thing. The cramps are another. I know it’s been coming, but my stomach still sinks when I go to the toilet and wipe to discover a thin smear of bright red blood. I stare at it for far too long, knowing what it means.
“Era?”
He barges in, as he always does. He has no sense of boundaries.
I drop the paper into the hole and push the lever, which dematerializes it in an instant. A second earlier and I might have kept my secret a little longer, but he has seen.
“You are bleeding,” he says, looking almost confused.
“Yeah. Every thirty days.” I push past him and go back to the bedroom. “I’m going to need something to catch it. A pad or something.”
He is still standing there, stunned that he hasn’t managed to knock me up. He was so sure that it would happen. He never made any room for the possibility his hordes of sperm might not find a willing egg. I sit down on the bed and put my head in my hands as the cramps roll through my belly. I hate this reminder of my feminine failure. And having it happen in front of him makes it worse.
I fight tears, but I can’t completely keep them back.
He comes across to me, puts his hand on my shoulder, and speaks gently.
“Next lunar cycle, perhaps.”
“No.”
“Do not give up hope. Some females take many cycles to become pregnant. Human reproduction is not a certainty. You are a fragile species in so many respects.”
“It won’t work.”
“Believe me, Era. It will.”
“No.” I shake my head bitterly as my voice starts to shake. “It won’t work. Not now. Not next month. Not ever.”
He tips my chin up and looks down into my eyes, a slight frown on his face. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“I mean I’m not fertile,” I say, pulling away. “I’m of no use to you. I wasn’t in the fields because I was trying to avoid impregnation. I was there because if your people found out I was useless, they’d probably kill me. I’d rather live in the dirt than die.”
He looks at me in silence. I can feel his thoughts, his confusion, his disappointment.
“You want me for one thing, and I can’t do that one thing. So go on. Throw me back. It’s what Gerald did.”
“What is a Gerald?”
“He was my husband,” I say through gritted teeth. “He wanted to breed me too, basically. It didn’t work. We tried everything. Fertility treatments. Fertilizations. Nothing worked. My womb is inhospitable. We got divorced over it—he left me for someone he could… breed.”
There is silence. A deep, heavy silence that stretches between us. I keep my face away from his because I can’t stand to look at him. I know how disappointed he must be. I have seen that gut-wrenching look on one man’s face before and I do not need to see it amplified on his handsome face. At first I was secretly smug that his plan would fail, but that was when I hated him. Since then, my hatred for him has become something else. Something I can’t name. It’s not love. It doesn’t feel anything like what I felt when Gerald and I walked down the aisle, promised ourselves to one another for better or worse. What I do know is that his rejection, now, would be too much.
“You should have told me.”
I squeeze my eyes closed as hot tears start to fall.
“I could have done something. I could have helped you.”
“There’s nothing to help. I don’t produce eggs. There’s nothing to fertilize. You could shoot loads into me from now until the end of time and nothing would happen.”
“I see,” he says, his tone heavy. “This is… a problem.”
“No fucking kidding.”
* * *
I should have tested her. Why did I not test her? All females are tested for fertility before being taken into breeding programs. I was distracted by her beauty, and I assumed evidence of her cycle was evidence of reproductive health.
I leave her sitting on the bed and go out to get her what she needs. We have a vendor that sells items for humans, and sanitary items are among them. I should have made sure that I had some available, but it never occurred to me that she would cycle again. I have filled her with my seed so many times, conception seemed like an inevitability.
She has curled up in the corner of the bed where she seems miserable, and likely, afraid. The female cycle can be brutal on some specimens. The bleeding can be quite extreme and cause much in the way of pain. It is a defect in their species that we will breed out over time.
“I’ve failed you, Karlo,” she says, her eyes puffy and red. “Just like I said I would. Just like I fail every man.”
“You have not failed.” I sit beside her and stroke her hair. “It is not your fault. We are all at nature’s mercy. There may still be some treatment…”
“There are no treatments,” she sniffs. “We tried everything.”
“Human technology does not match ours. There could still be…”
“I don’t care,” she says, suddenly fierce. “I tried and I tried and I won’t try again. I can’t have a baby. That’s it.”
There is little point discussing the matter at this moment. She will not be fertile for another two weeks. Her sadness is much deeper than she wishes to let on. I can see it in the taut, pained expression of her face, in the way she holds her body.
“I will retrieve some pain medication.”
“Why? You like me in pain. You’re always inflicting it. Why stop it now?”
“That is pain for a purpose. The pain you feel now serves no purpose at all.”
She curls up tighter, refusing to look at me. The sheets are damp beneath her eyes. Her misery is palpable. I leave her for a moment to get the medication, and when I come back her shoulders are shaking. She is not just sad. She is grieving.
I sit back next to her and apply the medication injector to her neck. A dose of exceptionally effective painkiller is delivered directly into her bloodstream and within seconds, I know she is feeling less pain. Physically, anyway.
It hurts to see her like this. I ignore her protests and pull her into my arms, cradling her body against my own. I can smell her blood. It is rich and thick, going to waste between her thighs. I wish I could do something, but there is nothing to be done.
Her sobs grow as I cradle her, louder and more intense for a time until she begins to tire of misery. The stress chemicals are being metabolized efficiently in her sadness and as the minutes go by, she begins to settle again.
“I thought it might work,” she says softly. “I thought…”
“It is just one cycle.”
“It’s not just one.” She shakes her head. “I tried from eighteen to twenty-one. Those are your most fertile years. Thirty-six cycles. I failed on every one.”
As I hold the woman who has become so dear to me, I wonder what is to be done. If it is true that she cannot produce any of my lineage, then I have a decision to make. Protocol is clear on these matters. I can keep her, of course. My rank allows me to keep as many females as I desire. But I must also find and take another mate. Society demands that I produce an heir. To fail to do so would be to fail the millions who came before me, and deny existence to the many who will come after. It is not a matter of choice, it is a matter of duty.
“Will you send me back to the fields?” Her voice is small as she asks the one thing she must be most afraid of happening. She has not stopped claiming to hate me, but still the thought of being sent away seems to trouble her. Likely because she would lose the comforts a mate is afforded, and find herself back in the conditions that led to her sorry state.
“No,” I reassure her. “I will never do that. You have earned your freedom.”
“What will you do with me? I’m of no use to you.”
“You still please me,” I say, stroking her hair.
“So you will… we will…”
“I will keep you as my own and procreate elsewhere.”
Her eyes darken and her face pales. “Elsewhere?”
“There are many willing wombs,” I comfort her. “Don’t worry.”
* * *
Don’t worry?
I push myself out of his arms and stare at him, dumbfounded.
Don’t worry that he’s just going to go and fuck someone else? Start a family with her and keep me for, what? His amusement?
Bastard. He’s such a fucking bastard. I hate him as much as I love him, and the warring emotions make me feel like I’m being torn apart from the inside out.
I can already imagine what she will be like. I’ve seen the breeding women. I saw them rubbing their full bellies, attentive mates by their sides. Rathkari men go to their knees for a pregnant woman. As a result, they have a certain aura about them. They are well taken care of, sleek and privileged. It shows in their faces, and in their smug little smiles. They’re so fucking pleased with themselves.
I can see his chosen mate in my mind’s eye. She is likely pretty and graceful and soft—everything I am not. Her breasts are full of milk, indicating that she has already borne at least one Rathkari spawn. She is led to his chambers willingly, a little smile on her face. She is looking forward to being with him.
I am jealous. To the very core of me I loathe her, this woman who does not yet exist. I want to throw myself through time and wrestle her away from him, but I can’t. I know how this goes. All I can do is sit and watch as the man I love against all odds walks away with another woman. Again.
History is repeating, and I can’t bear it. It was bad enough when Gerald left. People pitied me then, and that was just as bad as the grief I felt at losing him. Now nobody pities me. Not even Karlo. He sees no reason not to take another lover, because I was never anything but a means to an end for him. Just like Gerald. Males, of any species, are scum.
“You can’t keep me.”
“Of course I can. It is my right…”
“Even Gerald wasn’t this fucking cruel,” I interrupt him. “At least he let me go. He didn’t make me fucking watch…”
“Is that what you want? To be let go?”
“I want to be so fucking far away from you and everything like you that I can’t remember it,” I hiss, seething with rage and bitterness.
He nods.
He doesn’t say a fucking word. He doesn’t tell me he’s sorry. He doesn’t tell me that he loves me. Silence extends between us and I know there is no understanding. I am alien to him as he is to me. There can be no return from this schism.
I have cried too much. I can’t cry anymore, but I am angry and I will not have him walk away from me without feeling it. It is stupid and impulsive, but I fly at him. My fingers are clawed as I rake them over the skin of his chest, leaving faint trails. If he were a man, I’d be drawing blood, but Rathkari are thick-skinned in more ways than one.
“Enough!” He growls the word and captures my hands, wrestling me down onto the bed. “I do not want to punish you in this condition. You know better than to act this way,”
“I don’t give a fuck!” I shriek at him. “Beat me! I don’t care!”
He holds me so easily. My rage doesn’t matter. Nothing does. I am so weak.
He holds me down until I stop fighting, then he gets up, turns on his heel, and just leaves. I watch him go, the hollow gnawing feeling in my stomach expanding to fill my entire being. This is it. It’s all over.