Chapter 26
Eva
I hadn’t heard from Ivy or Laura lately. I needed to tell them about my pregnancy and talk with them about it. So far, the only people who knew were Willem and Linnea. Probably A’dam knew as well, but so far as I could tell, A’dam knew everything.
Ivy had taken me in as family, and Laura was my closest friend. It almost physically pained me that I hadn’t been able to tell them about this newest development in my life. This was certainly an aspect of the situation I hadn’t thought of when I’d originally signed up for the Peace Opportunity Program. I had known I’d be away from them, surely, but I didn’t ever think we’d be without contact.
I don’t think I’d ever even thought I’d leave Earth. These past several months had been beyond my wildest dreams. Ivy and Laura would understand if I could just talk to them. I knew the first thing they’d tell me to do would be to tell Raevu about the pregnancy.
I still hadn’t managed to confess to Raevu that he and I were expecting. I kept thinking of everything that could possibly go wrong. Maybe this was a false positive. Maybe this was a strange reaction to stress my body was taking.
Maybe… Honestly, maybe I was just nervous about telling him. Would my usefulness be over once it was known I was pregnant? Was I just a baby-maker to him? If only I could get in touch with Ivy or Laura. They’d help me talk through this.
My days were filled with Hope. I refused any kind of help with her. I was her mother. She was my child. Every evening, I’d fall into my bed, exhausted, and immediately go to sleep. My nights were also filled with Raevu, and most nights, I’d awaken to the delicious sensations of his hands running over my skin. He’d slip into our bed and start his sensual worship of my body. I’d wake thrumming with need, nipples pebbled from his plucking, a pool of moisture at the juncture of my thighs aching for him to thrust himself inside. And being pregnant seemed to make everything more sensitive; there was a heightened awareness of my body. And Raevu seemed to know exactly what to do and where to touch me until I was on the verge of begging for him to fuck me hard.
Even now, the memory of last night, when his large hands cupped my generous breasts, rolling my nipples between his fingers and tongue, made a shiver run through me. Damn…the way his muscular body had looked all stretched out beside me, while his hand had stroked down my body and across my belly to my center. And then he’d parted my lower lips with his fingers and found the sensitive bud of my clit throbbing in anticipation of his touch. He’d placed one finger on each side of that little nub and began slow up-and-down strokes. My hips had rocked with his strokes, meeting his hand, making it easier for him to reach and begin to enter my core with just the knuckle of one finger, teasing me with light sensation.
Wanting to touch as well as be touched, I’d grasped his erection, gratified to hear the small moan he emitted as I began to stroke him up and down, while my other hand I had smoothed over his bald head, arching my back to get my nipple closer to his mouth. Our movements grew faster, deeper, and more urgent with each stroke of a hand. A tremor had shot through me, once, twice. I had suddenly needed more and deeper.
I had stopped our play, and he had let me nudge him onto his back. Swiftly, I had thrown one leg over his torso and straddled his hips. Placing one hand on either side of his head, I had arched my back and settled downward until I could feel the pressure of his manhood poised at my entrance.
Slowly, I had sheathed him with my body. He had filled me, stretching me with his girth as I sat back until hips met hips and he was completely embedded within me. With a couple of quick flicks of my tongue over his lips, I had settled back again. Up and down, forward and back, I had rocked our bodies together. His hands had gripped my hips and aided my rhythm.
I had pushed myself hard, driving us faster and faster, feeling the tension build and curl inside me. I remembered feeling it twisting, tightening, and spiraling deep in my center. I had shuddered with the force of the orgasm that surged through me. I had felt myself clenching around Raevu’s shaft. The extra pressure must have sent him over the edge of control too, because he had grabbed me, and without breaking our joining, rolled us over. With a couple of deep plunges, he had shuddered and expelled his hot seed inside me. With a deep sigh, he had settled on top of me, his weight comfortable and warm. Within moments, with him still cushioned between my legs and on my breasts, I had fallen asleep.
Hope cried, shaking me awake. She’d miraculously slept through the night since we’d brought her home. Willem’s DNA testing had proven that Raevu was indeed her father, but that Acidi wasn’t her biological mother. Once Raevu and Willem knew that, they’d pieced together what Acidi had done. Aaromon, her brother, confirmed their thoughts after a few questions.
Acidi had scientific research training. Aaromon was a medic in the labs the Juhlians had set up to try to discover ways to produce more girl babies. Hope was actually a test-tube baby.
When Acidi had first gotten hints that Raevu was growing tired of her, she’d redoubled her efforts for a while to get pregnant. After one such effort, she’d “harvested” some of his sperm for use in their labs. She had discovered that, like Linnea, she couldn’t produce viable eggs. So, they’d stolen some from the labs and set about to create a child for Raevu and her.
Their timing was a bit off, and Acidi had some difficulties with her hormones being out of whack since it wasn’t a natural pregnancy. Because of this, there had not been quite enough room for Hope to develop properly in utero, resulting in a completely nongenetically based clubfoot.
Everyone was horrified at what she’d done, and Raevu and I were furious. There was no question of Acidi ever seeing the baby again now. I wouldn’t allow it. The Grand Mother wouldn’t either. She’d sent Acidi to another jalkavaima complex on a completely different continent. There, she would be part of a scientific research team studying birds or something. Aaromon, since he had succeeded in ensuring a healthy female baby, was put to work under strict supervision and told to replicate his findings faithfully—if he wanted to avoid exile.
Hope’s biological mother was unknown, but the baby officially had been given to me to raise. Now I never had an opportunity to get bored or restless. I spent every waking moment with the little girl who had captured my heart.
Just days after her birth, she’d had surgery to repair her clubfoot. Seeing her leg in its tiny, flexible cast always broke my heart just a little and made me want to curse at Acidi. I still didn’t know how she had thought she could leverage this poor baby to force Raevu to become life mates with her. But like much that she did, her motives were not just mysterious—they seemed irrational to the point of insanity.
How any mother could carry life under her heart for any length of time and then deny the child when born out of anything but necessity was completely beyond me. I didn’t understand it at all.
But I felt that Hope was like me, when my parents had abandoned me, throwing me away for no damn reason. I knew the Grand Mother meant well when she’d planned to take her, and Hope would have had a better life than I did growing up in the Children’s Ward. But she never would have had a real mom or a real dad. And I realized now that that was the worst part for me growing up.
I vowed to give Hope what I never had. A mother who stuck around, protecting and loving her.
When Hope was napping, I took care of other business. I’d met briefly with perfumers and candlemakers who seemed enthused about adding Earth scents to their repertoires. Anything resinous, green, or floral attracted them.
I had A’dam send a message packet to President Maeda on Earth. With my current ambassadorial status, I had a great deal of leeway in requests I could make. I asked for plants and seeds that produced the scents in question, and I asked Maeda if a botanist would be interested in making the trip.
We began, over transmission packets, to negotiate trade in the form of restaurants, entertainment, and market stalls, and, most importantly of all, families that might want to immigrate to Juhl. I figured that if families with girls in them were here, then nature could take its own course and the population could expand through the regular interactions between our people. Even if not all were genetically compatible now, the project would eventually find a solution.
Raevu would still have to meet with his council about arranging for a large influx of just human women as brides or jalkavaima. But to convince them, he’d need to know our mating experiment was a success. A complete success, unlike the disaster I had barely survived back on Earth.
That thought discomfited me. I was an experiment. Did Raevu still see me that way? I knew I’d started out in his mind as “the female” and even “his female,” but was I still? I traced a hand lightly over the sigil that forever marked me as his. How do I really feel about him now?
I smiled because there was no doubt in my mind that I loved my sexy alien mate. Yes, he was domineering, brusque, bad-tempered, and impulsive. But he was also brave, caring, nurturing, funny, protective, charismatic, intelligent, and fucking spectacular in bed. And despite our ups and down together, I wanted to stay with him…forever.
I sat down abruptly in the nearest chair, and tears came to my eyes. Furiously, I blinked them away. I am independent and self-sufficient, dammit! And I love Raevu. I wanted to stay with him, build a life with him, and have lots of babies. And somehow, those things didn’t really feel like they were in opposition anymore.
Seeing the camaraderie between him and his most trusted advisers, T’ral and Baelon, while we were on Earth, and watching them interact had been interesting. When Raevu’s old friend, Ken Maeda, the president of my planet, had been added into the mix, everything had shifted to fascinating… They were extraordinary men doing ordinary things. Connecting and working together just like I’d seen cooks and chefs work with Gino at his restaurant when I’d taken shifts there to pull in extra money.
And when we’d gotten on board the ship and I saw in action how the respect had flowed back and forth between Raevu and his people, I knew then that he genuinely cared for their well-being, and they cared right back for his. I had seen that even more profoundly when we arrived on Juhl. Raevu’s people could absolutely count on him to lay down his life for them.
Yes, I also saw his arrogance and stubbornness—and how hard I would sometimes have to work to get him to communicate his thoughts and intentions with me clearly, without him being an asshole. But I knew now it was just him to keep things close to his chest and not share them like I thought he should, but it was because he’d never had a mate to share that part of him. Several of our arguments could have been completely avoided if he’d just told me why we were doing something a certain way, instead of assuming that I automatically understood his rationale. Raevu had his faults, and so did I. We both weren’t perfect, but no one was. What was important was that he was considerate of me and respected my thinking. He’d taken to talking with me of policy and government just before our evening meal every night. And he was so passionate in his lovemaking and could set my whole body aflame with just a look. And then it was how tender I’d seen him be with Hope. He was so large, but his hands couldn’t be gentler in his handling of her like a precious package.
I swiped at the tears on my face from all of the love I felt for both Raevu and Hope. But I had to get my shit together; Linnea would be here any moment now for another history lesson. She couldn’t see me when I was this emotional mess.
I grinned. Damn. I loved Raevu, and I wanted to stay and make a family here and build a life. By God, I hoped I’d read all the signs right and he’d love me back.