Chapter 45
Nahash basked in the sun, lying atop a rock outcropping overlooking the picnic site where Ava and Cass played with their charges.
Little Nashi was still too young to do much more than wiggle and squirm on the blanket, but baby Ava and baby Helen were already moving around quite a bit, causing Ava to rush around in order to keep them from leaving the blanket.
Helen was the most precocious, her little tentacles constantly seeking something new to pick up and investigate. She was always entangled with something that she’d try to pull to her mouth to chew on.
Baby Ava was just learning to sting things, making her the more dangerous of the two girls, but fortunately, most of her stings were dry and she never targeted her caretakers. They still had to be careful about grabbing her without a sound to warn her first, which was one reason Ruffus was leashed on the other side of the blanket from the child, though he loved to gambol around the babies if given the chance.
They had offered to babysit to give the Claire and Thrax time alone together, while Nemon was off-world on a dive for the Akrellians, seeking some sunken artifact on a distant world. Joanie had gone with him, trusting Ava and Cass to the care of Helen, though she’d been very reluctant to do so and had almost cancelled a thousand times. Nemon had talked her into going, knowing their daughter was well protected by her family of freaks.
Nahash liked the term now, and felt like it fit in a good way. He was part of a family and they were freaks, created unnaturally—now creating new lives, perhaps even the beginning of new species.
He’d warmed up to his new friends, and though Thrax was never the most gracious of males, he’d allowed himself to be befriended by Nahash. Nemon was another matter entirely. He was a friendly companion, curious about Nahash’s life and experiences to the point where it sometimes got exhausting to answer his many questions, but he was eminently likable and reminded Nahash of the easy comradery he’d had with other Iriduan soldiers, before his second metamorphosis changed his life completely.
The other human females were equally pleasant. They enjoyed talking to Nahash and learning about the Iriduan culture they’d never known. They’d only seen the bad side of his people, and Nahash was happy to share some of the good with them.
Cass truly appreciated their friendship, quickly growing close to them, though she never stopped missing Jia and Cici, nor her family and friends back on Earth. She’d received some smuggled communications from the two Iriduan females from an unknown source. Nahash had his suspicions—ones that he and Cass didn’t talk about, though he believed she had the same suspicions.
Jia now had a small harem of her own, with permission from the Iriduan government to grow it larger in the future, and Cici was undergoing therapy in a monastery where she was surrounded by other females who cared about her well-being. They were safe, and as happy as Iriduan females could be, but they missed Cass and hoped one day they would have a chance to reunite and meet the baby they’d spent so much time planning for.
Nahash had never been happier, or felt more at home than he did in this place. The “noise” on the mostly primitive planet was so low he could even drop his shields from time to time and just listen and meditate. There was nowhere else he’d rather be than with his mate and son.
On the Akrellian ship on their way to the colony, Halian had cornered him while Cass had been resting up after a marathon session making up for lost time. The fractured male had been in his empathetic state, and had offered Nahash a possible cure for his affliction, though he’d been uncertain how Nahash’s abilities would affect the nanites that would have to be injected into his bloodstream for the cure to work.
Nahash hadn’t cared whether it would work for him or not. He’d politely refused the offer, much to Halian’s shock. The other male spent so much time fearing love that he couldn’t understand why anyone would deliberately remain “trapped” by it.
Nahash had taken the time to try and explain, but he’d seen that Halian didn’t get it—not because he couldn’t, but because he’d completely closed his mind to that part of him that desired love—a part of him that seemed to burn him up inside to the point where Nahash suspected the most dangerous version of Halian was the one he had never met before—the one Halian kept suppressed.
He’d told Halian that he would always love Cass, even if he was “cured” of the affliction, but that he liked the way it added an additional component to their love, because of the wonderful feelings his body experienced whenever she was around. He didn’t want to give that up, not when his mate was the best woman in the galaxy and would never take advantage of how he needed her.
Halian had avoided him after that, but Nahash had been concerned enough about the fractured male to discuss him with Roz, who would sometimes even share insight—though Lusians rarely shared any information unless it furthered their own incomprehensible goals.
His own fracture was already healing, that dark part of him fusing back into one mind with his so it could never take over again. As it returned to him, he gained knowledge of the deeper part of himself that had been hidden in a genetic memory he hadn’t been born with—but that was now an integral part of him.
Roz had said Halian’s fractures were a complicated matter that would not heal as Nahash’s did, because Halian had cured himself of the affliction. Nahash’s healing came from his loving relationship with his mate and the feelings she inspired in him. According to Roz, it was unlikely that Halian would ever experience that because he had missed an opportunity that would have led to a far different potential future—one where the broken male would have had a family and a mate who loved him, despite how damaged he was.
Nahash’s conversation with Roz suggested that Halian’s condition could become a bigger problem, and not just for Halian. Whether the Lusian felt any concern about the Iriduan traitor’s current path or not, Nahash could never tell.
For his part, Nahash would keep an eye out for Halian. The nanites in his blood were not the same as the ones that ran through Nemon’s veins, but they posed the same potential threat. Nahash didn’t worry about Nemon becoming too dangerous to the galaxy, because Nemon carried no malice or anger in any of his hearts.
Nahash couldn’t forget the darker side of Halian, which completely lacked empathy or remorse.