YAHIRO

Months later, she’d suspected but hadn’t been sure. She knew Earth months had passed in her life even though they had only traveled the planet in two world spins.

She reached down and caressed her distended belly and the kicks followed her hand.

Yahiro lifted her other hand to scratch the broken translator tech behind her ear. It was her reminder of her former life while the heavy stone in her stomach served as the anchor to the life she had now. She also had her bag from Galan, but chose to keep her past... her past. The only thing she kept with her was her sister’s unicorn.

After Lusheenn had been stopped from solidifying, and she had slowly begun to heal—slower than her valos liked—the melted golden light had never left her skin. And even now, standing under the rays of the sun, she still felt the twinges of encroaching embers across her marks.

She also didn’t heal back into the human she once was. She was different now.

The weight gain had taken her by surprise. It happened gradually, in one specific area, that same place where the stone sat heavy inside her. Yahiro had never, in her long, bittersweet life, ever thought about babies, but the moment she discovered the cause of her extra weight, discovered what was growing within her, it had consumed her thoughts.

Because of her surprise and apprehension, she didn’t tell her men. Instead, using caution and secrecy like she had been trained to do, she kept it to herself, and even when her belly got bigger and bigger and Galan began to stare at her with narrowed, suspicious eyes, she kept her mouth shut.

She’d been terrified that maybe she was wrong. That if she voiced it out loud, the idea, the exhilaration of having a baby would flit away in the wind—like so much of her life. It was too precious for her to risk it.

But Galan’s eyes trailed after her, everywhere she went, and then Quist was nearly always by her side. Sundamar had refused to let her leave the city and she was no longer allowed to be taken up into the air and fly with one of her winged angels in the sun’s rays. She still kept it to herself until she felt a kick under her palm.

Since then, they had been on her like white on rice, and it grated every last nerve-ending she had. It could’ve been the pregnancy jitters, she may never know, but her senses had attuned noticeably and even during their stealthier moments, her men could no longer hide from her knowledge. There was always one keeping her within their sights.

The cravings for Earth food had intensified as well, bringing back a whole world of things she missed dearly.

It’s easier now.

Yahiro petted her belly over the gauzy shift she wore. Little tendril-like stretch marks marred her skin. She traced them when she was nervous, a habit Quist had picked up. Although it wasn’t really a habit since he couldn’t keep his hands off her. Galan touched her all the time too.

She found Sundamar’s presence to be her favorite at her worst of times. Sometimes she needed the hard instead of soft, and he always took charge without question. It gave her time to worry about other things.

They had found Preta and Charlie who, in all the strange circumstance that had happened to her since Sonhadra, had mated with valos of their own. Yahiro only saw them once, and once was good enough for her. What worried her now was that they never had found the survivors at the shipwreck. After Lusheenn had been killed and his light had seeped to the very marrow of her body, while her recovery was well on its way, Galan had returned to the site.

He came back empty-handed except for some left-behind supplies. Yahiro believed him when he said he had found no sign of their corpses but she needed to know for herself, and despite the begrudgement of her valos, they had gone back, once again leaving the city behind, unguarded, and unmoving.

The scene was gruesome. She lost count after the first dozen ak’rena corpses, and then the corpses of other forest predators throughout, all at varying stages of decomposition. Alien bugs flitted and crawled over torn skin and in and out of several day old bullet wounds. The rot and putrescence had filled her nose and stayed there.

She cursed Galan, cursed herself, and felt the stabbing pain of guilt seed her flesh and run through her bones. I left them.

Every day, Quist and Galan took shifts to scout and fly around the outskirts of the city, every day they came back with nothing about the humans she had crashed here with. They did come back with a vast amount of intel though, and the daily missions were now mandatory according to Sundamar, who in his own frustration, rarely went out himself.

She made it up to him with half-a-hundred naked liaisons on his throne. A smile twitched at her lips. Her fingers continued to rub her baby-bump. He’ll have the hardest job soon enough.

He’s going to have to play Dad.

He’ll have no idea.

There’s no escape.

That thought filled her with sinister delight and a little bit of glee.

A flash in the distance caught her eye and she peered out over the desert landscape until Quist’s body came into view. He was heading straight toward her and landed in a kneel at her feet to immediately nuzzle her belly.

Yahiro threaded her fingers through his long hair and tugged him harder against her. He doesn’t have to say anything. She already knew he came back with no news.

“How is mine female today?” His lips brushed against her. His English had come far.

“Waiting,” she whispered in reply.

“For me?”

“Yes.”

She clutched his head as he pushed aside her dress and held her upright. His mouth went straight to her clit where in his usual chaotic way, he feasted on her with no rhyme or reason. His tongue would dip into her sex and he’d suck on her quim, the beads on his face rolling anywhere and everywhere, then back to her clit again and again. He kept her on the edge of a climax continuously, as if he had innate skill somewhere in his frenzy.

Yahiro began to sink to the ground when his wings caught her and pulled her under his body and into his cocoon. I wouldn’t change a thing. His cock thrust between her legs in one go and filled her to the brink. And with his hands roaming her body and clenching her dress, he took over until his seed pumped between them.

Sometimes she found climax with Quist; most times she went crawling to Sundamar or Galan to finish her off. But those moments when his frenetic need for her body was tempered enough, she’d scream and thrash and cry, momentarily caught up in the frenzy.

When it was over, he helped her with a smile and righted her dress, the dew between her legs already vanishing into a golden dust.

“What else are you waiting for?” he asked abruptly. Now that Lusheenn was gone, she was the only oath he had left, and because of that, he noticed more than she liked.

Yahiro placed her hands back on her belly, his covered hers that next moment. “This.”

“What else?”

She frowned and pouted and then frowned again. “I wish I had the right words to say.”

Quist pulled her into his arms, and then into his wings until he trapped her away from the universe.

***

SUNDAMAR

He paced in circles unable to stop. Not once, since he re-awoke many dawns past, had he ever felt so out of control. Sundamar glanced at Yahiro lying upon a nest he had painstakingly made—he had put in more dawns, noons, and evenings than he could count. He had never spent so long on one thing in his life. He had never created something for the sake of creation.

It never occurred to him to try until after Yahiro appeared in a vision, and eventually into his world. Sundamar was pleased with the home he had made; it kept his mind off of the fact he was as grounded as his female. But in that, he was happy. It was something only the two of them shared when they watched his brothers jump off the sides of the city or land heavily on their feet.

“I HATE YOU!” Yahiro screeched, making him flinch and clench his hands. His muscles bulged and tensed to the point where he had to strip off the metal plates of his armor. He had no place in the process, useless with the horrible disorder of his female going through childbirth.

Childbirth. Galan had told them all what he had found out and even now his second was kneeled between Yahiro’s spread legs, his eyes nearly as wild but far stronger than he was currently.

Sundamar wetted another gauze and wiped it across his female’s forehead before he went back to pacing.

‘Calm down.’

Yahiro continued to groan and release noises he couldn’t handle, continued to screech and cry between intervals.

‘I can’t.’

‘She’s in pain. You’re not helping.’

‘I don’t know what to do!’

‘Hold her hand.’

Sundamar steeled his nerve and took her hand, regretting it immediately as he felt his finger bones strain under the pressure.

“Galan, please, please just kill me!” she begged between sobs.

“Keep pushing, pale one, death won’t come for you today,” he said with such serenity that Sundamar saw the betrayal in Yahiro’s eyes.

She was leaning into Quist’s chest, who held her from behind and kneaded her muscles. His younger brother’s eyes remained closed. Sundamar twitched when the fresh smell of blood pooled between the four of them and acrid copper took over his senses.

“I see something,” Galan said under his breath. The blood was visible now, spreading into the linens between his second and Yahiro. Sundamar did his best to stay strong even though there was no control for him to have over this situation and he was increasingly bothered by it.

The next half hour was much worse and by the end, he wasn’t sure if he or his family would ever come back from it. Yahiro was drenched and pale, her eyes hooded and body limp from the effort of the miracle she had created. He wished he could take away her misery and absorb it into himself.

And then pure surprise and joy filled him.

Because in his and Galan’s arms were three beautiful babies with raven black and golden streaked hair. Two beautiful little females and one male.

Three. Three. One for me and each of my brothers... and yet, Sundamar couldn’t bear to let go of either child under the curves of his arms. He was already attached to all of them, and each had little stems on their backs for wings.

He was pleased.

“Let me see,” Yahiro whispered.

“I don’t think Sundamar is willing to give those two up, but here is the youngest.” Galan placed the now clean and squirming child upon Yahiro’s chest where it curled up and relaxed.

Fresh tears trailed down his female’s cheeks and Quist did what he could to coo and relax her, his third utterly fixated on Yahiro and her comfort and nothing else. Galan had begun the gruesome process of clean up, taking everything from the birthing nest into the light.

Which left him to care for the babies. Yahiro had endlessly teased him that the job of being a father would be the most difficult one he’d ever have.

Sundamar hadn’t believed her.

He believed her now.

One of the babies released a weak cry and squirmed under his arm. He hefted it closer to his beating heart and watched it with something close to reverence—the same way he watched their mother. When the other two babies quickly followed suit, he shared a look with Yahiro who mimicked the babies cries with a soft smile on her face.

“They’re hungry I think,” she said.

“Do they feed from you or from the sun?”

“I have no idea...”

Sundamar nodded grimly, knowing his work was cut out for him. “Is it okay to bring them out into the light, pale one?” He had no idea what to do.

“Go ahead, but shield their eyes.”

He stepped backward and found a weak ray that flowed through the gilded drapes and fabrics he had lined around the aviary for Yahiro’s sake. His eyes flickered back and forth around his children and his female—wife—watching as Quist moved from behind her slumped shoulders and picked her and their youngest up in his arms and hovered in the air.

The pain on Yahiro’s face shifted back and forth, her exhaustion and strain heavy enough for even he and his brothers to feel. They had a job to do and even though he thought he had started it months ago, he knew with the wiggling ones under his arms that it had only begun. Quist flew them to his side and they went into the light together.

His heart filled with light, pure light, full of serenity, and it strengthened his resolve. It flooded his eyes and brightened them into a glow that cascaded out upon his family.

The babies stopped mewling and his heart stopped with fear. He raised them in his hands and didn’t hear the laughter of the others, afraid the light had hurt them.

It wasn’t until Galan slapped him on the back that he realized the babies and their small wing stubs shimmered in the sun, that the light cleaned them better than the water they’d used and all that remained was gold dust on soft gold skin.

“Oh thank god. I was worried about diapers.” Diapers? Yahiro laughed. “I’m down with alien DNA.” But as she spoke, the youngest latched onto her breast and sucked. “Hrrmm, or not.”

“We’ll figure it out,” Galan said.

“We will,” Quist responded, pressing Yahiro closer into his chest, his wings expanding and circling all seven of them.

“How long were you three children?”

“We never were,” he said. “We were brought forth fully grown. These are the first children to grace a City of Light.” And they were the best. Sundamar held his treasures close.

“Weelll damn,” she muttered, her throat still hoarse from her screams. “You three are in for a real treat when they’re toddlers, especially if they’re toddlers for centuries.” Yahiro was filled with warnings and jokes and threats about many things he didn’t understand. Only things she and Galan seemed to know from the technology in their heads, but he didn’t mind, and Quist taunted her right back in response.

“Good thing you’ll be here to deal with them.”

Ever since Yahiro swallowed Lusheenn and drank down the molten gold of their Creator’s power, she had begun to change—slowly—into her own lighted valos.

Already, he could see his youngest brother itching to fly their female and their children into the sky and take them on an adventure.

The spark had quietly returned to Quist after Yahiro swallowed Lusheenn whole; Sundamar could see a new goal build like sunfire behind his brother’s irises and it filled him with relief. Even though they still had humans to find and save and had the cities to bring back to life, Quist needed a mission to keep his soul powered.

Sundamar unhappily relinquished his children to Galan and Yahiro, until he was given the youngest to hold, a pale little girl who stole his heart. His lips curved into a smile when he noticed a tuft of raven-black hair atop her head.

His heart swelled beyond its walls as he gazed down at his... daughter. The molo took another giant step forward. He created all that was around him, all that he cared about. Yahiro had found his heart, took in his guilt, and his love, and saved all of them.

Today, he would figure out his children. Tomorrow, he would rebuild his kingdom. After that... who knew? There was hope now. And there was light. Glorious light all across the wilds of Sonhadra.

But right now, as he looked upon his daughter, all he needed to do was be with his family.

His eyes landed on Yahiro and a heavy affection bloomed like wildflowers in his chest. Love, Galan called it. Sundamar shared a look with his brother.

They were happy. And in love.