“So you got a white flower?” Liv seemed disappointed at the result of the pregnancy test.
“Well, it’s not for lack of trying.” Neh’sa grinned, her cheeks getting a little warm. “And besides, we have plenty of time to try again since I’m staying here permanently.”
“You are?” Sophie gave a girlish squeal of joy and gave her a spontaneous hug which Neh’sa returned with ease. She had only been living on the Mothership a week but she was getting used to receiving and reciprocating affection from her new friends.
“Yes, I’m sorry to leave Yonnie Six, in a way.” Neh’sa sighed. “It’s been my life for so long. But you know, I realized I wasn’t really happy there. I think because I wasn’t raised there as a child. Deep down I believe I’ve always longed to go back to a society where males and females are equal.” She frowned. “I will miss my Mercy clinic, though. I don’t know who’s going to fund it now that I’m gone.”
“Don’t worry about the clinic,” Thorn said, coming in from the food prep area and handing her a drink.
They were “hanging out” as Liv called it, in the suite of another new friend—a full figured woman named Kat with gorgeous auburn hair. She was joined to Twin Kindred called Deep and Lock who were currently with Liv and Sophie’s mates in the food prep area. But Thorn, who had been talking to the other males, apparently couldn’t stay away from her—not that Neh’sa minded.
“Why should I not worry?” she asked, frowning at him. “What did you do?”
“Oh, I just happened to come upon an extremely valuable item—a Timbrian emerald brooch.” He grinned at her. “So I sold it and sent the proceeds to your doctor over on Yonnie Six. He seemed to think it would keep the clinic doors open for quite some time.”
“Lady Wraith’neck’s emerald brooch!” Neh’sa’s eyes widened. “But that brooch was her family’s birthright! Without it, she’s not a proper Mistress. She won’t be able to buy or sell slaves or even attend any social events! She’s going to be a social outcast on Yonnie Six.”
“And that’s a bad thing why exactly?” he murmured dryly.
Neh’sa couldn’t help laughing. “Thorn, you’re too much.”
“I just want you to be happy…Mistress,” he murmured, giving her a smile that seemed to melt things low in her pelvis. “And I knew you’d feel bad about leaving the clinic with no funding.”
“You think of everything.” Neh’sa smiled at him.
“Does my Mistress find it pleasing?” he asked softly, the golden sparks in his eyes beginning to dance.
“Very pleasing,” Neh’sa purred.
“Okay, break it up,” Kat said, laughing. “I get that you’re newly mated and you can’t keep your hands off each other but my kids are asleep in the other room—or they’re supposed to be asleep. You never can tell when the little boogers are going to wake up and come running out here. So let’s keep it PG, all right?”
“Sorry,” Thorn said, grinning unrepentantly. “We’ll try to behave. It’s just difficult when my Mistress is so fucking gorgeous.”
“Duly noted, doll,” Kat said, grinning. “I just don’t want to have to explain the facts of life to my boys if one or all of them wake up and come out of their room. That is not a conversation I’m ready to have yet.”
Liv frowned. “Is Shadow still having those night terrors?”
“Afraid so.” Kat sighed. “He must have heard Deep and Lock and I discussing the Hive because he keeps having bad dreams about ‘the giant bugs’.” She shook her head. “We have to be more careful around him. War and Peace are pretty much oblivious but Shad picks up on everything.”
“Well, he’s a shadow twin so he’s more sensitive, right?” Sophie asked. “I mean, aren’t they supposed to have precognitive powers or something like that?”
“The only power that kid has is the most active imagination I’ve ever seen,” Kat said firmly. “That and the fact that he’s way too perceptive for his own good.”
“Well, at least we don’t have to worry about the Hive being anything other than a nightmare,” Liv said. “With the information Commander Thorn sent us, we know what to do—just keep the shield up around the Earth and under no circumstances let them get their disgusting claws on any humanoid females.”
“Especially not the one special female—the Hive information calls her a ten’sora,” Sophie added.
“A what? What’s that?” Kat asked, frowning.
“Well, according to the information, when the Sovereign—the head bad guy bug in the Hive—implants a female with his grubs they…” Sophie made a face. “They chew their way out when they’re grown—killing her in the process.”
“Ugh!” Kate exclaimed.
“Sorry, but it’s true.” Sophie shrugged her shoulders. “Anyway, that kills the host and so each girl can only host, uh, one batch of grubs.”
“This is truly horrifying,” Neh’sa murmured, feeling sick. “No wonder you were so desperate to get information on how to defeat these evil creatures!”
“It gets worse,” Sophie said. “I know—I’ve been studying the information along with Sylvan every night.” She shrugged. “He can’t keep himself from bringing his work home. Anyway, this ten’sora is a humanoid female—one in a billion supposedly—who can withstand the gestation of the grubs. I mean, her womb produces a certain kind of hormone or chemical that keeps them from biting their way out.”
“So what…they come out the normal way?” Liv shivered. “Not that there’s anything normal about giving birth to a batch of grubs—yuck!”
“Exactly.” Sophie nodded. “Which means the poor girl—whoever she is—can go on gestating batch after batch of grubs for the Hive.”
“How horrible!” Kat exclaimed. “Do we know who this poor girl is? This ten’sora?”
Sophie shook her head. “It could be anyone—any of the billions of females down on Earth or even here in the Mothership. The point is, we have to keep the Hive from getting even one female. Because if they somehow got their claws on a ten’sora…”
Kat gave a long, low whistle.
“Then it’s bye-bye baby,” she remarked. “If they start breeding, we’re done for.”
“It’s not going to happen,” Sophie said firmly. “The energy field the Kindred put around the Earth when the Scourge were attacking has been ramped way up. Nothing bigger than a bee can get in or out so the chances of one of those huge flying scouts Brynn and Varin told us about getting through is absolutely zero.”
“Who are Brynn and Varin?” Neh’sa asked.
“Friends you haven’t met yet,” Liv told her. “They’re newly mated too—they had some actual run-ins with the Hive and they’re the first people who warned us about them.”
“You’ll love Bryn—she was a princess on another planet and Varin was her body-guard slave,” Kat told them. “You guys should have a lot in common.”
“Well, I don’t know that a Mistress is much like a princess but I’d love to meet them,” Neh’sa said.
“But we’re sure the Hive can’t get anyone in or out past the energy shield?” Liv asked, a troubled look on her face. “I mean, they don’t have anything like the Scourge’s molecular transfer beam, do they?”
“If they did, don’t you think they would have already started using it?” Sophie asked reasonably. “Don’t worry, Liv—the Hive can’t get past the shield to snatch any Earth girls. And no girls means no grubs. No grubs means they’ll die off eventually—we just have to wait it out.”
“All right.” Liv sighed. “I’m sorry, it’s just the stories Brynn told us are so awful and I know you said she told Sylvan she had a vision that confirms the fact the Sovereign of the Hive is still alive and kicking…”
“Mommy! Mommy!” Suddenly a little boy with a thick shock of snow-white hair and large, black eyes came running into the living area. “Mommy, she’s in trouble!” he gasped, throwing himself into Kat’s lap.
“Who’s in trouble, Shad?” Kat caught him and held him tight. “What are you talking about, honey? Did you have another bad dream?”
“The pretty lady. She’s in trouble!” There were tears in his large, dark eyes, Neh’sa saw with concern. Whatever he had dreamed seemed to have really affected him.
“What pretty lady?” Kat asked, smoothing back his snow-white hair.
Really, Neh’sa thought, he had remarkable coloring for a child. His features were almost as pretty as a girl’s but there was an underlying bone structure that spoke of the handsome male he would one day become.
“The pretty lady,” the child insisted, tears spilling over and running down his flushed cheeks. “She has skin the color of Auntie Lauren’s and eyes the color of your favorite earrings.”
“The jade ones?” Kat asked him and he nodded vigorously.
“Yes, those! Anyway, I saw her in my dream—she’s in trouble! She got stung and now she’s in trouble.”
“Stung by what, honey?” Kat lifted him as she talked, cradling him to her as she walked back to the bedroom he’d run out of. “Stung by a bee?”
“A mean, green bee,” Shadow said. “Mommy, we have to help her! Please, can’t we go to her?”
“You’re not going anywhere but back to bed, little man.” Kat kissed him on the forehead. “But I’ll sit with you a while to make sure you’re all right.”
“But—but the pretty lady!”
“It’s all right, honey—it was just a dream,” Kat soothed. And then she carried him into the bedroom and shut the door.
“Poor little thing—he seemed so upset!” Neh’sa remarked. “And what dramatic coloring he has.”
“Yes, he’s a shadow twin,” Liv explained. Usually when Twin Kindred mate with a woman, she has twin boys, like her mates. But sometimes a third is born—a shadow twin.”
“They have it kind of rough because they don’t look like their brothers and they don’t have a twin of their own to grow up with and call a mate with,” Sophie added. “As for the hair and eyes, Kat told me around puberty, they’re supposed to change completely.”
“Oh?” Neh’sa said. “Will he have auburn hair like his mother? Or black or brown hair like his fathers?” She had met Deep and Lock and liked them both.
“None of the above.” Sophie shook her head. “Supposedly when the hormones hit, they’ll change his hair to black and his eyes to white—a total switch. Weird, huh?”
“That would be interesting to see.” Neh’sa thought of the little boy’s gorgeous bone structure. “He’s going to be a very striking looking male when he grows up.”
“Undoubtedly,” Thorn murmured.
Just then, Kat came out of the sleeping room and shut the door softly behind her.
“All right…” She sighed and sank back down on the couch. “He’s mostly asleep again. I tell you, I wish these dreams would stop—they make him so upset. He went on and on about the ‘pretty lady’ and how she needed our help.”
“Do you think there could be something to it?” Liv asked. “I mean, it’s strange but we’ve all seen strange things since the Kindred came to Earth. Do you think there’s some girl somewhere we ought to be looking for?”
“I don’t know.” Kat frowned. “I don’t think so but right before Shad closed his eyes, he said the strangest thing.”
“Oh? What did he say?” Sophie looked interested.
“He said, ‘Don’t worry, mommy. The Goddess says it’s all right if you don’t believe me—she’s going to let me help the pretty lady myself when I grow up.’” She shook her head. “Isn’t that weird? I swear, when he started talking about the Goddess I got chills.”
“Maybe it was some kind of dream about his future,” Liv said thoughtfully. “They do say shadow twins have special powers, right?”
“I’d rather not think about it, okay?” Kat looked at them pleadingly. “It’s hard enough for Shad as it is, not having a twin like his brothers. He doesn’t need to feel singled out in any other way, you know?”
“I know, honey.” Sophie put an arm around her comfortingly. “It’s going to be all right. He’s such a bright, special little boy. He’s going to find his way—you’ll see.”
Kat sighed. “From your mouth to the Goddess’s ear.” She leaned over and picked up the drink she’d abandoned earlier. “Hey, let’s stop talking about depressing stuff, okay? This is supposed to be a party. So let’s have some fun!”
Neh’sa agreed with the sentiment completely—she wanted to have fun with her new friends and her new mate whom she loved so much.
But she couldn’t help letting her eyes drift to the bedroom door…couldn’t stop seeing the little boy and hear him crying,
“The pretty lady, Mommy—she’s in trouble!”