Page 89 of The Hunter

Jerking back as though he’d been struck, Tas stared at Lacey in stunned silence, mandibles spreading wide and twitching.

Everyone else was staring at her too. Lacey’s skin itched, but she kept her hands in her lap. She wasn’t sure if their reactions were purely out of shock, or if revulsion was mixed in.

Cole gave a nervous laugh. “I take it you guys didn’t know vrix and humans can fu—er, mate and have kids?”

“No,” said Ohn, who was sitting next to Tas. Her red eyes flicked between Lacey and Cole. “We are so different. You are human. We are vrix.”

“Yeah, well, I guess the parts fit.”

Lacey looked at Sophia. “Have you noticed that male vrix act differently around you when you’re ovulating?”

The woman’s jaw dropped, and her cheek darkened. “Oh, my God.”

“Yeah. Apparently we put out some pheromone or something that makes them horny.”

“I mean, I knew they reacted that way, but not that we could actually…” She shook her head. “Okay. Wow.”

Cole chuckled. “Yeah, took us by surprise too when we found out Ivy was pregnant. I mean, a lot of us were freaking out thinking that she was going to lay eggs.”

“Did she?” Sophia asked, looking horrified by the prospect.

“No,” Lacey said. “She gave birth to a baby vrix. The gestation time was shorter than a human’s, and he’s very much vrix in appearance with a few human characteristics. But he’s proof vrix and humans can procreate.”

“How is that possible?” Tas asked.

“We don’t know for sure, but Diego thinks it’s from the injections we got before leaving Earth.”

“All those shots for our immune systems or whatever?” Sophia asked.

“They were meant to help us adapt to our new environment. But, well…they apparently also allowed our bodies, our eggs, to adapt to vrix sperm.”

“Ahmya and Callie are pregnant now too,” Cole said.

Quiet but excited conversations broke out amongst the winddancers.

“We hope to one day meet them and see for ourselves,” Tas said. “This… It can only be fate that humans and vrix have come together. It must be.”

Lacey once more found herself looking at Telok.

Of course this was fate. To have journeyed across so many light years of empty space only for something to hit the ship at the exact right moment, in the exact right way, to send pieces of it to this planet, with people still alive inside, and then for two of those pieces to be discovered by an intelligent species… And on top of that, for three of those survivors to find love with those aliens, and then be able to have children with them?

How astronomical were the odds of all that happening?

And I might be the fourth…

Telok was staring back at her, head canted, mandibles subtly twitching. She doubted he’d heard any of the conversation, but he must’ve seen the reactions of Sophia and the winddancers.

“So you mentioned the other humans and their mates.” Sophia pointed her finger back and forth between Cole and Lacey. “Are you two…?”

“Fuck no!” both Lacey and Cole exclaimed.

Then they looked at each other and said, “No offense.”

Sophia laughed. “Really?”

Lacey smirked. “Yeah. We’d kill each other.”

Chuckling, Cole awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck. “I wouldn’t go that far. Lacey and I are just friends.” He jabbed his thumb toward Telok. “But he would totally kill me.”