Page 24 of Darkest Dredge

Her cute little belly rounded more with the second egg inside her, driving me into an animalistic heat. Fuck. No wonder she was into this kind of thing.

It was as hot as it was fucked up.

That pressure low in my core I now knew was my alien body prepping for implantation. My mate’s body clenched as she seemed to brace to receive a third egg.

The boat violently jerked, nearly knocking me off the bunk. The shift in the vessel had disconnected our bodies, and my senses instantly sharpened to what I’d been too distracted to notice before.

A storm.

I didn’t have to look outside to see it—I could feel its approach in my blood. It beckoned me.

Whirling around, I pushed through the cabin door and ascended the stairs to the deck, pausing only for a moment to stare back at her before flinging myself out into the oncoming storm. The freezing rain hammered against my new strange skin, the sting of each drop like thousands of needles pricking me. The boat rocked violently, wave after tumultuous wave crashing over the railing, as though the sea itself were intent on reclaiming what we’d taken.

Still, it wasn’t enough to distract me from what I’d done.

I’d forced myself on that poor woman.

And… I’d laid something inside her. Eggs. Fucking eggs!

Loathing and bile seared my throat.

And I wanted to do it again.

The mask had a purpose. And it needed my body, and hers, to fulfill it. Something to do with those eggs.

I wasn’t sure how I knew that; all I had was this cosmic feeling.

Like an ancient task nearly complete.

I had a feeling I hadn’t finished laying them either. There was more still to dispense. Had the storm not interrupted. The sky blackened, and the storm turned murderous. This wasn’t a normal storm. The sea was beckoning me, trying to call me home.

If it was just me out here, I’d let it smash the vessel to pieces, and I’d sink down into the ocean depths, never to emerge again. But I couldn’t, not with Bea on board.

Especially now that our mate is carrying the future.

Suddenly, I found myself thankful for the distraction the treacherous storm provided.

I set to work, turning on the engine and keeping the boat from smashing against dangerous black rocks that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

The rocks loomed ominous overhead, and suddenly, recognition. Clarity. Peace.

The storm clouds parted over the rock, like it was the very center of the storm. Alien stars burned overhead, and golden warmth enveloped my thundering heart. My consciousness expanded to take it all in, and I knew in that moment, I knew this place. I’d never been here.

Still. I knew it.

Before I could move closer to what appeared to be the mouth of a cave, a terrible sound rattled from beneath the crashing waves and salty spume. Through some dark miracle, I could move my body once more. Moving to the railing, I cast a five-eyed gaze into the ocean, and what I saw had every primal instinct within me roaring to life.

From the depths rose a mutated mammoth of a creature. A porpoise? Once, maybe. It had long since been twisted into something unholy. There was no time to ponder it. The voices in my head sputtered back to life, this time chanting words that I understood down to my alien-marrow.

Protect our mate. Protect our brood.

Chapter Thirteen

Beatrice

Noah had laid eggs in me! Freaking eggs!

Shock kept me pinned to the mattress as the green skinned sailor made a bee-line for the upper deck.