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“Yeah, she can surprise you like that.” Liv grinned at her again. “It’s pretty shocking the first time it happens to you and you just hear her voice out of thin air. It’s wonderful too, the way she watches out for her children.”
“I guess I’m one of her children now, since I’m carrying Karn’s baby,” Lilli said, smiling. “Speaking of which…” She leaned forward on the exam table and looked at Liv earnestly. “Karn told me he couldn’t er, get me pregnant unless we were bonded. And he said he couldn’t bond me to him because he’s a Hybrid. Was any of that true? Because…look at me.” she pointed to her slightly rounded belly. “I’m pregnant but we’re not bonded—at least, I don’t think we are.”
“Can you hear his voice in your head and can you send your own mental voice into his head?” Liv asked.
Lilli gave her a shocked look.
“No! Why, is that part of being bonded?”
“It is.” Liv nodded and smiled. “A wonderful part, actually. When you bond with a Kindred, your souls touch and you just have this wonderful, deep understanding of what the other person wants and thinks and needs and feels.”
“And you have that, with your mate?” Lilli sighed longingly. “That sounds amazing.”
“It is,” Liv assured her. She shook her head. “But I’ve never heard of any Kindred being able to get a girl pregnant until he bonded her to him. So you’ll have to forgive Karn—he must have been as shocked to learn that you were pregnant as you were.”
“Everybody was pretty shocked,” Lilli said grimly. “Shocked and appalled in the case of my mother.”
“She doesn’t sound like she treated you very well,” Liv said tactfully.
“If you call trying to shoot the ship I was on out of the sky and kill me ‘not treating me very well’ then yes, that’s true.” Lilli tried to snort, but it turned into a sob. She gulped and put a hand to her mouth. “Sorry. I just…can’t believe she tried to do that. But she’s never liked me very much—I was a disappointment to her because I’m too nice and I don’t have a head for business or care about material possessions and always having the best of everything the way other Yonnites do.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about her anymore,” Liv said firmly, putting an arm around Lilli’s shoulders. “You’ve got a new home now—here with us. And I promise you, here on the Mother Ship we like nice people.”
Lilli gave a half-laugh/half-sob and hugged her back.
“Thanks. I don’t know why I’m feeling so emotional.”
“You’ve been through a lot of trauma,” Liv said soothingly. “And you’ve got crazy preggy-lady hormones. That will make anybody emotional, hon.”
“I guess so.” Lilli sniffed and swiped at her eyes. “I’m just so glad my baby is all right and Karn is okay and we’re all together. I only wish…” She trailed off, biting her lip.
“Wish what, hon?” Liv asked gently. “Go on, you can tell me.”
“I only wish I could have that bond with Karn—the soul-bond you were talking about,” Lilli admitted. “It sounds so wonderful. Can’t a Hybrid ever bond?” she asked Liv wistfully.
“Well, you know what, I actually know several that have,” Liv said thoughtfully. “It’s usually impossible but sometimes the Goddess intervenes and it happens.”
Lilli felt her heart jump and she heard a little voice in her head murmur, “Do not be afraid to attempt the impossible.”
“I see,” she said, nodding. “Thank you, Liv—you’re a wonderful doctor.” She ducked her head shyly. “And an even better friend.”
“We are going to be friends,” Liv said, grinning at her. “As soon as you get some rest and feel up to it, I’m going to introduce you to a group of girls you’re just going to love.”
“A whole group?” Lilli asked uncertainly.
“Well, sure.” Liv looked at her anxiously. “Why, does that upset you?”
Lilli bit her lip.
“It’s just I, uh, had a group of girls that were supposed to be my friends on Yonnie Six—but really they were just the daughters of my mother’s friends. And they were awful. That’s how Karn and I got caught—one of them made a vid of us, uh, being intimate and sent it to my mother.”
“How awful!” Liv exclaimed indignantly. “I promise you, Lilli, that friendship is nothing like that here on the Mother Ship. We love and support each other and if anybody has a problem, they talk it out.”
“Okay, well…thank you, then. I’d love to meet your friends,” Lilli said, smiling. “They sound more like the group of girls I grew up with at the convent than the ones I knew on Yonnie Six.”
“You’re going to love them,” Liv promised her. “My best friend, Kat, is going to want to throw you a baby shower and my cousin, Lauren, is going to want to make the cake and give you all kinds of cupcakes—anything your pregnant cravings can dream up, she can make. And my twin sister, Sophie, is going to be thrilled to meet you too. And there are so many, many more—even another Mistress from Yonnie Six, Neh’sa—but she’s really nice, don’t worry. She and her man didn’t like it there, either—that’s why they ended up here.”
