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“Is she healthy or isn’t she, Av?” one of them asks from the hospital room beyond.
There is a murmuring of agreement from the group.
The giant barks out what must be a command to the group, and the men file out of the room while shooting me curious looks.
“Please, tell me what’s going on.”
The giant steps forward. “We’ve brought you to our planet because we are the last of our race.” He glances down at my feet and then up along my thighs. His mouth twists. “It doesn’t seem as though you will be of any help. Your implantation was unsuccessful.”
I follow his gaze and find my inner thighs coated with blood. “Implantation?”
Then it dawns on me.
I’ve been kidnapped—and it wasn’t an assault or menstrual cycle that caused my bleeding. These…whatever they are, have kidnapped me and tried to get me pregnant. The blood is from a miscarriage.
3
Breccan
I’m so rekking angry, I could destroy the entire lab with only my two fists. I would, too, if I were alone. Each morsel of hope we’re given, gets devoured by some unseen force. Perhaps our destiny isn’t to grow and repopulate Mortuus. Perhaps we are meant to die. My hand shakes with fury and I have the overwhelming urge to go to the command center and calm myself with some ultraviolet therapy. Unknown to Avrell, it helps more than it hurts. He’d put me in a reform cell though if he knew how much therapy I self-administered each day.
It’s been six solar cycles—a total of forty-two solars—since Avrell collected her eggs and fertilized them with the samples from all the morts. He implanted one of the fertilized eggs and it seemed to have been thriving.
Until she woke up.
“Put her back in cryosleep and—”
“W-What?” she hisses, stumbling backward, her blood dripping all over the sterile floor. Even with Avrell’s constant reassurance that she’s safe and uncontaminated, I still worry over infectious diseases being spread among my crew.
Ignoring her, I pierce Avrell with a stern glare. “Cryosleep. Now. Specimen Az-1 is incompatible. Start on the next specimen.”
“I have a name!” she yells, her voice echoing off the stark walls around me.
She hugs her middle and shivers. Silent tears roll down her speckled cheeks and drip from her jaw, soaking the front of her paper gown. A pang of sympathy tugs at my heart but I can’t allow myself to grow soft over a useless alien woman. We have to keep trying.
“After I treat her womb with some microbots to heal the area, we could attempt implantation again almost immediately,” Avrell offers, his dark eyebrows pinched together.
Microbots can heal just about anything. Loss of limbs though, you’re simply out of luck. His pitch-black hair—which matches in color with every male in this facility—is messy this solar. As though he’s been yanking at it. Unlike my long locks that hang loosely down my back, he keeps his hair clipped short—says it interferes with his work. The toll his studies are taking on his physical form is evident. Every mort in this facility is at his breaking point.
“I don’t think we should lose hope yet,” he says softly. “Specimen Az-1’s body seems to be purging out some toxins that were lying dormant while in cryosleep. Foreign toxins.”
“I’m Aria,” she whispers. “And it’s called flora. I was high on flora.”
Aria.
The name sounds like a song. Thoughts of my mother’s voice humming sweet words claw at me from the inside. I refuse to remember that fateful solar when I stared into her sad eyes as blood ran from the corners, stealing her from me.
“Please,” she begs.
The blood pools on the floor between her feet and I cringe. Disgusting. What a mess. “I’m sorry but—”
Avrell cuts me off. “The embryo was yours, Commander.”
A confusing mixture of pride and grief settles in my bones. The mortling that was growing inside of Specimen Az-1—Aria—belonged to me.
Perhaps it is I who am broken.
“I can test one of the other morts next,” Avrell utters, his thoughts one with my own.
“Hell no!” Aria screeches, causing my ears to flatten against my nog to block out the sound.
Irritation bubbles up inside of me. I’m used to my men obeying my commands. This Aria is difficult.
“It’s for your own good,” I growl.
Her brown eyes that match her tea-colored hair flare with fury. Her cheeks beneath the speckles burns bright red. I expect more argument from the problematic alien. But one quick glance to the door behind me is my only warning that she’s no longer interested in talking.
With surprising speed, she darts for the doorway, slipping only slightly in her pool of blood.
On instinct, I reach out to grab her. My claws swipe the air, raking across her paper gown, and tear gashes along the side of it but don’t make purchase.
“Halt!” I bellow, jerking out of my stupor as I charge after her.
