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“And so,” I said, “you and me…”
“I will breed you,” he said.
“What if I don’t want to…dothatwith you.”
“Your body is saying it wants to, little human.”
“Maybe you didn’t research humans enough. Especially women from Eden. We areverygood at giving up things that make us feel good, as long as it’s for the greater good.”
“What greater good? I may be scion, but my packship will never agree to remain here if we can’t have human women. If you refuse this deal…”
He met my eyes with a hard expression.
“Then what? You’ll just take someone instead of me?”
Thuliak favored me with the most full-of-itself, shit-eating grin I’d ever seen on anyone. “That’s right. You’ll be frozen in your little ship, and I’ll pick someone else. Maybe Weapons?”
I glared at him, but did my best not to audibly hiss at him. “You’re full of shit. You barely looked at her.”
“Because I’d rather have you, Airlock, I’ve been very clear about that. Still, I will not take you against your will, and if you refuse me, I’ll take another, even though I preferred you. And what greater good would it serve for you to refuse? Denying your own pleasure for no gain does not serve any higher purpose. We did research humanity, and while your kind likes to destroy things for little to no reason—”
“That’s the men,” I say.
“Maybe,” he said, “but you women are certainly guilty of trying to make yourselves miserable because you think it’s serving some higher sense of Good and Right. My race is much older than yours, believe me when I tell you that your refusal accomplishes nothing, other than denying both of us what we want.”
I was blushing again. I’d already decided to go with him—barring any crazy red flags from him—but it felt right to put up a fight like this. Maybe it would get more for the women on Eden, or maybe it would just make me feel less…easy. Easy was a word the orgasm therapists used when my orgasm came fast. They always seemed to say it as a compliment, but something about that word always rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t want to be “easy” when it came to my monthly session, and Iespeciallydidn’t want to be easy when it came to Thuliak.
“So I go with you, Thuliak, can you paint me a picture of what that is going to be like? What will my role be in your society? What will my life be like? What will all of our lives be like?”
I nodded my head toward the airlock, signalling that I was talking about Emissary Eve and Weapons Sojourner too.
“There will be a lot of breeding,” he said. “It will consume you, human, and I think it will consume me as well.”
My heart started to pound. He wassodirect. I never in my life thought the word “breeding” would turn me on in any way whatsoever. “Breeding” was an antiquated term we had, one that I only vaguely knew meant something having to do with reproduction. All women of Eden were born in labs though, but we still had terms like “Born and bred,” whose meanings had only really been clear through whispered rumors and gossip.
From two conversations with Thuliak, I knewexactlywhat “breeding” meant now. It was the thing my body desperately wanted to do, the thing I’d been denying it, the thing that had been missing from my life and would have remained missing for as long as I would have stayed on Eden.
“Okay,” I croaked, “and after that?”
“Well,” he said, “you won’t bear my child until we find a third, but—”
“Wait, back up. A third?”
He nodded. “Ah, I forgot to tell you. I was going to explain this to your High Command and let them think of a suitable way to explain this to the rest of your planet, but it looks like that job now falls on you, Airlock.”
“What is a triumvirate?” I asked, remembering him mentioning that word earlier. Now that he’d mentioned “a third,” I had a really bad feeling. What if he picked Weapons Sojourner, and what if I really had to share him?
“The third must be from outside of my pack,” he said, “likely it will be another scion. My seed is too strong to meld with all but the strongest men.”
“Wait, what? The third is…another man?”
He nodded. “A triumvirate consists of two men of my species, and one woman of another species. It’s the only way we can produce offspring.”
“What is your species even called?”
“Some call as the Khetar.”
“What does that mean?”
