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Thuliak rubbed at his temples. That meant he was frustrated that I was right, and he was trying to think of any way around me being right, but failing to come up with anything.
“Will it really be dangerous?” Eve asked.
She sat there naked, but wrapped the blanket around her body. She kept it open enough in front that I could see most of her breasts. When she caught me trying to angle my head to see her nipples better, she gave me a wicked smile.
“Everything is dangerous right now,” I said. “If I really thought the surface was more dangerous than staying on a packship, I wouldn’t bring you down.”
“The packshipissafer,” Thuliak said.
“Yeah? Which one? Your First, soWrathis a big target. Me? I have a lot more blood feuds than you do, soHarbingerisn’t really safe either. Eriok’s ship would be safer, maybe, but—”
“Take her with you. Knock her up quickly, then send her back to me.”
“Why do you guys keep saying you’re going to knock me?” Eve asked, biting her lip. “What does that—”
“It means impregnate,” Thuliak said, “it’s a human phrase. I thought you knew it.”
“Oh,” she said, scrunching up her face, “I’m not quite seeing the connection between ‘knock’ and ‘baby.’ And what is the ‘up’ part doing exactly?”
All three of us shrugged. We were two aliens who only knew the phrase from having it implanted into our brains from a super-intelligent AI, and Eve was from a sheltered world that had never used the expression before. It was alien to all of us.
“We will use the term ‘impregnate’ from now on,” Thuliak suggested.
I shook my head. “That sounds a bitdryto me, mate. As we saw last night, the process is anything but dry.”
That got another blush out of her. “Whatever. Just say ‘knock up’ then. It sounds the least gross.”
The shuttle we were on was already on its way to my packship, as my ship,Harbinger,was closer to us than Thuliak’s packship,Wrath.
I did think Eve was safer on the surface. I also thought she was safer with me. I was starting to trust Thuliak, a little bit at least. I still thought he was a cunt. Still though, we shared a mate now, and I wanted to trust him.
I trusted myself more still, and I knew I’d do anything and everything to protect her. I knew that if it came down to choosing my entire packship and pack, or choosing her, I’d chooser her every bloody time.
I knew it could come to Thuliak being faced with having to choose the entire breeding pack over Eve, and if she was on the surface with me, Thuliak would at least be spared that choice.
I was good at justifying stuff air-tight like this, and I never knew if it was just some fancy trick of logic my brain did—or fuck, maybe even the Hivemind did it?--or if I was just always the kind of guy who did the right thing.
I don’t know which of those explanations were true, because I never let myself linger on that question long enough to find out the answer.
