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A tiny golden baby with Beau’s hair and eyes would be so much more than I had ever thought I would leave behind. So much more than I had ever thought I was worth. But in this, worth didn’t matter, because I wanted. And I had never done that before.
CHAPTER7
BEAU
We’d been kept in the dark, us humans in the lab. Crux and his scientists sneered at us, dismissed us, shoved us around without a word for what they wanted from us. Waiting was putting us all on edge.
But then there was Vorian, who walked with me around the laboratory and told me about his world. He’d come to me, that very morning, and told me he wanted to make a baby with me.
On Earth, it wasn’t the kind of thing I ever would have considered. My dad was an absolute shit, and I had no kind of parental instincts. Hell, I couldn’t even take care of myself.
But this was the whole reason the Thorzi had brought us across the universe. And—well, I didn’t mind.
It was a donation of gametes. No big deal, when you said it like that.
And maybe I liked the idea of Vorian choosing me. I mean, really, standing next to Ree or Kenosi or Monica or Hiroki, who’d pick me? I was thin, still swathed in the ugly beige dress they’d given me on the ship. For fuck’s sake, I had split ends.
But when Vorian leaned against me, pulling me close, I didn’t doubt that he wanted me, that he felt something warm and soft for me. However Thorzi raised their children, if—if I was going to have one, I wanted it to be with him.
When he left for the tournament, I sneaked back inside, trying not to draw attention from the aliens in the lab.
With a tilt of my head, I caught the attention of some of the other humans. They nudged each other, and we all gathered in Kenosi’s room.
“There’s a tournament today,” I told them, when they were all settled on the bed and leaning against the walls, looking at me. “The Thorzi are fighting for the right to make a baby with one of us. Donate their gametes or whatever.”
Everybody cringed or went some degree of pale, but Genevieve was the only one who let out a little sob. We’d all adjusted to her crying. She’d told me, after we’d gotten the interpreter implants, that she had a fiancé back on Earth. The last thing she’d want was to put any roots down here, on a planet she hated with Thorzi she couldn’t stand.
Vorian had told me about his father’s gift—he could read minds and that was how he picked humans to bring to Thorzan. Theoretically, we all “wanted” to leave Earth. And sure, that was an easy enough case to make for me; I’d left nothing behind. But I couldn’t help thinking Crux had taken a moment of Genevieve’s frustration, maybe even with some aspect of planning her own wedding, and dramatized it to justify taking whoever he wanted.
So when Crux came to find us all gathered around, trying to comfort her, we kept her toward the back, as far away from him as we could.
“It is time for the first of you to make your donation,” he said, glancing us over one by one.
Everybody was tense. Everybody was afraid.
But me? I knew where my “donation” was going. Vorian would win the tournament. He’d promised, and he wanted me.
What did it matter if I did this now or later?
“I’ll go,” I offered, stepping in front of everyone and forcing a smile. “No problem. I’ve got this.”
Wesley touched the bridge of his glasses, frowning at me. But I knew what I was doing. Right? Right. It was just a donation, and one I’d agreed to that very first day Vorian had taken me out to look at the jungle.
At the very least, I was showing the other humans that we were okay here. This was what we were afraid of, and it wasn’t going to be a big deal.
That was what I told myself every step from Kenosi’s room to the private chamber at the back of Crux’s lab. There was a bed he motion me toward, and I had to brace my hands and prop myself up. Like most things on this planet, it was taller than comfortable for a human.
When he approached my side, a levitating table beside him with tools I didn’t recognize, he pushed on my shoulder. I laid back on the hospital bed, and Crux lifted the hem of my beige dress, exposing the tops of my thighs and my bare, limp dick.
I shivered. It wasn’t like I’d come to expect a whole lot of privacy when dealing with the Thorzi—hell, they seemed morally opposed to shirts themselves—but this was beyond the pale.
With the lower half of my body completely exposed, Crux gripped my balls. He rolled them in his enormous hand, lifted them like he was inspecting them. I fought the urge to draw back. My toes curled, my cheeks hollowed, and I stared hard up at the ceiling, trying to ignore Crux’s inspection.
The clicking sound Crux made seemed satisfied. Then he reached for a small device on a table beside him.
“What are you—” I pressed my hands into the bed behind me and tried to sit up, but Crux looked right at me for the first time, his gleaming blue eyes hard with annoyance, centered on me.
“Stay down,” he hissed.
