The Spawning (15 page)

They might convince the Hirachi that they weren’t worthless or useless just

because they weren’t the fine physical specimens
they
were used to.

How could they surmount being
that
different? How could there be any future for any of them if they were so different they couldn’t even look forward to the possibility of having children?

Heaving a shaky breath, she wiped her cheeks and dropped her head to her knees.

It wasn’t as if she’d been dying to have a baby. She hadn’t even given it much thought—before she’d left Earth. She supposed it had floated in the back of her mind a good bit of the time, surfacing from time to time when she met someone she thought she clicked with—or saw someone she thought she might. It surfaced when she was trying to arrange her life around her career, when she would stop to think when she might squeeze a pregnancy in that might not interfere with a case, or the possibility of a promotion.

She’d always figured there’d be time for it later. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t miss out on it. She wouldn’t worry about whether or not she managed to find Mr. Right before it was too late for her. She would hope for the best but plan for the worst. Before it was too late for her, she’d have the baby—or maybe two—whether it worked out just right or not, whether or not she found a partner to share her life with.

It was the breeding thing, she realized abruptly. As horrified as she’d thought she was, the suggestion that the Hirachi were looking specifically for women to bear their children had planted that seed of hope. How often did a woman actually get the chance to get near a male who
wanted
her to bear his child?

If they’d been horrible, she doubted that seed would’ve sprouted, but they were a long way from horrible, however different they were. They were physically appealing and beyond that—whether actually true or not—she’d glimpsed the sort of qualities in them she hadn’t even really believed men had anymore—strength and gentleness

together, a strong sense of responsibility, honor and integrity, protectiveness, intelligence, and a willingness to work as hard as it took.

She supposed it had seemed just too good to be true and she should’ve realized if it did, then it was. The thing was, she’d thought it would turn out to be too good to be true that they were as god-like as they seemed to her, that she’d discover they had all kinds of flaws.

That was what usually happened when she thought she’d found the perfect man—

THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 66

it turned out all of his
other
girlfriends thought so, too. Or she discovered he was a control freak, or a thief, or in to drugs—or drank too much and couldn’t hold a job.

It hadn’t occurred to her that it would transpire that it was too good to be true because it couldn’t work.

“Hey!” Deborah said after a while, thankfully distracting her from her miserable thoughts. “You ok?”

Miranda lifted her head and looked at her. “Sure. I feel like hell, but I’m fine.”

Deborah studied her face a little doubtfully. “You don’t look fine.”

Dragging in a calming breath, Miranda shook her head. “No, I really am fine

except for feeling like hell after the night we had last night.”

She heard murmurs of agreement from those around them close enough to hear.

“I don’t suppose anyone has a fucking clue of how we might go about putting together some kind of shelter?” she asked a little more loudly.

“Like a hut, you mean?” one of the women—Miranda thought her name was

Julie—asked doubtfully.

“Like ‘I don’t care what’ as long as it keeps at least a little of the fucking rain off!”

A dozen of the women gathered around.

“We’d have to go out in the jungle,” Julie said uneasily.

Miranda nodded. “I didn’t think we could build anything out of the dirt we have here.”

“Actually,” another woman volunteered, “Adobes are made out of clay, baked in

the sun. I read that once.”

Miranda studied the woman, thinking it over. “I think that only works if you’re in a place where it hardly ever rains. Given what we got last night—and the jungle—I’d say there’s probably a lot of rain here.”

“A kiln … never mind.”

“And now that she brought that up, how are we going to get anything at all—even supposing we manage to find stuff we could use? We don’t have any way to saw it down.”

“I guess the first thing to do, then, is to see if we can find rocks sharp enough to hack at the plants,” Miranda said despondently.

* * * *

Khan was too stunned to feel anything at first—beyond shock. Why, he wondered, when he could finally bring his disordered thoughts into a semblance of order, had he not noticed that they were
not
formed as his people were? Why hadn’t he noticed that they had none of the fins they needed to glide swiftly and easily through the water?

Because he hadn’t looked beyond what pleased his eyes, he thought with self-

disgust.

When he closed his eyes and thought of Miranda, he thought of the beautiful red hair and green eyes, her pretty face, her beautiful, seductive, womanly body—and he hadn’t been able to budge his mind past any of that. He’d spent a great deal of time, in point of fact, trying to get that much out of his head.

Anger slowly built inside of him.

He was going to kill that gods damned lizard bastard if he ever got the chance to get his hands on him! The lying serpent! It wasn’t bad enough he’d brought females to THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 67

torment them with that were so blatantly unsuitable to mate with Hirachi males?—They could not even take care of themselves! How could they protect their young? How could they, when they were so weak and small, bear strong, healthy young?—Now he learned that they could not even swim? How were
they
supposed to protect their women and their young when they could not even take them to their stronghold? It wasn’t bad enough they couldn’t expect the women to fight by their sides to help protect their young? They couldn’t even
hide
them to protect them?

He felt ill at his thoughts. It wasn’t until Miranda lifted her head and looked at him, though, that he realized why he felt so ill about it all.

The lizard-man may or may not have lied to them, but he had certainly lied to

himself. All the time he had been struggling to enumerate all the reasons why it wouldn’t work between them, he’d been looking for some way that it might. He wanted Miranda, against all reason, he wanted her so badly he could scarcely think of anything else.

Maybe it was true that it was because he was so near the spawning time … and

maybe not.

It hit him abruptly as he stared at her woebegone face that he
could
have her. He didn’t have to worry about the spawning. He needn’t concern himself that she might be too small and weak to bear his child or that the child might be too small and weak to grow into a strong Hirachi warrior.

That thought made his gut twist miserably, though. He
needed
to spawn—they all did. No more than a handful of them had
ever
gotten the chance to spawn.
He
certainly hadn’t. He’d resisted the urge, as most had, because they knew it would make them, their woman, and their child vulnerable to the attacks by the Sheloni. It took four long cycles for the infants to grow strong enough to risk the first excursion into the sea. The Sheloni often raided twice in a single cycle. At the very least they would have to deal with four possibilities that they’d be snatched from their young and the child left to die—or taken, as well, and brought up into slavery—very likely more than that. And the more chances the Sheloni had at them, the less likely that they could bring any child they begat into adulthood, or even to an age where they stood a chance of surviving without parents.

He’d missed a half dozen spawning cycles already and, with each one missed, the urge grew stronger and harder to ignore.

It wasn’t enough merely to take a lover.

It was far better than nothing, though, he reminded himself. Something was

better than nothing. He hadn’t even
seen
a Hirachi maiden in so long he could hardly remember what they looked like anymore.

In some respects, he was fiercely glad the gods damned Sheloni had finally given up on the idea of breeding their slaves in captivity and ceased to focus on capturing the females, but it was hell not even having the option of a woman’s body to assuage his needs. It was hell not hearing the sound of a woman’s voice, her laughter, not feeling a woman’s touch … ever.

He turned away after a few moments, wondering if he should tell the others.

Would they think as he did? That it was safe enough to try to woo them as lovers if there was no chance of breeding?

And was it truly safe?

They still had the spawning to deal with. It wasn’t likely to weigh very heavily upon them that they had
reasoned
that the females were unsuitable for breeding once THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 68

they entered the cycle. Reason wasn’t something any of them had a great deal of at that time.

And what if he was wrong and the trader hadn’t lied? What if it actually
was
possible to spawn their young upon them? What might they breed, assuming the women survived it?

He would have to give it a great deal of thought before he said anything, he

decided,
if
he said anything.

Beyond their own considerations, it also couldn’t be avoided that the Earth

females might not be willing to accept them even as lovers, let alone
choose
lovers among them. However assiduously they courted them, they could not change the way they looked or what they were and, as long as it had been since he’d had any opportunity for it, he thought wryly, he could certainly recall that the females that had chosen him before did not look at him as if they’d stumbled upon a wild
lytzth.

It was too soon and they were too strange. Mayhap, after a time, the Earth females would grow accustomed to them and not be so fearful of them.

That was not likely to happen, though, if they were caught up in the spawning

fever, he thought wryly. Unlike the Hirachi females,
these
females would not be able to discourage them if they weren’t interested in spawning with them. They were going to have to make certain the females were locked safely away from them so that they could not get to them.

He didn’t know how in the hell they were going to manage it, but they would

have to think of something.

He was finally drawn from his abstraction by the discovery that the Earth

females—the majority—led, of course by the red headed female that was driving him to distraction—were testing the gates.

If that female was
half
as ferocious as she thought she was, he thought irritably, he wouldn’t have spent so much time agonizing over whether it was safe to touch her even if she
did
invite him!

Fortunately, before his temper got the better of him, he abruptly recalled she’d come to ask for tools to make a shelter when she’d thrown him for a loop by informing him that there was no way in hell he was getting her into his pod—with or without him.

He was still annoyed. They would not have their quota when the Vernamin

arrived if they did not work at filling it. If he spared even one man to guard them and help them, they would probably still be short when they’d had to pay the trader so much to buy the females’ freedom.

He
certainly couldn’t go. He’d already shouldered more of is share of the burden off on the others while he tended to their needs than he should have.

He considered the men on the beach, but he didn’t particularly want to send

Gerek or Teron or Adar. The bastards had already shown way too much interest in Miranda to suit him.

It fucking infuriated him that he wouldn’t even know by what name she was

called
now
if they had not gotten her to tell them!

He wasn’t going to give them more opportunities to try to woo her, gods damn it!

If she decided to take lovers among them, he meant to be first with her. He sure as hell had no intention of waiting at the back of the fucking line!

He didn’t even have a gods damned clue of what sort of shelter they could make THE SPAWNING Kaitlyn O’Connor 69

with nothing more than brush. There were no stones available for such a project.

Shaking it off, he strode toward the women, deciding he could make up the trips to fill his own quota by working later and starting earlier.

It wasn’t as if he’d had more than a few gods damned hours of sleep since they had come, he thought disgustedly.

Reaching the women, he threaded his way past them and opened the gates.

Pulling his knife from his boot, he moved far enough outside to allow them to follow, tipping his head and studying the jungle carefully for any sign of beasts before he turned to Miranda.

“Tell me what you want me to cut and I will cut it.”

Miranda stared at Khan with a mixture of surprise and reluctance and finally

glanced at the other women questioningly. When nobody volunteered any suggestions, she turned and studied the jungle herself. “We just wanted to make something temporary for now. Later we can consider how we could make something more permanent and what to use,” she murmured trying to conjure a picture in her mind of something tent-like. They’d need something to hold everything together.

It was a damned shame they didn’t have duct tape. She’d seen guys put together some really strange things with the stuff—even seen furniture made with nothing but duct tape and plastic pipe.

No pipe—no plastic—and no tape. “Vines. We’ll need some … probably a lot,

limber enough to weave it where it won’t break.”

“Hey! I took a basket weaving class!” Stacy volunteered. “Great idea!”

Thank god, Miranda thought! Somebody that at least knew how to construct