Star Side

Chapter 74

It took me longer than I was okay with to peel myself off the floor, bleeding and bruised, and crawl to my wailing babies.

"Hush hush, it's okay, babies, darlings, Mama's here, I'm okay."

That was a lie. My limbs were shaking from the claiming venom, my lower stomach hot and empty, my shoulder had bled through the silk on half of my chest and gotten into my hair and the pinpricks on my ribs had bled through as well.

I remembered last minute trying to soothe my babies that their sense of smell might be as good as their fathers and got to work stripping. My bitten shoulder didn't make it easy. He'd torn through something, the bastard. Not going to hurt you my ass.

But fumbled for bandages, knowing we only had a first-aid kit of sorts on stock because of the time Rikek had torn Gilrack's wings (it was always him!), because Gilrack's kind don't get blisters or welts like humans so easily do when exercising or training. Their skin was thicker, tougher, which Rikek probably hadn't known when he bit me or held me in place. He probably hadn't tried to maul me as much as he had, but jokes on him, I didn't care about his reasoning. He was dead in my book.

Somehow, I managed to sort of bandage myself up with sticky bandages and new silks, but it was long enough for my babies to be hoarse from crying and myself deranged from flayed mama nerves. I ended up buried deep in the nest with all three of them held to my bare breasts, weeping along with them.

It was the still hungry boy who started to calm first, scenting my breast and nuzzling in deep. He somehow found a nipple and latched on for both comfort and food. A sister got the same idea, while the third tucked their little head under my chin to bury their nose in the hollow of my throat.

Soon, I was the only one weeping, because it became quiet enough for me to hear the roars, snarls, and thwacking from below. I fought back the fear, afraid of setting off the kids again. Gilrack was bigger, stronger. There was no way he would lose. He'd been building up his body for months and Rikek had been gone forever. He hadn't had the harmless space station to recover in while growing his wings.

I couldn't cover my ears, though, with arms holding up babies to my breasts.

I never thought I'd hate how fragile and weak I was. I'd never been fragile and weak, except for when I gave birth to the eggs, but that had been like being sick: something out of my control. I had ever chance to build my muscle now. I was healthy and strong, I even had a chance to dive in and try out some of my strength...and it had failed. I'd failed, and massively so, and left feeling like something delicate and meant to be protected. To think I'd hated my manish body so much and the one time I'd accepted it, wanted it even, it wasn't even that strong to begin with. In the face of a male alien, one that wasn't even as big as Gilrack, I had been exactly what I never even could have been: a weak female.

I had never felt bad for those slender white girls. The beautiful, wispy things with thin thighs, thinner arms, and tiny waists. I'd always wanted to be them. But even anorexic my body couldn't have been that thin. I'd been built like a brick.

But now...I just wanted to be as strong as any of the females of Gilrack's kind. I had even tried.

I cried. I cried till I could hardly breathe and my babies had fallen into an exhausted sleep with teardrops gleaming in their dark fuzz-caps of hair.

What would I do if it was Rikek that came back up that tunnel?

Home. I'd go home. I'd use that brain Gilrack said was beyond his kind and get out of these caverns. I knew the way back to the pod. I also had a map and GPS location on the planet bounced back to me by the space station. I'd get in my suit with my babies and go. Once in the pod, none of these aliens would be able to get me back out. We'd fly back, go to Levi and Naomi and whatever new faces had been sent there—