Daahn Rising (11 page)

The assistant’s expression pleaded with him. “What if we take the tests and something comes back that explains it? Something that needs medical intervention?”

“Then MacNair will have us back here in less than an hour.”

Tim and Tamsen shared a look of calculation.

The speaker grid on the far wall came to life. “Let them,” Rayn ordered. “For all we know, it’s the stress of being here causing this.”

Evan couldn’t agree more. The sooner they were away from SLAL, the better for all of them.

Chapter Nine

“Aft ten, number six,” Pap Mac reminded her, as if Zondra didn’t have a nearly photographic memory. “I’ll be right down.”

Zondra offered an irreverent salute and scurried down the steep staircase, all but giggling in happiness. She stared at the rings Evan had placed on her finger just that morning. She was officially Zondra Duncan, witnessed by two of the officers at SLAL and filed onto Evan’s Page Two.

Officially his wife. Officially his mate. Unofficially assigned to the carrier, with the duty of teaching a group of officers the Xxan language.

It was amazing that no one had thought to hire the Xxanian crossbreeds to teach the classes before. What they knew of the language, they’d learned from Pap Mac and passed person to person to create a handful of translators. But translators weren’t of much use in the field, when a common language might prove beneficial.

Pap Mac had arranged the job with Captain Pira. Pira had been willing to do nearly anything to avoid losing Evan. If keeping him meant arranging a reason for Zondra to be aboard the vessel and giving them a junior officer’s stateroom to live in, it was a small price to pay. Not to mention his troops would be premiere. Translators were in short supply, and cross-training was a favorite tactic used by commanding officers.

Even the scientists’ caution as they’d left SLAL couldn’t drag her spirits down. They’d run a full battery of tests and fretted that her blood chemistry had changed in ways they hadn’t expected it to and not settled completely after mating. They hadn’t wanted Evan and Zondra to leave the space station, but Evan had put his foot down and insisted the scientists had worn out their welcome in the bedroom.

Depending on the results of those tests, she and Evan might have to return to the complex. The thought that something might be wrong left a buzzing apprehension she couldn’t shake.

Zondra glanced up, making the next-to-final turn to the staterooms from memory. A long-ago tour of this class of warship provided the mental map she needed to navigate.

“Well, well, well...”

The snide voice sent unpleasant tremors along her nerves. Zondra denied the identity her mind supplied, even as she conceded she was correct.

She turned, facing Reynolds. A wave of revulsion threatened to bring her lunch up. For a race that didn’t typically vomit, that was quite the accomplishment. The Subdominant stepped toward her, and she backed off a pace.

“Now is that nice?” he chided, his expression intense.

Zondra kept backing away, calculating that the stateroom she sought was no more than twenty meters and one turn behind her. Reynolds followed. It was time to remind him that he had limits.

“This time I will press charges, Petty Officer Reynolds,” she warned.

“For?” he inquired coolly. “I’m just walking down a corridor on
my
ship.”

“Walk somewhere else.” Unless he’d been summoned here to repair something, Reynolds had no business on this deck. “Enlisted berthing is halfway across the ship, and engineering is three decks away.”

He seemed surprised that she knew the layout of the ship so well. “And what are you doing here, little cock-tease?”

Evan’s scent enveloped her a moment before his arm encircled her body. A breath-stealing moment later, her mate was between them, Zondra fit snug under his arm.

“My
wife’s
daily routine is none of your business, Reynolds.” There was a bite of something unforgiving in that warning.

“Wife? What the hell are you —”

Zondra pressed her left hand to Evan’s ribs, and Reynolds stopped speaking, gaping at the rings she now wore.

“Is there a problem, Evan?” Pap Mac asked.

Evan didn’t reply.

“Zondra?”

“I believe Petty Officer Reynolds was just leaving, Pap,” she managed in a steady voice.

“Yes, he is, Admiral,” Evan agreed.

Reynolds offered a tense word of agreement and laid tracks in the opposite direction. Once Pap Mac was between the two adversaries, Evan turned Zondra and guided her to the open doorway of their stateroom.

“Is Reynolds a problem?” Pap Mac asked.

Evan addressed his answer to Zondra. “Next time I tell you to press charges, I expect you to do it.”

She winced. “The quickening —”

“Zondra, the right answer is ‘Absolutely. I will.’”

“If I had, I would have been stuck with someone other than you, you realize,” she snapped at him.

Evan’s hands fisted and then eased open. “Stuck with?” he challenged.

At a loss for words, Zondra pressed to his chest and raised her face for a kiss. “Not stuck with for you,” she breathed. “Only if it was someone else.”

****

Like Reynolds.
The idea was intolerable. Evan dragged her into a heated kiss. His body reacted fiercely, and he considered kicking MacNair out to finish what he’d started.

Two deep breaths that did nothing to calm his lust later, he turned to find MacNair leaning against the now closed corridor door, a smirk on his face. That just added fuel to the fire.

“I thought you said mating would end this,” he grumbled.

MacNair chuckled. “Jealousy is forever, son. Just don’t kill anyone. But...” He jerked a thumb toward the corridor. “Charges? I’ll assume Reynolds was the dumb-ass from the bar that you pounded down, but... charges? Is there a problem I should know about?”

“Only if he wants to die,” Evan offered dryly.

“Not killing anyone does extend to Reynolds. If there’s a problem, I can arrange a transfer.” He let the offer hang between them.

He thinks I can’t handle my own problems?
A knock at the door cut Evan off with only a syllable of his protest voiced. “What?” he barked instead.

“You and your wife are requested at Med Call, Duncan.”

“On our way,” MacNair answered for him.

Evan glared at him. “I am through being someone’s lab rat. And so is Zondra.” The admiral’s preoccupation stopped him there, and the hair at the back of Evan’s neck rose in warning. “What is it?”

“I don’t know. But, believe me, Med Call was not expecting to run their own tests on you. SLAL is the only division that should be working with you... unless...”

He didn’t finish the thought, but he didn’t need to. The only reason for Med Call to summon them was if there were problems with the tests SLAL had taken.

Zondra looked up at them, seemingly at a loss for words.

Evan offered his hand. “Whatever it is, you have me.”

MacNair wisely kept his mouth shut. Though it went without saying that he was there for Zondra, the thought of him saying it went up Evan’s back like sandpaper.

She took his hand and snuggled against Evan’s chest. His nerves jumping, Evan guided her to Med Call, MacNair in their wake.

The two doctors on call looked up at their approach. The younger of the two hurried over and reached for Zondra.

Evan shoved him back before he could connect, and an oppressive silence grew.

“Don’t kill them,” MacNair muttered.

He nodded, though the need to crack heads was riding him hard. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The one he’d shoved away motioned to the exam bed. “SLAL asked us to confirm one of the blood tests they ran last night with a scan.”

Zondra started toward the bed, and Evan restrained her.

“Which test?” he asked. “No one touches my wife without me knowing why and approving it.”

The doctor glanced over Evan’s shoulder, seeking out MacNair.

The latter didn’t wait for a question to emerge. “Son, you are talking to a bonded Dominant male as deadly as any Xxanian warrior in existence. You do not ask
me
what to do about his mate.”

“Yes, sir.” He met Evan’s gaze solidly, but there was a tremor in his hand that said he’d rather deal with the admiral. “One of the tests had an... unexpected result. They think it’s a false —”

“Which?” Evan grumbled.

“They... um... they said telling you would be —”

“Which test?” Every muscle in his body tightened down.

“Tell him,” MacNair ordered. “You do not taunt a Dominant with a problem with his mate this way. It’s a good way to get a scan plate inserted anally.”

The senior doctor answered from the far side of the exam bed. “Pregnancy, but it must be a false —” He stopped talking when Evan moved.

The closer doctor fled to the far side of the bed with his boss. The older one backed toward the code pad and the emergency call button for the Marine guards.

“You won’t need that,” Evan informed him. He lifted Zondra onto the bed gently. “Do the test.”

She reached for his hand, and Evan took it. Words failed him. This was life altering, exhilarating... and terrifying. He stared at her, trying his best to avoid obsessing over the plate hovering over her lower abdomen.

The doctors chattered on in the background.

“They were so sure this would be negative, they left it for last.”

“I heard they nearly missed it.”

“Those guys? SLAL never screws up that badly.”

“Oh, like you have firsthand knowledge of them.”

Evan snapped. “Answers. Now.”

Silence fell.

“Oh, man,” the younger one breathed. “There he is.”

“He?” Zondra asked.

The other made a vague sound of agreement. “How old do you figure he is?”

“He,” Evan repeated.
I have a son. I have to learn how to be a father.

Zondra smiled and squeezed his hand.

“Ask SLAL. Xenobiology is not my field. I don’t know how these sca —”

The senior doctor elbowed him hard enough to knock the air out of his rude young counterpart. He hurried into an explanation before Evan could launch across the table and throttle the bigoted asshole.

“Xxanian fetuses develop faster than human, but I can’t say how quickly because this one isn’t pure Xxan. If the baby was human, I’d say conception took place between three weeks and a month ago.”

“A week,” Evan informed him. “We mated and ripened her womb a week ago.”

The two doctors stared at each other. The tension rising in the room made Evan’s skin crawl.

“What? Damn it, tell me.”

“Even by Xxanian standards, I’d expect the baby to be... say double that or a little less. I mean, the —”

“Impossible.”

“The Xxan carry for about half a normal human —”

“She wasn’t ripened! Are you fucking dense?”

MacNair moved to one side, his glare a message to calm himself.

“Maybe she’s human enough that she didn’t need ripening,” the younger one suggested.

Zondra bit her lower lip, shaking her head in what was surely a sign that she couldn’t answer that, one way or the other.

Evan reined in his frustration. “You’re telling me it could have been our first night together. Or while we were traveling to SLAL.
Or
when we mated. In short, you’re clueless.”

The older doctor cleared this throat. “How long did you gestate, Mrs. Duncan?”

“Six months.”

“But her brother gestated for five,” MacNair added. “Her
seir
did as well.”

“Strong Xxanian genes then,” he mused.

“So you’re saying there’s no way to tell?” Evan asked.

“We
might
be able to get a closer idea by charting the baby’s growth every week over several months. Or you could return to SLAL and let them run more tests.”

“No. We are through being lab rats,” Evan decided. “We’ll wing it.”

“No,” Zondra agreed. “Evan and I both have work to attend to.”

He smiled widely and kissed her cheek.

The senior doctor didn’t hide his disappointment well. “We’ll see you back in a month for her routine check then.”

“No,” MacNair inserted. “SLAL will.”

That time, the doctor scowled.

Too bad, old man. No scaly baby for your amusement.

Chapter Ten

The snickering at the back of the classroom warned Zondra that the jokers of the group were preparing their first prank. She’d hoped for half a day of peace before it started, but that wasn’t in the battle plans.

Oh, well. Set the pace now instead of later.

She turned to them. “My name is Zondra Duncan. I am a second generation Xxan-human crossbreed, and I will be teaching you the Xxan language. Before we begin, are there any questions?” It was bait for whatever trap they thought to spring.

Two hands signaled for her attention. One was insistent and the other tentative. She nodded to the hesitant one.

“I know this class is intended for troops in battle and interrogation teams, but I was wondering if we could cover medical aid as well.”

That surprised her. “In what way?”

The young corpsman darkened. “How would a Xxanian warrior ask for medical aid?”

“He would not. Your average Xxanian warrior will die before he asks for aid. It will be up to you to sedate or restrain your prisoner to test and treat him. Make sure to use restraints appropriate to a Dominant, even if you aren’t certain of his status.”

He opened his mouth to respond, and Zondra continued.

“By Xxanian beliefs, a warrior who asks for aid or begs for mercy is a coward... a pathetic weakling. Forcing care on him will actually save his honor, as well as his life. Assume all captured Xxanian warriors are injured until testing proves otherwise.

“In the same way, you will be treated better by the Xxan if you do not ask for their aid. It would be best if I didn’t teach you how to ask at all.”