Golden Change (30 page)

“Actually, we are heading home tonight,” Aiden said.

“We’ve been here so long, we thought we wanted to spend the first night of matrimony where we will be a family forever,” Jacob chimed in.

Kylie felt her heart swell. Their car was brought around and they climbed into the bed in back and settled into the ride. Since they were naked and she had goose bumps, Aiden pulled a blanket over them as they snuggled together.

Kylie told them some of the reception was a blur, as the drugs relaxed her body. Jacob did an impression of her keening call as she climaxed.

“No, I did not sound like that!” She laughed and punched his arm. She then had to punch Aiden’s arm as he began to crack up as well.

“Kylie told me at our last wedding of an earthly tradition, where the groom carries the bride over the threshold of the door after the wedding,” Aiden informed Jacob.

“How about you carry both of us,” Jacob joked.

“Okay,” Aiden agreed.

“I was kidding,” Jacob said.

“I’m not,” Aiden said. “I don’t have to carry up a hill or anything, only over the doorway.”

“If you throw your back out, you aren’t going to do anything but lay on your back while I have my wicked way with our wife,” Jacob joked.

When they had gotten out of the car, Jacob pulled Kylie into his arms and walked to the threshold. Aiden picked up Jacob, much in the same way he had Kylie so they were both in his arms. He walked over the threshold of their door and into the beginning of their new lives.

Her morning sickness had started to abate the past few days, which she was grateful for. If it had only been the morning, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but she had morning, noon, and evening sickness. Kylie was finally able to eat more than crackers and breads and now was craving savory and rich foods.

They were waiting for Amanda to join them in her office for their first ultrasound. Kylie sat on the exam table trying to alleviate the men’s fears, as they both looked worried. Amanda had been inundated with calls over the past two months by them. They called her whenever she had thrown up more than three times a day, or had cramps, or anything they didn’t understand.

Amanda breezed in through the door. “Hello Hayden-Duncan family,” she said. “How are you feeling?” she asked the men instead of her.

“She hasn’t thrown up for two days, but now she eats everything which isn’t nailed down,” Jacob started.

“She also jumped us in the shower yesterday morning and in the evening, she wanted us again,” Aiden put in. “She slept through the first two months of our marriage, now she is horny as hell!”

Jacob was nodding in agreement. “I wonder if her hormones are under control.” Jacob sounded concerned.

“I wasn’t asking how you think Kylie is doing, I’m asking how you are doing,” she said.

“Worried,” Aiden admitted.

“Anxious,” Jacob said.

Amanda finally turned to Kylie. “How are you doing with these two men, Kylie?” she asked her with a conspiratorial grin.

“They are always after me to see how I’m feeling. Dylan still calls them if he is at home and I’m chucking it up,” Kylie said.

Aiden and Jacob looked a little embarrassed.

Amanda had made a few house calls, but this was their first official office visit. She did a quick initial exam before having Kylie lie back and hooked up the ultrasound machine.

Aiden was getting an instant message, but immediately silenced it to concentrate on them.

Amanda put a glop of goo on her stomach and began making a few quick sweeps over her stomach. It was so quick she couldn’t determine what she was looking at on the screen next to her. Kylie was the only one looking at Amanda’s face and a pit of unease grew in her stomach as Amanda’s eyes squinted and she frowned, looking at the screen. Jacob and Aiden were holding hands, sitting at the edge of their chairs, eyes glued to the screen.

Amanda stopped the monitor wand at her side and met Kylie’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Kylie whispered. Jacob and Aiden had gotten to their feet and came over to stand by her. Aiden had his hand on her thigh and Jacob was running his hand in her hair. They looked terrified as they waited.

Amanda brought the wand over to one side of her curved stomach. “This here looks like a lovely healthy baby,” she started. “You can see its heart beat.” She focused the wand on a little beating heart.

Kylie’s heart was swelling, her eyes filling with tears. Maybe she misunderstood the look of concern. Then Amanda moved the wand to the other side of her stomach. “And here is its twin.”

They all sucked in a deep breath. “Twins,” Kylie breathed out. She was sure her heart skipped a beat, then swelled with love for the two babies.

“Look, this one appears to be as healthy as the other,” she assured them. She started taking measurements of the fetuses.

Aiden and Jacob were still speechless. Jacob’s mouth was actually hanging open. Aiden looked grim.

“The placentas look healthy,” she said. “They are placed well. It is two separate fraternal twins, from two separate eggs,” she informed them.

She sat with them, answering as many questions as she could after the exam. Hopefully she was alleviating some of the men’s anxieties, but there were no cases she knew of when a woman carried two Zehavian babies. Aiden kept his hand on his device as it kept buzzing.

He waited until the exam was over to listen to his messages. He stood as he listened. He looked first shocked, then concerned and anxious. As he was listening, he told them to get ready to go. A young human assistant burst into the room and exclaimed, “A ship from Germain is landing in an hour. They have earthly passengers who have been freed.”

Jacob and Kylie looked to Aiden for confirmation. He nodded.

“You can come with me in one of the medic aid vehicles, it will be faster,” Amanda told them. They all hustled through the hospital and got into the back of the nearest vehicle, which was heading towards the palace air guard.

With the lights flashing, they zipped out of the city going full speed then really picking up on the freeway, passing all of the cars. She was glad she couldn’t see out of the windows since she knew the blurry scenery would make her feel nauseous.

Aiden filled them in on what he knew. “The ship is filled with escaped prisoners, including two of the leaders of the revolt. One is definitely a royal and the other is from the priestly family, though we don’t know who.”

Aiden was grim on the way there, and they did their best to be silent comforters. Amanda and her earthly assistant were checking through the supplies, trying to anticipate what they would need.

They made quick time to the air base and were immediately cleared by a patrol. As they piled out of the back of the vehicle, they saw a crowd waiting and a ship landing. Aiden walked forward to stand next to General Hayden, but Jacob and she held back.

The ship was held together with rust, and she was surprised it made it here in one piece.

A loading door opened and they watched a stream of very bedraggled people exit.

Kylie looked at Jacob in surprise when Aiden ran forward with a shout of joy and embraced an older gentleman. Jacob lifted his eyebrows, obviously clueless as to the person’s identity. They walked towards Aiden, hand in hand, as groups of men and some women exited the vehicle. Kylie was surprised at how solicitous the men were towards the women, making sure that they were escorted to the medical tent.

By the time they reached Aiden, he was unabashedly weeping. He turned to face Kylie and Aiden, saying, “This is my father, Edgar.”

“Oh my,” was all Kylie could say as Aiden came to her side, lifting her hand to Edgar.

As Edgar kissed her knuckles, Aiden said, “This is my wife, Kylie.” Then Aiden nodded towards Jacob, “and this is my husband, Jacob.”

Jacob and Edgar shook hands as they introduced themselves.

“You should go to the medical tent,” Aiden told his father.

“I know,” Edgar said. “Before I do though, there is one more person you know.” Edgar looked over his shoulder and indicated a tall, dark-haired man standing in the shadows of the spacecraft door.

As the man walked down the plank way and into the sunlight, Aiden let go of Kylie’s hand as he fell to his knees in surprise. It took him a few seconds to gain his feet. When the man reached them, Aiden gathered him into a tight embrace.

Again, Kylie looked to Jacob in question. Jacob shook his head, obviously not knowing who this was.

Aiden again performed the introductions as he had with his father, introducing them to Tyler, the man he thought had died right before they had met. Jacob seemed unusually reserved with Tyler in a way he wasn’t with most people.

As a royal contingent approached, Aiden turned to Kylie and Jacob, “I’m going to go with Tyler. I know that there are going to be diplomatic issues that need to be addressed after he gets checked out by medical.”

Aiden kissed them both before hugging his dad again. “Where will you be?” he asked Edgar.

“I want to be with the others for their medical evaluations,” he told Aiden.

Kylie and Jacob walked with Edgar to the medical tent. Kylie was astonished when she realized that all of the men had refused medical evaluations until the women had been checked out first. They were groups of men gathered around the women as the Zehavian doctors checked out the earthly women.

Amanda was with the lone woman.

Edgar went immediately to the side of a plump earth woman who was being evaluated. It was obvious by the way he interacted with her that there was genuine affection between the two. Kylie and Jacob stood to the side until the woman was cleared and the doctor started evaluating the men.

Edgar motioned them over and introduced them to Molly. She was in her mid- to late-thirties and had curly blonde hair and deep dimples in her round face. She jumped up to pull Kylie into a tight hug when she learned that she was married to Aiden. She similarly hugged Jacob.

Kylie realized that whatever assumptions she had made over the state of the earthly women who had been slaves was incorrect. Molly explained, as they looked around, that the Zehavian men had coddled and cherished the earthly women. While the women had obviously been brought into the slavery system against their will, the Zehavian men had treated them with love and respect. The only one who seemed to be having any difficulty was the woman who was alone.

Molly introduced them to all of the men who had been in her cell after they had been cleared. There were nine other men, besides Edgar, that she introduced them to. They all seemed curious about Kylie since they appeared to love and respect Edgar in the same way they loved and respected Molly.

It wasn’t until dusk that Aiden had rejoined them. By that time, all of the prisoners had been cleared medically and left the medical tent. The only ones waiting with them for Aiden were Edgar and Molly.

On the drive home, Kylie and Jacob told Aiden what they had learned from the fellow prisoners. They also told him that they suspected that Edgar and Molly had a special relationship. Aiden smiled broadly when he heard this.

He confided that he was baffled by Tyler’s behavior. He sounded somewhat hurt and confused when he heard that Tyler was quiet and reserved, when he felt so enthused over the fact he was still alive. Kylie could only shrug.

Kylie couldn’t figure out what was worse. The waves of pain she was experiencing, or watching Aiden pace and fret. “She’s not quite there yet,” Amanda announced to the room as she did a quick check. “Her cervix is at about six centimeters.”

Kylie closed her eyes between her hard contractions, trying to relax. Her pregnancy had been easier than any of them could have predicted. She had been on partial bed rest the past month as a precaution. They had hired an earthly nurse, who happened to be one of the former prisoners from the ship, a month ago.

Her name was Evangeline. She was the woman who had been seated all alone in the medical tent. When Aiden found out she had been a nurse practitioner on earth and worked in a pediatric ward, he offered her a job on the spot.

Evie and Kylie had become friends over the past month when she came to live with them and care for Kylie. She was quiet, and reserved about her personal life and her experience on Germain, but completely competent as a nurse.

The next few contractions completely over took her. They seemed to build quickly with no separation between them. A strange feeling of wanting to push overcame her.

“I need to push,” Kylie announced to the room.

All of a sudden, a flurry of activity surrounded her like nothing before. A Zehavian doctor entered the room as Natalie summoned the doctor on call.

Amanda did another internal exam, “She ready,” she told the Zehavian doctor.

He reached in and agreed.

Kylie pushed for what seemed like forever with each contraction.

“I think we might need to do a Caesarian section,” the Zehavian doctor announced after an hour of pushing. “Her water has broken, and she might never be able to push out these babies.”

Amanda was shaking her head as Aiden looked like he was going to pass out at the suggestion. They knew it was a distinct possibility.