Kaitlyn O'Connor (24 page)

“I swear to god I
‟
m going to throw something if you don
‟
t leave!”

He disappeared with the others and Loren slumped on a small crate, trying to gather enough strength to drag herself from the room before the stench sent her into another vomiting spasm.

When Karen finally managed to stop heaving, she looked around and staggered toward the door.

Loren pushed herself up and followed her, closing the door behind her.

The men, she discovered, hadn
‟
t retreated far. Deciding to ignore them, she braced her back against the wall of the corridor and slid down it, huddling in a tight ball. Karen collapsed beside her.

“I thought it was a bathroom,” Loren said weakly.

“We don
‟
t need that room anymore anyway,” Karen said a sickly.

Loren sighed. “Actually, I have a bad feeling that
‟
s the pantry.”

“Well fuck!” Karen said angrily. “That
‟
s a hell of a place for it! I can
‟
t face cleaning that up right now. It
‟
s going to have to wait.” Lifting her head, she looked at the men loitering in the corridor. “If you
‟
re all going to just stand there any damned way, at least tell us where a damned bathroom is!”

They stared at her blankly and Loren could see that didn
‟
t compute. “Facilities? Shower?”

Comprehension hit. They all turned and pointed in the other direction.

Releasing an irritated huff, Loren struggled to her feet and trudged down the hall. As luck would have it, the damned facilities were on the
other
side of the fucking „dining
‟
hall!

“You have got the
worse
sense of direction of anybody I
‟
ve ever known!” Loren snapped irritably when she and Karen had made it inside and turned on the showers. “I don
‟
t know why I keep following you! Two choices!
Two
! And you picked the wrong one!”

106

Karen glared at her a moment and then snickered. “Because you
‟
re a dumbass! I got us lost earlier.”

Loren frowned, but she couldn
‟
t help but chuckle after considering it a moment. “At least we know which way to run next time,” she said ruefully.

The water wasn
‟
t hot. It didn
‟
t get better than lukewarm. Deciding that still beat the hell out of freezing cold, Loren got in and bathed off. Luckily, she
‟
d managed to empty her stomach without getting it all over her toga! There was only one thing in the room that looked like it might be for drying, though, and it smelled like it had been used—a lot.

After another search, she discovered the thing she
‟
d thought was a tiny closet was actually something like a hand blow dryer, except for all over. Shivering, Karen climbed in with her. Her goosebumps had goosebumps by the time she got out again, but she was mostly dry and clean enough it was with great reluctance and revulsion that she put on the clothes she
‟
d discarded.

The men, to Loren
‟
s irritation, were still loitering outside when they came out again.

“Where
‟
s the bed?” Loren asked weakly.

“Need eat,” Kael said grimly.

Loren threw a hand up in a „stop
‟
motion. “Don
‟
t talk to me about food. I can
‟
t handle it right now. I need to lie down.”

He scooped her up into his arms. She would
‟
ve protested if a wave of dizziness followed by a fresh wave of nausea hadn
‟
t swept over her when the movement disoriented her. Instead, she dropped her head weakly against his shoulder and fought to recover her sense of equilibrium as he strode down the corridor with her.

Thankfully, the cabin where she
‟
d spent the night wasn
‟
t far. She curled into a tight ball on her side when he settled her carefully on the mattress, shivering and searching blindly for the blanket. Kael pulled it up over her shoulders. “Lau-ren sick?”

She thought that over and for the first time saw the situation from his perspective. She
‟
d just puked up a meal and they damned well didn
‟
t have any to spare when they didn
‟
t know how long it might be before they could get anything else. Beyond that,
one
of them had cooked and she was going to insult whoever had if she informed him that it was the most god awful disgusting mess she
‟
d ever tried to eat.

On the other hand, telling him she actually was sick also wasn
‟
t a good idea. It was bound to alarm him at the very least when the closest they had to a doctor onboard was their healer, Shara.

Unfortunately, she couldn
‟
t tell him it was something she
‟
d eaten
before
the meal when she hadn
‟
t had anything since the last meal she
‟
d eaten in Lecur
‟
s dungeon.

“No,” she said finally. “I think it was just that I haven
‟
t eaten in a while and the lizard-man
‟
s food is…uh…not what I
‟
m used to.”

“Must eat,” he growled.

“Yes, I know. Not right now, though. I
‟
m tired. Just save it for me. I
‟
ll eat later.”

“Shimone…know must eat.”

“I don
‟
t feel like puking again right now!” she said testily. “At least give me time to recover from the last bout!”

“More empty stomach, no easier,” he said tightly.

She knew he was right. If it had been emptiness that added to her lack of tolerance, getting more empty wasn
‟
t going to help. “Just leave my food on the table,” she said tiredly. “I
‟
ll go 107

back in a little while and try to eat it.”

To her relief, he finally got up and left.

Loren couldn
‟
t say she actually got used to the food. She sure as hell didn
‟
t develop a liking for it, but she managed by dent of sheer determination to nibble at her portion off and on throughout the day by washing it down with plenty of water and never pushing herself to eat more than a bite or two at the time. It was still hellish trying to force it down. She was sorry if it made guys feel bad, and she could see it did, but it was the best she could manage and there was no way in hell to hide her revulsion from them when they were determined to watch her like a hawk.

Not that they did anything else! As she
‟
d feared, they seemed inclined to give her a wide berth most of the time. They were stilted and distant, which was hard to take when they
‟
d always been so warm and attentive before. If she hadn
‟
t been so miserable about her battle with the food, she thought she would have been obsessing over their defection, but the problem with the food overshadowed pretty much everything else.

She was nauseated most of the time, but she managed to convince herself for a while that it was just the food. By the time she managed to emerge sufficiently from her abject misery to notice anything besides that, however, she discovered they
‟
d been in space at least three weeks--Earth time—as nearly as she could calculate, because it was the only time she knew how to keep and her internal clock helped her with that. Nothing she could do after that to convince herself that she wasn
‟
t pregnant worked. She
‟
d had plenty of time to adjust. Missing one period might be explained away. Missing two was pregnancy—or something horrible.

She actually didn
‟
t think she would
‟
ve emerged enough to notice then except that Kael brought it to her attention. They
‟
d all gathered on the bridge because the computer had announced that they were entering the solar system where the first port on their route lay. After looking her over assessingly, he
‟
d caught her forearm between his thumb and forefinger, lifted it and shook it at her accusingly.

“Bone no flesh,” he said angrily. “Dis happen no eat! No try hard enough!”

Loren stared at her arm in surprise, stunned to see how slender it was. “Oh my god! Karen! I have lost
so
much weight! Would you look! Do I look thinner? Can you tell?”

Karen looked her over, her gaze settling significantly on Loren
‟
s rounded belly for a handful of seconds before she transferred her attention back to her face. She grinned. “Girl friend! You are looking like a twig! How about me?” She preened.

Loren
‟
s eyes widened—mostly at the rounded belly she displayed when she turned to profile it, although there was no getting around the fact that Karen had dropped a good bit of weight.

She looked down at her own belly and then looked at Karen again. Finally, she forced a smile.

“Skinny! I bet you could get in a three!”

Karen perked up. “Seriously? I
never
thought I
‟
d be able to get my fat ass in a three!”

“I am dead serious, girl friend! You are so skinny!”

They were still grinning happily when they turned around to glance at the monitor again and discovered all of the men were looking at them with a mixture of disapproval and complete bafflement. Even Shara looked confused, although she at least seemed to want to be excited about whatever Loren and Karen were excited about. Loren shared a look with Karen and they decided to drop the subject.

Unfortunately, she couldn
‟
t dismiss her new awareness of her belly as easily. Karen had 108

seemed convinced she was pregnant, and she should certainly know. She
‟
d said she
‟
d had children. Loren hadn
‟
t wanted to ask her about it when she knew it must be painful for Karen to think about let alone discuss, but if she was right, then it seemed indisputable that she was also pregnant when her belly looked every bit as big as Karen
‟
s.

She certainly couldn
‟
t continue to put it down to pre-menstrual bloating after she
‟
d had time to consider the length of time that had passed. Lifting a hand as it finally settled inarguably in her mind that she was carrying a baby, she settled it lightly over her rounded belly, wondering what it looked like, whether it was a boy or a girl—whether it Kael
‟
s, or Dakaar
‟
s or Balen
‟
s.

That thought brought her back to the present with a jolt and she flicked a glance at Kael.

He was staring at her hand, but he met her gaze when she looked at him. She knew, just from the look in his eyes that he knew exactly what was running through her mind. Feeling the blood fluctuate in her face, she made a pretense of smoothing her clothing. “I wish to hell we could
‟
ve found some clothes somewhere,” she said to no one in particular.

Thankfully, Karen came to her rescue. “We
‟
ve only searched through about half the ship,”

she reminded her. “I think we should go to the bottom and start up. Considering the number of people that bastard hauled off, there has to be
something
he hadn
‟
t managed to sell!”

“I was hopeful, too—still am, but it doesn
‟
t look like there
‟
s going to be enough time to find anything before we reach port.”

Almost as if the computer had decided to join the conversation, it announced that they were on approach and had been hailed by the port authorities. Loren felt her pulse leap. “Let
‟
s hear it.”

The language wasn
‟
t anything she
‟
d ever heard before and she glanced around at the others.

“Do you know what he
‟
s saying?”

She could see right off that none of the others understood the language either.