Deep Penetration; Alien Breeders I (39 page)

She paled. “I think that android did
that already.”

A jolt went through Tariq. “What
android?”

“
Aeon. He said you sent
him to get me and then Mylor came in and …. I didn’t see what he
did. They fought and then Mylor was on the floor and there was
blood everywhere. I only caught a glimpse and then Aeon leapt
toward me, grabbed me, and threw me over his shoulder and then he …
ran and crashed through the window. I guess I blacked out.” She
frowned. “I remember others and then I felt a sting and the next
thing I knew I woke up and you were standing over me.”

Tariq stared at her for a long moment
and finally dragged her close. “Sounds like your escape was more
exciting than ours,” he muttered. “It’s a gods damned shame we’ll
never know for sure. I don’t suppose you know what happened to
Aeon?”

“
He’s here,” Koryn said.
“The one that helped us, Daris, said that the servants sent to
fetch Emerald had captured another android trying to flee with her.
They put him in the hold.” He shrugged at the look Tariq sent him.
“I never thought about it being Aeon. I thought he was one of
Mylor’s servants.”

Tariq set Emerald away. “You two wait
for me in the galley. I’ll be back shortly.”

Koryn stared at him in surprise when
he turned abruptly and left. Shrugging he settled a hand on
Emerald’s back and urged her toward the section of the ship that
made up the galley.

It was a private luxury ship, unlike
Tariq’s, which was a warship, and the galley was far more compact
and included a lounging area. He told Emerald to sit down on one of
the chaises and headed into the food preparation area to see what
was available. Tariq returned while he was studying the fresh foods
somewhat doubtfully. He had Aeon with him.

“
You let him go?”
Koryn asked in surprise.

Tariq’s lips
tightened.
“I’m sure as fuck not going to
reward him for ripping Mylor’s head off for me by keeping him
locked up!”

Koryn felt a little
queasy.
As badly as he’d wanted to kill
the son-of-a-bitch himself, ripping his head off seemed a little
unnecessarily … violent.
“All the same, he
was a lord.”

“
Accident of
birth,”
Tariq growled.
“He had no honor and no nobility. Somebody should have done
the world a favor and killed the bastard sooner.”

Koryn had to agree.
“You don’t think it’s setting a bad
precedent?”

“
I don’t. We aren’t bound
by the laws of the Anunnaki any longer. We’re dead men if they
catch us. We can never go back. We need to try to adjust to that. I
believe I’m actually looking forward to it. I don’t think I
realized just how sick to death I was of everything about my life
until I realized that wasn’t going to be an issue much longer. Or
maybe it was when we came through the sewer and I saw
freedom?”

Koryn had thought much the
same thing and it was
still
hard to accept that their fortunes had changed so
radically. He didn’t think he was going to have any easier time
adjusting his way of thinking than Emerald had had. “What about
Emerald?”

Tariq turned to study her. His lips
curled into a slow smile. “She’s my woman. Aren’t you,
baby?”

She smiled at him. “And
Koryn’s.”

Tariq frowned and flicked a hard look
at Koryn. Koryn wiped the grin off his face.

Shaking his head, he pushed Koryn
aside and began looking for cooking apparatus.

Koryn moved out of his way, but he
didn’t retreat. “You aren’t planning to actually … prepare a
meal?”

“
That’s what I had in
mind.”

“
You know how to do that?”
Koryn asked, more than a little doubtful.

Tariq snorted. “Like I said—I went to
the military academy. They assume the possibility that we might
find ourselves stranded … without servants,” he said dryly. “Stick
around. You’ll want to learn this, too. I doubt we’ll have servants
where we’re going.”

Koryn stared at him in disbelief,
trying to figure out how he was going to focus on his work if he
had to do everything else besides. “But … We have the androids! Are
they just going to drop us off and go back?”

Tariq shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m
figuring they bought their freedom and they can make their own
decisions. That’s what I told them.”

Koryn’s lips tightened. It seemed to
have escaped Tariq that he was still making fucking decisions for
everyone! The flare of anger died after a moment as it dawned on
him that he’d volunteered to give up everything long since when
he’d told Tariq he would take Emerald to her own people to keep her
safe. He hadn’t considered what all ‘giving up everything’
entailed, but he could hardly blame that on Tariq.

Clearly, slavery wasn’t anything
humans were very familiar with anymore or Emerald wouldn’t have had
such a hard time grasping it. It almost seemed strange considering
it was the humans they’d adapted the practice from to begin with,
but he supposed the advances in their technology had made it
unnecessary. The early humans hadn’t had androids for labor, after
all.

He frowned as it occurred to him to
wonder if the Anunnaki had given the humans the idea for slavery
after all. It was possible since they hadn’t known the androids
they’d brought with them were their creations.

Well, they had, they just hadn’t
grasped that the androids had been created in labs or the fine
distinction between them and a completely biological
entity.

Which made it all the more bizarre, to
him, that Tariq had taken it into his head to ‘free’
them.

The meal Tariq cooked was surprisingly
good. When they’d finished Emerald offered to clean up, which
almost seemed as strange to Koryn as Tariq cooking. It annoyed him.
He was anxious to check her, but Tariq not only seemed pleased
about it, he seemed to think it was some sort of rite of passage or
something of the sort—that it was a pivotal point for all of them
in beginning their new lives.

He discovered Tariq hadn’t exaggerated
the extent of Seana’s sickbay. Few commercial or even military
vessels were as well equipped. It heartened him beyond the fact
that he discovered everything he needed to perform a careful and
accurate examination of Emerald. His life had begun to seem as if
it had been turned completely upside down and was spiraling out of
control faster than he could acclimate himself to the changes.
This, at least, was familiar ground. Beyond that, it appeased the
niggling fear at the back of his mind that he would discover his
own knowledge and skills virtually useless to him or anyone else in
the situation he’d found himself in. It wasn’t that he wasn’t
willing to learn or that he felt that he couldn’t, but it was
comforting to know he wouldn’t be completely useless until and
unless he did.

Just as importantly, he didn’t think
Emerald would see him as being useless.

He completely forgot his discomfort by
the time he’d examined her. She’d lost more weight during her
ordeal than he liked, but she was strong and healthy and mostly
recovered from losing the baby as far as he could see—at least
physically.

He studied her face when he’d helped
her to sit up again. “How are you feeling?”

She looked surprised and then smiled
faintly. “I thought you would tell me.”

He found himself smiling back at her.
“I can tell you that you’re in excellent shape and healing from the
abortion, but only you can tell me how you feel.”

She sobered at the mention of the
baby, frowning as if she was wrestling with something. “It didn’t
really seem real to me until Mylor was so pleased about getting rid
of it that he had to gloat about it. I hadn’t gotten far enough
along to feel the changes. Now … I think it hurts more to know it’s
gone when Tariq was so happy about it.” She met his gaze again.
“Mylor said that I was ready to breed again.”

Koryn felt a mixture of emotions at
that comment—primarily rage at the thought that the bastard had
intended to breed her at all and partly because he’d meant to
replace Tariq’s seed immediately with his own. Neither thought
completely vanquished the excitement that she was right—she was
ready to be bred again, fertile, and healed enough, he was sure, to
make it safe to do so.

She looked distressed. “I need it to
be Tariq’s baby—we both do.”

His excitement crashed, leaving the
taste of bitterness in his mouth. He nodded, his expression taut.
Emerald caught his hand when he would’ve turned away,
however.

“
Tell me you understand
that this is something I need to get over the grief of losing his
baby—and that he needs to get over his own grief. I love you, too.
I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I want to hurt him—and I want
your baby.” She smiled at him, lifting a hand to caress his cheek.
“We have time, now, and the chance to have a real life together. I
wanted to have your babies—yours and Tariq’s—when I thought that I
would only be a slave to you two and I wasn’t important to either
of you beyond that. We can be a family now, though, have a family
and raise our children together.

“
Isn’t that why you and
Tariq rescued me? Isn’t that why you’re taking me to the colony—so
we can be together?”

Koryn swallowed with an effort. “That
was what I intended, or at least hoped for, when we made the plans
before,” he said slowly, but he hadn’t expected or particularly
wanted Tariq to be part of that.

“
It’s what I want,
too.”

“
Yes, well it’s entirely
different,” he said irritably.

“
Beyond the fact that it’s
my choice, how is it different?”

He stared at her blankly.

“
You aren’t a slave girl
anymore. That’s how it’s different! It’s one thing to share a
slave, and completely different to share the woman … you
love.”

Emerald smiled at him and slipped her
arms around him. “You loved me before or you wouldn’t have risked
your life to save me from Mylor and a life of slavery.”

He put his arms around her, holding
her tightly. “This isn’t some warped idea of avenging yourself on
both of us for … what we did, is it?”

Emerald chuckled and leaned away,
cupping his face in her hands. “Of course it is! I’m going to
torment both of you forever by loving you as much as I can and
having your babies.”

He grinned reluctantly and pulled her
close to kiss her deeply. “You’re going to have a hard time
convincing Tariq that this will work,” he murmured when he broke
the kiss.

“
I convinced you it
would.”

He sighed. “Because I love you and I
know that you love Tariq and I’d lose if I tried to convince you to
be my woman instead,” he said wryly.

Emerald frowned at him in
consternation. “I don’t love you less than I love Tariq. I just
don’t think it’s fair or right of either of you to expect me to
make a choice between you now when you didn’t give me a choice
before. I couldn’t help but fall in love with both of
you.”

She shook her head at him. “You know
how stubborn I am. I want both of you and nothing less will
do.”

Emerald could tell just from Tariq’s
expression that he’d monitored her and Koryn when Koryn had taken
her to examine her. Anger and determination glittered in his eyes.
“Well, what’s the verdict?” he asked when he’d studied her for a
long moment and finally transferred his attention to
Koryn.

“
He says I’m ready for you
to breed me again,” Emerald volunteered.

Chapter Seventeen

Tariq’s cock leapt at the suggestion
and began to inflate faster than his mind could process Emerald’s
announcement.

Not that he’d needed to hear it from
her. He’d monitored Koryn’s examination and had not only seen the
results of Koryn’s tests himself, he’d seen and heard everything
that passed between them afterwards.

It was the fact that Emerald had
announced it herself that had his cock leaping to attention even
though his mind was still churning with doubts regarding the wisdom
of immediately impregnating Emerald again.

He didn’t think that he would’ve
experienced quite as much turmoil if Emerald hadn’t said that she
needed it to help her get through her grief over losing the other
baby. He realized it wasn’t in him to want to deny her
anything—especially anything that would comfort her after what
she’d been through because of him. Beyond that, although he hadn’t
consciously acknowledged it himself or even been aware that he felt
the loss himself, anything beyond the fury and helpless frustration
that had consumed him, he knew she was right. He was angrier that
they’d hurt Emerald and put her at risk than anything else, felt
anger because of his guilt and remorse from having failed her, but
he also felt the loss.

Their situation had
changed dramatically, however, and although he was still trying to
come to terms with it, he’d felt like Emerald belonged to
him—
still
felt
like she did. He hadn’t wanted to share her with Koryn to start
with. Even though he’d acknowledged that it was a political
necessity, even though he’d considered it essential to keeping
Emerald, it had irked the hell out of him from the
first.