"You think your people will accept me?" she asked doubtfully.
Ronan lifted a hand and brushed his knuckles lightly along her cheek. "If they will not then we will form our own clan."
Kate felt her heart soar. Neither what he'd said or the look in his eyes might be love, but it was close enough!
We should go before they sound an alarm, Dax said abruptly.
Kate followed them out of the cell into the empty corridor beyond. "You didn't … kill anyone?"
Ronan's lips tightened. I wanted to kill them all, but, no. We have locked them in another cell.
Kate touched his arm. "Thank you for that."
Dax shook his head. There might yet be bloodshed.
The comment was enough to set Kate's nerves on edge, but despite her fears they managed to get off the ship without incident, primarily because the Sirians had locked the guards on the ship in one of the cells and the main force was outside the ship guarding the settlement. It helped that it was night and they fled into a near stygian darkness with no moonlight to expose them and very few artificial lights within the camp. They didn't manage to get completely clear of the encampment without incident, however.
Dax had scooped her up into his arms as soon as they descended the gangplank and they moved around the ship away from the encampment, but the guard they'd disabled on their way in was discovered before they managed to escape completely and the alarm went up. The moment the alarm siren cut loose, all three men transformed themselves into their natural forms, sprang forward at a run and then abruptly became airborne.
Kate's stomach went weightless as they left the ground and her heart seemed to leap into her throat, trying to choke her. She clutched at Dax frantically, burrowing her face against his neck. I will not drop you, beloved.
Surprise pierced Kate's sheer terror. Beloved?
It was as well that the thought that he might not only know what he'd said but feel it warmed her, because the air very quickly became frigid as they shot upwards almost vertically. "You can't climb high enough fast enough to reach a safe distance," Kate gasped. "There weapons have a long range and they have infrared. It can detect your body heat."
We can try, Ronan said grimly.
To Kate's relief, and despite her doubts, they succeeded. She thought it wasn't their flying capabilities so much as the fact that they'd been so close to crossing the guard perimeter before they discovered. It was relief that they managed to get away without being filled full of holes, however.
Kate's teeth were chattering with a mixture of shock, fear, and cold by the time they began to descend.
The Sirians alit in small clearing beneath trees whose overhanging branches created a cave-like effect, blocking out the little light the stars above them created.
"Where are we?" Kate whispered when Dax set her on her feet.
"Home," Ronan responded.
Kate glanced toward him when he spoke. All she could see, however, was a deeper shadow within the shadows and the faint, white glint of teeth that told her he was grinning. Hopefulness surged through her.
"Home?"
We had to make a place for our delicate little human queen, Jarek said, amusement threading his voice.
Kate chuckled in response to that amusement as well as the comment even though she felt just a little insulted at the same time. "I'm not delicate. Or a queen."
She felt like one, though, when they'd led her inside the 'home' they'd built for her-sort of. As soon as the light came on, she discovered they were inside a natural cavern, or at least what had begun as one. They'd transformed it.
Kate glanced at the glow light Ronan held and then looked around at the 'room' that had been illuminated, immediately recognizing much of the furnishings as her own. Chuckling in pleasure, she turned to look at the men. "You got my things!"
She was a little disconcerted when she discovered they were still in their natural forms. She didn't realize that she'd given herself away until, one by one, they shifted into the forms she was more familiar with.
She bit her lip. "I'm sorry. I'm still trying to get used to the way you really look. I mean naturally. You don't have to make yourselves look like me-or human-you know. I'll get used to …." She stopped, wondering if she was making things worse the harder she tried to reassure them.
Ronan approached her slowly, she thought because he was worried that she might reject him now that she'd seen him as he really was. I do not want you to be afraid of me as the others are.
Kate released a shaky breath and closed the gap between them, hugging him. "I'm not afraid of you.
You've never given me any reason to be afraid." She pulled away to look up at him. "The others are afraid because they don't know you and you're different. But I think I like … I think I love you because you are …
different."
She turned to look at Dax and Jarek. "All three of you. Or maybe I love you in spite of it," she added teasingly. She shook her head, looking away. "I thought … when you didn't come back, I thought you weren't going to."
"You doubted?" Ronan asked, looking far less pleased than he had a moment before.
"I thought something might have happened. I thought all sorts of things, but mostly I thought about how very unhappy I was that you weren't there and how much I missed you."
We thought that you would not want to leave your people and come with us and I was very unhappy when I thought that, Jarek said, abruptly surging toward her and gathering her tightly against his length.
Truthfully, she wasn't sure she would have been as willing to leave a few days earlier, but that had changed the moment the soldiers had tried to kill them, she realized. She'd stopped feeling the kinship to her people she'd always felt, begun almost to think of them as aliens. She understood why they'd acted the way they had and she still didn't forgive them for it.
She squeezed him affectionately. "We're here together now."
She shook her head at them when Jarek released her to explore her new home and she discovered they'd filched far more than the things she'd brought with her. "You guys have been busy!" she said laughingly. "Have you been raiding since you left? It must have taken a while to collect all this-without getting caught."
She could see from their expressions that they weren't entirely certain what she meant by 'raiding'.
We had to make a place first, Dax said. We knew it would no longer be safe to live among the humans with you-not safe for you. We can still pass among them without being detected, but we had given ourselves away when we rushed to protect the younglings and in doing that had also given you away.
It occurred to Kate to wonder what had become of the younglings they'd rescued, but she decided that could wait. She wanted to become deeply reacquainted with her lovers. Smiling at them, she moved purposefully toward the huge bed they'd put together against the back wall of the cave-their home, she corrected herself-stripping off her clothing as she went. She discovered when she'd climbed to the center that she didn't have to issue an invitation. All three of them had piled into the bed before she'd even settled completely.
Amusement flickered through her, but it was short-lived. Ronan made it clear that he'd missed her as much, or more, than she'd missed him. The near savagery of his hunger in his kisses and his touch was almost frightening.
Almost.
It was far more thrilling, however, and she was so wet and ready for his possession by the time he moved over her and pressed his turgid flesh inside of her that she came within moments. She was still shuddering with the convulsions of release when he followed her into ecstasy.
Before she could catch her breath, Dax dragged her into his embrace and stoked the dying embers of her desire into a new flame.
"Wait!" she gasped when he pushed her to her back. "I want Jarek, too."
Dax sent Jarek a deadly look, but he didn't object when she rolled onto her side to face him. Dragging her upper leg across his hip, he thrust inside of her with a minimum of effort. She felt Jarek move tightly against her buttocks and moment later the burning stretch as he entered her with Dax. She moaned in pleasure, closing her eyes to focus on the twin penetrations as they set a rhythm.
She was so busy enjoying the play of their cocks inside of her that they almost left her behind. As she felt first Jarek and then Dax tense and felt the heat of their semen bathe her womb, however, it set her own climax off.
This, she thought a little mindlessly, was true bliss!
* * * *
No one was prepared for the birthing because none of the four had ever experienced anything like it.
Kate had some idea what to expect, despite her lack of actual experience, and she still wasn't prepared for labor in all its painful glory.
The Sirians had some inkling of what would happen because of the clan 'memory'. For although their own queens, after carrying her eggs inside of her for nearly the same term of gestation as humans did, birthed her young while still inside their pods, their gatherers crossed species. And some of the species they had crossed with in generations past birthed their young just as most mammals on Earth did.
The memory, or knowledge, wasn't nearly specific enough to truly prepare them for birth, however.
They'd emerged from their pods with no mother around-no fathers either-and it was a far less messy affair.
They were appalled and nearly as frightened as Kate was when she suddenly went into labor, by her reckoning, weeks before she should have. She wasn't completely certain that the babies were early. The days on Sirius were longer than Earth days by nearly six hours and that made counting difficult even with her knowledge of the gestation cycle and the fact that the medics had pinpointed her progress for her.
She thought they were early, however, and that sent her into a panic.
Ronan had wanted to 'raid' the colony for a medic to attend the birth. Kate had flatly refused to agree to the kidnapping, not because she didn't want medical help-she did. And not because she was particularly worried that the medic would come to any harm. She was afraid that Ronan, or Dax, or Jarek would come to harm in the attempt, however, and she was also afraid that the raid would set in motion the hostilities she had worried about.
It was natural. She could do it.
As soon as her pains began to escalate, though, she changed her mind.
Fortunately for the hapless would be kidnap victim, she discovered it was far too late to change her mind. The babies were ready to be born and they weren't going to wait for any of the men to kidnap a medic for her and she damned well wasn't about to let any of them escape when it was clear they all wanted to run the moment they saw blood and amniotic fluids gush from their very most favorite place.
She was pretty sure they were also appalled when the tiny, squalling infants made their appearance, one by one, squeezed from her body by her contractions to lie in a bloody mess on the bed, their tiny arms and legs flailing as they screamed their displeasure at being shoved their warm, dark place into the cold, cruel world.
Exhausted almost to the point of unconsciousness by her labors, Kate instructed them in a slurred, almost drunken voice, to wrap the babies snuggly in the receiving blankets she'd made by cutting up a coverlet and give them to her.
Ronan immediately looked at Dax and belayed the order. Dax turned to Jarek and told him to do it.
"Damn it, Ronan! Dax! One of them is supposed to be yours! They aren't all Jarek's! Just be careful with them!"
"The biggest is mine," Ronan said unhappily, obviously not impressed with the 'biggest'. The claim inspired them to examine the babies a little more closely, however, to make sure they'd identified their own offspring.
The little queen is mine, Jarek said happily.
Dax sent him a resentful look.
The babies also weren't impressed with their fathers. They squalled more loudly when Ronan, Dax, and Jarek haphazardly wrapped them in the blankets and then scooped them up and deposited them with obvious relief close enough that Kate could reach them. Unconvinced that they'd been as gentle as they should have been, Kate promptly pulled the blankets off, examined each of the babies carefully, and then bundled them snuggly. They began to quiet as soon as they were wrapped tightly and brought close enough they could feel Kate's warm and smell her scent.
Ronan's boy immediately began a slightly frantic search for a breast to suckle. Surprised but pleased to see he was strong despite his size, Kate chuckled and guided him to her breast. She fell asleep before he'd given up the tit he'd staked a claim on, but roused again when the other two babies began to demand to suckle.
"They're beautiful," she murmured happily. "I knew they would be."
The men exchanged doubtful looks.
They are still bloody, Ronan pointed out.
And very red and … spotty, Dax observed.
And wrinkled, Jarek said a little doubtfully. Their skins are too big.
Kate managed to glare at them. "They're beautiful."
Ronan eyed her a little warily. "You are beautiful."
She looked like hell because she'd just been through hell, but she decided it was really sweet of him to lie to her. "I love you, too," she said sleepily. "I've fed them. It's your turn to nurture while I sleep."
None of them looked particularly anxious to assume their duties, but they took the babies and after watching them for a few moments to assure herself they were holding them carefully, Kate gave up the effort to stay awake any longer.
"I love you, Kate," Jarek murmured, bending down to nuzzle her cheek.
Kate smiled. She occasionally suffered doubts, still, that they really understood love as humans did, but then again so very many of her own people seemed utterly confused about it that it hardly mattered when they seemed willing and eager to express all the 'trimmings' that went with her own concept of love-affection and protection, companionship-hot sex. They didn't even stint her on giving her the words she so enjoyed hearing.
She doubted there was a single being on Sirius-colonist or native-that was a happy and content as she was.
Dax nuzzled her other cheek. "I love you."
"I'm glad you guys picked me for your mate. I love all of you. I love my beautiful babies, and I love the dwelling you built for me. I never dreamed when I left Earth that I would be coming home."