Page 63 of Barbarian Daddies

They’re soulless bastards, and they’re responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people. Not just the women affected by the plague, though, but the men, children, and elderly folks who perished in the ensuing civil war.

At one point during our conversation, Amber gives me a warm, loving smile. “Look at you, cradling your belly,” she whispers. “There’s barely a bump there yet, but you’re already holding it, getting ready.”

“Oh, God, you’re gonna keep hitting me right in the feels until the baby is born, aren’t you?” I groan, rolling my eyes from this sugary overload—from both Amber and the plum cookies.

“Somebody has to,” Alicia chimes in. “You’re going to be a mom, Cynthia. Aren’t you, I don’t know, worried? Scared? Excited?”

“I’m everything all at once,” I laugh. “But I try to take it one day at a time.”

Amber scoots over to hug me, and I welcome her embrace. “You’ll be okay, I promise. Kai and Maur are with you, and they’ll be with you for as long as they draw breath. I saw how determined they are to protect you, to find you when they lost you, to have you in their lives. Honey, you’ve hit the jackpot with those two.”

“Yeah, at least I’ve got that going for me,” I chuckle dryly.

An awkward silence settles across the room while each of us looks back at the lives we were forced to leave behind when Umok first abducted us. I can’t help but wonder, had it not been for this bond with Kai and Maur, even after how hard I tried to resist the damned thing, would I still be here? Would I have fought harder to go back to Earth? Or would I have died trying?

“You know, there are chunks of my past that have started to fade” I tell the girls after a while. “My marriage, my residency years, it’s becoming a bit of a blur. I have clearer memories of my days here on Sunna than my whole life on Earth.”

“It comes with the adjustment period,” Alicia says. “We’re all going through it. Soon enough, Earth will be nothing more than a crummy memory. It’s not like we can do anything about it at this point. We agreed we’d stay here to keep the Sunnaites from invading our home world, and that’s the price we’ll have to pay.”

“Forgetting Earth,” I mumble.

Maybe that’s not the worst thing. We won’t really forget it. But new memories keep piling up on top of the old ones. Fresh colors layering over Earth. The reds and oranges of Sunna dominate my field of vision. The heat. The volcanoes. The strange orange water with its peculiar properties. The hybrid child I’m carrying in my womb. These demon-like Sunnaites who have welcomed us into their homes and their lives with arms wide open. It’s been a crazy ride so far, and something tells me it’s about to get wilder.

We poked the hornet’s nest when we took Sapphire City.

It’s not the immediate retaliation we’ll need to be worried about. It’s the future schemes of the Sky Tribe and of whoever was behind the plague that we’ll need to be mindful of. The future may be murky and uncertain at this point, but there are ironclad facts for me to focus on, as well. I will continue to study the virus until I can stop it—either from spreading, with a vaccine, or altogether, with a cure. I will carry this baby to term and build a family with Kai and Maur, whom I love more than I ever thought I could love anybody in this crazy life. And I will do everything in my power to keep my friends close and safe beside me.

It's all I can do.

And it’s a whole lot better than nothing.

Epilogue

Cynthia

Her name is Kala, and she is our little miracle.

My daughter. Our daughter. I cannot take my eyes off her, this pink-skinned bundle sleeping in my arms after a stormy and horrendously painful labor. It took me twelve hours to bring Kala into this world, twelve hours of holding on to Kai and Maur for dear life as I kept pushing and pushing, as Amber patted my face with wet cloths, as Jewel and Alicia scrambled to follow my instructions as the baby crowned. It feels like ages ago now. A distant dream.

Exhaustion has set in, but I can’t bring myself to fall asleep. I can’t. She’s just so beautiful. So perfect. She’s got my nose and the shape of my eyes, but everything else is Kai and Maur combined. Their sharp cheekbones and Sunnaite features—shiny, black hair; crimson red eyes; two tiny bumps on her forehead which will someday grow into horns, and the tiniest little tail protruding from just above her tush.

“She smells amazing,” Kai says, constantly sniffing the baby as she whimpers in her sleep. “Cynthia, you did it,” he adds, looking up at me with love glimmering in his eyes. “You were fucking amazing.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you two,” I reply, my voice barely a whisper.

Maur caresses my face and plants a gentle kiss on my temple, his lips soft and warm and filling my soul with sunlight. “You did the hard part, baby. You’re our warrior queen, you know that, right?”

“I love you, too,” I giggle.

“We’ll make this world a better place for you and Kala,” Kai declares solemnly. “I love you more than life itself, and I need you to hear it as often as possible because it’s the one undeniable truth of our existence.”

“I love you, Cynthia. I will burn this whole world to the ground for you, if that’s what it takes to keep you and our baby safe,” Maur says.

And he means every word. They mean every word. “I know, my darlings,” I reply, smiling. “But maybe let’s try to heal the world before we burn it. Kala deserves better. And so do Salem and Valen and every other child who had the misfortune of being born in the midst of a plague and a civil war.”

“We’ll do whatever you want,” Maur chuckles dryly. “I was just laying out the options here.”

“It’s good to know, babe.”

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