Page 58 of Guardian's Soul

I rushed to the bridge, closely followed by Hannah, and filled her in on my thoughts.

"Shit," she cursed.

"Yeah, shit indeed," I agreed.

I opened my messages, but just as I had anticipated, there was nothing there. My comm would have already notified me if Nock had responded. I cursed again.

"Now what?" Hannah asked.

"There's nothing we can do. We're still on course to UX938. Hopefully, Zaarek's group hasn't left there yet, or maybe we run into others like us." I looked at her.Others like us, repeated in my mind. Other Space Guardians with mating marks. Others who had heard and understood Nock's message. The idea exhilarated me. We wouldn't have to fight the Ohrurs alone. That we would have to fight and destroy them was as clear as daylight to me, had been from the moment I had laid eyes on the actual Possedion and not his holovid persona. While he had hidden his evilness with technology, in person, it was unmistakable.

"You said there were a thousand Space Guardians in the universe at any given time," Hannah interrupted my dark musings. "Your kind has existed for tens of thousands of years, right?"

I nodded, not understanding where she was going with this. Not until she added, "So mating marks must have popped up before, considering how long the Ohrurs have been using your kind."

I finally grasped her point. Even Poseidon had admitted to it. "You're right."

"So what happened to them?"

I logged back into the Ohrur database, digging out what I could about Soulweb Glyphs.

"They were unique to the Darlams," I read and summarized for Hannah, who had once again placed herself on my lap, a position I truly enjoyed. "They would appear on a couplepredestined to be together, announcing their status to the town."

"Were they as painful as ours?" Hannah wanted to know, mindlessly rubbing her arm and scrunching her face as if she were mad at her marks.

"Hmm, interesting…"

"What?" She hit my arm.

I laughed. "So impatient. Give me a moment." When I thought she would squirm off my lap in anticipation, I had mercy on her and finished. "No. They weren't painful at all, and it took several days for them to appear on the Darlams before they were finished."

"Great…" Hannah mumbled. "Thanks a lot to whoever or whyever we had to suffer. It's like Adam and Eve all over."

"What are you talking about?" I asked curiously.

"Oh"—she waved her hand—"just an old religious story."

"I like old religious stories," I probed.

"It's nothing, really, it's just… it's called the original sin. According to the story, Eve seduced Adam with an apple, and because they lost their innocence, God punished Eve by making having babies painful for her."

My brows drew together. "Giving birth is painful for your species?"

"Very." She shuddered. "I mean, we have drugs now and…" she broke off.

"What?"

"Do you think you and I could have a baby?" Hannah asked.

That idea intrigued me. "I would love to have a baby Hannah running around." I might not have considered or wanted a family before, but with Hannah? Once she said those words, I knew with absolute certainty that this was what I wanted.

She slapped my arm. "That's not what I mean. I mean, do you think it's biologically possible?"

"I don't see why not? I can run some tests if you want me to."

"You should." She nodded vigorously.

"Why?"

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