Page 45 of Bred By Zyros
Since then, others have shown up, drawn to the panicked activity, to the sound of my groaning and sobbing.
I’m tired, more tired than I remember being any of the other times.
I try to reassure myself that’s just because this one is mine, that the setting and lack of medical supplies are what’s scaring me, but there’s an uneasy knot in my chest I can’t seem to work loose.
“Melody…” he hisses.
I nod. “We need to go; I need to go.”
No sooner than those words leave my mouth, I’m in his arms, my head spinning as I’m rushed outside. Earlier, to keep myself busy, I repurposed my agency dress. None of the other clothes I bought at the station are very good for what I’m about to do. I had Zyros make it shorter, slit it up the middle so that the top of my belly shows, and that it can be parted easily. Not the cutest thing, but at this point, I couldn’t give less of a fuck. My now long curly hair is drenched in sweat and knotted high on my head as the humid air of the night meets us.
Emotion clogs my throat at the sight before me.
My pallet is piled high with blankets, glowvine weaved and held above the ground by some kind of twisting knotted wood, like a gazebo, kind of, but without the roof. Painted symbols of the goddesses line the curtained sides. It’s a beautiful customwith a morbid outcome. The moon meets my eyes next, a gasp leaving my lips. “Zyros, it'sred.”
“It is Elaria’s moon, the goddess of art and creativity. The one who designed Nyssara, she carved it from bits of her flesh.”
“That’s not fucking comforting.” I breathe, pain wrecking my body until I shake. “She sounds violent.”
“She is strong, like my mate. Like our child.”
His sweet words are admittedly lost on me for now as I lower onto the blankets, rocking back and forth on my hands and knees. While we were on the ship this last time, long enough to get a signal, I downloaded human birthing information for Zyros. I’ve been dutifully reading it to him since—once a day at least. It would be more, but I refused, thinking it was feeding his worry more than helping it. The eyes in the woods around us track me like ghosts. “Zyros, I don’t want them here,” I groan.
“I cannot make them leave; I am sorry.”
“Why?”
“There are too many. We are safe. They wish to offer their prayers. This is how it was done before the machines. You’re going to have to trust me.” He echoes my words back to me.
I nod, because I do with anything. Everything. Always.
Zyros
My mate screams as she bows over, slamming her forehead into the blankets. It has been like this for a long time…too long. Her sobs find me next, and a sickness soul deep finds its way into the very core of me. I help her lift herself, as her trembling handfinds its way between her legs, hope for the first time in zentics lighting her gaunt blue eyes. “Oh, I can feel it.”
They brighten for a moment, shining with tears, but her voice is quiet, barely a whisper. On her next push, her scream is not alone. The females have moved closer with each passing zentic. They scream with my mate, their prayers and demands of the goddesses haunting and desperate. Her sob is ragged. “I’mtired.”
“I know, I know my sssaryth,” I assure her, the scent of her metallic blood filling the night.
There is much underneath her. My heart is pounding so loud it is as deafening as the prayers. Her painted belly is the same shade as the blood that coats her legs.
Something is wrong.
My heart is slamming as if it's desperate to escape my chest. Emotion chokes me as they scream again, her entire small frame shaking with violent shudders as she cups the bottom of the egg. I follow what her downloads taught me, but my mate is bleeding, the shell more red than white. Another horrified scream fills Nyssara’s sky, and when the egg is free, the world stands still. Everything I had never dreamed would happendoes. The females rush forward and panic, genuine panic, unlike anything I have felt before, rings through me as the first movement comes from behind the soft shell.
Water blurs my vision as I go to grab our baby, but Melody falls limp, slamming into me, her shaky voice slitting my heart in two. “I did it. I helped you.”
“Yes, my mate, yousavedme.”
She smiles, but it's wrong, weak, her eyes fluttering. “I can hear her, I think…the goddess.”
“No,” the word leaves me in a choked hiss as a pale-yellow set of arms darts underneath us, grabbing our baby and hauling it away from my mate. She cries out, struggling to get upright,begging for it back as more blood leaves her. My vision goesblank.
When it returns, my mate is lying in the moon nest, her sobs ragged but weakening, and my tail is wrapped around the neck of the female holding our baby. “Release itnow,” I hiss.
But my words are unheard. The females around us are sobbing along with my mate. We’re all waiting, an entire species, what’s left of us, gathered on bated breath in a small clearing in the middle of our poisoned planet.
The males who, until now, have stayed hidden in the jungle, warning hisses level in their throats. My scales hackle, ready to fight until I see they aren’t forus. The female holding our baby eyes go wide on the advancing males, her brow furrowed and desperate as her eyes return to the egg as the crack in the shell widens.
