Page 25 of Monstrous Baby
Turning into his embrace, I tucked my arm around his waist. “Well, I’m certainly extraordinarily hungry.”
:Dinner’s ready and waiting,:Rizan replied immediately.:Would you like us to bring it to the bedroom or the dining room? Your human friends are eating at the table now.:
I didn’t care to see Dr. Snyder—but Holly was another story. As soon as I thought of her, a cascade of ideas and thoughts sparked through my mind.
She wanted a squad of her own.
There had been another squad close to the cave—though they’d attacked us. Were they still alive and hunting us?
Would they even want a human mate?
Or would they try to eat her? Shudder.
What made Kroktl not want to eat me? Had he sensed the fragmented Myrm cells lying dormant inside me? Or had it truly been a serendipitous moment of being in the right place at the right time and smelling?—
“We could find out,” Snryx said.
I jerked to a halt so suddenly that he ran into me. He immediately steadied me, his implements soft as they brushed my arm and forehead. The same as when he’d tended the wound on my head. The concussion. He’d taken brain scans then and probably blood too. Before any of the other guys’ DNA was inside me. Only Kroktl’s.
A file pinged on the grid, already flowing data through me. My blood composition. Brain waves. Blood pressure. Body temperature. Bone density. Even though I didn’t have Snryx’s medical understanding, I could feel the dehydration in those numbers. Shivers of shock. Exhaustion, a bone-deep ache that strained my heart and organs.
“Could you compare my first blood sample with Holly’s? See what’s different between us?”
“Of course.”
An image flickered through my mind. Holly sitting at the table, chatting with me, while Snryx simply walked past her. One brief, negligible touch of his implement to her shoulder or neck—and he’d have the sample. She wouldn’t even know.
Which gave me the ick. “If she’s willing, I mean. I wouldn’t want to run tests on her without her consent.”
“Noted. How long would you like the sample retained?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer. I wasn’t even sure where he’d store the blood sample. In one of the implements? Then it’d make sense to empty it out at some point simply to make room for other tests. Especially if one of the squad was injured. “Is there a time limit? Like how long can you keep it fresh or stable outside of her body?”
He let out a huff of amusement. “I could keep a thousand human blood samples stored indefinitely without issue. I simply wasn’t sure how you’d feel about another human’s DNA being stored in my databank. Let alone a female.”
I paused just outside the doorway into the dining room, though I couldn’t see the table or our guests past Kroktl’s bulk. I switched to the grid so the waiting humans wouldn’t hear.:Are you saying you want another female?:
:No! Fuck no. That’s not what I meant at all.:Snyrx lowered his head toward mine, implements undulating around us.:I want no other but you. I’d go so far as to say I’m incapable of absorbing any other female’s DNA even if I wished to. But this sample will be inside me, stored, until you say otherwise. I didn’t want to anger you by concealing facts.:
I turned enough to brush my mouth against his. He startled under the brief touch, as if me voluntarily touching him was unexpected and rare. A disillusion I needed to dispel—with each of them.:Why would I be angry at you for doing the very thing I asked you to do?:
He didn’t answer with words—but emotions. An erratic, frantic surge like a hurricane splitting into dozens, tearing him apart. Uncertainty, because emotion wasn’t something in which he specialized. None of the squad did. They couldn’t—until they came to Earth and were freed of DSC’s programming.The squad functioned as an emotionless killing unit, reacting instantaneously to threats or commands. They hadn’t thought for themselves or even understood that was something they could do.
Let alone feel.
Love. Satisfaction. Desire.
I cupped his cheek and pressed my lips to his again in a soft, lingering kiss.:Thank you for enduring such confusing and conflicting feelings for me.:
:You’re the star, the center of our galaxy. Everything we do is for you. Always.:
13
NATALIE
Sitting at a table with a bounty of fresh fruit, vegetables, and numerous steaming dishes with Holly across from me was such a normal—human—activity. As long as I didn’t glance over at one of the guys prowling around the room, always on alert.
“In a matter of days, I’ve already learned more than all my years in college combined,” Holly chattered excitedly. “I’m pretty sure I saw some wild criollo trees on the way into town. From the color of the pods, I’m hoping they haven’t been contaminated by any of the more modern cacao varieties. If so, they’re the closest thing to what the ancient Maya would have made chocolate from. It’s the finest, rarest chocolate in the world.”
