Page 22 of Bound By the Vori

He nodded. “With the way your muscles were tensing up and spasming during your hallucinations, I am not surprised. I am going to send some medicine home with you to help relax your muscles a bit more and for your pain. They will be safe for you to take.”

“Fuck, I hope so. I can’t imagine you sending me home with medicine that would make me sicker,” she joked.

The medic peered at her, his red eyes blinking. “Ah, no. I mean that they will be safe for your offspring. It is very early, but I was able to detect it in my examination. In consequence I cannot prescribe you anything stronger, but what I give should be enough to help.”

Kim gaped at him. “Wait, rewind. Did you just say that I’m pregnant?”

The medic nodded and glanced down at his datapad. “You still have several days of fertility left too. If you have plans to increase your clutch, it is still within the safe timeframe.”

She stared at him hard despite feeling a bit flustered. “Are you really recommending that I leave the medical unit and…uh… breed? And what do you mean by safe timeframe?”

“Of course not,” he replied sedately. “I am merely pointing out it is possible. Although I understand humans breed differently than Vori, it is still standard practice to inform a female when she can safely allow her mates to attempt to fertilize more eggs if that is what she desires. As for your other question, eggs that are fertilized more just a few days between run the risk of having complications. When a clutch is delivered, all the eggs come whether they are at the right developmental stage or not.”

“Ah, well humans are definitely built a little differently,” she chuckled weakly.

“Indeed, but that difference does not negate caution. In the records of human females on Vora that I have gone over it appears that while a human is naturally the most fertile within the timeframe of her natural ovulation, with the venom of Vori males, it adds an extra dimension. The hormones that are triggered with the buildup of your uterine wall may send the males into rut, but they are the ones instigating the rapid growth and release of eggs which extends a human’s potential period for fertilization from days to a few weeks. Not as long as the lunar cycle that a Vori female is fertile, but still enough to be of concern.”

“Oh.” Kim felt the blood drain out of her face. She had never even considered that before with all the indiscriminate biting that went on during her last fertile cycle with them. “That’s horrific! How the hell are accidents prevented then?”

The medic gave a curious look. “Was this not part of the introductory packet?” He hissed in frustration when she mutely shook her head. “I am going to have to get in touch with someone in the program and have the packets updated. That is an unacceptable risk not only to the young but also the emotional wellbeing of the nest.”

She didn’t have the heart to tell him how many of the women had admitted not reading them. They wanted to be surprised—she would bet her bottom dollar that they were by now. If not, they soon would be.

Opening a cabinet attached to the long table that ran along one wall, the medic shuffled some things around and came out with a small box that he promptly handed her.

“Scan yourself with this every day after the first time your mates bite you. Remember that you will always release an egg right away that same day unless you already have one prepared within your womb. By scanning yourself daily you will pick up signs of a fertilized egg within twenty-four hours of conception. You have a maximum of four days from that point to allow your males to strike.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, but that flagged another problem in her mind since none of them seemed to have any control over that in the heat of the moment. “And how do I get them to stop?”

He paused and promptly went back to rummaging through his things before thrusting another box into her hand that reminded her vaguely of an epi-pen she’d seen before. “Vori females will usually warn her males away and isolate herself for the remainder of her cycle until the egg sack membrane has developed enough that the males can detect it. Since humans are smaller and less likely to isolate, we have come up with this. You simply inject it and it will mask you with that scent for about three weeks. More than enough time for the natural scent to become apparent.”

She looked at the boxes and turned them around in her hand, her mind spinning. That she’d gotten pregnant at all wasn’t a shock. Since they were mated and she was eager to start their family, she hadn’t thought anything of birth control that might be available on Vora. But now she felt conflicted. She wanted nestlings from both of her mates. On the other hand, she felt like shit, and the idea of being ravished by her mates made her head pound and her stomach lurch with an intense desire to puke. Between the deep ache in her muscles and the headache pounding behind her eyes, she just wanted to take the dose of medicine when she got home, crawl into their bed, and just sleep.

She felt guilty as hell that she wasn’t all about jumping her mate when she wanted to have a nestling with Rykaal as well. He hadn’t even been present, which made her feel worse—like she’d left him out.

The medic gave her a compassionate smile. “Do not worry. Just take the meds I am giving you to finish your medication cycle and you will feel normal tomorrow. Until then, just let yourself rest.”

Kim felt her shoulders relax as the tension she didn’t even realize she was holding eased out of her. Instead of dwelling on the matter of nestlings, she watched curiously as the medic prepared an injector to be taken home with instructions to deliver the medicine into her arm or any other dense muscle.

“I will comm Rykaal with the instructions as well, in case you need the reminder,” he said kindly.

Tiredly mumbling her thanks, Kim was more than ready when her mates swept in with a sharp warning rattle of their tails. Her lips twitched faintly at their obvious instinctive need to create space between her and the other male, something that was not lost upon the medic either given his exasperated look as he obliged.

In short order Kim was scooped up in warm arms and carried from the medical unit without a single word exchanged between the males. Rykaal held her safely against her chest, Sijhord noticeably zigzagging protectively at his side as if prepared for an attack from any direction. It was incredibly sweet, and she was too tired to remind them once again that it was an accident. It seemed that instinct operated on an entirely different wavelength for the Vori, and even if they agreed that it had been an accident, they weren’t allowing themselves to take any chances.

Instead of being irritated by it, Kim sank into Rykaal’s embrace, enjoying the sense of being completely and utterly protected by two devoted males. Her hand discreetly smoothed over her belly as if she could communicate some of that feeling to the nestling that had begun growing inside of her. Snuggling her cheek against the fine scales on Rykaal’s chest, she breathed him in, luxuriating in his warmth. She could feel his crown coils lightly teasing her scalp as they ran through her braids, and it brought a smile to her lips.

She was pretty sure she dozed off because even though it was a relatively short distance from the medical unit in the palace to the family dorm, she suddenly jerked awake at the touch of silky cushions against her skin as her mates carefully pulled her clothes off her. Naked and settling in comfortably in the cushions, Kim yawned and smiled sleepily as she felt one tail snake around her and then another. They curled supportively against her back and hip, cupping her arms, shoulder, and legs.

Kim wrapped her arms around the tail nestling closest to her breasts, curling herself into it as her mates settled around her. Their scent filled her nose and their crown coils slid along her hair and skin in gentle, questing strokes as they tucked themselves around her. It sent a sense of tranquility through her as she snuggled deeper into their embrace between them. Although she was certain that her mates were still wide awake given that it was the middle of the day, they seemed more than content to curl around her as she succumbed to a drug-induced slumber. And at that moment, being sick and cared for so attentively, Kim never felt luckier.

Despite her current state, she had no regrets coming to Vora. She had been given everything she ever wanted in the form of her mates. She just needed to tell them.

“I love you,” she mumbled, her voice slurring so badly to her own ears that she couldn’t even make out what she said.

Ah, fuck it. She would tell them again later.

Nineteen

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