Page 32 of The First Alpha on the Planet
“Archnemesis? Vil just thought you were an ass. It’s been competition. As soon as we all got our cuts adjusted, and you made good, all was forgiven. And for the Noel thing? Doc had everything figured out. Your move cemented Noel’s placewith us. I mean—things happen for a reason, right? Gorma or something?” Kris shrugged.
“It’s klarma? Isn’t it?” Robard beamed.
“Both of you are wrong. It’s kermit.” Roan rolled his eyes. “And I’ve earned enough bad kermit in my lifetime to not deserve any of this.”
“Sometimes, good things happen to bad people in just the right way to remind them to be good. Maybe kermit has chosen you to heal?” Fel smiled. “Unless this is religion. Then please take your kermit deity god thing elsewhere because religion causes…”
Fel’s tail gestured as if he were pointing to all the things around us. “Colthraxians had religion. We didn’t worship a kermit, but we had gods, an embodiment of the perfect host and the all-seeing seeder. The roles and sacrifices they made told us that the spirit of all living beings capable of hosting a Colthraxian desired it and were better for it. Our inhabiting a body ensured its soul a paradise.”
“Kermit isn’t religion, it’s just this saying that good things come to good people as a universal reward system for doing good.” Kris laughed Fel off. “It makes people feel like there’s a reward for not being a piece of shit.”
“And sometimes, being a unit of feces makes good things happen to you, too.” Fel huffed. “We only need to be better because even if you have everything, you still smell foul.”
“Couldn’t have said it better, myself.” I leaned into Roan’s side and sniffed dramatically. “You’ve aired out quite a bit.”
Despite the contrite expression on his face, his tail curled into mine. “Now, let’s see these images. I want to see what we have to look forward to with Roan.”
And it was actually kind of beautiful.
Chapter Fourteen
Roan
I’d gotten my confirmation a few days prior and winced at the sound of children running rampant through our home. Nexus and Noah were attached at the hip, and Nexus needed to stay somewhere away from Noel with their egg due soon. Zurok and Fel agreed the presence of young may disrupt his nesting.
As I sat up and blinked fuzzily at the opposite wall of the bedchamber, a lightning bolt of blue and orange raced through, screaming at top volume before something wet, white, and rubbery flopped across my blanket. It reminded me of flesh soaked in bleach, puffy and sticky, corroded. “What’s this, Nexus?” I swallowed metallic bile in my throat as I glanced around for an article of clothing or a rag, towel, anything really, to pick the thing up before shoving my blanketimmediatelyinto a laundry chute.
“Kill’d it!” Nexus puffed up, presenting his find as I studied the thing in disgust.
“What is it?” I tried my absolute best to flick my tail with delight, so my facial expression of disgust didn’t betray Nexus’s pride in having brought me a gift.
“Worm.” Nexus’s proclamation didn’t tell me much at all.
But, out of an abundance of caution, I signaled my hand to catch the AI’s system. The AI that dominated Paradise wasn’t really tailored to hybreed thought processes, having been inundated with the chaos of Terran society. So, when I spoke to call for Tish, she answered with a polite. “M’yesss?”
The delighted purr in her voice was one of pride I couldn’t mistake for anything other than what it was—a vixen that had snatched her a particularly lovely mate. I rolled my eyes. “You or Merriel know what kind ofwormthis is?” I gestured at thecreature, and several of the wall ports with visual capabilities whirred with movement.
“Well, I can say for certain that I knowwhatit is. Merriel has relayed the info to me and is speaking to Noel, Doc, and Fel. Would you mind taking the babies down to the clinic and not speaking further about the worm?”
That was a vague response if I’d ever heard one. As time stretched, a knot of dread formed in my stomach. “Should I bring thiswormhere for them to analyze?”
“Leave it where it is, Roan. Green.” The utterly calm and polite tone she had was not the tone I’d come to know from Tish. And with the added color, I knew it was something high priority. Green meantgo, get the fuck out,now.
“Understood. C’mon, kiddos. Let’s go see your papas at the clinic and get a snack on the way.” I stood and threw on a toga-looking article of clothing and scooped up the children, my left and right arms burdened with their ever-increasing weight. They wrapped their tails around me as Nexus puffed with juvenile pride.
“Nak?” Noah leaned his head into my shoulder, orange scales glinting as he purred.
“Once we’re there.” I gave a happy little flick that seemed too forced for my liking, but I left our home with a clip in my step, the unfamiliar weight of my small belly jutting forward in a sight that had become common.
As I exited the building, Zurok came running up, his bright eyes ablaze with fierce anger as he glanced me and the little ones over. His tail held stiffly out behind him so as not to scare anyone. He sniffed each of us, glanced around our mouths, and nodded once. “Go.”
I had a dozen questions I wanted answered, but Fel would handle that; I was certain. So, I jogged while Zurok invaded our residence.
But I already knew in the back of my head. I didn’t see how, though. All the Colthraxians were in almost-immortal bodies, were desexed, and had undergone gene therapy with Noel’s stem cells. The Colthraxian bodies were effectively dissolved… Unless some hadn’t gone through with it. Was it that, though?
As I made it down the street and into the medical center, Noel and Fel accosted me, both rather encumbered with egg. Noel shouldn’t have even been away from his nest, but there I was again, intervening in what should have been a wonderful experience.
Fel swept in, tail flicking agitatedly as he handed Nexus and Noah off to their paters. Fel pulled me aside and marched through, urging me out of my clothes as he cleansed his hands and roughly drew his hands over my body with squeezes and sniffed at me. “On the table.”
