I reach the other room and find Amanda staring down at what remains of Relgrael. She gives him a vicious kick with her toe, and I shudder. I wonder if she was one of the ones who was forced by him. Her resilient Skarrian vagina may have survived sex with him, but it would have hurt.
“Do you have any children?” I ask her, and she shakes her head. “No. Skarrian children only happen once you have bonded with your chosen mates, and everyone in the mating circle needs to be involved,” she reminds me, and I grimace. She gives me a small smile. “Thankfully in here, mutual orgasms were not a frequent occurrence, and they didn’t know how to force me to bond, so I avoided having any children. Others were not so lucky.” She looks at me with haunted eyes, and I feel so much pain coming from her and, funnily enough, compassion. I don’tget a chance to question it, though, before she points at one of the doors. “Open that one.”
I grab the amputated hand and hold it over the sensor. The door opens, and Amanda hurries in. I hear some whispering, and then there’s a shout.
“What? He’s here?”
I go on high alert as a woman with blindingly red hair rushes out of the room. She’s thin in a malnourished way, but her stomach is obscenely round. She is very, very pregnant. Hell, I don’t think I was even that round with the krakens.
She stops and stares at Zeydan, who is frozen, his mouth dropping open in shock. Her eyes literally blaze with fire, I instantly know who this is, and my stomach sinks. Smith has really screwed the pooch. We will be lucky if Earth is unmade. This poor woman. I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that she’s pregnant with an Aaz’axian deity hybrid.
“Sanshia?” Zeydan’s voice breaks as he whispers her name.
The woman bursts into tears and flings herself at my mate. He gathers his sister in his arms and holds her tightly, speaking to her in a language that doesn’t translate for my ears. This is where that last batch of blood came from, I would put my money on it.
“Death is too good for Smith. He will suffer an eternity for this,” I promise out loud before turning to Amanda.
“Thank you,” I tell her, but she just shakes her head sadly.
“Don’t thank me yet.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Lila
Amanda and I release the rest of the captives in the second room, while Zeydan and Sanshia have a quiet conversation. I don’t interrupt them, because we can take care of introductions later. I’m pretty sure they are exchanging stories, but every now and then, I feel eyes on me.
We herd the tearful, relieved captives into the first room so they can be escorted to the ship. Silac, Link, Musette, and Mehira all transported down to the facility. I guess they must have been read into the mission. Well, that isn’t a bad thing, since we need all the help we can get. There are a lot more captives than we guessed. In most of the rooms, there were “couples.”
“Hey, what are you two doing here?” I ask my guys as they swoop in and give me relieved hugs.
“I came down to transfer all the information, and Link is here to assess the two pregnant women and the woman with the infant who are in the next two rooms,” Silac explains, movingback to the computers. I’m sure nothing they have here is so hi-tech he can’t hack into them, so I turn my focus to my cyborg.
“How do you know about them?” I ask him. We haven’t gotten that far yet, and Amanda hasn’t said anything.
“One of the other captives in the first group said I should come down, and that one of the pregnant women is due to give birth any day,” Link says, gazing at the group milling around.
Musette and Mehira are gently guiding them toward the other half of the facility to transport to the ship.
“Oh yeah, she sure looks like she’s going to explode at any moment. It’s Zeydan’s sister, Sanshia.”
“The goddess of fire?” Tirrian must have heard me with his shifter hearing, and I cringe, wondering how many more of these people just heard me announce that.
Shit. I look around, but most of them are occupied with their own trauma. “Yes.”
“Saxon told me she’s been raped repeatedly. I’m assuming the child is a product of that?” Link asks quietly, his eyes dark silver with concern.
“I don’t know, but I would guess so. Look, at the moment, the priority is getting everyone out safely. We can worry about anything else after that,” I suggest, and he nods and then gasps.
I turn around, and Zeydan is supporting his sister as they walk toward us. Her hand is on her belly, and she is panting. Seeing her is really a kick in the teeth, because she looks so sick. I want to put my hands on her and heal her, but I don’t have that kind of experience. I’m hoping Mark and Aarin will be able to give her what she needs.
“She’s in labor. I think the surprise of seeing me triggered it,” Zeydan calls, and Link jumps into action.
“Let’s go. We need to get her to the ship stat. She’s malnourished, and I want her on an IV as well as a pain killerbefore I can assess the labor. Pick her up and carry her,” he orders Zeydan, who obeys without argument.
“Can she transport in labor?” I ask, and Link flinches.
“Fuck, no, she probably shouldn’t—not this far along and not in active labor. When you did with the krakens, there was no worry you would go into spontaneous labor.”
