"Sayplease," she teases, her voice quiet and eyelids still closed like she doesn't care enough about my nearness to open them.
I know differently, though.
If the shiver that runs through her body despite the water's warmth is any indication, I would bet my finest feathers that she cares about my nearness very much. It might just be due to herhor-moons, just as I feel the ache of my heart-stars, but Ah-Lanah Cart-ter is affected by me - and not just through irritation.
Leaning over her, I rest my forearm on the cave wall above her head, caging her in with my frame, my wings arching over us both. I wait for her to open her eyes, but she never relents. Stubborn little female. "Ah...Lanah," I growl the word more than say it, her name coming from somewhere deep in the rumblings of my chest, exactly where it seems to have made its home.
Her eyes do not open, but she sucks in a breath through her little nose, her teeth sinking into the plump of her bottom lip. "You can't intimidate me into forgiving you, you know," she tells me, though her voice doesn't sound as strong as it usually does.
"Oh, I don't think you're intimidated, little female."
She says nothing, but I have a strong suspicion that if she weren't currently wrapped in the pool's warm waters, I'd be smelling that sweet scent that nearly drove me to madness days ago. The one that makes me want to throw her down to the ground and pin her there, helpless to stop me from parting her soft thighs and pressing my face to her cunt.
I jolt back a bit at the thought. It's an appealing one to me, but Ah-Lanah is a soft and fragile human - made even more precious because she is carrying a youngling. I should not be thinking of handling her with force like that.
I clear my throat as if to dislodge the thought that is still making me salivate. "Ah-Lanah?"
She still won't look at me.
Stubborn. Little. Goddess.
I continue regardless. "Ah-Lanah, I apologize for watching your display of c-" Her eyes fly open and she goes to slap at my stomach for saying the words that bring color to her cheeks. I seize my moment and grab her small human hand. "I apologize," I repeat, meeting her furious gaze with mine, which I hope looks as sincere as the words are meant. "But you cannot be angry with me for refusing to go on the search party. You cannot be angry with me for wanting to stay close to you, or for building you your own hut. You are to be protected because you are an honored female-" I pause and take a deep breath, "- but my heart-stars demand thatIam the one to provide that protection for you. I can't do anything aboutthis," I say, pulling her hand closer to me and laying it over my lit-up chest, my skin-stars dancing and whirling all over at just that one, small contact. "I do not have to be your mate, butplease, Ah-Lanah, let me protect you and your youngling. Let me dosomethingto ease...this," I beg, pressing her hand more firmly to my pulsing heart-stars, and I wonder if she can feel the dedicated thrum of my heart beneath.
Ah-Lanah's brows quirk up as she blinks at where I press her hand to my skin. I feel her fingers flex beneath my hold. Releasing her, I'm surprised that her hand remains.
"It’s difficult," she starts, her eyes traveling up from my chest to my face, "to navigate things when you don't feel completely in control of your own thoughts and body."
I grunt and nod in answer, leaning my forehead against my forearm where it still rests on the cave wall above her, looming over this precious little creature like a perilous mountain. I am so large compared to her. Yet, if she pushed me away now, after begging to be allowedsomethingof her to quell my cursed heart-star's ache, this mountain might crumble to dirt.
"Ok."
The word was so small and quiet, I almost missed it. "O-k?" I ask cautiously.
Ah-Lanah sighs and her eyes roll, but her mouth wears an adorable smile as she does so. "I'll let you protect me," she says, gaze dropping to the water where I can see she is holding her soon-to-be-swollen belly. "I'll let you protect us." The smile that spreads across my face could probably be seen from the stars. Ah-Lanah raises a finger. "It doesn't mean anything, though."
I push back from the wall and retreat from the little Goddess, smile still firmly in place. "I know," I say, shrugging.
CHAPTER 15: ALANA
I thought he'd be different. I thought he'd want nothing to do with me or act weird about the whole pregnancy thing once he found out. But he's still the same damn pain in the ass he was before - even more so, if that can be believed. Ever since that first time up at the mountain hot-springs, where I told him it was ok for him to protect me; that it didn't mean we were 'mates' or anything more, but if his heart-twinkles are compelling him to look after me then I wasn't going to complain if he did just that. Well, ever since then, he's been like a giant mother-hen clucking over me.
It's been over a month since then, I think. The days blur into one another a bit here on tropical planet bird-man. My stomach has started to swell and I'm needing to pee a hell of a lot more than usual, but at least I've stopped wanting to vomit at all hours of the day - 'morning' sickness, my ass. Tessa says I'm well-and-truly into my second trimester and that’s probably whythathas subsided. Mavyx had insisted that 'the healer female', Tessa, stay with us at Rynn's tribe to be close to me, but I think he wanted her on hand to answer the million-and-one pregnancy questions he has for her every single day. Tessa had been fine about swapping tribes, but Zarriko wasn't keen about letting her go until Mavyx offered to 'trade' her for one of our tribe's other females.
"What are we, Pokémon cards to you people?"Chastity had teased but I don't think she really minded at all - not when she readily volunteered to go with Zarriko's males when they left.
Many of our guys have long launched into that big eastern search party to look for the other women; the ones in the stasis pods that appear to have been taken by creatures the Trixikka call mimyckah, and Dove, the girl who found her way to Zarriko's tribe but then disappeared again. As well as Sophia who nobody has seen since our ship got destroyed by a giant death worm.
The Trixikka village seems much quieter now that a lot of them have gone. You don't turn a corner and run into a wall of muscle and feathers everywhere you go. And it was a surprise to nobody when Aloryk volunteered. The smile on his face couldn't be contained before he left - so sure was he that he was going to find his purple-haired dream girl.
Despite the village being quiet, I amneverleft alone now. Mavyx is either with me, or, when he has things to do like helping on a hunt, training the remaining men, or continuing to build my hut, he will insist that Tessa stay close by my side as well as any number of bird-guys.
Honestly? It's equal parts irritating as it is sweet.
He's still taking me up to the hot-spring mountain to have a warm bath fairly regularly, though, so I can forgive him a tiny bit.
Today, we're at a gathering of the two tribes again and the overall vibe of these things seems to have simmered down a little since the first. I don't know if the two factions of beefy-alien-bird-men are actually starting to become friends now, or if it's just because most of the testosterone-filled, warrior-types are off on their big excursion, but everything feels so much more mellow these days. Of course, it could also be down to the fact that I'm not hiding a pretty fucking big secret anymore, so my nerves are no longer amped up.
"Eat," Mavyx grunts, pushing a platter of alien fruits my way. "You did not consume enough at daybreak."
