He lifted the feelers off my body.
Agony drenched me. Cramps like hell itself seized my lower half. I shrieked at the sudden pain, tossing against the bed. The contractions were indescribable. It was like a giant grabbed my organs and squeezed them until they popped.
Holy fuck.
Was Linn’ar experiencing all of this by himself just to make me comfortable? That was the nicest thing anybody had ever done for me. And also the craziest.
The pain evaporated.
I gasped, lying flat against the bed, panting and sweating as I stared at the ceiling.
Linn’ar’s feelers were back on my body. They pulsed with alternating rings of red and teal-blue.
“Is this the second time somebody gets to say ‘I told you so?’” Paz asked.
“Hey, give him a break, he’s literally giving birth right now,” Levi said. “Let’s seeyoupush a baby out of a magical ass chamber.”
Paz crossed his arms proudly. “As a matter of fact, I have that on the docket, thank you very much.”
Ignoring their chatter, Linn’ar arched his worried face close to mine. “Are you all right?”
“I am now,” I mumbled, then ran a hand through my sweaty hair. “Sorry. I didn’t think I’d be humbled quite that fast.”
He trilled, fondling my cheeks in his typical doting fashion. “I only want you to be comfortable.”
“But what about the pain? You were just... taking that all by yourself. It’s not fair to you.”
“Maeleons have a higher pain tolerance than humans,” he explained. “Your kind is delicate, squishy, and fragile. Please, Jaeyoung. Let me take care of you.”
I sighed and flashed a weak smile. “All right. Even though you’realwaysdoing that.”
He nuzzled my face.
“Hey, not to break up your cute moment, but there’s, uh, something you might wanna see,” Paz called.
With Linn’ar absorbing my agonizing contractions, I was able to sit upright.
And then I saw it.
Something was coming out of me.
My eyes widened. I blinked a couple times to make sure it was real.
A glistening, undulating tube emerged from my rear. Its fleshy walls were green-gold, and strangely beautiful.
I recognized the structure. The same one had come out of Levi during his delivery. But it was different seeing it come out ofme.
Speechless, I flexed my fingers in the air, silently begging for my notepad. Levi handed it to me. I wrote down everything. The shape, colors, texture, sensation—anything I could think of. As far as I knew, the Maeleon birthing chamber was only seen twice by human eyes. This was priceless information.
“Oh, how wonderful,” Linn’ar said, observing the tube like it was an adorable puppy. “And look. It’s expanding.”
I sat further upright, thanking all the crunches I did during training, and gasped. Linn’ar was right. The fleshy walls swelled with each undulation. The tube grew right in front of my eyes.
Despite the feeler connection, I still felt dull labor shocks. Each pang occurred in time with the tube’s convulsions.
Something moved within me.
I held my breath, then remembered the age-old adage tobreathe. But it was fucking hard to breathe normally when a large object creeped closer to the exit.
