One of the cavrinskh makes a noise, pulling all of his attention away from me. I finally sit down.
The chair is so comfortable and I almost resent it for that. I scoot it closer to the bars so I can keep watching him.
“Well,” he taps around the screen, “it looks like I pulled the last of your data just in time.”
I indulge his obvious need to gloat. “Just in time for what?”
“Your bondmates are about to die.” He mutters his hope that Kissu will go with them.
He won’t. I refuse to believe that Shock would have let Kissu get hurt.
“But, I have good news! My plans workedexactlyas intended.”
He turns a screen to me, and I almost dismiss the information. I already know I’m pregnant, but…
“Does that saytriplets?”
“Humans have a strange propensity to ask questions they already know the answers to.” He turns another screen toward me. “If you’d taken another minute, you would have seen all of this in your initial scan.”
I stare at that screen trying to remember anything Jess ever said about this.
She saidsomany things… gestation was accelerated, pregnancy was easier… multiples were unlikely… maybe impossible.
It shows the exact date of conception. It shows complete genetic readouts, and… as if my physiology wanted to be fair, all three of my mates are going to be fathers.
“Do you see the best part?” he asks, tapping at the screen. “She’s a girl.”
Okay, creep. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“And those two are boys.”
“Congratulations, you can read an ultrasound.”
He ignores my misidentification of the scan.
“It’s a miracle, you know… that our species can procreate. Kiro and Tylen and the others… they testedhundredsof species, and out of all of them, only humans had viable pregnancies. Kiro still hates that. But, his research has been incredibly helpful, so I can’t damn his methods too harshly.”
“I think you could.”
“Just be glad I came to collect you before he could send one of his people to do it.”
“No. I don’t think I’m going to be glad that you kidnapped me.”
He’s quiet then, and I’d rather keep him talking.
“Two boys, one girl, what does that matter?”
“Sian-human mating has never produced non-identical weeuns without medical intervention.”
“Okay, so you can only have identical twins or triplets or more. That’s not a problem, pretty sure multiple identical kids are rare here too.”
“You misunderstand me. Every weeun from the same bonded pair will be the same child.”
“That can’t be right.” I would know if that was true. It would have come up at some point.
“I know you’re not the scientist of the family, so you’ll just have to trust me on that.”
“Even if I did trust you, which… I don’t and won’t. How do I—how dowechange that? Three men, three children. Even if they’re all different… you won’t know until I’ve had more kidsand I can’t do that now. I mean… since you think you’re going to kill them.”
