His nostrils flared. That look came into his eyes, the one that meant he was scenting something I couldn't smell. "Your body is preparing."
"Preparing for what?"
He didn't answer. Just lowered his mouth to my other breast and sucked until I forgot the question.
My belly changed too. Not dramatically, not obviously pregnant, but softer somehow. Rounder. When I lay on my backafter he'd bred me, I could see a slight curve that hadn't been there before.
The tonic effects had faded but hadn’t disappeared entirely. I still felt the baseline arousal, still grew wet when he walked into a room. But the desperate, consuming need was gone. My body had gotten what it wanted. Now it was settling into something more sustainable.
I found myself resting more. Taking naps in the afternoon, curled on the sleeping platform while he worked. Eating everything he put in front of me and then asking for more. My body was doing something, preparing for something, and I let it happen without fighting.
"You're different," I said one evening, watching him carve a new channel near the ceiling.
He paused. "Different how?"
"Gentler. The way you touch me. The way you breed me." I thought about it. "Not less intense. Just... more careful."
"You're carrying something precious." He descended from his perch, crossed to where I sat, knelt before me. His hand rested on my belly. "I can smell it. Have been able to smell it for days."
My breath caught. "Smell what?"
"The change in your body. The way your scent has shifted." His amber eyes met mine. "You're pregnant, Kerris."
I stared at him. My hand moved to cover his on my belly.
"Are you sure?"
"I've been sure for five days. I was waiting for you to notice."
Five days. He'd known for five days that I was carrying his offspring, and he'd let me figure it out myself. Had watched me notice the changes in my body, had fed me extra portions and let me sleep longer, had been more careful when he bred me.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you needed to feel it yourself. To know it in your body, not just in your head." His hand pressed gently against my belly. "Do you feel it?"
I closed my eyes. Focused inward. And yes, underneath the familiar sensations, underneath the arousal and the satisfaction and the strange peace I'd found in his Keep, there was something else. Something small and new and growing.
"Yes," I whispered. "I feel it."
His forehead pressed against my belly. Just for a moment. A gesture of reverence that made my throat tight.
"The nursery," he said. "It won't be empty anymore."
I should have been terrified.
Pregnant on an alien planet, carrying the offspring of a creature I'd known for less than three weeks. No medical facilities. No prenatal care. No way to know if the pregnancy would even be viable, if human and whatever-he-was could produce offspring that would survive.
I wasn't terrified.
I was working.
The ventilation project led to other projects. Improvements to the water channel. Reinforcements for the main entrance. A better system for storing food. My engineer's brain had found its purpose, and Bruk let me direct every modification, trusting my calculations, implementing my designs.
We worked well together. He had the physical strength; I had the structural vision. He'd spent twenty cycles building alone; now he had a partner who could see improvements he'd never considered.
"This joint is weak," I said, pointing to a connection near the eastern archway. "The load distribution is uneven. If the ferals hit it hard enough..."
"They'd break through." He studied the joint I'd indicated. "I built that section in my third cycle. Before I understood proper weight distribution."
