Obedient (7 page)

* * * *

Zelia twirled and floated in the currents that were now visible to her altered sight. She didn’t know where her love of the ocean had come from, but she thought it might be the man floating nearby and watching her.

He could use his wings to propel himself in a way she had not imagined was possible when it came to moving underwater.

Small fish clustered at a respectful distance around him and larger predators were just outside the reach of his aura. They didn’t even come within two hundred yards of Rad when he was swimming. It was amusing.

She examined the oysters showing off their pearls, tickled the anemone and swam in circles with tiny, bright fish. When she felt the need to breathe again, she nodded to him and kicked upward, letting the spent air trickle out of her lungs as she ascended.

Rad followed her to the surface, and when she had filled her lungs with air, he shifted and put her on his back, rising from the waves.

She held tight to the fine hairs on the back of his neck as he playfully cut through the water for a bit before rising to undulate all the way to the house. She laughed and lifted her hands up, letting the wind lash every part of her.

The urge to seek out joy, laughter and pleasure was a new one, but she embraced it as she had a thousand other changes in her life.

When Rad stilled under her, she gave in and hung on. The next moment, he corkscrewed through the air, and she was laughing and gasping again.

Here, there were no true days of the week, but she liked to think of every day with Rad as a Friday. There were just so many possibilities right around the corner.

* * * *

Finding a Drai medic who was willing to travel to an alien world to deliver the child of an ancient was even harder than it sounded. Zelia left it up to Rad, because she really didn’t know what was involved.

After he stormed into the dining room with a foul temper for the fifth time, she finally stepped in. “Rad. Sit.”

He blinked at her tone of command, and he parked himself at the dining room table where she was arranging a quilt for the baby.

“You are having a problem finding someone to deliver this baby, right?” She stroked a hand over her kicking belly.

“Correct.” He reached out and patted the bump.

“Ask for another Terran. I have been checking the rosters, and there are at least four midwives and several with a healing talent in the lists. Apply for one of them for a few months.”

He blinked. “I can do that?”

“Apparently, it is quite common. They specialise in Terran mothers and non-Terran fathers.”

He nodded and got up, heading back to the com unit. Someone was about to get a talking to.

Zelia chuckled, sat down and continued quilting the small blanket covered with ocean patterns. She was nearly done with the layette for the incoming arrival, and there was still three months left.

Keeping herself occupied had become a full-time job. She had learned of fashions and traditions of species she hadn’t even imagined. Education had always eluded her back on Earth, but here, there was nothing else to do. Sociology was her favourite study, along with anthropology. Drai history was rich, and their rituals were formal in the extreme to keep the males from destroying each other in competition for their mates. Zelia surmised that the lack of competition had ceased the ability to transform. If they didn’t need to fight, they didn’t need their fighting forms. They evolved out of their most striking feature.

Zel really hoped that her child had the full capabilities of its father. If it could fly, that would be wonderful, but if it was a girl, she hoped that some of the psychic abilities would make themselves known.

It took two days, but Rad was finally satisfied that a midwife with the necessary qualifications would be willing to attend.

She would arrive within the month and be delivered by Guardian courier. She was already in touch via secure com unit and giving orders.

Zelia laughed at that announcement and supervised the bots preparing the baby’s crib.

Rad went to folding the laundry and putting all of the small things away. “Is the child really going to need all this?”

“Let’s see, the amount of meals per day, diaper accidents, crawling around and drooling. Yes. Yes, they will.” She smiled at him.

“How do you know so much about it? You have told me that you have no siblings.”

She twisted her lips. “Everyone is brought into existence for a purpose. Since I was small, I knew that I wanted to be a better parent than my parents were. It sounds strange but that has been my focus. A child is the logical means to that goal. The goal wasn’t to have the baby but be a mother, and when the recruiter asked me what I wanted, I told him.”

“You could have adopted, by your own laws.”

Zel shook her head. “No. I had neither the money nor the property to support a child. When it was offered, I jumped at the chance and here we are.”

She patted her tummy with a smile.

He finished his folding of the teeny garments and wrapped his arms around her. “I am still glad that you have come to me. Your world is not prepared for me to arrive and demand my mate.”

“So, you actually would have come to me?”

He pressed a kiss to her neck and gnawed gently. “If you had registered and not come to me, I would have demanded you and your people would have had to surrender you as per the Drai Sleeper Treatise. It is almost as binding as the Amaryn Sleeper Regulation, but they are only interested in Terrans. Drai are just interested in a matching gene pattern.”

He rocked her gently and hummed in her ear, the song that he had sung in her mind months earlier, before they had even met.

She swayed with him, letting him take her weight. Every passing day she felt heavier, and he held her as if she was made of the lightest flower petals. It was adorable.

A bot chirped at her, and she sighed. “It is time for my walk. The bots are tracking me.”

“Do you want company?”

She smiled. “Sure. I can use you for balance.”

“I love it when you use me.” His voice was a dark whisper of remembered efforts.

She snickered and turned in his embrace, their little one wedged between them. “It is getting harder to manage.”

He kissed her, and there was nothing doting about it. “I will always help you pursue that endeavour. It is the least I can do.”

She moved to his side, waited until he got dressed in the hip wrap and walked out with him to take her exercise as prescribed by her incoming midwife.

Her entire life had become an endless round of changes and more were coming. Zelia looked around and took in what her life had become. All in all, she would take endless change over mind-numbing sameness. Change had potential that safety didn’t.
You can’t win the prize if you don’t take the risks.

Rad smiled at her.
Am I a risk?

She held his arm tightly.
No, love. You are the prize. To think I almost didn’t play the game.

His laughter rang in her ears and her mind. This was a fight that she had won, and she didn’t even know she was in it.

Okay, I cheated. She was pregnant before she even met him. I needed to do something a little different. It was a short diversion.

Next month, back to my regularly scheduled program...

Thanks for reading,

Viola Grace

http://www.violagrace.com

[email protected]

Viola Grace (aka Zenina Masters) is a Canadian sci-fi/paranormal romance writer with ambitions to keep writing for the rest of her life. She specializes in short stories because the thrill of discovery, of all those firsts, is what keeps her writing.

An artist who enjoys a story that catches you up, whirls you around and sets you down with a smile on your face is all she endeavours to be. She prefers to leave the drama to those who are better suited to it, she always goes for the cheap laugh.