Dealer's Choice

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“Mama, what’s that?” Boyd asks, listlessly, when our entire little pseudo world begins to shake.

They started taking his blood a week ago, and he’s pale and exhausted all the time. At first, I think it’s an earthquake, but the rhythm of it feels almost purposeful. I try not to get my hopes up, but we need a miracle in the worst possible way.

Please, God, let it be Chak’tou! I pray, struggling to stay calm.

“I don’t know, Boyd,” I offer, cautiously, but then a huge cacophony of sound erupts all around us, followed by a helluva lot of screaming. “But I think it might be your father.”

Having never seen anyone who looks remotely like him before, my little son perks up. “Really?”

The wails of terror get closer, until we hear a large boom, followed by the wall in the mock living room collapsing. We rise together, join hands and leave the bedroom to investigate. There’s dust everywhere, and from the middle of dust cloud emerges a tall, broad, masked figure, armed to the teeth. I almost cry at the sight, and not out of fear.

“Ohhhhh,” Boyd gasps next to me. “He gots my hands.”

Those hands reach for his mask and, a moment later, Chak’tou’s uncovered eyes meet mine. “Kat,” he greets, managing to stuff a great deal of longing into one little word.

“Chak’tou,” I reply, smiling so hard my face hurts. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” But his eager eyes are fixed on our second child now. “You knew I was pregnant when you left me, didn’t you?”

His mandibles tighten with old annoyance. “The Clan Mothers refused to believe me. They claimed even if it was so, Nhaw’che was a fluke and you’d miscarry. If you hadn’t been pregnant once we got back, they’d have killed you.”

And you wouldn’t take that chance, I surmise, my heart full enough to burst. “So what brought you back?” I ask, treading lightly.

“I finally convinced them it wouldn’t be a good idea for you to raise a Yautja child here, because of exactly what’s happening right now.”

I’ve been so fixated on Chak’tou that I’ve completely missed that Barbara, my aunt, and the leader of the Clan Mothers have been climbing over the debris and into the room behind him.

“She’s pretty,” Boyd exclaims, staring up in awe at the regal Clan Mother, unwittingly winning himself oodles of brownie points from the austere Elder.

“What a handsome child,” she replies in kind. Shifting her focus to me, she adds, “Amazing that you should bear such well-made young.”

“What other kind of children would my niece bear?” Aunt Helen snaps at her.

The two females face off, clearly twin sisters of different parents. “He can hardly seem attractive to you,” the Clan Mother scoffs.

“Oh, I’ve grown accustomed to Boyd,” my aunt assures her, gamely.

“Boyd?” Both adult Yautja say in unison.

“That’s my name,” my little son says, as if the two of them are dense.

The Clan Mother rears back in horror. “What kind of Yautja name is Boyd?”

“The only kind of Yautja name he was likely to get after his father had to leave me here because of you,” I needle.

She looks first at me, and then at Helen, finally rattling with laughter. “Such nettlesome females!” she proclaims, approvingly. “The two of you could pass for Yautja if you weren’t so unsightly.”

Aunt Helen recovers first. “Thank you, I think,” she retorts.

An explosion that nearly knocks the lot of us down forcibly reminds us all this was no social call.

“We have to get out of here, Kat,” Chak’tou urges, stating the obvious.

Taking his hand, I know our horrible ordeal is finally at an end.

******

Once we’re onboard ship, my joy is made complete; Nhaw’che is waiting for me in Chak’tou’s quarters. I can’t help but cry at the sight of my first baby son, now a sturdy little boy. As near as I can figure, my two sons are about a year and a half apart in age; Nhaw'che is about six in human years, and about half a foot taller than Boyd. There's much more that separates them than some age and some height, though. While it's clear from their coloring and their features they're both Chak'tou's, their cultural differences are stark.

Nhaw'che has grown his black hair out long, readying himself for the day when it will be bound into traditional hunter's tresses, and he wears a miniature version of his father's hunting gear, only without most of the weaponry. His bearing is also a hunter's—proud and unafraid. Boyd, by contrast, is wearing jeans, Nikes and a T-shirt that proclaims, improbably, Kiss Me, I'm Irish. His hair, what there is of it, is cut spiky short. His expression is bemused; he has no clue what to make of his older brother.

"You're my brother?" Nhaw'che asks, appalled, rearing back as if something smells bad.

"You look like me," Boyd offers, helpfully.

"No, I don't! You don't have any hair! You can't be a hunter with no hair!"

"Can, too."

Nhaw'che isn't about to take that. "So if you're a hunter, what'd you kill?'

To my horror, Boyd boasts, "I killed a man."

Complete silence descends as all the Yautja in the room stare at my harmless looking youngest son. His brother recovers first, his reaction more favorable this time.

"Really? Did you take its trophies?" Nhaw'che demands, eagerly.

"What?" Boyd doesn't have the first idea what he means.

"You didn't tell him," Chak'tou levels at me.

That pisses me off. "Excuse me! I never expected to see you again! Exactly what good would it do to explain his cultural heritage to Boyd when he was going to spend the rest of his life on a prey planet?"

Boyd's yellow eyes are still clouded in puzzlement. "What trophies?"

"When you kill 'em, you rip their spines and skulls out," Nhaw'che explains, gleefully.

"You what?" He stares at his older brother in utter disbelief, before turning to me, sure he's being fed a line. "Mama, he is fibbing?"

My oldest son’s mandibles go slack in wonderment as his golden eyes find my alien face. “You’re my mother?” he asks, with none of the derision he offered his brother.

“As strange as it seems, yes,” I confirm. “Didn’t you tell him?” I demand of Chak’tou, wondering what, if anything, he has been telling the child about his mother.

“We did, Kat, but being told a thing and seeing it for yourself are very different.”

We … That word makes my heart lurch. Has he bonded with another female in my absence? Did he fight so hard to get back here only for Boyd?

As if in answer to my question, Rah’chond enters the room, a toddler on her hip. Its coloring is unmistakable. During my absence, she has borne Chak’tou a son.

“So you’re only here for Boyd?” I ask, dully, wanting to die at the thought of being parted from another child.

“What?” Chak’tou and Rah’chond’s incredulous, stereo reaction gives me pause.

Rah’chond smiles knowingly at me. “You are so wrong, Kat. Boyd?”

My little son lights up at her attention. It occurs to me that the poor sheltered kid has almost doubled the number of people he knows in a single day.

“Would you like to go with me and Nhaw’che to see the ship?” She holds a hand out to him, but further encouragement isn’t necessary.

Chak’tou and I are alone in his quarters. There’s an awkwardness between us that hasn’t been there before. I don’t know if it’s because we haven’t seen each other in such a long time, or because the rules of the game have changed.

I take the bull by the horns. “So you and Rah’chond bonded?”

To my surprise, Chak’tou’s mandibles flare angrily. “Is that what you think? That I would put all the effort in to win the right to come back here for a child? That was the argument I used with the Clan Mothers that finally worked, but in truth, I have dozens of young. I came back here for you, Kat.”

I can’t ignore the evidence of my own eyes. “But she had your child.”

He roars out his frustration with me. “Who do you think has been raising Nhaw’che while you’ve been here? Rah’chond figured she might as well have a child of her own since she took a hiatus from her duties as a medic to raise our child for me. How could I say no when she asked?”

“She’s not your mate?” I ask, uncertainly, hope flaming to life in my chest.

Chak’tou saunters over to me, his body winding around mine so that he can lean down and bury his face in my hair. “I thought you knew who that was,” he whispered, his breath hot on my scalp.

It’s been so long since anything has been between my legs, my crotch liquefies instantly at the mere possibility. I know it’s going to hurt, because I’m no longer used to taking his girth, but I don’t care. I want him deep inside me where he belongs.

“Kat,” he hisses into my hair, his arms enfolding me and crushing me back against him.

The bulge of Chak’tou’s erection rides against my spine, so huge I start to leak in anticipation. His claws shred my clothes, impatiently ripping them off my body. My needy breasts fill his big hands, pushing their hard nubs urgently into his palms. His fingers pulse around them, kneading hard, deliberately pinching my nipples. I writhe with eagerness, the flesh between my legs swelling so much I have to widen my stance to give it growth space.

He inhales deeply, growling appreciatively at my arousal, and rocks his hips against me. I reach behind me, seeking to free his penis from its constriction under his loincloth, but my hands are shaking too much to get the job done. He lets go of my breasts long enough to oblige me. His length is hot and hard against my bare skin, but I can think of better places for it to be. So can Chak’tou.

One of his hands snakes its way between my thighs, fingers slipping across my entrance, testing my readiness. He’s not on my clit or anything, but my flesh shivers with the pleasure of it all the same. I’ve missed him more than he could know.

“Mine,” he purrs, slipping a finger into me.

“Prove it,” I challenge, wickedly.

Chak’tou readily accepts, sweeping me up of the floor to pin me against the nearest wall. I can feel the head of his penis tease between my nether lips.

“You sure?” he asks, breathless with want.

“Yes,” I hiss, with no more breath than he’s got.

His thrust inward feels as if it will rip me in two; it’s glorious. I scream, wrapping my legs around him tightly. Chak’tou leans his face down and bites my shoulder. I feel his teeth penetrate and hold me fast. His hands reach down to clutch my ass. The sharpness of his nails tells me I’m bleeding back there, too, now. Once he has such a hold on me there’s no possibility of escape, he fucks me without mercy. I spread my legs as wide as I can, wanting him as far into me as he can get. I’d forgotten how big he is, but even the pain feels good because it’s my mate who’s causing it.

It’s been so long neither of us can hold back. My clit grows full enough to burst, his powerful strokes stoking its fire to tremendous heights. All at once I can’t breathe, can’t think, as the raging heat in it rolls out in delicious waves, convulsing my entire groin. Each squeeze on his cock is blindingly pleasurable for both of us; I can hear his purr ratchet up in time with my rhythm. A strangled roar gets out around his teeth and he bites me harder as he comes, pushing deeper than I remembered he could go. I clutch him to me with all four limbs as he fills me. It’s sheer heaven.

“Mine,” he says fiercely when his teeth release me. “My mate, Kat.”

I smile up at him. “My mate, Chak’tou,” I parrot, reaching up to kiss him.

His mandibles engulf my face, pulling me closer so our tongues can intertwine. I taste my blood on his teeth and deliberately spasm against his still hard cock. I can’t keep it to myself any longer; I have to speak again.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I say after pulling away from him, tears brimming in my eyes. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

His grip on me relaxes so it’s easier for him to look down at me. “You’re not the only one. I was so stupid about this. I knew you were pregnant, but I didn’t take your blood, so I had no proof for the Clan Mothers. The other hunters on the ship couldn’t say if you were or not, but it’s not like I’d been willing to let you spend much time around them.”

“What finally changed their minds?”

“Boyd’s image showed up in a communication picked up by a hunting ship in orbit here.” When I stare at him, dumbfounded, he continues, amused at my naiveté. "We monitor your communications so we know when we've been seen—or worse. Since young do not hunt, the image of such a small Yautja coming from here caused quite a stir. The hunters who first saw it weren't from our clan, but they sent the image back. The moment the Clan Mothers shared it with us, I knew. Watching Bryn'di have to admit that I was right about wanting to go back for you was one of the highlights of my life."

"Bryn'di?" I ask.

"That's right! She thought you unworthy of knowing her name when you were on Yaut. Bryn'di is the head of the Clan Mothers, she who Boyd had the good sense to endear himself to the moment he laid eyes on her."

"I don't have any stupid kids," I scold, mock petulant.

"No, you won't," he intones, looking smug.

Already? "You did this just to make me pregnant again?" I'm not amused at being used, but the fact that I'm growing another baby pleases me in a way it never would've the pre-Chak'tou Kat.

Luckily, he's in so mellow a mood he just laughs at me. "I'd have fucked you if I knew you were sterile. However, you being pregnant again will lay to rest any lingering objections Bryn'di might have about bringing you back with us."

Bringing me back with them … all my family still here. There are times when I wonder if it's possible for me to be happy about anything anymore without some misgivings.

"How'd you find us?" I ask, trying to ignore them.

Chak'tou's chuckle is positively evil this time. "It's amazing what a few judicious appearances to the right people can do. The broadcaster gave us the name and location of the magazine the image was sold to who gave us the name and location of the image maker. The image maker couldn't take us to Helen's dwelling fast enough."

I can't help but ask the question I've had since I first saw that blurry tabloid picture of Boyd. "What was he doing there to begin with?"

"The image maker? He said something about a meter, whatever that means."

Oh my God! The meter reader! I would never have thought … he must’ve used his cell phone to take Boyd's picture. "Okay, so you found Aunt Helen, but how did you find us?"

"Helen is an amazing female," he declares, with open admiration. "She was able to collect enough information to let us locate you and Boyd. It's almost too bad—"

"—don't even think it, buster," I interrupt, poking him squarely in the chest, even though I know he's teasing me. "I may have to share you with Yautja females sometimes, but I draw the line at other humans, especially ones I'm related to."

"Me, too." To my amazement, Chak'tou suddenly hugs me tightly to him. Yautja may not talk about love like we do, but that doesn't mean they can't feel it. My spirits soar higher than the ship we're standing in.

"That must hurt," he says, guiltily surveying the bite on my shoulder. "You must hurt." I hate to admit it, because it means he'll withdraw from me and put me down, something I don't want him to do. "We'll have plenty of time together," he assures me, as if he just read my mind, and then goes to get the healing salve.

******

Since Chak’tou has completely destroyed my clothes—again—we need to find something else for me to wear. Both of us hate the thought of putting clothes back on me, because we’d really like to go another round, but I can’t leave Boyd with Rah’chond, who he has just met, any longer. We have the worst time keeping our hands off each other, touching and teasing as we struggle to get cleaned up to leave Chak’tou’s quarters.

At last, we give up and drag each other down onto his bed. Since I’m too sore to take him again, Chak’tou settles for nestling his head between my thighs, purring with delight as his tongue enjoys my familiar taste. It’s no accident that he positioned us so my mouth can reach his ready cock. He knows I’ll be all too willing to return the favor. I let my mouth play, releasing muffled moans as he does the same to me. The more he flicks my clit, the more I stroke the sensitive flesh under his swollen head, a competition to see who gets off first.

When he begins to suck mercilessly on my clit, I hardly feel like the loser when a powerful orgasm tears through me, suffusing my whole body with pleasure. As soon as it’s over, I deliberately swallow his thick shaft, my mouth and throat bearing down on him with as little mercy as he showed me. Chak’tou has to stop tonguing me so he can roar when his seed erupts, squirting fiercely toward my stomach. I cradle his balls with my hand and suckle him while he comes, taking every drop, as his tongue begins to enjoy the fruits of his own labors. He finally pushes my face away from his crotch, his penis too sensitized to bear my touch, content to continue licking me. That suits me just fine. I settle my head on the soft bed and let him.

“Nice,” Chak’tou whispers when he has eaten his fill. “I’m gonna like the trip home much better than the trip here.”

“We really have to get cleaned up this time,” I insist.

“Yeah,” he agrees, but I can tell he’s sated enough for the time being that we might actually do it this time.

Once we’re washed and I’m salved, Chak’tou surprises me by producing some of the clothes I wore while on Yaut. They still fit, which is impressive, because I thought I had gotten bigger since Boyd’s birth. It’s nice to know I haven’t, but even nicer is the feeling Chak’tou wouldn’t care either way.

They all stare at us when we find them, the adult Yautja and Nhaw’che looking smug, Helen and Boyd looking shell-shocked. My top doesn’t entirely cover the bite on my shoulder, which Nhaw’che notes immediately.

“They just mated,” he informs Boyd in that annoying I-know-more-than-you-do manner older kids always have.

My younger son’s expression is blissfully blank. “Mated?”

Nhaw’che leans over and whispers in his ear, relieving him of his innocence. Boyd could not be more aghast. “You let him put his—“

Aunt Helen comes to my rescue, grabbing him and turning him sharply to get his attention. “It’s okay, Boyd. It’s something adults do.”

“It makes young,” Nhaw’che adds in that superior tone. “Don’t you know anything?”

His curiosity overrides his older brother’s dig. “Young?”

“Babies,” Helen clarifies.

I can see his eyes brighten as the puzzle pieces knit together. “Oh! Are you having a baby?” he asks me hopefully, no doubt wanting a younger sibling he can lord it over like Nhaw’che is doing him.

Before I can speak, Bryn’di enters my space and samples the air. “That was fast,” she says; she’d be curling her lip at me if she had one.

“Neat trick for a non-breeding female,” I quip, without missing a beat.

She glowers down at me with slit eyes, and I’m suddenly aware of how much bigger she is than I am. “I may have been a bit hasty,” she admits, grudgingly, but it’s an admission all the same.

Bryn’di may be in charge, but she has the good sense not to fall into the trap of believing that makes her infallible.

“You’re pregnant again?” Aunt Helen gasps, belatedly realizing what my volley with the head of the Clan Mothers was all about. “How will you give birth without my help?”

Before I can respond to her, my mother and sisters arrive, having been rescued by some of the hunters from confinement at their house. Looking at them, and then at Chak'tou and my sons, I've never felt so torn in my life. Boyd seems equally flummoxed.

"I wanna stay with you, Grandma," he wails, throwing his arms around my mother.

"What a baby!" Nhaw'che derides, earning a whack on the head from his father. "What did I do?"

Chak'tou roars at him, effectively silencing further communication.

"You must be Nhaw'che," Mama says to my sullen elder child. "How would you feel if your father planned to leave you here with us?"

Immediately, his hostility vanishes, replaced by uncertainty. His eyes seek Chak'tou's face for reassurance. Chak'tou purrs down at him, stroking his skull in a gesture I've often used to comfort Boyd. I catch my mother's soft smile as she watches them.

"I wouldn't like it," he offers, subdued.

"Your little brother doesn't know you or your people," she continues, the soul of motherly authority, as she absently plays with Boyd's spiky hair. "It's going to be your job to teach him. He needs to know how to behave among you. Do you think you're up to the task?"

Nhaw'che straightens proudly. "I can do it," he promises, with all the confidence that comes with being six.

"I have to go with them?" Boyd asks her, sounding so forlorn I nearly start to cry.

"You need to go with your mother," she tells him, gently, telling me what I'm doing as well.

As soon as Mama voices the words, I know there was never any question about that. Since the Clan Mothers now have no objections, I will go with Chak'tou. Always. Still, I can't resist asking her how she could know my mind better than I do.

"How do you know I'm going?"

She shakes her tolerantly at me, blue eyes skeptical. "Have you seen your shoulder?"

I forgot the mark is visible, I realize, blushing furiously.

"She is pregnant again," Bryn'di announces, adding mortification icing to my embarrassment cake.

“Have us a girl this time, okay?” Jen suggests, hopefully.

******

There’s a lot of talking and hugging and tears, but in the end, I know I’m going where I belong now. Aunt Helen, after some discussion with Rah’chond, decides she will come stay with us, but not until she takes some time to close down her practice and refer her patients to other doctors. She’ll come on another hunting ship in about six months, which should get her to Yaut in time to help Rah’chond deliver my third child.

I feel really bad about leaving my mother again, but as she tells me, at least she’ll know I’m not dead this time, and she has my two younger sisters to attend to. She figures one—if not both—of them will probably marry in the next handful of years and give her additional grandbabies, ones she won’t have to help hide away from the world.

“It isn’t that I don’t love Boyd,” she assures me, her voice breaking, “but it wasn’t fair to him—or you either—that you had to live all cloistered like that. It brings my heart some solace watching him play with his brother. He needs that so. And, you, you need their father.”

Hearing her say that, I realize all over again how blessed I’ve been to have this woman for my mother. The fact that she can look at an eight-foot-tall green and grayed skinned alien, with clawed hands and crab legs on his face, and approve of our match makes her one in a million. When I tell Chak’tou about it after we’ve left, he’s so amazed at my mother’s reaction he suggests maybe we can sneak back from time to time to visit her.

“It’d be nice to see her again,” I agree, as I lean back against his chest, his hand possessively cradling my belly.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Chak’tou says, warmly, his grip on me tightening.

“Yours,” I sigh, knowing what’s coming next.