The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,42
tumbling out.
The mound of flesh he still touched with his other hand tightened.
Lisa cried out and gripped her belly, leaning forward until her forehead nearly struck his.
He forced himself to straighten. “Lisa?”
Sucking long breaths in through her nose, she expelled them from her lips.
“Lisa?” he repeated softly.
She shook her head and kept up the harsh breathing.
Long minutes passed, during which Taelon forgot his own pain. Shifting to sit beside her, he wrapped an arm around her and encouraged her to lean against him.
She did so, turning her face into his chest. Reaching up, she curled a hand around his neck to hold him close.
Taelon rested his cheek upon her hair and smoothed his hand over her belly in slow strokes he hoped would soothe both her and the baby. How many times since she had rescued him had he seen her grimace and clutch her belly? “Does this happen often?”
She nodded. “I think something’s wrong. I think that’s why they woke me.”
He frowned. “This is not common for Earth women when they breed?”
“No. I mean, light cramping and Braxton-Hicks contractions are, I think. But not this. This is something else, something more.”
Perhaps he had spoken too soon when he had expressed his awe over Lasaran men and Earth women being compatible enough to reproduce. Perhaps the differences in their genetic makeup would harm the child.
Sorrow struck. He had thought he would never become a father. To learn in the space of a few minutes that he was a father but they might lose the baby was the utmost cruelty. “How long do Earth women carry offspring?”
“Nine months.”
If he compensated for the difference in the length of Earth days and Lasaran days, Lasaran women usually bred for seven months. “How long have you carried our baby?”
“I’m not a hundred percent sure. But think I’m about seven and a half months along.”
“So you should not be feeling birthing pains yet?”
“No.”
His mind worked furiously. “We can’t go to an Earth doctor.”
“No, we can’t.”
“It would take us roughly thirteen Earth months to reach Lasara. Half that to reach the nearest Secta outpost.”
She drew back enough to look up at him. “You have a ship?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know. I left my guard in command of it, and he’s keeping it concealed so Earth’s military can’t shoot it down or confiscate it.”
“Can you contact him?”
He tried and failed to send a mental summons to Ari’k. “No. I didn’t want to risk Earthlings getting their hands on any of our technology, so I left my communicator on the ship. Normally I would be able to contact him telepathically, but I’ve not been able to do that since the butchers began drugging me.”
“The drug hinders your telepathy?”
“Yes.” The few times he had tried to read minds since the butchers forgot to dose him had made his nose bleed, something that had never happened before.
“Then how were you able to talk to me telepathically back at the base?”
A very good question. “I don’t know. I tried to read the soldiers’ minds when they burst in here to question us and couldn’t.”
“Can you read my mind now?”
He stared at her pretty face and tried to hear what she was thinking.
A maelstrom of thoughts and emotions flooded him, muted but clear enough for him to understand she was afraid. Afraid they would be caught. Afraid something would go wrong with the baby or that they would have to deliver it themselves without any aid. She also hurt for him, for his sister. And cared about him. And was attracted to him. And feared he would succumb to his wounds and die or be killed by more soldiers. If he didn’t, she worried he would leave her or that he would only keep her close until the baby was born, and then—
“I won’t leave you, Lisa.”
She sucked in a breath. “You can read my thoughts.”
“Yes.”
“Please stop now.”
“As you wish.”
Her brow puckered once more. “Why can you read my thoughts if you couldn’t read the soldiers’?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the baby links us in a way that makes it easier for me to read you.” He curled his hand into a loose fist and drew his knuckles down her soft cheek. “But I would not leave you, Lisa, even if there were no baby. You saved me.”
“I don’t want your gratitude, Taelon. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me. Because we both know I probably wouldn’t have made it out of there without being killed by the vampires and