me as collateral to get his Compound back, she told me she was sending help.”
“That was me!” Drace exclaimed. “I heard her voice too, telling me that someone needed my help right before I ran into you,” he told Penny.
“I’m in your debt, Brother.” V’rex offered the Havoc a warrior’s clasp with the arm that wasn’t curled protectively around Penny’s shoulders.
“Not at all,” Drace protested, taking the offered arm. “If anything, we’re even. Remember the life-debt I owed you for saving my ass in the jungle on Yown Alpha?”
“The debt is more than paid,” V’rex agreed. “But still, when I think how that lowlife bastard tried to hurt Penelope…”
“The Goddess told me she was sending help and that the Glorious Leader would get exactly what he deserved,” Penny said quickly, since red flames were beginning to dance in V’rex’s pale gold eyes.
“Well, he certainly did.” Sylvan peered again at the monitor. “And you say he’ll be stuck like that forever?” he asked, Granny Two-two. “Frozen in time, as it were, because of the anomaly?”
“Yes, indeed.” She nodded vigorously which caused her second head to shout out a curse. “Time sucks come and go but this one ‘ent moving. It’s been here nigh on seventy cycles and hasn’t moved so much as a micron.”
“Well…then I guess we have no choice but to leave the Eye of Ten’gu here, though I wish we could have brought it back to the Mother Ship and destroyed it.” Sylvan sighed and shook his head.
“It’s safe enough,” Granny Two-two assured him. “Safe in the shadow of the ship—‘ent nothing going to get to it there.”
“I hope you’re right.” Sylvan had been bending over, examining the monitor. “Well, I guess we’d best be getting home.” He looked at Penny and V’rex. “Have the two of you decided if you’re coming with us back to the Mother Ship or not?”
“Oh, well…” Penny began, looking up at her new mate uncertainly.
“We’ll come,” he said. “But we might need to take a wormhole instead of folding space. If…” He cleared his throat and looked significantly at Sylvan. “If you know what I mean.”
“Ah, of course.” Sylvan nodded, and Penny suddenly remembered that pregnant women couldn’t safely fold space. She felt her cheeks heat with a blush. Of course, she didn’t know if she was pregnant or not, but it was probably better not to take a risk.
“We’ll see you at the Mother Ship soon,” V’rex promised. “Though we might take a side route and pass by Rageron on the way.” He smiled at his two uncles, who had accompanied him and Sylvan to the Service Room. “I seem to have a lot of catching up to do.”
Penny felt a warm glow in her heart as she watched her mate connect with his long-lost kin. True, her mission hadn’t exactly gone as planned, but everything had worked out in the end. She was ending her time in the Yown System without the distinction of bringing home the Eye of Ten’gu but with a new mate she would love and cherish forever.
And it was all because she had been Stolen out of her own life and put on a course she never would have picked for herself by the Goddess herself.
Chapter 118
“Okay, I’ve gotten all of the nanites out of your system,” Liv said, bustling into the Med Center room where Penny was sitting. After a lovely week-long trip to Rageron, she and V’rex were aboard the Mother Ship and she was getting a much-needed physical.
“See, doll? I told you she could do it.” Kat, who was there for moral support, squeezed Penny’s hand.
“Oh, thank you!” Penny breathed a sigh of relief. Even though the Glorious Leader was now floating in a puddle of space poo and couldn’t spy on her anymore, she still didn’t like the idea of his microscopic nanites infesting her system.
“So that’s the good news,” Liv said briskly. “But I’m afraid it still won’t stop you from producing the nectar.”
“It won’t? Why not?” Penny exclaimed. It wasn’t that the nectar was that bothersome, she supposed, and V’rex certainly had no problem sucking it out of her breasts whenever they made love—or anytime she asked for help, for that matter. But it was irritating to be dripping all the time and she’d thought that ridding her body of the nanites would certainly take care of the nectar problem.
Apparently not, though.
“I’m afraid that the fertility herbs and chemicals you were exposed to have convinced your body you’re lactating,” Liv explained.