Page 46 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

Now I understood what he'd actually been offering. Not reduction, but rest. The chance to set down a weight I'd been carrying alone for nine years. The simplicity of being cared for, after years of caring only for myself, was everything I hadn't known to want.

Keth came in as the light was fading.

I heard his hooves on the floor – the quiet version, the one that meant he was checking if I was asleep and didn't want to wake me. I kept my eyes closed, letting him approach, feeling the shift in the air as his bulk entered the room.

The nest dipped as he settled beside it. His hand found my hair, stroking gently.

"You're awake," he said.

"Mmm." I opened my eyes. He was crouched beside the nest, his dark eyes soft in the low light. "Just resting."

"You need rest." His hand moved from my hair to my stomach, hovering just above the skin. Asking. Always asking.

I nodded, and his palm settled warm and heavy over my belly.

"I can smell the changes," he said quietly. "Every day, something new. Your body is–" He searched for words. "Becoming."

"Becoming what?"

"A mother." His voice cracked slightly on the word. "The mother of my child."

I covered his hand with my own, pressing it more firmly against my skin.

"I didn't choose this," I said. "The taking. The serum. Any of it."

His tail went still. I felt him brace himself.

"I know," he said. "I know you didn't. I know I–"

"Let me finish." I squeezed his hand. "I didn't choose any of that. But I chose the bond. I choose it every morning when I wake up here, in this nest I built, in this dwelling you've made fit me. I choose it every time you touch me and my body settles. I choose it every time I smell you and feel safe."

His eyes were wet.

"And I would choose it again," I said. "All of it. If you asked me now, today, whether I wanted this life – I would say yes."

He lowered his forehead to rest against my stomach. His shoulders shook.

"Mara," he said, muffled against my skin. "I don't deserve–"

"Probably not." I ran my fingers through the thick fur at his shoulder. "But you've got me anyway. And a baby. And approximately thirty more years of me building nests and demanding milking and waking you up in the middle of the night because my breasts are too full."

He laughed. A wet, broken sound.

"I can accept those terms," he said.

"Good. Because they're non-negotiable."

Later, after he'd tended to my breasts – my production was already increasing, the pressure building faster now – I lay in the nest with his arm draped over me, his bulk warming my back.

The dwelling was dark and quiet. Outside, the settlement had gone still. There was only his heartbeat against my spine, his breath in my hair, the gentle weight of his hand still resting on my stomach.

I thought about the baby.

It would be Khorreth. Mostly, anyway – the serum had ensured that, rewriting my biology to be compatible with his in every way that mattered. Our child would probably have hooves. Almost certainly horns, though small ones at first. They would be bigger than a human baby, stronger, different in ways I couldn't fully imagine yet.

I didn't mind.

The strange part was that I meant it. I'd never wanted children – not specifically, not as a goal. On the relay station, the thought had seemed absurd. What would I do with a baby, alone in the deep black? Who would help me raise it? Who would watch it while I worked the endless maintenance shifts that kept the station running?