Page 51 of The Alien Minotaur's Bride

It had become my default – the only way to navigate the soft, shifting surface without Keth's help. The weight of my belly hung suspended beneath me, distributed across my hands and knees instead of pulling forward. My breasts hung too, heavy and full, swaying slightly with each movement.

I'd stopped noticing it as strange weeks ago.

My body was what it was. It did what it needed to do. I crawled from one corner of the nest to the other, adjusting furs, rearranging the walls I'd built, settling into positions that would have mortified me six months ago and now felt as natural as breathing.

The pressure in my breasts was building again. I could feel it – that familiar fullness, the ache that meant I'd need relief soon. I shifted onto my side, propping myself against the banked-up furs, and waited.

Keth appeared in the doorway within minutes.

He always knew. Whether he could smell the shift in my scent or simply tracked the rhythm of my body through days of careful observation, he always appeared right when I needed him.

"Full?" he asked.

"Mmm."

He crossed to the nest and settled beside me, his bulk dipping the soft surface. His hand found my breast, cupping the weight, testing the pressure.

"Very full," he murmured. "You're producing more."

"I noticed."

He smiled and lowered his mouth to my nipple.

The relief was immediate – that rush of warmth as the milk flowed, the pressure easing, the pleasure rolling through me in familiar waves. I let my eyes close, let my body go loose against the furs, let him tend to me the way he'd been tending to me for weeks now.

This was the rhythm of our days. I filled. He emptied me. I filled again. He returned.

I'd stopped keeping track of the hours between cycles. What was the point? My body knew what it needed, and he was always there to provide it. That was enough.

Vorreth's name came up once, in the fifth week of my pregnancy, when a formal notice arrived at the dwelling.

Keth read it with his jaw tight, then set it aside.

"What is it?" I asked from the nest.

"Final withdrawal of all claims. Formal acknowledgment of the mating bond and pending offspring." His tail lashed once. "He's finished."

I should have felt triumph, maybe. Relief. Some kind of victory at watching the male who'd tried to take me retreat in defeat.

Mostly I felt nothing at all.

Vorreth was a distant irrelevance now. A mated omega, heavily pregnant with a Khorreth alpha's child – I was beyond any challenge the hierarchy could bring. I had status I'd never sought, protection I'd never asked for. The political manoeuvring that had seemed so threatening weeks ago had faded into background noise.

I had more important things to think about. Like the way my belly had grown overnight, or the new ache in my lower back, or the small fluttering movements I'd started to feel from inside.

"Good," I said. "Is there food?"

Keth laughed and went to fetch me something to eat.

At night, I thought about who I used to be.

The nest was dark and warm around me, Keth's bulk curved against my back, his hand resting on my belly where he could feel the movements of our child. I should have been sleeping – my body was exhausted, heavy with the work of growing something new – but my mind drifted instead.

The relay station. Night shifts. The hum of machinery and the cold of recycled air.

I'd been competent there. Self-sufficient. I'd built a life out of needing no one, and I'd been proud of it. I can take care of myself, I'd thought, every time I fixed a broken panel or rationed my food stores or spent another shift alone in the corridors. I don't need anyone.

I'd been wrong.