Nexus 4 stood still as the other two walked into the exam room space and out a door I hadn’t noticed until now. “You will not be harmed, Lady Caroline, matched mate of Warlord Rezzer. We are going to do nothing but observe, run occasional tests, and make sure both you and the baby are healthy.”
My mouth fell open. I was a prisoner, but protected. “What? You can’t keep me here?”
“We can.”
Now that just made me angry. I narrowed my eyes. “For how long?”
Nexus glanced at something on one of the data screens behind me as the other two returned. “For another two-hundred and sixty-four days. After that, you will be bred again.”
My mouth fell open. “Bred again?” I pinched my lips together after those two words slipped out, the math kicking in. Two hundred and sixty-four days? That was roughly nine months.
“You want my baby.” Now I really felt ill. No transport needed.
“We want nothing. The child is Hive. The child is ours.” He blinked for the first time, a strange, nearly translucent film coming down to cover his eyes briefly before lifting again. “The baby will be the first Hive born, free of contamination.”
I crossed my arms, suddenly cold. They wanted my baby? That was not okay. “Hive born? I’m human. The father is Atlan. There is no Hive.”
Nexus 4 looked at me, and his eyes were eerily dark with no pupil, like a great white shark’s. But when he held my gaze, I couldn’t argue, couldn’t move. Didn’t want to. It was like I just…forgot who I was. One of the others moved, breaking his hold on me, and I fought my way back to our conversation. It was important. He was talking about my baby. “This baby is mine. It was nothing to do with the Hive.”
The large blue alien tilted his head, looking at me as if I were a complete idiot. Nothing like being mansplained to by a freaking alien. “Your mate is Subject Zero. His physiology was altered so that his genetic offspring would be born free of contamination.”
“What contamination? What are you talking about?” My hand drifted over my stomach like a shield. His complete lack of emotion was beginning to really, really creep me out. This was the Hive. This was the enemy. Destroyer of worlds. They annihilated complete planets, civilizations. They left nothing and no one behind once they conquered a world. So what the hell did they want with me? Or Rezzer? Or my baby?
“We do not recommend diverging information to the human.” The dark haired Hive spoke to Nexus 4 as if he were relaying a message.
Nexus 4 ignored him, his complete attention on me. “The Atlan race does not accept integration well.”
A harsh laugh escaped me at his frustrated tone. A beast? Accept their implants and Hive mind mentality. “That’s not surprising.”
He continued. “Atlan Integration rate has less than a four percent survival rate.”
I was shocked it was that high, knowing my mate like I did. “They fight you, don’t they? Their beasts don’t like your mind control. They don’t follow orders.”
He didn’t quite nod, but it was close. “Subject Zero was altered on a genetic level to produce what we need.”
“What did you do to him? To Rezzer?”
If Nexus 4 hadn’t been an emotionless freak, I would have said he was preening. “We spliced his DNA with instructions for protein synthesis complementary to Hive biotechnology. High levels of the new proteins cause cellular adaptation and evolution of the complete biological system. The suppression of his natural transformative process is central to our experiment.”
What the hell did that mean? Suppression? As in, the reason he couldn’t turn into his beast when I arrived on the Colony? This blue alien was talking way above my pay grade. I was a financial person. I’d barely passed tenth grade biology. “I don’t understand what any of that means. What does it have to do with my baby?”
“Subject Zero’s biological offspring will be born with the same genetic improvement.”
“Improvement?” Oh, fuck. They genetically engineered my baby to be complementary to Hive biotechnology? To have his beast suppressed?
I took a step back as my stomach lurched. The little lights on my gown went crazy again as my pulse raced out of control. Was that why Rezzer couldn’t turn into a beast? Because of their genetic splicing? Gene therapy? Proteins? My head hurt, and nothing he said made sense. But their trick didn’t last. Rezzer’s beast was back. Did they know their DNA thing didn’t work on Rezzer? Did that mean my baby was Hive or not?
I was going to vomit. Apparently, Nexus 4 was on a roll, for he kept talking.
“The new protein synthesis will allow for pure-bred Hive offspring with no contamination from foreign biological material. We will birth live offspring with cellular level enhancements, perfect progeny without the need for external integration. Our race will flourish once more. We will be born, not integrated.”
And the child growing in my womb would be the first of a new generation. Genetically altered. Integrated into a Hive creation even before he was born.
Tears burned the back of my eyelids, but I swallowed them down with rage. I didn’t care if this baby was born with silver eyes, green skin and purple hair; it was mine, and I loved him already. Him? Her? It didn’t matter. Mine. That was the only word that mattered. And these asshole aliens weren’t getting their hands on my child.
When I remained silent, all three stepped back without turning around. “These are your quarters for the duration of your stay.”
“You can’t keep me here. My mate will come for me.”