Star Side

Chapter 65

So that happened. While I would remember it this time....yes, it was nice, of course it was nice, but it's my business and I'm not going to be an enabler of voyeurs. Write your own porn.

What it did leave me as, though, was sore as hell the next morning, something I wasn't use to. My sturdy body rarely felt sore after physical exertion, but that, well...I was sore.

Gilrack didn't even have to ask. He put the eggs back into their incubator after taking them out late last night and carried me into the bathroom, where he had already readied a hot bath. There he crooned to the point of singing soft songs of his people, lullabies for younglings and loved ones. I nearly fell asleep again to his gently touch washing me down and the perfectly warm water. When I was good and ready he carried me out again, dried me off, and offered me new silks to wrap myself up in. His mind waves were even warmer and more tender than they'd been before, if that was possible.

"I can do this myself," I said as he reached for a comb, not the pretty gold one I had received, but the usual wooden one to comb my wet hair.

"It pleases me to do so," he said.

"You're my husband, not my servant."

"I would let no servant do this. It is my please."

"Pleasure. It's my pleasure."

"Pleasure," he purred the word, making the hairs tickle up my back. "It is my pleasure."

We sat in comfortable quiet as he got to work carefully redoing the braids of my hair, picking out jewels he'd set aside the night before so he could run his fingers through my locks without interruption. I held the eggs in my lap as he did so, keeping them covered with a blanket.

I was broken from my happy reverie by a soft bump against my fingers from one of these eggs.

"One of them move!" I cried in surprise. I put my whole palm on the egg to try and catch another movement.

Gilrack dropped what he was doing to put his hands on the other too, his excitement sweet and tangy in the air like Pop Rocks candy.

It took a while, but then Gilrack chirped that he felt one too, his elation tangible as a sudden warm gust.

"There's really babies in there..." I breathed.

"Of course. They are our young. Our babies."

"...Even if they look weird?"

"They will be beautiful. No doubt. Most beautiful."

I tried to take comfort in that and hugged an egg to my chest, wishing for the first time that it was a warm, squirmy little baby rather than an egg.

A family...I was finally going to have a family. One I could treasure and love as my parents did lacklusterly. I get to feed them and spoil them and make them happy and teach them about the good and beautiful things of the world, like storms and sparkling jewels and flowers.

Caught in our daydreams, Gilrack and I both jumped when the chieftess suddenly appeared through the curtains, her chosen green silks of the day gleaming in the light stones.

"You could at least ask to come in," said Gilrack lowly in their tongue.

"Oh, please, I'll know when I shouldn't come. I could smell your mating from my chambers."

Gilrack flinched, growled, and bathed the room with the low burn of his shame.

"Go away," he said.

She croaked in her throat, the equivalent of a human snort. "Like you could make me. Besides, I'm here with news. Rikek has gone to the peak."