Page 44 of Meat

She had taken stock of her situation and decided there was nothing to do about it except to go with the flow. Besides, all signs indicated that the child was healthy. She could feel its strong little body kicking and moving inside her. Sometimes, when the light was right, she could even see the motion. In addition, there was no pain aside from what seemed to be normal abdominal cramps.

And having three strong ukkur males for protection helped.

One thing was for sure. These guys had some super-charged little swimmers in their seed.

Of course, she had some trepidation about the upcoming labor and delivery, and all the pain that she knew would come with that. But she had knowledge and experience on her side. Alyx was a doctor, after all. She had helped hundreds of other women bring their own babies into the world, such as it was. Now she just needed to use that knowledge on herself.

Okay, so the birth was going to happen in the wilderness, not a sterile hospital. There would be no painkillers, no epidural.

And yes, the child growing in her womb was obviously something more than human.

But it was hers. Hers and her mates’.

She would bring this tiny life into the world and she would defend it with her own until her last breath. She knew that her mates would do the same.

Alyx had this.

They all had this.

With a weird feeling of serenity, Alyx relaxed and focused all of her attention on her language lesson with Jale. That wasn’t hard to do when her teacher was a well-muscled ukkur male. They practiced some words for different parts of the flower, the petals, the stalk. The words were similar to others that she had already learned during her nocturnal lessons, and Jale smirked when he saw her blushing.

After a time, Krogg came over bearing food—something that was weirdly like a vegetarian shepherd’s pie cooked in Krogg’s ever-handy Dutch oven. He served it to her on a carved wooden platter, and the steam curling from the juicy alien veggies and corn-like bits carried a mouth-watering aroma.

Krogg studied her intently as she took the first bite with her wooden spoon-thing. The warm, soft medley of vegetables saturated her tongue with a savory flavor. The seasoning was perfect. Just enough spice to get her attention without leaving her lips numb.

Once again, Alyx had to hand it to Krogg.

For a cavemanish brute of an alien, the guy could cook, and that was sexy as hell. Almost as sexy as some of the other skills he demonstrated in the night when they all bedded down together as a pack.

Those skills were even better.

Alyx moaned with satisfaction as she took another bite of her food, and Krogg’s eyes glinted with a satisfaction of his own. He seemed to devour Alyx’s pleasure with as much relish as she devoured the meal he had prepared for her.

For her and for their child.

She was eating for two now, and that meant Krogg had even more opportunities to put his skills to work.

As she ate, the bearded giant crouched beside her and glided his hand over her belly, grunting pleasantly when he felt the baby kick.

“Strong,” he said, a word that Alyx had learned.

She nodded and smiled. “Strong.”

When she finished her platter of alien shepherd’s pie, Krogg served her up another, which was soon followed by a third. Alyx was ravenous. The food was rich with ksh, and she wondered if that alien additive was the cause of her rapid pregnancy.

She didn’t think so, however. Ksh was used in food products back on Earth, and no one there experienced side effects like this.

The more likely theory, she supposed, was that the virile ukkur males were packing some super sperm that developed extremely rapidly.

But there were still questions.

For example, if these ukkur really were aliens, then how the heck were their gametes compatible with her own? She shouldn’t be able to breed with them any more than she could with a wolf. Yet here she was, knocked-up as can be.

And the even weirder thing was her mates’ attitude.

Around day three, when her belly had really started to swell, they had become extremely curious, as if they had no more clue what was going on with her body than Alyx herself had. But surely these guys should be familiar with ukkur reproduction, right?

Wrong.