Obedient Read online

  She twisted her lips. “Everyone is brought into existence for a purpose. Since I was small, I knew that I wanted to be a better parent than my parents were. It sounds strange but that has been my focus. A child is the logical means to that goal. The goal wasn’t to have the baby but be a mother, and when the recruiter asked me what I wanted, I told him.”

  “You could have adopted, by your own laws.”

  Zel shook her head. “No. I had neither the money nor the property to support a child. When it was offered, I jumped at the chance and here we are.”

  She patted her tummy with a smile.

  He finished his folding of the teeny garments and wrapped his arms around her. “I am still glad that you have come to me. Your world is not prepared for me to arrive and demand my mate.”

  “So, you actually would have come to me?”

  He pressed a kiss to her neck and gnawed gently. “If you had registered and not come to me, I would have demanded you and your people would have had to surrender you as per the Drai Sleeper Treatise. It is almost as binding as the Amaryn Sleeper Regulation, but they are only interested in Terrans. Drai are just interested in a matching gene pattern.”

  He rocked her gently and hummed in her ear, the song that he had sung in her mind months earlier, before they had even met.

  She swayed with him, letting him take her weight. Every passing day she felt heavier, and he held her as if she was made of the lightest flower petals. It was adorable.

  A bot chirped at her, and she sighed. “It is time for my walk. The bots are tracking me.”

  “Do you want company?”

  She smiled. “Sure. I can use you for balance.”

  “I love it when you use me.” His voice was a dark whisper of remembered efforts.

  She snickered and turned in his embrace, their little one wedged between them. “It is getting harder to manage.”

  He kissed her, and there was nothing doting about it. “I will always help you pursue that endeavour. It is the least I can do.”

  She moved to his side, waited until he got dressed in the hip wrap and walked out with him to take her exercise as prescribed by her incoming midwife.

  Her entire life had become an endless round of changes and more were coming. Zelia looked around and took in what her life had become. All in all, she would take endless change over mind-numbing sameness. Change had potential that safety didn’t. You can’t win the prize if you don’t take the risks.

  Rad smiled at her. Am I a risk?

  She held his arm tightly. No, love. You are the prize. To think I almost didn’t play the game.

  His laughter rang in her ears and her mind. This was a fight that she had won, and she didn’t even know she was in it.

  Author’s Note

  Okay, I cheated. She was pregnant before she even met him. I needed to do something a little different. It was a short diversion.

  Next month, back to my regularly scheduled program...

  Thanks for reading,

  Viola Grace

  http://www.violagrace.com

  [email protected]

  About the Author

  Viola Grace (aka Zenina Masters) is a Canadian sci-fi/paranormal romance writer with ambitions to keep writing for the rest of her life. She specializes in short stories because the thrill of discovery, of all those firsts, is what keeps her writing.

  An artist who enjoys a story that catches you up, whirls you around and sets you down with a smile on your face is all she endeavours to be. She prefers to leave the drama to those who are better suited to it, she always goes for the cheap laugh.