“But?” I asked, sensing one coming.
“She’s mean.”
My eyes bulged, and my head jerked towards our Medical Officer, an inquisitive expression on my face.
Jessica laughed and gave my mate an unrepentant stare. “I am not mean, I’m trying to protect you from yourself,” she said, giving a playfully stern look at my woman. She then turned towards me with a long-suffering sigh before gesturing at Janelle with her head. “This young lady is accusing me of starving her because I won’t let her have a big steak with mashed potatoes and a piece of pie.”
I burst out laughing. Janelle scrunched her face and tried to pull her hand away from my grasp. I tightened my hold and smiled at her, unsure how much of it she would see.
“Soon, you will be able to eat as much steak as you want. But right now, you need a more gradual transition,” I explained gently.
“She just wants to give me liquids. That’s not food,” my mate added, her bottom lip jutting in the cutest of pouts. “You promised I’d never be hungry again.”
“And I meant it,” I said in a slightly chastising tone. “The question is: are you hungry or simply dying to chew on something tasty? Be honest.”
She opened and closed her mouth a few times, before chewing on her bottom lip, defeated. I chuckled and caressed her hair.
“Is there anything that would be safe for her to eat instead of just being stuck with that IV and drinking clear broths?” I asked Jessica. “Maybe watermelon, cucumbers? They’re full of water.”
Jessica pursed her lips, checked the monitors tracking my mate’s vitals, then gave me a sharp nod. “That might work. BUT you will make sure she eats slowly and doesn’t gorge. We don’t know yet how well her stomach will handle solid food.”
“I’ll be happy to,” I said sincerely.
“Fine,” our Medical Officer replied. “I’ll be right back.”
Janelle emitted a high-pitched sound of joy that reminded me of those of a happy Creckel. Of course, she would have adopted some of their mannerisms.
“Thank you. You’re so good to me,” Janelle said with warmth.
“It makes me happy to take care of you,” I said.
“I hope you won’t tire of it.”
She’d said it in a joking tone, but the undeniable tension in her voice said otherwise.
“I will never tire of looking after you, Janelle. When I said that I will always be there for you, I meant it,” I said in a tone that brooked no argument. “But I am quite curious about you and what happened in the base. How did you end up there all alone?”
A disturbed expression descended upon her delicate features.
“If you’re not ready to talk about it—”
“No, it’s okay,” Janelle interrupted. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Maybe at the beginning?” I said softly. “I’m assuming your parents were the scientists at the base?”
Janelle nodded, her face taking on a faraway expression.
“My mother was a xenobiologist on Dreija. She was studying the Creckels when the war started. My father was a biogenetics expert,” Janelle explained. “Both of them had worked in the early days with Dr. Xi to help create the Xian Warriors. After the success of the project and once the Vanguard was created, they couldn’t go back to Earth since humans didn’t even know aliens existed back then. Since Mom had worked with the Gomenzi Dragons, working on Creckels made sense.”
“So, your parents met during the program then went together to Dreija?” I asked.
“No. They were abducted separately but met in the base. Dad was twenty years older than Mom,” Janelle said. “They were not…”
Failing to find the proper word, Janelle clasped her hands together in a sign of strong unity.
“They weren’t in love?” I offered.
“They had love… but not love. You know?”
I nodded. After years stuck together in the underground base, I could easily see how they could have sought comfort with each other.
“They were always alone except when the Soldiers came to bring supplies and take away some of the modified Creckels or their eggs.”
“Eggs?” I asked, slightly stunned. Unlike most reptilian species, Creckels were actually mammals and gave birth to fully gestated offspring, not eggs.
“The modified Creckels lay eggs,” Janelle explained before continuing. “When I was born, Mom said they tried to take me away, but Brees got angry and attacked the Soldiers. Mom said she thought the General would kill them all. But he didn’t.”
“He left you with your parents?” I asked, confused that the Kryptid General hadn’t taken her as leverage against her parents, like he had done with our younger brothers against us.
The door opening kept her from responding. Jessica walked in with a hover tray carrying a huge bowl filled to the brim with juicy cubes of watermelon, pears, and peaches, a plate full of cubes of cucumber—peeled and the seeds removed—and a large cup containing a clear liquid which, judging by the smell, was some sort of clear broth.
“Here you go, young lady,” Jessica said in a motherly tone that made me want to laugh, considering she was about the same age as my woman. “You drink the soup first. After that, and only after that, you can eat anything on that tray. Just make sure you properly chew before swallowing or your stomach will make you pay for that eagerness.”
Janelle scrunched her face but nodded.
“And I hold you responsible if she does get sick,” Jessica added, wagging a menacing finger at me.
I grinned and bowed my head in submission.
After raising the bed so that my mate would be in a sitting position, Jessica placed the tray in front of Janelle, and checked her vitals one last time before taking her leave to go help the rest of the team to open up the cave.
I sat at the edge of her bed and helped her hold the cup while she drank, pausing in between sips to ask her more questions, thus pacing the speed at which she consumed the fluid.
“So, you were about to tell me why the General didn’t take you away from your parents,” I said.
“I don’t know why. I think it’s because the bugs didn’t know how to raise a little girl,” Janelle said with a shrug. “Maybe it wasn’t worth fighting the Creckels, or maybe I wasn’t valuable enough. I don’t know.”
I gave her another sip and waited a moment for her to swallow. “How come you have psychic powers? Did your parents have them, too?” I asked.
My mate shook her head. “No. When I was five, the Soldiers brought an enzyme and said we had to put it in the water we drank, especially for me. Mom thought it was bad, but Dad said it wasn’t. He knew what it was because he worked on it with Dr. Xi.”
“The enzyme for the ESP Program?” I exclaimed. She gave me a blank stare, and I chastised myself. Of course, she wouldn’t know about it. “Dr. Xi had developed a protocol to give humans psychic abilities so that females like Jessica could become Soulcatchers for the Xian Warriors. For a little over thirty years now, the enzyme has been added to all the water sources and food production on Earth so that the entire population develops those powers. Why would Khutu give you that ability?”