Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know ‘who-who’, damn it!” she snapped.

“But one of you certainly did! And I didn’t hear anybody objecting to making a baby, so you can all just damned well take responsibility!”

The men all exchanged questioning looks and then turned to study her speculatively.

Simon cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I wouldn’t shirk my responsibility,” he said a little stiffly.

“I certainly wouldn’t,” Ian said.

“It’s settled then!” Caleb said, surging up from the couch. “We need to head down to the city hall and tie this up before she starts showing and everybody knows we were dipping without tying things up properly! Comb your hair, magpie. It’s standing on end. It wouldn’t do to show up at city hall to get married with you looking as if you’ve already had the honeymoon.”

Anna looked down at herself in dismay. She didn’t just look like she’d just had sex, she reeked of sex! She wasn’t about to say no, though! “I need a quick shower.”

“Make it a quick one. I’m going to get the sub and pull it into the airlock.”

Anna had had time to consider the possible consequences of her lie by the time she’d bathed, combed the tangles from her hair, and dressed. She spent the trip from the house to city hall wavering between the desperate need to confess and the fear that they’d turn back if she did. When they’d docked, she realized she simply couldn’t go through with it.

“Wait!”

They tensed and stopped to look at her.

“I don’t know for sure that I’m pregnant. I just know I could be. I was trying to explain that I had to know before I could take the change. I don’t want to risk losing the baby if it’s possible.”

They relaxed immediately. “Come on, magpie,” Ian murmured, his eyes gleaming with amusement. “Nobody’s going to let you back out now.”

“I don’t want to back out.”

They hadn’t even finished the brief ceremony when word came that the jury had finally arrived at a verdict. Simon advised the judge to finish up quickly. She could see they were anxious to leave right then, afraid they’d miss the announcement if they took the time to load her into the sub to get to the court house. “Go!” she told them as soon as the judge had finished. “You’ll miss it if you wait for me.”

As disappointed as she was to miss it herself, she decided it was worth it. They grabbed her, kissed her, and passed her down until she’d made the rounds and then took off. Shrugging at the look the judge sent her, she went to wait for them in the sub, feeling her emotions peaking and dipping as if she was on a roller coaster, afraid to let her mind settle too long on any particular thing—her hope that she was pregnant, that they’d gotten the verdict they wanted, that they were going to be able to work through their differences and make their life together work.

She knew they were satisfied with the verdict as soon as they returned. It looked as if they’d all dropped years with the release of tension.

“They convicted him,” Simon said with satisfaction at her questioning look.

“On what charges?” she asked breathlessly.

“All of them,” Caleb answered. “The prosecutor sends his regards, by the way.

He said he felt like your final testimony tilted the scales.”

“They recommended the death penalty,” Ian said somberly.

Anna felt her stomach fall from under her. She wrestled with it, but despite the momentary twinge of guilt that she might have been the instrument of her father’s death, she felt relief, too. She might never know if he’d had a hand in her mother’s death, but she felt like he had and she knew in her heart that he had certainly had a hand in the massacre in New Atlanta. If she’d had any doubts, at all, she wouldn’t have done everything she could to help convict him.

She smiled at them. “Let’s go home.”

Simon gathered her into his arms and slowly rocked her for a moment. “Anna,” he said hesitantly. “There may yet be war between the mutants and the humans. They hate us and its growing.”

She pulled away to look up at him, lifting her hand to cup his cheek. “I already chose my side. And we’re all human, whether they want to acknowledge it or not.

They spent their ‘honeymoon’ celebrating by finishing the remodeling on the new addition and, of course, thoroughly exploring each other. By the time the first blush of their union had begun to fade, there was no doubt that Anna was pregnant, but no one had brought up the subject of the change since anyway.

For her part, Anna was torn between excitement about the baby and disgust that she hadn’t taken the change before she’d gotten pregnant. It was really starting to chaff her that she couldn’t leave the house without the sub and the men came and went freely.

Of course, she had her greenhouse and lab to occupy her time, and the nursery she was preparing, and the men to occupy her time when they were home, but it was still irritating not to be able to simply walk out when she wanted to.

“I should take the change as soon as the baby’s born,” she told Simon as they lay together in the aftermath of their lovemaking.

He stroked her rounding belly restlessly. Nuzzling his face against her temple, he kissed her. “You don’t have anything to prove, magpie.”

She liked the way they all called her magpie now. It always made her feel like smiling.