A Desconian Happily Ever After (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

  A Desconian Happily Ever After

  Life on Earth has become more desperate.

  David had to get his friend Ally and her newborn son off the planet, but the fee asked by people smugglers took his life savings. Determined to protect her from a world getting more and more violent, David sent her to Descon, vowing to follow as soon as possible.

  Drew and Kallum adore Ally and know what she’s been through, the horrors she’s suffered. They can help her heal and claim the happy future that she would never have had on Earth. As time passes, and David’s arrival seems ever more unlikely, Ally finds herself falling in love with the two Desconian men. But will her love for a man who may never escape from Earth destroy the future Kallum and Drew can offer?

  Note: This book contains double vaginal penetration.

  Genre: Futuristic, Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Science Fiction

  Length: 40,211 words

  A DESCONIAN HAPPILY EVER AFTER

  Rachel Clark

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  A DESCONIAN HAPPILY EVER AFTER

  Copyright © 2013 by Rachel Clark

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62242-497-9

  First E-book Publication: March 2013

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

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  DEDICATION

  For G

  A DESCONIAN HAPPILY EVER AFTER

  RACHEL CLARK

  Copyright © 2013

  Prologue

  David couldn’t find her.

  She was supposed to meet him in their secret hiding spot, but when she hadn’t arrived he’d become agitated and started searching. He knew this area was dangerous. Between the increasingly powerful vigilante groups and the gang violence it was becoming even worse. Hell, there wasn’t a safe place on Earth anymore, but he had a plan to get her off the planet.

  If he could find her.

  The soft sound of an infant’s cry had his heart pounding in sheer terror. Ally wouldn’t abandon her son. If the child was alone it was only because Ally had been given no other choice. David carefully picked his way through the fallen stones and rubble, the abandoned remnants of what once had been a school.

  He found baby Alex tucked into a small alcove. The child was usually so quiet, never even crying as if he somehow understood the danger, but if he hadn’t made a noise precisely when David walked into the room he would have gone right past him. David gathered the baby to him, tucking the child safely into the sling that Ally had fashioned herself, and then closed his coat over the tiny little life that Ally chose to protect over her own.

  Trying to stay calm, he searched the immediate area, knowing without a doubt that Ally was not far away but in very serious trouble. She would have returned for her son if she’d been able.

  He found her unconscious, beaten and bloody, but thankfully alive.

  “Ally.” His voice was quiet, breathless, as he knelt down beside her to check her injuries. Her clothes were torn, her legs covered in bruises, and it didn’t take a genius to know what had been done to her. He’d promised the last time that this happened that it would never happen to her again. At the time he’d been arrogant enough to believe he could somehow stop it. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered as he stemmed the bleeding from several minor wounds and tried to blink the tears from his eyes. “Please, wake up, Ally. I’m so, so sorry.”

  “Al…lex?” she asked in a gasping voice.

  “He’s safe, Ally. I have him with me.” David wanted to move her but knew enough about inside injuries—the ones a person couldn’t see—to know he shouldn’t move her yet. It was better if she moved herself first. He’d seen enough misery and beatings to know. “I’m sorry, Ally.”

  “Not…your fault,” she said, shaking her head slightly as she tried to move. He watched her, his heart aching for failing her, as she slowly rolled herself onto her side. The effort cost her dearly and she closed her eyes as she moaned softly.

  He sat beside her, keeping watch as she slept, determined to keep Ally and her tiny son safe. It was hours before she was able to sit up, her mouth and both eyes swollen and bloody, her pale skin covered in blue and black bruises, but she eventually moved to check her son. When she smiled and thanked David for caring for Alex when she couldn’t he felt a desperate need to hold her close the way he had when she’d been in labor.

  Uncertain where that thought came from—touching another human being had been discouraged since he was just a child—he glanced around the destroyed building instead. A long time ago he used to attend school here and the building was central to the few happy memories he had of his childhood. The government had closed it years ago for reasons he hadn’t understood at the time. He still wasn’t certain why, but with the recent introduction of laws that outlawed procreation, education wasn’t this planet’s only problem. All the new laws seemed to do was make it harder for David to protect Ally, and judging by today’s outcome, easier for those who wou
ld hurt her to do so.

  David wasn’t well educated, but he was smart enough to know that life on Earth had no future.

  And getting Ally and her son off this dying planet was priority number one.

  Chapter One

  Kallum tried to contain his excitement. When his friend and medical colleague, Tosh, had come to him with the idea he’d almost laughed in the man’s face. But the more research they’d done into the procedure humans had called “in vitro fertilization” the more excited he’d become.

  Tosh had seen it as a solution to his wife’s and sister-in-law’s infertility issues, but Kallum could see much more wider-reaching possibilities. If they could make this work, it was quite likely a solution for many of the fertility issues on Descon. A procedure like this could very literally change the future of the planet. It also raised all sorts of legal, moral, and ethical issues that would need to be dealt with in due course, but it might just be the solution they’d been searching for.

  If it worked.

  If.

  “Good morning, Doctor,” Jenelle said as he stepped into the procedure room. She was there with all three of her husbands.

  “How’s my favorite patient doing today?” he asked with a smile.

  Jenelle smiled back, but it was obvious that she had a lot riding on this idea. Unable to carry children of her own thanks to a surgery that had been done to her without her knowledge or consent back on Earth, Jenelle had almost refused to marry the three men currently hovering protectively around her. Hopefully, this procedure would give them all a chance to have the child they hoped for. “I think excited, nervous, and flat-out terrified covers it,” Jenelle said with a soft, nervous-sounding laugh.

  “I guess it would,” he said as he patted her hand and then reached for his ultrasound equipment. They’d been monitoring Jenelle’s surprisingly regular cycle and, with a bit of luck, today would be the day she ovulated. If they could capture the ovum soon after its release into the fallopian tube, they’d be able to fertilize it in the laboratory using a mixture of her husbands’ sperm and then introduce the zygote into a healthy womb. In this case it would be Jenelle’s sister-in-law, Galeena, who would hopefully carry the child to term.

  Thankfully the equipment they planned to use was far more advanced than the stuff the ancient Earth doctors had used. Kallum had been shocked by the grainy black-and-white images. It was a miracle they’d been able to see anything at all. At least with his own equipment the image was three dimensional and far clearer.

  And much more exciting than they’d expected.

  “Jenelle, it looks like you’re about to ovulate from both ovaries. If we can harvest both of them we should be able to double our chances of success.”

  “Call Galeena,” she said to Jax. “If we have a chance at two babies, one of them should be fathered by Galeena’s husbands.”

  “Are you sure?” Jax asked her for what Kallum knew was probably the millionth time. It had been an ongoing concern for all seven people involved. They’d finally decided that the first “test-tube” child should be fathered by Jenelle’s husbands, Galeena’s for the second, but if they had a chance to implant two zygotes then it did seem like a reasonable decision. It would also make it easier for Galeena to hand the child to his or her parents if she was able to keep one of her own. It probably sounded a little childish that they would need one each, but childbirth and rearing was often irrational and based on emotion rather than logic.

  “What if only one baby survives?” Tosh asked quietly. It was a valid concern. In the early days of in vitro fertilization on Earth, many procedures were done with four or five zygotes to improve the chances of success.

  “Then nature would have made a decision for us that took too many hours of discussion to make.” She pulled Tosh closer to her, lifting up to press a kiss to his mouth. “I was never certain we’d made the right decision anyway. This way we no longer need to wonder.”

  Tosh nodded, glanced at Jenelle’s other two husbands, and finally agreed. “You’re an amazing woman, Jen. No wonder we fall more in love with you every day.”

  Kallum smiled at the genuine love that he could feel between these four people and couldn’t help thinking of his own partner. He and Drew had planned to find a wife, a mubella, years ago, but when Drew had gotten sick every plan they’d ever made had gone on hold. Perhaps now that Drew was fully recovered it was time to consider their options once more. They loved each other dearly, but their triad was incomplete. Irrationally, Kallum glanced at the faded symbols of their marriage painted on his skin and felt a small sliver of panic. They were actually overdue for the traditional five-yearly renewal of their joining, but even that had gone on hold when Drew had been sick.

  “Okay,” Kallum said, trying to pull his mind back to the here and now, “let’s get this done. Jax, call your sister and tell her she and both her husbands need to meet us here as quickly as possible. We don’t have the freezing methods that humans used to use, so we need to get organized.”

  Jax nodded, reaching for the tiny earpiece commonly used by the Royal Guard, and quickly contacted his sister. Judging by the wince from Jax and the unmistakable sounds of celebration coming through the connection, Kallum guessed Galeena was rather excited. “They’re on their way,” Jax said, rubbing the side of his head as he disconnected the call.

  “Perfect,” Kallum said, feeling pleased that things seemed to be falling into place.

  * * * *

  Ally laughed as her son spat out yet another spoonful of white mush. She’d only started him on solid foods a few weeks ago, and as the doctors on Descon had advised, she was introducing new foods slowly. He’d loved the pureed fruit she’d tried him on for the first few weeks, but it seemed he wasn’t a big fan of the Desconian equivalent to rice paste.

  She scooped up the gooey mess from his chin and tried a new spoonful. Alex opened his mouth, eager to try the food, but as soon as it hit his taste buds managed to push it back out. White paste, liberally covered in baby saliva, dribbled down his chin and onto the thing Desconians called a bib.

  Landing on this planet had been terrifying, but just as David promised, here she’d found a safe haven for her child. Alex had a chance to grow and learn and choose his own future on this planet, and for that Ally would always be grateful.

  But it didn’t stop her worrying about David. After she’d been attacked he’d used every cent they had between them to buy her passage on the ship that smuggled her away from Earth. They’d planned to leave together, but David had insisted that he’d catch up to her as soon as he was able. She’d been too injured to argue him out of it.

  Alex made a delighted, squealing noise and blew messy rice-paste bubbles from his mouth, smacking his hands on the table in front of him happily. His glee managed to drag her attention back to the present.

  “That looks rather messy,” Drew said as he took a seat beside her. “I’m guessing he doesn’t like the latest culinary treat.”

  Ally grinned and leaned over to wipe the mess away before her beautiful little imp decided that throwing it might be fun. He’d come a long way from the quiet baby he’d been. She’d worried at first when he’d started to cry more frequently, concerned that even on Descon his distress would put them in danger, but instead it had attracted attention mostly of the positive kind. Not only had the planet and its people welcomed her and her son into their culture, but the authorities had provided more information than she’d ever thought possible.

  “I think perhaps we’ll go back to pureed fruit for a few days and then maybe try again.”

  “Good idea,” Drew said with a laugh when Alex managed to dribble even more white paste from his mouth.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked Drew worriedly. Her friend Jenelle—she’d been the first human Ally had spoken to upon reaching Descon—had told her that Drew had been ill for a long time. He was such a sweet man and a good friend that it hurt to think of him as confined to a bed for so long.

&n
bsp; “Not you, too,” he said with a smile and a roll of his eyes. “I’ve been symptom-free for quite some time now. You’d think that would be long enough for people to stop worrying.”

  “I don’t think people on Descon will ever stop worrying.” She gave him a sad smile and tried not to think about the only person on Earth who’d ever cared about her. “At least, I hope they don’t stop worrying.”

  Drew gave her a concerned look. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That was rude. I didn’t mean to stir up old memories.”

  She reached a hand over to touch his where it rested on the table. She squeezed his fingers briefly and quickly pulled back. Since the birth of her son she’d discovered the comfort in holding another person, but so far touching someone else still felt forbidden. She’d spent quite a long time talking to the counselors here and the other women at the compound, so she understood how experience tainted her thinking. It just didn’t make it any easier to adjust. And since the only touching she’d known before that had been the traumatic kind, it was taking even longer than she’d hoped. Unfortunately, in this compound she wasn’t alone in her experiences. Earth might have outlawed physical touching, but all it seemed to mean was that there were an awful lot of rape victims who would never see their attackers brought to justice.

  “What brings you here today?” she asked, trying to push back the awful memories to where they belonged. Drew volunteered twice a week at the compound, and unless she’d gotten confused with the extra-long days on Descon, he wasn’t due back until tomorrow.