Alexa looked around nervously, then tip toed into the nursary. The babies were fast asleep.
"I'm sorry I can't take all of you," she whispered. "I'm sure Medea will take care of you."
She scooped up some of the nursary supplies and stuffed them into a bag as quietly as possible. She didn't like the way that Medea and Aranince had talked about her children. She wished she could take them all away from here, but she couldn't. Alexa knew that she wouldn't be able to protect them if she stayed here, and she'd only be forced to have more. But if she ran away, she could at least saved one of the children from Medea.
Couldn't she?
Alexa knew exactly which one to save. Sextus. Medea acted as if he was below notice and Aranince would laugh and jeer and say chickens were only good for dinner. Who knew what they would do to him? At least Alexa had reasonable faith that they wouldn't hurt the others.
Carefully, to make sure she didn't disturb him, Alexa scooped up Sextus in her arms. She wrapped him in a blanket and, taking one last look at her other children, swept out the door.
Aranince and Medea
Aranince slipped into Medea's workshop.
"She's left."
"Alexa? She'll be back. She has no choice. She may resist at first, but she will inevitably get herself pregnant again. And if she doesn't come back here to have the children, she'll die in child birth."
"You sure about that?"
"And I sure?" Medea sneered. "Really, you don't think I would create a creature capable of breeding warriors without making sure they can only breed for me, and no one else? I purposely put a defect into her transformation, and only I know the way of treating it."
"Ahh, like the one who feeds his armies on drugs to keep them loyal. I suppose you're planning the same thing for the children?"
"Disloyalty is death."
"Of course. You're in the habit of killing those who are disloyal - or get in your way."
"And it would benefit you to remember that," Medea replied coldly.
There was silence for a moment.
"Oh, you need not worry about me being disloyal. I only betray those who betray me first," Aranince said. "The elves betrayed me, my brother, my sister... And as they say, the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
"Indeed."
More silence.
"She took one of the children with her."
"What?" Medea exploded, her eyed flaring. "Which one?"
"Sextus," Aranince replied with a sneer.
"Oh," and Medea relaxed. "The werechicken is of little consequence. Alpha will be a might warrior. Beta will be the spy, the thief of the stealthy variety. Gamma, ahh, now I have given her some thought... she too will be a spy, but of the more bold kind: the infiltrator. I will have to see how she developes - I may cast a beauty spell on her. Delta, the assasin. Stealthy or bold faced as need be, but far more deadly than her sisters. And Quinten."
"Quinten? What shall he be?"
"There are so many possiblilities... the pyrokinetic werepirana. Ultimately, a destroyer. Yes... Quinten will be very useful... It is merely a matter of determining the best use."
"It'll be some years before they're mature."
"True... but not too many. I designed them with a fast maturing rate, but a long life span. Or at least that was my intension. It will be interesting to see how well it works..." Medea mused. "In any case, both of us are... long lived. We shall have plenty of time to determine what kind of a lifespan the werechildren will have, and make adjustments accordingly."
"Perhaps you should get yourself another werequeen."
"Oh, I shall look into that in time," Medea said. "But I need to know how well these turn out before I create an army of duds."
"Of course."
"And of course, I will need to know what the wear and tear will be like on Alexa with future pregnacies."
"You're certain she'll come back?"
"If she doesn't, she'll die. I have put in a little homing signal, if you will... no matter where she is, the closer to term she draws the closer to me she'll come."
"Resistance is futile?" Aranince suggested.
"Yes, exactly," Medea nodded, not getting the Star Trek reference at all.