The Succubae Seduction Bk. 02: The Twins Ch. 24

She lifted the bundle up to Shelly. She wanted to shy away from the thing. To push it away and scream. She wanted to curl into a ball, wallow in her pain, and ignore the rest of the world until she slowly died.

No more running, the thought flit through her mind. Grinding her teeth, and with an effort of will, she accepted the small bundle from the doctor.

It was so light. So fragile. Even in Shelly's weakened state, the baby weighed so little. She could throw it across the room, ending King Aecus's terrible legacy forever.

Except that she couldn't be that cruel. This child wasn't to blame for its father's actions. It didn't matter to her that killing it would doom both worlds to slowly die as every ant colony went extinct. She was fundamentally incapable of causing harm to something so small. So innocent. So fragile. So... cute?

She pulled back a small bit of cloth coving the baby's face. It was almost bald, except for a light covering of fuzz across its head. Its eyes were scrunched up as it wiggled the tiniest bit in her arms. It looked human as far as she could tell.

It gave a soft coo, lips moving just a tiny bit as it seemed to try and cuddle in closer to her.

If this child were raised properly, it would never become the terror that King Aecus became. This child could be raised properly, raised with love and care. Hadn't she thought earlier about how love was one of the strongest forces in the universe? Could she do that, though? Could she push away the memories of how this child was created, and be a mother? And Gaia had promised that it wouldn't be evil like its father.

Thinking of the mad, deceased monster, she wondered what gender the baby was. She remembered the way the doctor had avoided saying what it was. She opened the swaddling cloth a little bit, half afraid of what she would find.

King Aecus was a hermaphrodite. And so was his progeny.

"Shelly..." Sonia's gasped use of her name brought her attention to the android, standing next to the bed. The android was looking at the floor in shock.

"They have come to pay homage to their new queen," Gaia said before Shelly could see what the fuss was about. "Don't hurt them. They mean no harm for their queen or the queen's mother."

Shelly still wasn't sure what they were talking about. She knew she should be bothered being referred to as the queen's mother, but she was too tired to care.

Shelly felt her eyes starting to drift closed, but movement forced her to focus and look around. Sonia was shifting away from the bed, her eyes wide as she looked around.

Shelly realized she was still holding the child and thought she should hand her—him?—off before she fell asleep. Oddly, her arms moved to re-wrap the child and hold her close to her breast.

More movement caught her eyes before she could drift off, and this time she came wide awake.

Ants. Hundreds, if not thousands or more ants, crawled onto the bed with her. Shelly had a flashback to her time in King Aecus's bedchamber, and she opened her mouth to scream. Instead, her throat closed off, cutting short her shriek of terror. She couldn't let them get her. Not again. She wouldn't let them have her, or her baby.

Her baby...

Shelly looked down at the bundle clutched tightly in her arms, and gasped, her throat relaxing as she met her child's eyes.

Her child's multi-colored, shifting hued eyes. There were no whites to its eyes, and even as she watched, the colors shifted in a hypnotic pattern. The baby's lips curled up into a smile as she cooed again, blowing a small saliva bubble.

"She's so beautiful," Shelly murmured.

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From the Author

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I know how much you all love cliff-hangers... Especially at the glacial pace at which I post... But I really didn't want to give this one away. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a couple chapters to find out how this ends.