Guherf had no clan, preferring a circle of lovers whom wandered in and out of his sleeping room as his mood dictated. He was a fun fellow to be in the company of and generous to a fault with his fuck buddies, so he never lacked for companionship.
Guherf’s aide Imdiko Tilm wandered in and out, bearing contracts to sign and updated appointments to confirm. Tilm was definitely not his boss’s fuck buddy. He was too valuable an assistant for Guherf to lose over a lover’s spat, not to mention being as reserved as the Dramok was gregarious. The Imdiko’s one acknowledgment of Almon’s presence was a short bow and an almost-whispered, “Hello, Nobek Almon.”
Almon was glad for Tilm’s introverted personality and Guherf’s preoccupation with his upcoming trip. He wanted to consider the situation with Nesof very carefully. Not that Guherf would have refused a discussion about Almon’s concerns, should the Nobek had chosen to use him as a sounding board. Guherf, despite being a confirmed bachelor, was fascinated with his bodyguard’s affair with an Earther. The novelty of it never failed to elicit enthusiastic curiosity, probably part of the reason Guherf so readily granted Almon the leeway he did. Unfortunately, he was also a terrible gossip. Almon had learned early in his new position to offer the barest details of his relationship with Joseph.
It was too bad. For all his extravagance and surface inanity, Guherf was a shrewd man. Almon could have used some feedback on the problem with Nesof. It was clear the orderly was enamored with Joseph, which would have been difficult on its own to cope with. But the encounter outside the therapist’s office had set off alarms of a more disturbing note.
It’s not just me being jealous or a reaction to the memories of losing the clan I thought I was destined for. Nesof’s intentions had taken an ugly turn. He was trying to force a wedge between Almon and Joseph. Acting almost like a stalker, in fact.
Due to Nesof’s closeness with Joseph during the Earther’s incarceration, Almon had run a background check over a year ago. It had come up clean, and he’d not troubled himself over the other Nobek any further. Until last night. The lunch encounter had encouraged him to sneak out of bed, leaving Joseph slumbering while he performed a more exhaustive search on the man setting himself up as Almon’s rival.
Almon had turned up no disturbing details on the orderly. He had a couple of surviving fathers who had suffered financial problems, but nothing criminal. He’d been an exemplary employee at the multiple psychiatric facilities noted in his work history.
Was this fixation on Joseph a new development? If not, Nesof had covered his tracks well.
With his own resources at an impasse, Almon sent out messages to his contacts, people who might be in positions to dig deeper into the orderly’s personal history. He had Joseph’s safety to consider.
Are you sure that’s all it is? Or is it fear that Joseph will fall in love and leave you for someone else?
Almon swallowed hard. He’d been pushed aside before. And no matter how hard he might try to be the man Joseph needed, it could happen again. Which begged the question, if Joseph did find another Nobek, would Almon be man enough to step aside for the sake of his happiness?
Ancestors, please, let me be right for him. I love him too much to suffer another loss.
Chapter Ten
Almon found his home eerily quiet when he stepped in the door. There was no Joseph waiting for him in the greeting room. His gut drew tight.
He went into the kitchen. From there, into the silent common room. No sign of his Earther.
“Joseph?”
“I’m in the sleeping room.”
Almon gusted a sigh of relief. He hurried to the sound of Joseph’s voice and stopped in the doorway.
Joseph knelt on the thick, white rug, which lay on the floor at the foot of the sleeping mat. He was naked. His penis jutted straight out from his groin—which had been shaved. Almon had mentioned he wanted to see it bared of hair at some point. The view and Joseph’s freshly showered scent made Almon hard in an instant.
Brown eyes gazed at him from beneath a stray curl that had fallen over Joseph’s forehead. “May I serve you, my Nobek?”
My Nobek. The words rang in Almon’s head. The sound of them never got old.
Not trusting himself to speak, he went to the Earther. Almon tousled his cap of curls as he attempted to gain control over himself. Did Joseph have any idea of the effect he had on Almon? Did he realize the Nobek would do whatever was required to make him happy? Fuck his natural Nobek assertive streak. Almon would have gone against everything in his character for Joseph—even drop to his knees and service him, if that was what it required. He’d crouch on all fours for his boy, allow him to use his ass as the dominant, if that’s what it would take.
Anything.
Joseph smiled up at him. “I’ve been waiting for you. I’m very happy you’re here.”
With that declaration, he opened Almon’s pants and eased his cocks out. He enclosed first one, then the other in his sweet, warm mouth, sucking until Almon groaned aloud.
Ancestors, I love him beyond all reason. I must never lose him.
Almon swept Joseph up in his arms and laid him on the mat. He draped the Earther’s legs over his shoulders. From there, he eased his secondary into the tight sleeve of his boy’s ass, watching how his lover’s lids fluttered and his mouth curled in a smile as they joined. The Nobek’s hips swayed, pushing against his beloved’s prostate to make him catch his breath and moan “yes” as he watched.
He could have wept over how beautiful Joseph was in that instant.
Joseph was well aware of the Nobek creed to not insult male lovers by speaking of their adoration. As far as other members of his breed were concerned, a Nobek who had to say the words because he was not strong enough to demonstrate his adoration, was not considered to be a man at all.
Almon didn’t need to verbalize it for Joseph in any case. It had been in the way he’d appeared so frantic when he’d reached the sleeping room door, searching for him. It was in the emotion with which he stared down at him as they made love, devotion in every line of his face. In the gentleness with which he stroked his hair, the tone in which he spoke his name.
Almon moved within him, providing the delicious friction that was as good as the hand on his shaft. He rocked in and out, until Joseph’s head tossed from side to side and he clawed at the bedding and his lover, fighting against the urge to come too soon. When his pleas rang through the room, Almon withdrew and fell on him with a hungry mouth, kissing his lips with bruising force. The Nobek moved down his body, until he swallowed Joseph’s livid cock again and again. Joseph’s world condensed to that point where they joined, where wet, hot suction pulled at him until he shouted for mercy yet again.
Then Almon took him with his primary, panting as he drove deep and hard. Joseph gave himself to the Nobek without demands, without expectation of receiving a single consideration in return. It was right to do so, to surrender to the desire they shared, to submit to the warrior who had earned his devotion in every way. Joseph was Almon’s lover, his clanmate, his boy. He would forever be Almon’s boy, with or without official recognition.
Almon spilled inside him with a shout, his seed hot as it filled Joseph. The final jolt had not arrived when he pulled free and climbed on top of the Earther. He spread the slickness of his cum on Joseph’s cock and guided it to him. Joseph moaned as Almon eased him inside, where he enclosed him as snugly as a tight fist. The Nobek rose and fell, pumping him. His passage was sultry with heat, granting an incredible paradise of ecstasy.
“With you,” the Nobek gasped as he rode his writhing companion. “Always, in all ways. My vow to you.”
“My Nobek. My Nobek,” Joseph sobbed, any other words erased by the rising tide of passion and love.
“Your Nobek. Make yourself a part of me. Come inside me.”
The other’s permission was all that was needed for the fiery river to surge through Joseph’s shaft, to send him into paroxysms of sheer elation. As he erupted,
Almon bent to seal his mouth over Joseph’s, to claim his screams as well as his seed.
Minutes later, his groans tapering into sighs, Joseph curled into the warmth of his lover. The last thing he wished was to break the spell that wove around them, the calm, quiet of basking in the afterglow of such a sharing. But with Almon swearing to his faithfulness and Joseph’s own feelings reaching the pinnacle they had, there was one more confession to be heard. Almon’s reaction to it would tell Joseph if he could seal their union in his heart, for all time.
“You need to know about that day I made the guards stop beating you.”
The Nobek shifted so he could gaze into Joseph’s face. “Yes?”
“I wish with all my heart that I could claim I did it for you. But that would be a lie. I saved you to atone for not saving someone else.”
“Tell me.”
Almon’s tone and expression were merely interested, and Joseph took heart from that. “A long time ago—prophets, it feels like centuries—I was a young officer, on shore leave on board an Adraf station. It had several floors of shopping, dining, and entertainments. A huge place.”
“I think I know the station you’re referring to.”
“I was buying gifts for my mother, for the next time I visited Earth. As I walked along the corridor, I saw an older officer in front of me, moving in my direction. His insignia told me that he was from the same ship I served on, but a different department. I didn’t recognize him. He had a child with him, his son, apparently. I suppose his family had met up with him for a visit.”
“Was that common?”
“For family to show up at a station where we stopped? For senior staff who could afford it, sure. Since Earth was so far from the other planets belonging to the Galactic Council, our deployments could last years.”
“I don’t suppose your parents ever did that.”
He was well aware of Joseph’s strained relationship with his critical father. “My mother often spoke of taking a vacation that would coincide with my shore leaves, but I usually talked her out of it.”
The memory saddened him. Since losing his parents during Armageddon, Joseph had endured many regrets for letting his issues with his father keep him from seeing his parents as much as he should have. They’d deserved better from their only son, no matter the problems between them.
“Tell me about this officer and his son,” Almon prodded.
“The child was crying about something he’d seen in a shop holo-window. He wanted it and begged his father to go back for it. I walked past them, kind of smiling to myself about how it seems as if it’s the end of the world when you’re a kid and you can’t have the toy or gadget that caught your eye.”
“Some adults are like that too.”
Joseph laughed at Almon’s excellent point, but the memory of what had happened next drove the humor away almost immediately. “I kept walking, thinking about what I was about to do. I’d already forgotten about those two within a couple of seconds. Then I heard a man shout, “Shut up, brat!” I turned in time to see him shove the kid up against the wall. The boy couldn’t have been more than eight years old, and his father was easily my height and weight. And he was shaking the kid against that wall, yelling at him for being spoiled and disrespectful and—prophets, I don’t know what all he blamed the kid for. The child was terrified and bawling.”
Almon’s hold on him tightened. No doubt the Nobek detected how Joseph trembled at the memory. “The father should have been knocked on his ass.”
“You’re right. Someone should have stood up for the kid.”
“You didn’t act in any way?”
Joseph averted his gaze in shame, but he refused to let it silence him. “I was frozen. The guy outranked me by quite a bit. He was armed, and I wasn’t. I looked around for the authorities, for security or someone who could stop him, but there were only me and maybe a dozen other shoppers.”
“What did the others do?”
“They watched, most with open horror. They didn’t try intervene either.” Joseph flushed, hearing the defensive note in his tone. “It’s no excuse. I failed to act when I should have. I let the asshole walk off, yanking his sobbing kid with him.”
“And you’ve regretted it ever since.” Almon rubbed his back. “You’ve had issues bucking authority for most of your life, Joseph. Your father saw to that, with his threats to put you out on the street if you refused to obey. Even to turn you in to the authorities if you were gay, knowing full well how that would end up. Dr. Adna says until recently, you’ve been emotionally crippled in that respect, as much as a person without legs or prosthetics cannot walk.”
“I still knew right from wrong. To this day, I wonder what became of that boy. And I wish I could tell him how sorry I am that I was such a coward. I did report the incident anonymously, but I had no idea who the officer was. I doubt a damned thing came of it.” Misery filled Joseph at having come up so short as a decent human being.
Almon continued to sound musing, rather than condemning. “Years later, when you happened to walk in the brig and find those guards beating me to a pulp—”
“I didn’t happen to walk in. I received a mysterious, untraceable com from some guy who told me that I needed to get to the brig. ‘They’re killing him.’ That’s all he said.”
“You had no idea it was a Kalquorian being attacked?”
“It didn’t matter. The moment I heard the message, that poor child being shoved by his parent was in my head. Even if it meant me getting torn apart, I was going to save somebody, because I hadn’t helped that kid.” Finally, Joseph met Almon’s gaze. “I wasn’t any kind of a hero when I stopped them from killing you. I was riding a massive guilt trip. I was trying to save my own pathetic soul.”
“You can’t make your actions meaningless, Joseph. You’ll always be the rescuer who shielded my body with yours, who pushed and shoved the others off me.” Almon kissed him to drive home the point. “The reason isn’t important. What’s important is that you owned up to that previous mistake, manned up, and did right by me. And I don’t doubt you’d do it again, if you were needed.”
Joseph wasn’t given a chance to dispute that. Almon pulled him in for more kisses, drowning out any protests the Earther might have made. Moments later, they were making love again.
It was all out in the open now. Every ugly part exposed. Yet Almon continued to adore him. It was at that instant that Joseph knew he was staying put and living his life out with Almon, as long as the Nobek would have him. At last, he could let go of the lingering doubts. Almon was his clanmate.
* * * *
Joseph received his membership to the support group via Dr. Adna. His inaugural meeting was a week later.
At first, Almon fussed about him using public transportation, concerned about more “unplanned” encounters with Nesof. However, Joseph was adamant about him not taking more days off work or the added expense of a private shuttle service.
“Besides, I got coffee on my own at Ibmul’s twice with no problem,” he reminded the Nobek. “Nesof must have finally gotten the message.”
“I wouldn’t be too quick to assume that.”
“Almon, I need to do this. Being out on my own on Kalquor is among my biggest hang-ups. It’s time I faced that.” He tried to ignore the flutter of anxiety at the idea. Almon’s frequency was programmed on Joseph’s com, after all. One click, and he’d be connected to the Nobek.
It was the sole reason why he was able to wait at the stop where the inner-mountain shuttle service was due to run. It arrived on schedule, less than two minutes after he stepped onto the platform where he waited alone, and he boarded it without trouble. Once in his seat, he programmed his destination in the computer. He saw with relief that he wouldn’t have to switch shuttles at all to reach it. He only had to settle in for a five-minute ride.
As he did so, he glanced at his fellow riders. He received plenty of looks, but not of the type that said, “Hey, you’re the asshole who attacked a
destroyer, killing and imprisoning several hundred of our men!” No, these were the inspections of the curious. Some gave him quick nods and returned their attention to using their handhelds. He quickly looked away from the three or four who lingered with appreciative expressions, trying to catch his eye.
No one recognized him two years after his capture and arrest. There were no shouts for someone to beat him to a pulp. Nesof had been wrong—or he’d lied—about the public reception Joseph should have expected. It was a relief, despite the overt interest of the few guys, which would have encouraged Almon to bare his fangs in warning.
When Joseph disembarked on an upper level within Ehom Mountain, it was more of the same from the Kalquorians walking about there. Surprise. Curiosity. Some flirtatious smiles. But no one confronted him for any reason.
The upper level was far different from the lower areas that Joseph had visited within the mountain. The living level was slightly less utilitarian, with some doors sporting individual touches such as murals or hangings that welcomed visitors. Plantings dotted the edges of walkways, and there was a botanical garden that residents could stroll through. It was as pleasant as a well-maintained apartment complex on Earth had been.
The market and entertainment levels in the middle regions of the mountain’s interior, with their brightly-lit facades and window vids, were as far a cry from the well-illuminated but sedate office level as he could imagine. In the professional area where the shuttle had brought him, the walls and doors were a uniform gray, with standardized signage denoting the business and suite number of each tenant. A few benches and modest plantings broke up the utilitarian design, and there was the ever-present earthy scent of the mountain’s interior, but it wasn’t a neighborhood that encouraged dawdling.
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