by Amanda Milo
When wasn’t it enough to stop Gelert from strangling thirteen hobs to the music of his bonded’s screams?
CHAPTER 68
TARA
His big nose brushes the hair away from my neck enough that he can plant a possessive kiss against my skin. When his hand seeks mine and finds it where I’ve still got it balled in the covers, I loosen up and link our fingers.
This time, I’m not waiting for Brax to fall asleep. “Feel better?”
He’s quiet a moment, and if it wasn’t for him petting me so softly, and hearing the broken end of his chain clink with his movement, I’d think he’d have fallen asleep already.
“I’m sorry.”
Something in my chest loosens at hearing him say this. But I feel like I’ve got to spell it out. “Brax?”
Another beat of silence before he quietly says, “I’m listening.”
“You will NEVER go after Tac again.” I try to roll, and after a moment, he lets me. Even helps me. “Do you hear me? I need you to promise.”
His ears slap back so I snatch the base of one and force it to rotate so that I can use it like a microphone. “Say it. I need you to say it. Agree, Brax.”
Recognizing that I’m using his own words on him, he swallows and his tongue stabs at his bottom lip. I can’t tell if he’s refusing, or working something out, so I stay quiet.
“I will try.”
“Oh no,” I grab his jaw with both hands, and ignore how nice it feels when he relaxes his neck so that I’m supporting his big, dumb head. “‘Try’ isn’t good enough. NO. Like it or not, we’re all in this, together.” I pause, thinking, then I just ask him. “Do aliens have a saying like ‘you're with me or you're against me’?
“I’m not against you,” he says softly, and I know he's having bad thoughts and I'm losing his attention, testosterone taking over, when his hand slides up my thigh. His words confirm it. “Not against you in the way I want to be.”
I pinch his ear and he rears back.
I wait until his eyes go from black rounds of arousal to his affectionately warm, tawny-sunrise color, his pupils slitting with rejuvenated concentration. “SAY it, Brax.”
I know what he told me earlier, about his brother, is messing with him. I can see it in the way he hesitates now. And then I think back to him spitting on Tac’s injury before he sent him, unharmed, away from danger. When he didn’t have to. When he was upset enough he obviously wanted to hurt what Tac represented: competition.
But part of him knows Tac isn’t competing.
Do I like that he made Tac leave? Do I like that he has a problem with Tac at all? We’re already too deep for me to want to back out of this. I just need us to find a way to make this all—and I mean all—work.
He made a choice, the right choice, and got Tac out. He chose.
We have to be able to make this work. “No one knows what happened to your brother. No one is alive now to tell the story. But Brax, no matter what: YOU are YOU. Not him. Not the same here. YOU make the choices. I get that it’s difficult to fight instincts—”
“It’s IMPOSSIBLE.”
“Is it?”
His eyes search mine, and I recognize worry on his face. Worry. Maybe it’s only because he’s afraid I’m laying down ultimatums.
I’m not. I’m telling him like it is.
But just maybe, right now, he could actually be looking worried for Tac. I know he cares about him. Here we are, talking about Tac—in bed—and he hasn’t growled once.
This is not a small miracle.
I kiss him, and his neck muscles regain their strength and he pushes his lips into mine with more force, more heat. But before he can get as handsy as he's trying for, I say it. “Stop.”
Brax flinches.
I move to slide off his cuff, ignoring his hand hovering over mine like he wants to stop me, but knows better than to try. He makes a sorrowful noise of dismay when he’s cuffless. He’s technically chainless too, since it broke, but I’m banking on him having more control and willpower than he credits himself with. “I’m coming back later. But you know what I have to do. What I want to do. Fairness. Sharing,” I emphasize the concept before I stroke my fingers down the curve of his nose. “You were definitely the youngest child. You need work.”
At my teasing tone, his body relaxes. As soon as I stand though, that all changes.
When his body reacts like he’s about to get up—to grab me, to stop me, like he can’t make himself not try to keep me here, with him—I say the other thing. “Stay.”
There’s a bang as the heavy end of Brax’s tail crashes to the floor.
I give him a small smile, half afraid that if I praise him any stronger, it will break his control and he’ll be on me.
Also for that reason, I back out of the room, never taking my eyes off his vibrating body until the door panel separates us.
And I close my eyes and drag resolve around me like armor when his sad song begins.
CHAPTER 69
TARA
Our relationship can work. It has to. If I leave, Brax dies. If I leave, I have to say goodbye to Tac forever.
I sigh, kicking around to get comfortable, as I decide I’ve got to be honest with myself: even if death weren’t on the table—I’d miss the big bossy bastard too, so I feel like this is a done deal, the three of us. I’ve been single two years. I forgot what being a couple was like. No, that’s not right: I’ve been married and we were never a couple like this. If I feed my chest food by accident—Brax’s hand is the one reaching in to retrieve it.
Yes. He eats it too.
Men.
I won’t comment on the fact that I find it kind of hot. It makes me question my sanity just a little, and I’m not ready to face that.
And instead of letting Tac file down his nails by scratching at his own skin, when I come across a fine-grit sandpaper that Grake uses to clean up engine parts, he lets me have a piece of it and I give Tack a manicure. It’s cozy. It’s relationship-ey. It just made sexy-times more fun.
I—we’ve—already got the feelings. It’s not that I couldn’t face the consequences—for my girls? I would face the consequences of walking away from these guys: my girls come first, even before the… aliens I’ve come to have feelings for.
But I don’t have to walk away. I can keep them all. I just need to figure out how.
I wiggle my toes, then drum them lightly on the bed. Think!
Little average me, formerly single mom, with an adorable set of twin girls I’m going to have back very soon, now has not one, but two (alien)men. Only one of them is convinced he’ll go homicidal on the other. Our relationship can totally work.
My neighbor confided that her boyfriend got jealous when other guys flirted with her. Perfectly acceptable. Expected, even. This is exactly like that, but with the possibility/probability of broken bones and/or death/dead bodies.
This is in the bag, basically.
In a human, if one man declares he won’t be able to stop himself from killing other guys that approach you—instant cause for concern. Big red flag: he’s unstable.
Here… I’m… accepting of it?
In no way do I feel Brax is an abusive partner. Controlling? He wants to be, but ultimately, I’m the one who has the power—I know that now, and he listens to me now the he can hear me—so I’m not even worried about that.
I’m worried about Tac.
This is beyond having to stay vigilant. His life is in the balance if Brax can’t keep it together.
I kick around again, trying to work it all out.
Tac pats my legs, watching them a moment before he sends me a fond smile I can’t quite read. “Restless?” he asks, his claws beginning to scritch my scalp.
I sigh and press my head more firmly against his hand. “It doesn’t bother you?” I whisper.
He seems to think about it, letting the silence settle for the space of a few breaths. When he does speak, his voice is reflective. “I just want you. I love you, Tara:
not what your title or your rank or your race happens to be. I’m concerned though with how your people will view my… the way I am. I have been giving much thought into remaining inside indefinitely. From what you say, this is what will have to be. Essentially that is what we all do here already: we have no natural sunlight, or airflow, or… anything. So I believe I am as prepared as possible.”
I blink up at the ceiling. He’s thinking about our differences, about setting up house on Earth, and I’m worried about his life. “Okay. What about… sharing with Brax? It’s weird.”
He hugs me tight. “Ah. I would have been overjoyed to have you to myself. I’m overjoyed just to be with you at all.” He taps his nose into the top of my head before making his voice even quieter. “I just. Want. You. Whatever way I can share time with you, I just want you.”
CHAPTER 70
TAC’MOT
Lem’s guilt-ridden face is still all I can see. Tara had been shocked, utterly shocked when I pulled her into the cleansing stall with me.
Then she explained how she’s been bathing all this time.
Or, should I say, been bathed.
“Chemical sanitizing solution? Lem, it’s for cleaning countertops not skin! It stripped her of her scent! Of Brax’s scent! THIS is why he’s gone at her so crazed when she returns! Lem!”
He’d confessed that at first he was pleased she was addicted to being clean, but once he realized it could be detrimental to Brax’s sanity, he wanted to stop, but she wouldn’t let him. He didn’t realize she wasn’t bathing any other method; he’d thought she simply wanted to be free of Brax-musk for a time, and he felt sorry for her. Lem couldn’t imagine wanting to wear saliva, and his phobias considered her a sanitation hazard.
I chatter my teeth as I hop down the ramp that will take me to the bay with the Culc’s crate. It’s picture hour, and its owner is desperate for an update on how his pet is faring.
How he raged when he learned of the injury… I shove the lid off and prepare to catch the ball of multi-armed trouble, but nothing greets me.
I peer down, and my heart stops.
The Culc is dead.
METARK.
And so is our chance to retrieve our orphaned offspring.
CHAPTER 71
BRAX
“I needed a sympathetic ear.”
Needed. She needs me.
I hold her even tighter. “You have both of mine,” I assure her earnestly. I am relieved that she is choosing me for comfort.
“Let me sum it up for you: no Culc? No money. Grake had to pony up the down payment refund since you guys are flat broke. And because he paid for my translator, which, I’ll have you know, was crazy expensive, he’s now as broke as we are—”
It warms me that she refers to us as ‘we’.
“Tac also warned me that my food supply was ‘dwindling due to unforeseen circumstances’. He thinks I don’t know, but truth is, I have an idea and I don’t want to know—but I think I overheard him telling Lem my ‘food’ went into stress hibernation and he could ‘feed off the hibernated’ to me, or wait for them to wake up. I’m going to presume my food needs to get frisky in order to make me more food.”
She takes a huge breath, then another.
Then: “It’s bugs, isn’t it?”
Cautiously, I gauge her. “Y—”
“No! No, don’t tell me!” She violently shakes her head back and forth, then seems to pretend we didn’t have this section of conversation. “So we’re broke, we’re running out of food, and we have to WAIT. There is nothing we can do to speed things up. The hobs are working on organizing their own fleets, and Tac says the protection will be good, plus he’s going to try to work out a deal so they pay for our gas. Otherwise, we’re stuck.” Her hands slap down onto the bed.
Gas? Fuel. Fuel cells. My nasal crest builds an aggravated noise as I curse all our losses the moment the Culc died from injuries more severe than we at first believed. I want to rage at the sheer injustice of her situation: everything hung on this, yet a Culc is one of the few creatures that don’t heal with the assistance of Rakhii saliva. “I regret that you suffer due to our dire financial straits.” That they are suffering from this—though I don’t voice this last. It is agonizingly cruel that she was taken away from her offspring, and I’m afraid to ask her who might be caring for them now, because I can’t determine if it is a release for her to discuss the possibilities and her fears, or if it only builds more anxieties to fuel her nightmares.
Her nightmares. She calls out for them, crying in her sleep. She wakes up sharing shame-filled whispers of, “Sometimes, I’d say, ‘I’d do anything for a break!’ Now...I’d give anything to have them back.”
It tortures her.
But the simulated sunsrise of the next rotation always sees her sewn back together, looking a little more ragged and worn, but whole.
At least on the outside.
I pet her.
“It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. It just… I just can’t believe I’m in this situation and can’t get back home because I’m too poor, is all. I made it all the way into outer space, I have TWO men who’ve made all my little heart’s dreams come true—,”
All her hearts’ dreams come true? Truly?
“—and I’m still too te-click-vking—”
My ears twitch at her butchered pronunciation of the curse word. Her translator needs expletive calibration.
“—poor! And this isn’t like ‘oh, I’ll just substitute water since we’re out of milk until payday’—this is ‘an exotic attacking zoo-specimen died, we had to refund, and now our spaceship floats nowhere until we get some cash’. And I’m not blaming you. You have to know I’m not. This is out of your hands; out of everyone’s hands. I feel so powerless. I’m just… I’m wallowing in the cosmic unfairness of it all right now. Give me a moment.”
It is my deepest instinct to please my female, and not being able to correct or even assist in this situation leaves me unsettled and miserable.
We’re a pair in that.
A trio. Tac’s been working nonstop to secure funds and supplies. But for now, we’re stuck. I tuck her face into my shoulder, and suffer impotently along with her as her silent tears roll down my scales.
CHAPTER 72
TAC’MOT
With no funds now to go it on our own, we’re forced to watch our food supply dwindle as we wait for the hobs to assemble their teams for the foray to earth. They are surprisingly invested in assisting, and although the wait is beyond agonizing for Tara, during the interim, there are some surprising benefits.
Tara has Commed with several of their collected humans, learning about the colony that has been set up, and now, news of humans carrying offspring has them planning massive expansions. But there are still hitches: they are struggling to find foods the humans will accept. When I hear of a Rakhii’s gravid female that is worrying her male due to her having virtually no appetite, I groan in sympathy as I dwell on our own female’s recent reluctance to eat now that her container of sweetener is emptied.
I wonder if they’ve attempted to add it to this other female’s food. Though they have the galaxy’s finest grade sweetener, it’s my understanding it’s restricted.
Would a little planet-wide restriction stop Brax from giving Tara something she needed?
And how grateful would Brax be if someone offered information that helped Tara thrive?
Working on a hunch, I Comm our contact, and ask to be transferred to this female’s Rakhii.
CHAPTER 73
TARA
The day that we’re provided with fuel, food, and cash thanks to Tac bartering the use of this ship’s cargo space, is the day I breathe again.
Then the nerves start. The What Ifs keep me from sleeping.
So the night before we’re set to touch down on Earth, three humans and all their respective aliens show up, docking at our door and providing a welcome distraction.
“Hi,” the woman named Angie greet
s. “We’re here to help take your mind off the jitters.”
***
“So hey. How did you get him to let you go before you had the spray?” Angie asks, and her alien, Arokh, has an arm banded around her middle, and he looks just as disturbed at the question as he looks curious for the answer to it.
I send a grateful smile Dohrein’s way. He’s the hob that’s been helping all the Rakhii that have bonded to humans. He got right on creating a formula for Brax that makes it so he doesn’t get sick when we can’t be skin-to-skin. It also makes him more ‘manageable’. These are my words.
Dohrein’s were: “Here, take this. I’m most curious to see if his urge to rend your other mate is suppressed.”
Not ‘I’m positive this will work’ or… actually, that’s the only answer I wanted.
“Was it sex?”
This question comes from Gracie, whose first words to me when she arrived were, “Hey, Pongo! We’re here to help you get your puppies back.”
To answer her question now, I leave it at a nod. Or, I try to.
“Called it.” She puts her hand out. “Pay up.”
Angie reaches into a foil bag, and pulls out a strange, taffy-looking substance. She places it in Gracie’s hand, and in turn, Gracie pops it into her mouth and wiggles in eyes-squeezed-shut bliss.
Tac, who is off to my side, leans forward. “I believe you need to try this substance, Tara.”
I’m turning my head to look at him, when out of the corner of my eye I see everyone in the group focus on him.
He’s gone green-spotted.
“You can relax,” I assure everyone. “These are non-harmful spots.”
Something is pressed into my hand.
Angie just gave me one of the taffies. If they thought Tac’s spots were interesting before, he goes nearly full emerald at my moans of enjoyment. It’s crunchy-toffee on the outside, taffy-soft on the inside. “What is this?”
