Farenough: Strangers Book 2

by Melissa McCann

Mr. Ventnor shook his head. "Kid, even if she isn't in his bed, she's only with him to betray us. By now Solante must know everything there is to know about us, and a lot of people stand to be hurt by it."

  Jeffer Pente said, "She's no traitor."

  She wasn't worth your loyalty, kid." He looked at Tora. "You want to bring him back to Baldwin tonight, Colonel?"

  Jeffer did not belong to Cerise any more. He did not belong to Solante. He was alone. "Not a prisoner," she said. "We go now."

  "You sure? He could go straight to Cerise, tell her we've found her out."

  Jeffer said, "She doesn't come back here. Not since she moved into his house. She won't see me." He had not given up his bond with the Cerise easily.

  Tora could see the broken place inside him. He was foolish. The Cerise had not been bonded to him. She had bonds only for Baldwin and now Solante. "He is not enemy. I will not make him a prisoner."

  Tora left Jeffer Pente alone in his shelter, and turned back with Mr. Ventnor toward the waterfront. It was late in the afternoon, and Mr. Ventnor was tired. Tora kept leaving him behind and stopping to let him catch up. He finally called a halt and bent to recover his breath. "Why don't you go without me. I'll go straight home. You can take the shorter route back to your camp or Baldwin's lot. I'm slowing you down."

  Tora did not want to leave Mr. Ventnor alone and tired where enemies might find him. That would waste a good soldier, and Tora did not waste soldiers. Tora said, "Protect humans."

  He made a face. "Then take pity on a human and slow down, Colonel. I've been going at a jog all day."

  "I will go slow," she said.

  She tried a slow jog that was too fast for Mr. Ventnor and settled finally for a steady walk. It was hard to remember that Mr. Ventnor was only a human. The calm, steady way he moved and spoke was so much like a soldier.

  Tora detoured through the market and used money to get brownbully pasties from a vendor who knew her. She gave two to Mr. Ventnor and kept two for herself.

  Mr. Ventnor took money from his pocket and offered it to her.

  Tora stared, puzzled.

  He jerked his head at the money in his hand. "Two pasties. That's three five-pieces."

  He meant to pay her for the food. Tora felt a surge of jealousy as if another XX222 had approached one of her soldiers. She was the lieutenant. He was her soldier. She was responsible for providing him with food. He was hers.

  He looked intently at her and put the money back in his pocket. "You all right, Colonel?"

  "You are my soldier."

  "Any time you say." His smile was layered with human jokes that Tora did not understand.

  She said, "I get food."

  He shrugged. "Your word. Tell you what. Drop by my place sometime after patrol. I'll cook."

  Eating together was a friendship ritual. It was for soldiers and their lieutenant in a barracks, for Maycee and Cho'en and Annia and Liam and Mr. Hollin at the camp. Tora had eaten with the militia soldiers before, but to eat alone with Mr. Ventnor in his shelter was different. She did not know what that meant.

  He grinned at her. "It's all right. I'm a good cook."

  He said, "It's all right. I'm a decent cook."

  A human joke, one very like Maycee's remarks about her own cooking, which was not very good. Probably, eating with Mr. Ventnor was like eating with Maycee and Cho'en and Annia.

  They ate while they walked. Mr. Ventnor said nothing until they reached his lot. His black and white catpil perched on the outer fence. It saw Mr. Ventnor and stood up on its rear segments.

  Tora went through the gate where Mr. Ventnor scooped up his catpil and slung it over his shoulder. She stopped at his door, confused for a moment. He was her soldier. She should go inside and make sure he was groomed and rested. He was also human, and this was his place where she should not go without an invitation.

  He held the door open and stood aside. "Come in," he said.

  Inside, he tossed his catpil to the sleeping cot and sat down beside it. The catpil crawled into Mr. Ventnor's lap and clicked. He said, "So that answered two questions. We know where Cerise is and why he wasn't worried about getting numbers and movements out of you. Wonder how she felt about him trying to recruit you?"

  Tora thought about the women and soldiers in Solante's house. They had all been afraid of him. She wondered if the Cerise was afraid of him yet.

  Mr. Ventnor stood and dropped his catpil on the bunk. "It's close to sneakdilly time. You'll have to go if you want to get home before they swarm."

  Tora stood facing him in the narrow space. He was asking her a question, but she did not understand. She said, "I will go."

  He slapped her shoulder the way Lize and Ms. Stamos and Mr. Bracxs sometimes did to show friendship and respect. "You want me to speak a word to the General tomorrow? Maybe tell him I've heard your theory about Solante's motives and I think you've got something."

  "My fight," Tora said.

  He nodded. "Your fight. But I have to report that meeting with Mr. Pente."

  Yes, he would. He was General Baldwin's soldier, too. A flush of jealousy made her reach out and put her hand on his shoulder as she would in simulations when her soldiers were uneasy. It felt good to touch him. She should check him for injuries and fitness to make sure was eating enough and getting enough training. She ran her hand down his neck and over his chest, noted his fatigue and the muscles that rippled under her touch. He needed a sleep cycle, but he had no wounds. He was clean and healthy. Sometimes, being around humans all the time made her feel uneasy and irritable. It felt very good to be in a barracks with a soldier that belonged to her and to take care of him.

  He breathed deeply and evenly, but there was tension in his body. He stood very still.

  Tora ran her hand up his belly to his shoulder and over his arm. He felt good to her, solid and familiar. Hers.

  "Tora." He curved his hand around the back of her neck where her hair had come loose from its fastenings.

  Tora did not like humans to touch her except for Annia and Maycee, but Mr. Ventnor was a soldier, so she let him rub his thumb in the hair at the nape of her neck. She did not feel like fighting him the way she wanted to fight General Baldwin when he tried to touch her.

  "I don't know what to do about you, Colonel."

  Tora remembered what Maycee had said last night when Tora told her about the Solante. "You want to court me?"

  He took a deep breath and let it out. "Colonel, I've been trying to court you since you went for the General in the practice yard and slammed his head on the ground, but I couldn't flaming well go about it the way Solante did."

  That was true. Tora did not like to be courted the way the Solante had courted her. She had not known Mr. Ventnor courted her. That was one more human thing she did not understand, but she did not mind that Mr. Ventnor courted her. He was her soldier; he naturally wanted to be close to her, and she liked to be close to him.

  "Yes," she said.

  He blinked. "Yes?"

  "You can court me."

  "Birth of the Big Bang, Colonel, I didn't think you were going to say that."

  Tora was unsure exactly how courtship was accomplished. She remembered Maycee and Liam together that morning when she had come home unexpectedly. She bent her head a little and put her mouth to Mr. Ventnor's.

  He leaned into her, so that seemed to be the right thing to do. There was more to it than that. His mouth opened against hers. His tongue wet her lips, a soft texture. She felt his breath on her cheek, so she inhaled a little of him, the smell of soldiers clean and fed and secure in their barracks like the best of good feelings, and she knew this smell, this taste, this feel of a strong body under her hands. She remembered, but it wasn't a memory; it was something from before she had memories, when there were only simulations, and she had no simulations for this, so it was like remembering something she had never known.

  He stepped back, pulling her with him and nudging her to the side so she stumbled onto the cot and sat
with a thump. He knelt half over her, and her fingers curled around his thighs—good muscles, hard and heavy. He held her face and kissed her mouth and her cheeks and her mouth again. His thumb rubbed her earlobe and he kissed the place on the other side of her head where part of her ear should have been.

  Tora ran her hands up his belly, feeling his ribs move in a gasp when she touched a sensitive place. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling his strength and weight and health. She recognized the hard line that pressed against the inside of his trousers. Soldiers sometimes became erect when she checked them for injuries or fitness. She liked to see her soldiers like that. She wanted to reward them when they became erect. Simulations said she should ignore it, but that was one of the ways simulations were wrong. The soldiers would not like that as much as they liked when she rewarded them.

  She touched him the way soldiers liked, running her palm up the length of the hard line in his trousers so he inhaled sharply and pulled his head back, pressing his hips into her hand and rolling his head back on his neck, and Tora used her other hand to open the tab on his trousers and pull that hardness out where she could touch it and wrap her hand all the way around it and feel how hot and smooth it was and the drop of wetness at the tip that she rubbed down over the sensitive spot at the end, and he jerked and moaned, and his hands tightened on her neck, so that was good. He was a very good soldier, and she liked to reward him this way so that he made those sounds.

  He bent down to kiss her again which was good because it meant he was happy and she was a good lieutenant. His hips moved, rubbing his hardness into her hand. She couldn't work the ties on his shirt with only one hand, so he pulled it off, and she rubbed her cheek in the rough hair on his chest. Soldiers didn't have hair on their bodies, but she liked him to be different from clone soldiers who were all alike.

  "You now," he murmured, pulling at the tabs on her uniform.

  She did not want to let go of him, but he wanted her to be naked like him, and that was better anyway to reward him, so she let go and pulled her arms out of her uniform, and he rolled her back onto the bed. She wasn't sure she liked to have his weight on her; that seemed backward as if he were rewarding her, but he kicked his trousers off, and pulled her uniform down over her hips, and he seemed to be happy, so she decided she was still rewarding him. She tried to reach for his erection again, but he pulled away, watching her and bending over so he could kiss her decantation scar.

  He moved, down raised her leg so it draped over his back, and he wrapped his arm around her thigh and held it to his cheek and kissed the inside of her leg, and again further down until he came to the center place between her legs and kissed her there, and Tora realized he was rewarding her. She must have taken especially good care of him for him to be so pleased with her, and that made her want to reward him again, but in moment because right now, she wanted to be rewarded a little longer.

  When he kissed her a little later, she was angry for a moment, thinking another lieutenant had been rewarding him and trying to take him away from her, but she remembered he only smelled like her, so that was all right, and she rewarded him by tasting him all over until he made her stop. Tora touched his face, which was not like any other soldier, and his eyes were very dark and he looked at her as if everything in the world was dark, and she was the only thing to see, and then she didn't want to reward him anymore. She wanted to make everything else in the world go away so he could be the only light.

  He gripped her hips and pushed her down onto him, and the long heat of him went into her.

  "Like this," he said, and moved his hips. It was awkward at first, but in a moment, she found a rhythm and a movement that stroked something inside her. She pushed against him more urgently until the pleasure of his body in hers swelled up through her spine and burst. She dropped her hands to the mattress so she could push back against him, curving her spine to catch all of him inside her.

  He stroked her sides, murmured words that sounded like approval though Tora heard only the sound of them, warm and urgent, and not the meaning. Then his back arched. His fingers dug into her hips, and he made a guttural sound in his throat. He jerked inside her, sending shocks of pleasure up her spine again.

  He pulled her down against him, and she relaxed into his scent—sweaty now, but that was better even than his smell when he had just showered.

  She wasn't sure exactly what they had just done, but she felt as if she had done it competently. Mr. Ventnor was a little shorter than she was, so Tora let him slip out of her body, and she stretched beside him so her face would be level with his. His eyes were closed, and his arm lay over her shoulders. Tora raised herself on her elbow and frowned at him until he opened his eyes. He said, "I'm not going out on patrol if that's what you're about to tell me."

  She thought that was probably a joke. "I am pleased with you," she said.

  He smiled like Maycee did when Liam leaned against her. "I'm pleased with you, too."

  "I'm the lieutenant," she said. She was supposed to approve of him. "You are the soldier." He was supposed to follow orders and trust her to take care of him.

  He caught her off guard, flipped her onto her back on the mattress and lay on top of her with his weight resting on his elbows. "I'm a soldier when I'm on duty. The rest of the time, I'm human."

  If someone else had held her down like that—General Baldwin or the Solante—Tora would have fought them, but she had not felt like fighting Mr. Ventnor. She wrapped her arms around his ribs while she thought about him being human. She did not think she would have wanted to reward a human, but Mr. Ventnor was off duty, so he was not a soldier when she rewarded him, but she had wanted to reward him anyway, but she didn't want to reward any other humans.

  She would ask Maycee to explain it to her. Maycee would laugh, but she would explain it so Tora could understand.

  But Maycee was not here right now. Tora said, "You are my soldier all the time."

  His ribs and belly shook with silent laughter, and he bent his forehead until it touched hers. "Your word, Colonel. Always. Whenever you say."

  So maybe he understood what she meant.

  Tora wanted to stay and sleep a little with Mr. Ventnor, but she had humans to take care of at home. She squeezed out from under him and pulled herself upright. He groped on the floor and handed her uniform to her. He got up and put on his trousers. He rubbed his fingers through his hair to straighten it and came to the door with her.

  She stopped at his door and turned around to look at him. "No other lieutenant," she told him. "Only me."

  He grinned like a child-human playing in the street. "When we're alone, Tora, you can call me Gillermo."

  That was his special name that no one used unless they were very important to him. More important even than Annia was to Tora. "Good," she said. She kissed him. "Patrol tomorrow."

  #

  Baldwin was at the camp talking to Maycee when Tora came home. Liam had seen Tora come in. He jogged toward the silver shelter in the other lot.

  Baldwin turned to face Tora, and she saw by his face that he was angry with her.

  Maycee said, "Did you eat, Tora?"

  Baldwin did not wait for Tora to answer. "Maycee tells me you have an explanation for the way you walked out on me this morning."

  Tora turned to Maycee. "I had food."

  Baldwin persisted. "You disobeyed a direct order and left me short-handed all day."

  Liam came out of the shelter in the other lot with Annia and Cho'en. Annia's eyes were narrowed, and her lips were tight. She said, "I heard you and Tora had a difference of opinion this morning." There were old bad feelings between Annia and Baldwin. Human complications.

  Maycee and Annia were trying to help her. Tora felt good because Maycee and Annia listened to her, but she did not want them to help her. She pointed toward the water. She said to Baldwin, "We talk there now. Alone."

  Baldwin frowned. He didn’t like her to give him orders like a soldier.

  Maycee flick
ed the bells on her arm. "Go on, Baldwin. She's off duty, and you're just people to us."

  Baldwin walked abreast of Tora down the boardwalk to the swimming float.

  Tora saw him take a breath to speak. She would not let him speak first. She clapped her hand on his shoulder. He stopped. He could break her grip if he wanted to fight her. He would lose the fight.

  She said, "I speak now. You listen. I don't talk like humans. You think I don't understand. I do understand. Today, you ask me questions. I answer questions. You don't listen. You think I don't understand."

  He was still angry, but his voice was milder when he said, "You shouldn't have walked out."

  "I am angry." Tora remembered how she had felt that morning when Baldwin didn't listen to her, and she bit down with her fingers on his shoulder. "I am very angry. Maybe so angry I fight you." Thinking about it, fighting seemed like a good idea.

  Baldwin caught her arm and twisted. She let him break her grip on his shoulder and push her arm down. "When you were on the ship, did you disobey orders from Command because you were angry?" He was too close to her. It felt hostile the way the Solante enemy had felt dangerous when he was close to her.

  This was not for making bonds. Tora crowded closer to Baldwin, and now she was in his space making him look up at her. "When Command asks me questions, they listen to answers. Command doesn't think I don't understand because I am a clone. You want to be command for me, you listen to me." She broke his grip on her wrist. "I am not the Cerise."

  Baldwin said, "I can't have people under me who ignore my orders any time they're a little miffed with me. The militia would collapse."

  She folded her arms.

  He made the frown that meant he did not understand, but he did understand. He wore the angry face under the other one.

  "You mean it."

  "Yes."

  "You'll be out completely. No more training, no patrols, no Command."

  "Yes."

  He stood for a long time in front of her, and Tora thought that she would have to spend every day at home from now on. She felt frightened. She could not spend her days guarding Maycee the way Liam did. She did not know what she would do, but she would be like the Cerise with him. If he tried, she would fight him. She must make him be Command for her.