by Alyssa Hope
That could have been him they were talking about, being sold to be someone’s play-thing, Deven thought, and he clung tighter to the back of Nevi’s shirt.
The two men shook their heads, but the Captain glared and ignored them. “We might, but they’d be expensive.”
Kaji laughed, sourly. He was a good actor, too, Deven thought. “Trust me, keeping our Captain happy is worth every coin it takes.”
The Captain pulled up a live cam of the cell where the two blue ones were huddled together. “They’re high strung little animals, and they don’t keep well.”
“No, little mutants rarely do,” Kaji said with a straight face. “We can fix them up, though, well enough for our needs.”
‘Little ones?’ Deven thought to the two. ‘Hold on. There’ll be someone coming to free you right away, and then you’ll be safe and with friends. Safe, and I think your beloveds are looking for you on our ship.’
Kaji connected with the Crusader in his mind. ‘Oki? Can you block that camera?’
‘Give us a second … Yes, it should be on a loop now.’
‘Oki, what are the readings on the warm bodies?’
‘Of the crew, two have moved to the hall right outside the cell where our two people are, and they are stationary there now. Two others are moving towards you on the bridge, and the four are still on the bridge.’
‘Transport a team to that hall to take care of the two outside that cell.’ Kaji ordered, ‘I want them taken down quietly, and our two freed and back to our Medical. Deven talked to them and doesn’t think they’re in very good shape, so it will help if their beloveds are there to meet them.’
‘It’s being done.’
‘Then a team to the entrance of each hold, and ready to pop those doors.’
‘Done.’
Kaji and the Valdez’s Captain came to an agreement on prices and numbers, and the short nasty man who wanted Deven back was ignored. The Captain was interested in money, not personal grievances. He wasn’t about to lose such a good sale just because one of his crew wanted a toy, and Nevi made it clear that Deven was his toy now.
“He may be a bit beat up, but seriously, most of yours are. I didn’t see anything I liked better. You don’t take very good care of them, do you?”
Privately, he smiled at Deven. ‘We’ll always take care of you, sweet one. You are beloved.’
By the time that was done they had six of the eight crew members on the bridge, and the other two taken care of.
Deven stood there in awe of how well this was all going down. The Captain of the Crusader was actually taking direction from his crew, the crew was listening to him, a human who they barely knew, and the young slaves were all going to be safe. They were working as a team, and he’d never seen anything like it before.
Kaji and the Captain sealed the deal, and then Kaji smiled at him. “There’s just one more thing …”
The humans looked at him, and he smiled more widely, and for the first time his smile was genuine. “Under the laws agreed upon by all signatories of the Interplanetary Council, you’re under arrest for trading in slaves …”
“Oh no, we’re not”, the Captain said, “not if you ever want to see those two little mutants of yours alive. They’ve both got guns to their heads right now.”
He looked at the live cam for the cell the two blue ones had been in, and then hit it to re-set. The picture he got was of his two men, lying unconscious in the cell. He swore, and Kaji smiled.
“Unfortunately, your men were stupid, our two people are already on the Crusader, and the Valdez is badly out-gunned.”
And that was when everything went wrong, as the two idiots who wanted Deven decided to be really stupid. One of them lunged to grab him, maybe to use as a shield, while the other pulled a gun and started firing. For a while there was only smoke and fire on the bridge, and then there was silence and the smell of blood.
Through the smoke Deven heard Eva’s voice in his head.
‘Did I kill the right one, beloved?’ and he thought everything was alright. Then he realized that Eva was lying on the ground bleeding that odd shade of blue that these ones did, and Kaji was holding his arm where he’d been hit, and looking around.
‘I hope those idiots didn’t hit any of the instrument panels.’ Then Kaji passed out.
Deven looked for his team, his friends, trying to keep his head clear, not able to find Nevi, and calling out to Oki in his mind.
‘Captain! Medical, we need to get to Medical, now, please, Eva and Kaji are down, and I can’t find Nevi …’
Eva and Kaji disappeared, another team of blue people appeared and checked the rest of them for wounds, and only then did anyone realize that Deven was bleeding as well. He felt the now-familiar sensation of being pulled through space, and then he was in the Crusader’s Medical unit as well.
Thankfully Nevi found him and stayed beside him through the transport and in Medical, and they both stayed at Eva’s side while someone bandaged Deven’s arm. Eva was a paler shade of blue than usual, but his breathing was steady, and Deven let himself breathe again. Eva was in the middle of a large bed, and Nevi crawled onto one side and motioned for Deven to crawl onto the other.
‘That’s why these beds are so big, beloved, so that triads can be together. We heal better this way.’
‘I didn’t see that coming, I should have, that’s why I was there …’
‘No one saw that coming, beloved, no-one can predict that kind of stupid, but you did exactly the right thing when there was trouble, and in the end, we won. We’re alive, they’re dead, and the prisoners are all free and unharmed.’
Deven curled into Eva’s body and tried to give him some body heat. He seemed awfully cold, and that couldn’t be good, but Deven was cold and shaking too.
‘If I’d known that getting shot was all it took ...’
Deven looked up in surprise.
‘A flesh wound, little one, I’m fine.’
Deven heard Nevi’s snort from the other side of the bed, and nuzzled into Eva’s soft blue throat, relieved that his beloved could at least joke with him.
He heard Nevi laughing at him in his head. ‘What?! Only one beloved?’
‘Gods, if I lost both of you …’
‘Ssh, little one, we’re hard to kill. And we’ll teach you how to be hard to kill as well. You’re one of us now.’
Karo came back to check on Eva, and smiled. ‘A little more than a flesh wound, but not even close to dying. We need the bed, so maybe you two could take Eva back to your quarters and nurse him there?’
Deven rolled off the bed to stand up, and looked over at the two thin blue ones who he had last seen on camera curled up together in a cell. Now they were each curled up with a blue crew member from some other team. The two crew members had pulled their tunics off and seemed to be happily absorbed in having one of the newly rescued ones suckling at their dark blue nipples, with their strong arms wrapped around their thin bodies. Two other crew members were standing beside them purring gently and stroking their heads, as they wrapped warm blankets around them. And all he could hear was repeated happy murmurs of ‘beloved’ from all six of them. Triads could indeed happen that quickly.
A weak voice came from across the room. ‘Deven? That was you who talked to us? Thank you.’
One of the ones who was nursing a rescued one looked up and smiled. ‘Yes, thank you for bringing our beloved to us.’
He had a sudden realization and backed up into the bed, and stared, then turned to look at Nevi and Eva. ‘This is what you mean by nursing? When Karo said to nurse Eva …?’
Nevi looked puzzled. ‘Yes, what does it mean on your world?’
Deven swayed, and reached for something - anything - to hang onto.
Nevi smiled. ‘Not that, obviously?’
Karo looked over at him, and made a better diagnosis. ‘Deven, when was the last time you ate?’
Deven tried to think, but his mind seemed to be fuzzy. ‘I had some bread, in the morning,
I think, before I ran away from home. Was that just today?’
Karo looked disapproving at Nevi and Eva. ‘You aren’t taking very good care of him. Tad, take this poor little human to the dining hall, please. He will need to know where it is, obviously.’
Nevi looked offended. ‘Hey, we’ve been busy, as you can see …’
‘Taking care of your beloved comes first, doesn’t it, beloved?’
Tad grinned, and rolled his eyes behind Karo’s back. ‘Yes, beloved. Come on Deven, we’ll get some food into you so you can cope with those two blue beloveds of yours. And I’ll fill you in on a few things you might need to know, human to human. You are going to have so much fun …’
Chapter 5.
Deven sat across the table from Tad and slowly began to unwind, listening to the man’s stories, some of them more outrageous than others. Even when the plates of food were delivered by very large blue people he didn’t feel nervous, as the cooks seemed to be genuinely friendly, and the food was good and kept on coming. He could get used to the skin color. It was really quite attractive, now that he’d had time to think about it.
“You are Nevi and Eva’s third?” one of the cooks asked, and when he hesitated, his mouth full, Tad answered for him.
“He is, but he’s still new to this. Although not to the eating part, obviously!”
Deven grinned and shoveled more food into his mouth.
“He says it’s good”, Tad interpreted for him.
‘It is. Very good, sir.’
The cook reeled backwards and laughed. ‘Sir? Now I am sir?’
‘Anyone who cooks like this, yes, sir.’ He felt Nevi and Eva slide into place on either side of him, and he winked at the cook. ‘It’s too bad I’m already taken, or I’d propose to you …’
An arm went around him from either side, and he shrugged, smiling. ‘I did say I was already taken, didn’t I?’
‘He gets giddy when he eats too much’, Nevi explained blithely, and suddenly he was over Nevi’s shoulder and being carried off down the halls, waving a meat sandwich at the cook as he went.
‘Pay attention. You’ll have to remember how to get to our quarters, we don’t want anyone accusing us of letting you get lost in the corridors. It’s a big ship. Very big.’
‘Aah. So if I follow the blue stripe I get to the living quarters? And the green goes to the dining hall? Red would go to power, which would be to engineering? And yellow would be to the bridge?’
‘He’s far too clever, this beloved of ours.’
‘Well, to be fair, he’d have to be clever to be a match for us …’
Despite the intake of food and the show of bravado, or maybe because of it, the day was taking its toll on Deven. When they entered his triad’s sleeping quarters he took a quick look around and then a stumbling dive towards the bed. He was mostly asleep even before he hit the mattress.
He vaguely heard the murmurs of ‘beloved’ that were coming to mean home to him, and there was a warm blanket being tucked around him, and then he had happy dreams of flying and being in the arms of his beloveds.
His healing sleep was interrupted by a distressing dream and strong feelings of panic. He had a sense of being trapped somewhere, and he felt like he was fighting through a fog and unable to see any light. There was only pain and loneliness. Was he dreaming about what would have been his fate if he hadn’t escaped to be rescued by his two beloveds? Warm arms came around him and soft mouths murmured into his throat, and he finally managed a deep untroubled rest.
When he finally did wake up and stretched he decided that he could get used to waking up on soft beds, especially ones with warm bodies in them. This particular one seemed to have two warm bodies in it, both of them wrapped around him, and two soft mouths nuzzling into his neck above the healing wounds. For a minute he wondered if he was still dreaming, happy dreams now, although the nibbling on his ear lobes seemed real enough.
His ear lobes seemed to fascinate his new partners, maybe because they had very small ones themselves. Although they also seemed interested in some other body parts where there wasn’t such a discrepancy …
This was far better than a hard pallet and being woken up with a kick and a curse, and accused of being lazy. He preferred this, being woken up in the best possible way, by a someone or two who seemed to think that he was precious, and needed a bit more care and nursing. Any hesitation he had about some minor differences in customs disappeared in the realization that this could be a good thing to get used to. A very good thing.
‘I’m awake now.’
‘Ssh. You may need a bit more of this type of care.’
‘You think so? Well, I am outnumbered here, so I guess I have to do what you say …’
There was soft laughter, and then a hand stroking down his ribcage and around to his back, pulling him closer. He reciprocated, and another hand pulled his head forward so that firm lips were meeting his, and he groaned at how good that felt. His life had obviously been seriously short in physical affection, or affection of any kind, come to think of it. Maybe he could make up for that now. He was going to try his best, and he was pretty sure that these two would help him. Then he remembered that they had another mission, and pulled back.
‘Wait, Eva, we are supposed to be nursing Eva …’
‘I did while you were …’ Nevi started, but was interrupted.
‘Yes, yes, you should be nursing me. You see, I kiss you here and here, and then when I find that sweet pink nipple I suck on it …’
Deven cried out in surprise and pleasure, and Eva laughed.
‘You see, it makes me feels so much better when you feel like this.’ And, in case Deven was unclear as to his meaning, he ran his hand down Deven’s belly to his growing erection.
‘Nursing causes this, beloved. Isn’t it wonderful?’
Deven’s hips thrust up involuntarily, and he moaned happily.
‘Oh yeah, that makes me feel good, too. Very good. Clever Eva. ’
He still wasn’t sure how this was going to work, with three bodies and so many body parts, but Eva kissed him again and explained, sort of. ‘We are androgynous until we meet our triad partners, then we morph to become hermaphrodites – both of your sexes in one body. We are a very efficient people. So then we can play all roles in loving our beloveds.’
Nevi kissed Deven, laughing. ‘Too many words, not enough touching. How about we play a game where we try and bring you pleasure, and you tell us to stop if you don’t like it? And we will stop if you say so, beloved. We don’t want to hurt you or scare you.’
Eva agreed. ‘I think it may take more than a day to get over betrayal by those who are supposed to love us.’ He shivered, a ripple moving up his hairless blue skin. ‘I can’t imagine that happening. Never again, sweet one. We will always take care of you, never betray you. That’s a promise.’
It had only been a day since Deven had been willing to throw himself off a cliff rather than let himself be subjected to this kind of touch, and they all knew it.
Deven didn’t have to think about it too much, though. ‘But not too long to get over being betrayed by someone who never loved me or anyone, and who wanted to sell me as a whore. And not too long at all to get used to being really loved by those who know what love is, and to learn to love them back. Someone told me that a triad could be formed in an instant.’
He gave in to the delight of naked skin against naked skin, and warm bodies rolling around together. Someone’s weight on him, then his weight on someone, then him sandwiched between the two of them, all in the most delightful ways.
Nevi guided one of Deven’s hands to the slicked-up hole behind his own hardening length, and gasped in pleasure when Deven explored it with a finger, and then two.
Deven would have purred if he’d known how. ‘I love how this feels, beloved, and how it makes you feel.’
‘Oh yes, and only for you. We only slick up for our triad lovers. But you don’t, we’re told?’ Nevi asked. ‘Tad, Karo’s h
uman beloved, told us we have to help you lubricate, and fortunately we can do that in a way that brings pleasure to all of us. If you want to, if you are ready to, when you are ready …’
‘I think you could quit talking, and do more touching…’ Deven was losing track of who was touching who, and only knew that it felt damn good. This wasn’t slavery, this was being loved. It was all the difference in the universe.
He had forgotten, again, that they could hear his thoughts, or maybe it didn’t matter anymore, between the three of them. They were all one.
‘Loved, always loved. You’re invaluable, priceless, beloved. You make us complete. The two little blue ones you helped us rescue? Our people, and their beloveds, have been searching for them for nearly twelve of your years – two thirds of your life. The Crusader was built to search for them and our other Lost Children. We don’t give up on our beloved ones, ever. We are a patient people.’
Eva interrupted, laughing. ‘Patient within reason, until our beloveds are in our beds and in our arms, and maybe someone is talking too much again. We have longer thinner fingers than you do, beloved, have you noticed this?’
‘Um, yes, I noticed. And long tongues, although what do the lovely long tongues have to do with anything?’ He smiled to himself, because Tad had explained exactly what those lovely long tongues could do. And Tad had smiled and shut his eyes just thinking about it.
Nevi and Eva both tried to explain at the same time, and Deven rolled his eyes, trying to keep a straight face. ‘Maybe you should just show me, beloveds. Sometimes that’s the best way to teach …’
Nevi looked innocent.
‘Well, we roll you over like this, and caress your lovely smooth buttocks, and then probe like this, and you try and stay still while we look for this magic spot you have, this gland that we don’t have … ‘
Deven cried out in pleasure and arched up under him. He hadn’t known about that gland either, that magic spot that felt so good when it was probed.
‘Hah, that would be it. Maybe Eva should practice that as well. We’re all equal here, after all… All three in a triad are equal, always.’
