Human After All

by Connie Bailey

  Jaymes widened his stance and mentally prepared for a rude entry. “If a rough taking is your pleasure, I—” The T-bred’s words ended in a hiss of indrawn breath as a wet fingertip was drawn slowly up the crack of his ass. “As you please,” he moaned.

  Lochler replaced the bottle of all-purpose lubricant in his pocket and let the pool in his palm drizzle down over the Companion’s puckered pink opening. Corkscrewing the tips of two fingers into the yielding ring, Lochler rubbed at the inner surface of the tight sheath. As he prepared Jaymes, he admired the arrangement of the T-bred’s long, smooth limbs against the angular lines of the motorcycle. This was a fond fantasy come true, and he was determined not to ruin it by focusing on how little time he had to enjoy it. Lochler had learned early in life to live in the moment, to savor what he held in his hand rather than complaining about what lay beyond his grasp, and he had made himself strong so he could take what he wanted and hold onto it.

  Jaymes relaxed as much as he could, presenting himself at an appealing angle, watching over his shoulder as Lochler readied him. The Companion smelled the mellow leather of the saddle, the sharpness of the illegal petroleum products that fed the engine, and the rich, umber aroma of earth and stone borne on the breeze that caressed his bare skin. Lochler’s touch was rough but sure, and the Granger was an undeniably attractive alpha male. Jaymes had no problem at all responding to the sensuous elements of the encounter; his arousal was pressed in a very stimulating manner against the worn seat, and it was only going to get better once Lochler started thrusting.

  And still Jaymes could not get the Zot out of his head.

  In truth, he wished it were Drue behind him, pressing a thumb against the sensitive skin around his hole, rubbing in small circles before sinking in, finding the swelling in the front wall of his sheath and working it. He wanted it to be Drue’s hard cock burning against his entrance, bumping the crinkled ingress a few times before it was seated. He imagined Drue’s hand gripping his hip, holding him in place as the tip popped through into his passage.

  “Good,” Jaymes purred. “More, please.”

  Lochler trembled with lust as this beautiful, elegant creature begged for his cock. With a shaking hand, he worked a couple of inches into the snug socket, panting with the effort of reining himself in. Letting go of his hard-on, Lochler took hold of Jaymes’s other hip and rocked forward. Jaymes cried out and clutched at the frame of the bike, standing his ground and concentrating on taking slow, deep breaths.

  “By all the powers there ever were,” Lochler breathed. “You’re a genuine miracle. Tell me how it feels for you.”

  “Like a guided missile flew up my chute,” Jaymes said in a strained voice.

  “Is this better?”

  Jaymes whimpered as Lochler withdrew to the threshold, paused, and pushed back in. As the blunt head of the Granger’s arousal forged ahead, it nudged Jaymes’s prostate, making the T-bred shiver as a jolt of pleasure galvanized his nervous system. He opened his mouth to respond according to his training, but in the same instant realized that he could say whatever he wanted. Lochler was not a metacorp chief, and this was not a Scenario. It was true that they were bargaining, and that Jaymes had only one thing to trade, but he didn’t feel obligated to stroke this man’s ego. For some reason, this fact made Jaymes eager to praise his partner.

  “What you’re doing with your cock is sweeter than real honey,” he said breathlessly.

  “I’ve had a little practice,” Lochler answered.

  Jaymes heard the pleased note in the other man’s voice, and his conditioning triggered his response, but the emotion that warmed it was genuine. “A little practice? You’re a champion. It feels as though you’re stroking my entire body.”

  “You’re good,” Lochler said admiringly. “Everything I expected from a top tier Companion and more. If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you were sincere.”

  The T-bred didn’t even try to correct the Granger. What would be the point? It wasn’t as if they would ever see one another again after their transaction was concluded. Still, it nagged at Jaymes like the Zot did. Once recognized, it would not fully leave his consciousness, always waiting somewhere on the edges to spring forward at an inopportune time.

  For the last twenty-four hours, Jaymes’s life had been an unbroken series of inconveniences, varying from mildly annoying to severely life changing, and all he’d been doing was dealing with it moment to moment. Somewhere in the back of his mind had lurked the hope that all these terrible things would stop happening and his life would return to normal, but what if it didn’t? In fact, how could it? He was Bioware, and he had killed an important and powerful Citizen.

  With a soft curse, Jaymes wrenched himself back to the here and now, falling back on the one thing he knew he could do better than anyone else. Curling his fingers around the saddle, he gripped it until the leather creaked, and he met Lochler’s next thrust halfway. He bore down with his interior muscles, hugging the hard flesh that stretched him as it entered and withdrew. Exercising the control gained in hours of practice, he used the elastic ring at his entrance to work the entire surface of the plunging rod, alternately clamping and relaxing.

  “So good,” Lochler said in a drawn-out groan of pleasure. Leaning over Jaymes’s back, the Granger leader wrapped an arm around the T-bred’s slim waist and grabbed his arousal. Squeezing Jaymes’s cock like the joystick of a Flexpeeder, Lochler quickened his pace, pushing deeper, licking and sucking at the sheen of sweat on the Companion’s smooth skin. “So good. I want this to last forever, but I can’t hold out much longer. I’m gonna pop any second.”

  “Faster,” Jaymes said from between clenched teeth.

  Lochler obliged, lengthening his stroke fore and aft, and Jaymes came with a spurt of hot cream and a glad cry. The Granger groaned as his cock was massaged along its aching length. He thrust reflexively, burying his shaft as deeply as possible as his seed unfurled, and his climax bloomed outward in a blast wave of bliss. Letting his full weight rest on the T-bred, Lochler continued to fondle his partner as he pulsed his hips in a few desultory strokes. Jaymes made a small noise, and Lochler’s brawny arms tightened possessively around him. When Jaymes fidgeted, Lochler’s nuzzling roughened to a bite that came close to breaking the skin.

  “That hurts,” Jaymes said. A low growl rumbled in the T-bred’s ear. The big hand splayed across his belly tightened, nails digging in, punching through tender flesh. As he looked down, Jaymes felt the prickling of Lochler’s chest hair along his back. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but the sight of the sharp claws at the ends of Lochler’s fingers was a little disturbing. “What’s happening?” Jaymes asked softly.

  Another growl answered him, and he remained perfectly still until the teeth unclamped from the curve of his neck. He was released, and he whirled around to face the other man, but the Granger had vanished. Only a rustling at the edge of the clearing hinted that Jaymes was not alone. He peered into the green shadows as he pulled up his leggings, but he could see nothing but leaves. Mystified but too lethargic to do anything about it, Jaymes sat down beside Lochler’s pride and joy and waited. After a few minutes, he lay down in the long, dry grass, closed his eyes against the dazzling sunlight, and slipped into a doze.

  VIII.

  “WHERE the frak are you bozoners?” Kayel grumbled as he kicked a large pebble into the lake.

  He’d received Lochler’s relayed order to bug out, but Shurm wanted to plant a locator beacon, so Kayel was waiting for him to arrive with the rest of the salvage crew. By his reckoning, they should have been here almost three minutes ago at best speed, and even if they weren’t bustin’ boot, they should be in sight. He refused to think about the fact that he couldn’t sense Shurm, or any of the other team members. Kayel’s talent for meshing with the pack had never been strong, not like Lochler or Halz. He could receive messages over great distances, but he couldn’t send his thoughts or feel presences the way the others did.

  Still, h
e was far superior to any unmodified soldier; he had the eyesight of a bird of prey and a sense of smell the equal of any wolf. If there were still wolves, that is. Almost all that survived of that proud species was their preserved genetic code and a small amount of matériel in a military laboratory somewhere. Kayel had seen it once—the lab, not the matériel. Of course he hadn’t actually seen the matériel since he was unconscious at the time he was exposed to it.

  “Move and I’ll paralyze you.”

  Kayel flinched away from the dry voice that seemed to speak inside his head and felt a cold pinprick at his nape. In dull surprise, he watched his weapon fall from his hands to the grass. “What?”

  “You’ve lost motor control of your arms,” said the man standing directly behind Kayel. “Would you like to try for your legs?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Information.”

  “Will I get the use of my arms back?”

  “We’ll see. Are you ready to answer questions?”

  Kayel nodded. He wished he could see the murk that had managed to wrap him up because no matter what this guy looked like, he couldn’t be as scary as Kayel imagined him.

  “Good. What are you doing here?”

  “Scouting a salvage,” Kayel said promptly.

  “Did you see the wreck?”

  Kayel hesitated, and two hammering blows just above his kidneys dropped him to his knees. “No,” he screamed, as the toe of a boot caught him at the base of the spine. “I didn’t see it.” He didn’t wait to be asked how he found the submerged Veetle. “The passengers walked away. I saw them in the woods.”

  “An Exotic and a Thoroughbred Class Companion, yes?”

  “Yes. I haven’t lived in an urb for a decade, but the sporks had the subkyoo brands of top-of-the-line models.”

  “Tell me where the Companions are now.”

  “I don’t know, and no matter how bad you hurt me, I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

  “You lobos never were very smart. Never saw troops with more guts, but you have an overdeveloped sense of loyalty. You lack a certain moral flexibility. No wonder IndMilCorps retired your battle grade. You just can’t think for yourselves, and that’s the bottom line.”

  “I reckoned you were ex-military,” Kayel said.

  “You poor mutant, you have no idea what I am.”

  “That’s all right, square. I don’t mind keepin’ it that way.”

  “I think you have more to tell me. You’re not just a salvager—you’re a lobo, and that means you run with a pack. Your alpha would shred you if you let something as valuable as a pair of Companions slip through your claws, which means my targets are probably with some of your comrades. Not the four I had to delete before I found you.”

  Kayel swallowed the hard lump in his throat. The murk was telling the truth, and four of Kayel’s brothers would never hunt again. “We don’t salvage organics, as a rule,” he said. “But we do help out when folks are in trouble.”

  “Especially if they’re two pieces of Erotic Bioware. How long did you say you’ve been out here in the hinters?”

  “I didn’t say we weren’t glad to see ’em.”

  “We?”

  Kayel closed his eyes in chagrin. “My patrol.”

  “So you came back here to guard the wreck while your pack brothers took the Companions. Where’s your den?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Kayel said.

  “You will. Sooner or later. Of course, the later it gets the more it’s going to cost you. Once you’re completely immobilized, I’m going to start cutting bits off you. You won’t feel it, not until I take this needle out, but you’re going to be quite a bit shorter, and you’ll need help with your buttons.”

  This is not my fault, Kayel thought. Why did Lochler have to send me to find the wreck? Why not Ferrin or Halz? Why not send Shurm after his patrol got back to the compound? This was Lochler’s fault. Lochler wanted to humiliate Kayel and leave him out of the party, and look what happened. “All right,” Kayel said. “I’ll tell you.”

  “No. You’ll show me. If you lead me to the Companions, you can have your arms back. Now get moving, and try not to fall down too much.”

  “Murd-muncher,” Kayel said under his breath as he started walking. “What was your designation? Or do you want to be a total mystery?”

  “If you need to call me something, Mino will do, but I think you should save your breath.”

  The Granger wanted to ask what the Companions had done, but the phantom murk’s last words held a note of finality. With his dead arms swinging awkwardly at his sides, Kayel led the way through the trees with Mino at his back like a boulder on rails.

  “THIS is the ronday?” Drue looked around the clearing.

  “It’s just a location, boychick,” Halz said. “A place the pack has been before that stays in the collective sense memory.”

  “Stellar,” Drue muttered. “So what do we do now?”

  “We wait. Loch’s not far away, and when he gets here, he’ll tell us what to do.”

  “You always do what you’re told?”

  “Well, yeah. If the pack leader is doin’ the tellin’.”

  Drue glanced at Ferrin, but the other Granger had faded from sight with disconcerting completeness. “Where’s your frair?”

  Halz brows drew together in a frown. “My what?”

  “Your frair,” Drue repeated. “Your breau. Your meego. Your… pack mate, or whatever you call it here.”

  “Guess you think we’re bookoo behind the times, huh?” Halz said, his volume increasing with each word. “Fact is, things like new clothes, or slang, or drugs, or whatever, don’t mean murd here. We’re just tryin’ to keep from gettin’ deleted by the Pops.”

  “I’m not judging you.”

  As quickly as it had appeared, Halz’s anger dissipated. “Could be I’m a little touchy. I don’t get to talk to Companions every day, and I guess I want to impress you. When I didn’t know what frair meant, I felt a little… in… in….” The big man’s distress at not being able to find the right word was painful to watch.

  “Indignant?” Drue suggested. “Insane?”

  Halz shook his head irritably in another rapid change of mood.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter,” the Exotic said. “I don’t think you’re sludge. In fact, you’re one of the most attractive men I’ve ever met.”

  “No,” Halz blurted out, his startled gaze meeting the Companion’s.

  “Oh yes, I’m afraid so,” Drue said sternly. “There’s no point in trying to deny it.”

  After a moment, Halz’s confusion cleared. “You’re playing with me,” he said.

  “It’s what I do.” Drue shrugged eloquently, letting his jacket slide off one shoulder and turning his hip to bare his entire right side.

  Halz smiled. “I’m glad Lochler made you give up your trowz.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I like long legs.”

  Drue crossed his arms over the tattoo on his chest. “In general?”

  Halz’s smile widened to a grin, his prominent canines indenting his lower lip. “I’d like to have your long legs wrapped around me while I go off in your sweet ass.”

  “Mmm,” the Fox purred. “That does sound nice. Will I be cumming with you?”

  “As many times as you want.”

  Drue put his palm against the Granger’s broad chest to keep some daylight between them. “This certainly is a place,” he murmured. “But is it the time?”

  The gleam of lust dimmed in Halz’s yellow-green eyes as he remembered what the situation was. “Damn, you boychicks are good,” he said. “I couldn’t think about anything but topping you as fast as possible.” The Granger chuckled. “If Loch had come up on me with my trowz down, he’d’ve skinned me and hung my hide on his wall.”

  “We were just playing,” Drue said. “So where is Ferrin anyway?”

  A SHADOW fell over the dreaming features of the sleeping Thoroughbred
as death hovered over him for a few moments, saving him for later, to be taken in leisure after the others were dispatched. The lobos were close, as close as their hapless pack mate had indicated before the murk called Mino had left him paralyzed and facedown in a shallow pool of bog water. It was no better than Kayel deserved for betraying his comrades, and the assassin had already dismissed the Granger from his thoughts. This close to his target, his whole being was charged with swarming energy, every particle realigned and aimed in one direction, drawing him like iron to a magnet. Silent as the sunlight that dappled Jaymes’s beautiful face, Mino traced the graceful line of an eyebrow in the air just above it. “Wait for me,” the murk mouthed and faded into the trees.

  Ferrin held his breath as the camouflaged murk paused within a few feet of his location before moving on. Using every ounce of stealth he possessed, the Granger trailed the big assassin on a beeline for the clearing where Halz and the Exotic were waiting. Ferrin was no coward, but he wasn’t stupid either. He preferred the odds of two against one and sent his pack brother a sense impression of what was coming. Halz’s acknowledgment washed over Ferrin like a warm summer rain, and Ferrin smiled at the surprise they were going to give this interloping murk. The realization that he’d lost his quarry was simultaneous with the wire being drawn around his throat. His death was quick, relatively painless, and gave him no chance to get off another warning.

  Mino lowered the Granger’s body to the ground and pulled it under some brush. “Too bad you got in the way,” he said. Saluting the dead lobo, he resumed the hunt.

  “SOMETHIN’ ain’t right,” Halz said as he turned in a circle to inspect the surroundings.

  “What isn’t right?” Drue finished pissing and shook off. “Halz?” When he looked around, the Granger was nowhere in sight. “You’re one stealthy sumbeotch.”

  Drue peered into the foliage, but he didn’t see anything but tree trunks, branches, and leaves. A chill skittered down his spine on lizard feet as he listened hard for any sound other than the wind in the trees. The background chatter of birds had stilled, conspicuous by its absence. He had no idea how long he stood frozen before a voice broke the silence.