by A. C. Katt
“He knew you were his mate, but could not remember the joining. He stayed as far away from you as possible. I didn’t know, either. I passed the information on to Sarran to TeBron, where it would remain safe should something happen to me and then blanketed the information with shields that could only be breached by a specific combination of a psi enhanced wave frequency device. I would not have let either of you attempt this hoax without such backup. You have executed your plan with honor and integrity despite great personal cost.”
TeZarron continued, “I know how they raised you and what you had to fight to become a healer instead of a destroyer. You have used your gifts with Sarran Honor even when there was no Codex to guide your way. Unlike Bane. Yes, he is our traitor. Juraens prevented you from denouncing him because we have not yet smoked out his third. The first was Chief Kassan, the man whose place I’ve taken since I came aboard. With the evidence on the holo feed, we now have Bane and with the help of the tribunal, we will ferret out the third.”
“No need to ferret much, Lord. The third is Septis. I’ve suspected it since we left. I’ve been investigating the communications anomalies. He’s the only officer capable of adjusting the frequencies. He is also the only candidate that would have been able to pick up the short-range signals of the Zyptz bug and rebroadcast them to what I suspect is a Shadow Ship. I can’t find the ship, sir. I’ve been reaching out with my psi for three risings. They have some sort of stealth device that shields from psi as well as instruments.”
TeZarron nodded. ::He was on my list.::
What of Flagen, sir?” asked Mark.
“Flagen is a tragic enigma; but not a traitor. Things will go as they must. But I wouldn’t worry about Jonal and Tonas. Their Bond is strong.” TeZarron pointed to the Security Office, “Don’t keep Juraens waiting, he’s waited long enough.”
Mark turned and walked to the command console. The panels to Security opened. Juraens sat at Mark’s desk, his head resting in his hand.
“Beloved…” Mark whispered.
Chapter 12
“The most commons of all follies is to believe passionately in the
palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.”
—H.L. Mencken
Sarran Calendar: Cycle 9435.B115-16
Earth Calendar: July 25th evening, July 26th, after midnight
Tonas was sated and comfortable. His Firefly lay at his left as Anya did on his right. They were asleep but he lingered in the half-light of afterglow. Thank the Goddess they persevered. Joining was glorious; it was more than what they anticipated. As tortuous as the Ipz attack had been on the WarriorPairs without a fem, Tonas now knew that it could not begin to approach the wrenching agony of losing one of a Triad. The idea of being somehow less to Jonal when they Bonded with Anya had torn him apart. Now that he knew Triad, without Jonal he would have no strength, without Anya, no heart.
If he ever lost them both, his soul would shrivel and waste away. There would be no death, just nothingness. He could see now why some others after Ipz attack demanded to be spaced. Tonas sighed and moved nestled under his Firefly’s shoulder, pulling Anya along closer to his own body. The feel of Jonal’s hot length inside his channel was indescribable. Once breached, his outer muscle opened the channel and clenched on the hot thick cock of his Bonded. The stretch and burn combined with his own shaft encased in the soft, tight, and wet warmth of Anya had enveloped him, swallowed him up and renewed him.
The connection was new and bright, yet still fragile. He wished they were home on Sarran. Since the Ipz, his ambitions were muted. He eschewed politics and the status of Elder and Alliance member. He wanted home, a place designed to comfort and sustain his BondMates and protect the magic they had together. Tonas thought they made an offspring tonight, and perhaps, Goddess willing, a femspring. He read the yearning in their Anya that met with their own. If desire begot offspring, Anya would bear young in eighteen tides. He would have to check with Mark to find the gestation period of Earthen fem. Sarran fem bore young in one hundred eighty risings. He hoped it didn’t take longer, his Firefly was not long on patience, although he had been so much better since Anya. I have been so much better since Anya. I don’t obsess as often as I did. Jonal was right, I sometimes do tend to over think. With a small sigh, he settled down again, his back to Jonal’s broad chest and Anya’s head tucked under his shoulder. His eyes closed.
Tonas could not tell whether moons or tines had passed when he felt a series of taps from a small hammer on his skull. He tried to burrow down beneath the golden bedding. He didn’t escape. The pressure escalated and the hammer grew needles. Tonas, in his half-sleep state, had entertained visions of Anya and Jonal’s lips caressing his stiff member. He had dreamed of lubricating himself in Anya’s juices and using them to penetrate his Firefly while their Anya sucked Jonal to completion. He had been on the verge of sliding his long fingered hands down soft curves and over hard valleys of the two very different bodies presented in convenient nudity on either side.
Again, the needles, sharper in intensity, digging. What…the Beast, it has to be the Goddess be damned Beast. No, I'm not getting up. It's Jonal’s turn to feed him.”
Tonas shook the veil of sleep from his brain, opened his eyes and found the Beast staring, nose in his face. One huge paw was on his head, claws partially extended. He received a persistent impression of being in close proximity to peril. It was an impression he couldn’t shake. Tonas reached up, placed a gentle hand on Jonal’s shoulder, and exerted light pressure. It was a method they developed during the war to signify impending action. The signal caused a visceral response in his Bonded. Jonal was immediately awake and aware.
The Beast is sending mind pictures of danger. I see Mark and another in the corridor. We must dress, and waken Anya, now.
The quarters’ security system flashed, a holo appeared. Mark Stern stood in the command corridor accompanied by Psi Security Officer Juraens in close, as if protecting Mark’s back. Tonas watched Juraens as his eyes scanned and rescanned the area. From Mark Tonas felt the energy of urgency beating as a pulsar about to go nova.
Mark was loud and abrupt, “Override privacy, Protocol 1258. Jonal, Tonas, open the fucking door. You have forty-five mots till all hell breaks loose.”
* * * *
Tonas’s mind was drowning in discordant images when Security arrived forty-five mots to the parsec after Mark and Juraens came to give warning. It had taken everything that was Sarran in him and in his Firefly to give Anya up, even for those few tines they would be apart. It was only Mark’s possession of the holo and Juraens assurance of TeZarron’s goodwill that convinced him and Jonal to abide by honor and the Codex. Beside Mark and Juraens’s example, he and Jonal could do no less.
Juraens and Mark had communicated the situation to them in less than a few parsec. They did it by mind link and the backlash for those who were not Hi-Psi was excruciating. However, it had given them time to prepare Anya and do a complete security sweep. Juraens and Mark had checked thoroughly for listening devices with Tigger before the security party arrived. Mark suggested and Jonal agreed that the Beast’s hearing might detect a frequency they missed. Tonas had no idea how Mark would react when he found that Tigger was almost sentient and certainly psychic. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it, but he knew it was fact.
Jonal, of necessity, had kept his temper on a tight leash while the security party stood in the corridor awaiting Anya and Tigger. Flagen’s appearance to oversee and ensure that Anya was taken to other quarters sent Jonal past fire to incandescence. TeZarron had ordered Flagen confined to quarters for the affront to his own honor and Anya left in silence with Tigger in tow. Flagen’s confinement did nothing to mollify Jonal and his Firefly had resumed his habit of pacing the StarTable. The peace and quiet strength Anya brought to their lives seemed to leech out into the cold dead of space with every moment they were apart. The Bond was fragile. Tonas and Jonal were both afraid it would break if stressed.
/> “Why weren’t we briefed? The whole of this mission stank like laptard piss. When we begin to behave as they do, we become them.” Jonal straightened a chair.
“They did what they must to preserve the government and the Alliance,” Tonas answered, his brow furrowed.
“What government were the Elders preserving? Sarran’s or the Galactic Alliance’s corrupt and inept consolidation? We knew even before we set out that some of the Alliance families were engaged in illegal trade with the Zyptz, despite sanctions. Black Market profiteering in weapons of mass destruction, fuck! The Zyptz knew our genetic code only because it was stolen and sold to them by one of our own,” Jonal roared. “Who do we trust? Outside of the Earthen, anyone on this fucking ship is suspect.”
“You like Mark’s Earthen cuss word,” Tonas tried to tease as he gradually tried to herd Jonal around the StarChamber to a chair.
“What?” Jonal snapped back.
“Fuck, the word fuck. I don’t see why it is considered a profanity, since the activity itself brings so much pleasure,” Tonas said.
“Fuck your attempt to pacify, Tonas. I refuse to give up this rage. Flagen has hung around the fringes of our lives for too fucking long. I have borne this, knowing that you are mine and that none could take you from me. Now, ten cycles after the claim, he comes to destroy. We were not the enemy, Tonas. TeZarron, the Elders, this deception, the farce of a tribunal, it is not prudent or safe. We expose our weaknesses to the enemy. They played with Mark and Juraens' Bond. They risk our Bond with Anya to pacify Flagen. Why is there all of this effort to capture Lt. Septis? Here is a man of no family, doing his time in the military; an older officer for his grade, borderline promotable, scheduled to muster out at the end of this tour and this man, this ordinary man is so difficult to prosecute? This does not make sense, Tonas. Again, they are not telling us what is going on here. I want to know who Septis is, where he came from and whose side in this bloody mess is he on—today at least.”
“Security, you heard Admiral Jonal, go. Obtain some assistance from Commanders Saxon and Lunas and gave them complete access to all of the private ship’s logs to get the job done.
“Yes, Jonal, I agree,” Tonas continued. ”There is a stink to this, but TeZarron is Hi-Psi as well as an Elder. If he held back, there is reason. If you and I now trust only Mark, who does Mark trust? He told us he trusted Juraens and TeZarron, can we do less?” Tonas spoke in low careful tones. His Firefly was on a hair trigger. If he went off, the fire might burn out of control.
Jonal sat down on at the table, willing himself to be calm.
“It is the stench of secrets around us than fan my flames. That and Flagen, the bile hits my throat at the sound of his name. The slime-bellied bottom feeder hung, scheming, in the periphery, always just below your level of notice, but never below mine. So many times, we were almost mis-assigned, unthinkable for a BondedPair, I would investigate and Flagen was there. Close, but never close enough to prove. If I had trouble with a position, it was always he or one of his cronies at the root. Others warned me, many times, to take care of my rival, to use the position and influence gained by my own sweat to ensure he never crossed your path or littered mine with his debris. I could have had him put in an isolated slime-pit port on a planet so obscure, so alien, he wouldn’t have remembered his name or origin. But, I chose honor. What has honor bought me? Now they have Anya and would take you. And for all the loyalty to Sarran, to honor, I could lose…” Jonal grabbed a chair by the back and flung it violently across the room. He fell to his knees, pounding first the table, then the floor. His arms went to cover his head. Silent mental cries of anguish, desperation and a soul wrenching despair tore through Tonas’s consciousness. Jonal’s body shook, tremors traveling from above to below, his grief almost unbearable. His body slumped to the floor. Every ounce of Jonal’s legendary strength streamed out to Anya leaving him weak as a whisper.
Tonas strode around to where Jonal sat and slid down placing his long arms around Jonal’s shoulders and lifting him into his lap. He drew him close and rocked gently. ::I say to you, dearest Firefly, what you said to me not so long ago. You will never lose us. No matter what else befalls, I will not let them take either Anya or me from you, even if that means I must see to Flagen’s death myself. I swear this to you, my love, on my Clan, on our Triad. We will not be separated by anything other than death itself.:: He grabbed Jonal and pulled him toward the sleeping chamber shedding their trews as they moved.
Jonal clung to Tonas’s hand and followed. They tumbled down onto the bedding, Jonal’s head to Tonas’s heart. Tonas stroked the dark curls then lifted his lover away from his chest and placed him with gentle care, his stomach on the sheet. ::Tonight is for you, my Firefly, for this I have waited ten years and I will not longer be denied.:: Tonas’s hands moved in long circular motions down his lover’s back, kneading away the tension, stroke by stroke, muscle by muscle. His experienced hands knew just where to push, how much pressure to exert. Jonal’s body was mapped out in Tonas’s mind, each reaction and location, pleasure or pain cataloged and labeled to be pulled out and used later to force greater arousal, flooding Jonal with more heat, more desire, more need. He would use every one of them tonight.
When the tension left and Jonal’s muscles unclenched, Tonas began to seduce. His wet tongue outlined the shell of Jonal’s ear. He moved the ebony curls aside and tongued down the nape of the neck, drawing circles and swirls with his saliva. He reached the curve where neck met shoulder and bit down. He felt the pleasure shoot through his lover, shared the rush of blood surging, cannonballing through Jonal’s veins straight to his now thick pulsing shank. Jonal began to broadcast. Waves of lust, love and need interspersed with demands of more, harder, higher.
Tonas refused to hurry. Not this time, a first of its kind. He bit, sucked, and licked his way down to the area below, the one forbidden before. But Anya had given them leave. Anya had blessed them with her love and acceptance and now finally, he could seal the covenant made beneath the Tierest tree ten cycles before. His long fingers caressed the high cheeks of Jonal’s ass. The lightest of touches in that place set his lover to shivers. He increased the pressure of his embrace. Each stroke he made hit the muscles deeper, moving in opposing circles, graduated motions opening the crease to reveal the puckered rosette that would receive him. His own cock leaked copiously. Tonas allowed it to spill down the crease, knowing that the nature of Sarran pre-cum would lubricate his lover to open without pain. He followed the trail of moisture with his tongue. Swirling down the edge of the crack, licking and teasing.
Jonal moaned. The feelings intensified, magnified with every wet swipe. Each Warrior fed the other, their lust spiraling, wound tight, and moving higher. Tonas refused to give over to it. He clung to his control. Moving down, he sucked and bit the bridge between Jonal’s ass and sac, pulling on the ring and using the intense sensation produced as a distraction while he adroitly shifted Jonal onto his back. He forced Jonal’s knees to bend and pushed them open, almost kicking the legs apart. Tonas grabbed a bolster from the top of the bed and shoved it under the small of Jonal’s back, exposing both cock and ass to his satisfaction. Tonas seized a hunk of hair and pulled his Firefly’s hot mouth to his own. The carnality of their kiss combined with the grind of shank against shank all but pushed Tonas over the edge. He pulled away.
Jonal cried an overwhelming presence in his psyche, ::My Light, please, let me…oh Goddess.::
::No, Firefly, not yet, not this way tonight. Wait, my precious love.:: Tonas’s brow clenched in concentration as he placed a psi ring round the cock pressed up against his own.
::Fuck, fuck fuck.:: His Firefly was delirious with pleasure. His teeth nettled Jonal’s skin, small stinging kisses coupled with quick sharp bites down to the brown nubs that crested the beautifully formed and sculpted pecs earned from cycles of military training. Here he stopped. He sucked and pulled with his teeth, feeling along with his lover the pleasure/pain of the sensation. His
fingers rolled the other nipple to a tight hot bead, and then closed squeezing the nub in a vise-like grip until it burned. Turning, his tongue laved the abused nipple, licking and sucking until the pain became indistinguishable from the pleasure. Jonal’s body jerked in frantic motion, begging for release. Tonas denied them both, keeping a portion of his senses apart and pointed toward his goal.
His tongue flowed over Jonal’s skin like a river with tides and eddies flowing inexorably toward the sea. It was becoming more and more difficult to keep both his and Jonal’s cocks from spurting. His chest heaved with the effort it took to maintain that kind of control. Mouthing and licking he drove on down the hollow of the groin back to the wondrous mounds clenched tight in anticipation. Both cocks now dribbled a continuous flow of lubricating nectar.
Jonal gasped. His voice was harsh and low in mind. ::How do you want me?::
::I want to see you as I enter you. I want you to know that you are mine, always mine. That no other but our fem will have what she and I give to you and what you give to us. This is fact, it will never change. With that thought, he moved his tongue to taste, to savor the essence of his Firefly. He fashioned his tongue into a spear and impaled the puckered rosette. Tonas enticed and provoked. Hand shaking, he stroked Jonal’s cock while he licked and sucked, gathering the moisture and coating his fingers. He inserted one, replacing his probing tongue with the long index finger of his right hand. Jonal bucked, now uncontrollable. His balls blue with both pleasure and pain. Both Warriors were near the point of no return.
“Now, My Light, now…please now.”
