Variant Evasion: Trilogy (Variant Trilogy Book 2)

by J. Q. Baldwin

  I’d delayed, not broken my promise, to find her family.

  “Its eating me up Carne. You know that right? I can never trust you again. You cannot trust me anymore,” she admitted.

  “I do not require your trust.”

  “But you want it,” she guessed.

  “We’ve got time.”

  “Time is something you’ve stolen too much of,” she decided. “I wont let you have any more of mine.”

  “Is that so,” I bared my teeth in a gaunt smile. Her protest provoked the instincts I tried to blunt. Our connection coerced a need to shelter, nurture, protect. I wanted to feed her as much as I wanted to fuck her.

  Delilah backed up a step. Inhaled, wary.

  She should know I own her.

  Everyone should.

  “You know who owns you?” I asked, trying, and failing, to mask the menace in my voice.

  My spine loosened like wings when she shuddered from the subtle vibrations of my question.

  She was a delightful creature. Never simply acquiescent, always questioning. It made me proud. No-one had ever held out against me for so long or so unfailingly. She was colour in this monochrome kitchen and this monochrome world.

  Her jaw was haughty, I grabbed it in one fist, fast, stifling any noisy alarm.

  “Come,” I demanded, roughly shifting her body close to me.

  I unbuckled her black combat pants and shoved them down her toned thighs, they caught on her knees and she took the moment to struggle.

  “Carne, you don’t want this here? Do you?” her delicate hand fell on the crook of my arm. The first part of her question was wary, as if I’d lost control, didn’t know what I’d proposed. But, do you? She’d asked. As she contemplated the risk I received the electrical current that brought her dopamine, cortisol and cocktail of anticipated arousal.

  “You do,” I said knowingly. Stopping any fight, I laid a heavy hand to her chest. Holding her there was right. One hand where our connection pained me and one hand locked onto her jaw, controlling her head. It thrilled me.

  I warned her with my gaze not to move. She breathed shallowly but stayed put so I removed each boot and left the daggers strapped to each calf. I enjoyed their glare. As I did hers.

  I swept her up to the bench as soon as her boots cluttered to the tiles and I bent her back enough that she wrapped those ankles at my back to keep her balance. She gripped me angrily and ground against my cock as I hammered up against her heat. I shared my own ire, sliding against the tiny patch of material blocking me from the damp. I could taste her already.

  A violent passion accelerating hurried our stripping.

  I slowed as I borrowed her clambering lust to stoke it higher, and slipped my hand down her calves, one at a time, rubbing, then teasing higher up the insides of her thigh where those pretty folds flowered open for penetration. Her body loosened, grew languid but she suddenly snapped her feet back into place, annoyed at my unhurried pace and my control.

  I laughed at that, an ugly one, and shoved inside her hot sheath, almost splitting her. Sluicing the skin of my cock down so fucking hard my knob pinched and pulled from the tightened skin beneath the head. That sort of over-stimulation was atonal. Her head fell forward to my chest, but she wouldn’t look away, gazed up at me like I were her immortal addiction. The air in my lungs caught and I jaggedly pumped once, twice, enjoying the pained pleasure.

  The heavy curve of her breasts under her t-shirt were enticing me to look away from her multi-coloured stormy eyes. But I kept her gaze. She kept mine.

  Never look away.

  Chapter Six

  Delilah.

  He starved again.

  And so I starved.

  He loved again, and so I loved.

  My jaw was bruising and I was losing oxygen but that never seemed to matter when the bond screamed urgently to get closer, to scent more of him, to draw him into my body as deeply as he entered my mind.

  For these moments I was liberated. My reality shrunk back to just the two of us. No family, no assignments, no betrayal. It was all swept away in the furor of tearing clothes as I fisted his shirt apart.

  The ridged lines of his abdomen were as unforgiving as Carne himself. He pulled back, pummelled again, then between thrusts, snatched my hips closer, so I was forced to sit higher, ride him of my own accord, and I was just as frenzied.

  He reached around, encircling my shoulder blades in a hug that mashed my chest against his. He managed a control I envied. As I grew vicious and demanding, he slowed to draw the pleasure out. That building epiphany rationed and measured as he buried himself, commanding obedience.

  Staring into me. Knowing how close I was, he silently beseeched me to trust him again. To let him make sense of the world again.

  His world.

  I baulked.

  He kissed me then, even as he rolled my thrumming clit between his fingers and pinched, simultaneously thrusting, sinking deep. Over and over again, building us both into a fever-pitch of pleasure. Glimpses of my wetness coating him were indecent and seductive and I made sure to watch every time he withdrew - my core narrowed with its contractions, the forced orgasm blind-siding me, never-ending.

  He slid out further, just to catch at my entrance, licked at my shoulder then forced himself back in. Wedging tight against my cervix, scalding me with his potency as he came inside me. My body recognised the foreign genetic material, treated it like royal blood; greedily kept it as the gates opened and I was left absolutely vulnerable to him. Clamping and hoarding him again…

  It was carnage.

  Every time, he lived up to his namesake, stole inside me and left carnage in his wake.

  I was never simply Delilah afterwards. I was his.

  Carne.

  I knew she planned to escape. Tonight while I was gone. To say I was angry was unjust. I liked her tenacity. She was rabid in her naive search for independence and I admired it but I couldn’t let her achieve it.

  She shivered a little and tried to get off me. I slammed her back down and took authority.

  “No.” I demanded selfishly.

  She surrendered almost immediately, as if expecting my reaction to her leaving. She sighed softly in my psyche and curled in as if to get comfortable. To wait me out.

  Ella? I called.

  Otso.

  Bring me a blanket?

  Delilah shook off her dozy glow. Leery as she tugged back, vying for control again.

  To the kitchen?

  That is where I am currently.

  Well, we ALL know that. You gonna parade her out here half naked while in control? Your suicide.

  Delilah’s face was soft on my chest. For long moments she was no longer angry or distant. I wanted it to last longer. A lifetime. But Delilah had a lot to learn. Many strengths to form and hangups she shouldn’t be bothered by.

  I would paint a hard line for those in my family and my unit. For my family, I should have long ago created boundaries that Delilah felt secure behind. I hadn’t and that was a situation I planned to systematically rectify, beginning with the general understanding that our bond was above their reproach, and their opinions would have no bearing upon it either.

  Onyxeal had provided the environment for physical strength, but it harboured weaknesses. It hid our natures from the world and most of our teams. Onyxeal hid our base instincts as if they were abhorrent. I didn’t feel the need to expose us to the general population but I’d no longer hide in our own Variant world.

  Societies throughout history began with innate understandings of their fundamental natures, then over time, became more conservative. Those reservations starved them as a people. Civilised some said. Standardised people I believed, but ultimately times changed and compassion for unique individuals was fought for.

  Was our bond something the planet would recognise? Not quite. But I did. Variants would, especially as our sub-species followed its natural evolutionary route.

  Humans we all were, bio-electrically spe
aking. Our lives, morbid little sparks so easily snuffed; I wouldn’t let my little spark hide in the dark anymore.

  Ella strolled into the kitchen and straight up to me.

  “You really are an arsehole, Carne. No wonder she hates you,” she whispered affectionately as she brushed Delilah’s hair off her cheek, then kissed it prettily.

  Ella may not ever need the anchoring I completed for Delilah but she knew, just as I knew, Delilah would never have survived this long without me.

  If I’d never have blocked the telekinesis it would have eaten up everything of her and left her vegetative. So while I nudged her out of the dark, I still had to protect her.

  Ella’s mother had fought fate and lost. Ella knew better than most that nature did not always get it right and more than one ability was a chaos that belied a chance at a healthy prolonged life.

  Ella loved Delilah.

  I was honest enough to admit I was jealous of it.

  She wrapped the blanket over my shoulders and I coiled it around my precious mate. My broken defective mate, whom one day I hoped would heal.

  Delilah

  Ella’s kiss woke me fully from the contrived reality he’d tried to hide me in. I’d given in, again!

  Emotions!

  They ruined me. They crawled up my skin now, burrowing and insidious. Little fire ants that pinched and burned.

  But right now they weren’t Carne’s...

  His authority over such things caused resentment. How easily he managed his and mine and let others’ encroach. His recent slip, the night of our reunion, was terrifying in its unexpected presence because sometimes I thought him a robot, he was so damn perfect. He only ever used his emotions purposefully and they were sometimes brutal, others ghostly, but never so invasive as those around me, blanketing me now.

  The shock, disappointment and pity making me wretch was definitely not his.

  I blearily looked up from my hard pillow and found Cory off to one side of the suite with Keota.

  And there it was.

  Pity. Cory pitied me. I convulsed with a gag. Nestled my nose back into Carne’s scent. Cory wanted to march over, demand I be let down. He imagined inserting himself between Carne and I - saving me.

  And I felt like I betrayed Cory because all I felt now, despite the embarrassment at Carne’s behaviour, was a doughy glow, pulsing gently, scouring away the destructive irradiated winds of sentiment.

  Carne dimmed their reactions almost as soon as I was made aware, then overpowered them with his own pride and commitment and not a slight amount of derision for those present. He demanded everyone take note, to accept. He now gave everyone the option to retaliate or voice their opinions.

  He panned in a half circle, cradling me, waiting. Challenging.

  Spartan turned to give his back. No curve from neck to shoulder, all that stood out was the blackened tattoo collar and the aggression that soured the air around him.

  Ven broached equal parts worried and proud. His brow softening even as he stood taller. Proud of what? His disturbed son and the way our relationship floundered between love, abandonment and ownership?

  Nuva gave me a little quirk of a smile and Rourke was simply unconcerned and actually at ease, not just his outer persona, but genuinely, as if Carne’s antics were an everyday occurrence.

  We are not odd among our sub-species D.

  We are; their relationships are mutual.

  We’re mutual Delilah, just a little off balance, but that will change.

  When?

  When you’re ready.

  You’re gonna play that one again? Okay asshat, when will I be ready?

  That’s something I cannot force.

  You’re Bioelectrickinetic, you literally control life, and this, is out of your scope?

  At that moment bitterness etched. Why, if he could make us ‘normal’, wouldn’t he? Did he enjoy my distress because it somehow furnished his life?

  I looked up at him wonderingly as he removed me from the scene he’d wanted acknowledged.

  “I will not outright lie. I live to sustain you,” he agreed kicking the door closed behind him.

  “Don’t you hate me for not feeling the same?”

  “You do. It’s there, its just hard to see behind everyone else,” he assured me.

  “You do realise other couples share memories and experiences differently; collect wine corks from places they’ve travelled; lock padlocks in public spaces for all to see…”

  Carne never smiled out of politeness, only out of planning. No smiles at those who brushed past on a crowded platform, no smile to say thank you to a transactional recipient after purchase. Nothing. And he never showed teeth unless aggressively, so when the affection warmed me I knew it to be true.

  “We share everything. Why would we hoard memories? I’d prefer simply to be. Here. Now. With you.”

  “We could be friends that share?” I joked, trying to distance myself from the interring connection.

  “I have no need of those that don’t further my agenda. What do I need friends for? I have you.”

  He dropped me to the bed. I immediately slid to the edge and tried to get up while he swept the blanket back over me. I palmed it off my face, scathingly. As I stood, he sat, and pulled me back into his embrace. On his lap, he spread my thighs over his, worked one finger in tiny circles over my centre even as his other raked between my folds to find the wetness leaking. He caught the dewy moisture and slipped it back up inside, feeding back into my body.

  Friends. He seduced the word away from me. We will never be friends. We are to friends as quarks are to quasars.

  Any argument I came back with would not discourage him from that point of view. It was an old argument, maybe one we repeated for sentimental value if I inspected it closely enough.

  His devotion, while I was younger, and more impressionable, was used to create an illusion of possibility. One where the couple would escape together, only needing each other - off into the sunset.

  It was a silly but always enticing possibility despite its destructiveness. I wouldn’t be drawn in. I’d long ago learned that fairy tales were usually tragic comeuppances to the evil protagonists - and we didn’t relate to the handsome prince who never spoke and the winsome girl (whose life began with their meeting). We fit closer to the broken fairy, whose love had betrayed her.

  In a strange silence, we lay down together, his thick hand still palming my mound. Just for a few minutes, secured against one another, I was unwilling to let the world intrude. Our bellies touched, then fell away as our breathing synced.

  His view of us was hypnotic, I wanted to forget all but him. His strength was a weapon. He reduced me and raided my will. How could he let me appear so feeble and defiled in front of those that might have respected me? He’d struck a grievous blow to my career, my friendships and what family I did recognise. He was deplorable and oppressive.

  I will no longer let you roam free. They will know of my claim. I refuse to hide in the fucking shadows Delilah. “And you will recognise my claim, clutch it close. Believe in it. Because it will never be broken. Not even if you flay the coding from your skin.”

  His attention was a burden to carry. I wouldn't answer him. The sticky mess of my thighs dried in and the mixed scent of us was compelling. I had to get fresh air. A fresh perspective, because he almost had me convinced.

  When I got up his fist shot out to clasp my hand. It was firm, hard where his callouses pressed, but warm. Consolidating.

  I waited, acceded to his wishes, for permission to leave.

  We both redressed and Carne geared up into his black tactical gear.

  I stomped into my boots. Individuality returned. Morals encroached. I was enraged at his demonstration, chagrined and dare I admit, the tiniest bit validated. He rubbed the back of my shoulder at that. Endorsing the thought.

  Though out of character for one so private, it was his massive proclamation. Others would scream from the top of the world and still not
reach the audacity of his action .

  Mates. Propriety for all to take account.

  A healthy unreserved smirk infringed on his usual serious mood as he snapped his belt happily.

  “Come on. GMT waits for no one,” I reminded him, turning to the side as I brushed past the smallest amount of contact required to bypass him, avoiding him, and how I felt.

  Chapter Seven

  No one looked at us when we entered. They all found themselves busy. I was ready to flay skin just like he’d mentioned. Tk roiled under the tattoo, hand in hand with his bond. Fused to it. I now had full autonomy. He’d given it back so I’d walk out on my own accord. Show the team I was complicit in our relationship.

  Ooh he made me want to scream with my frustration and anger.

  I had to let it ebb. I couldn’t give in to his domineering nature. Very shortly we would enter the alt-reality auction. I was here to do a job, I reminded myself. One I’d extend my effort toward, because living it, here, with Onyxeal made the GMT threat entirely real even if I’d not felt that boy being broken apart piece by piece.

  Variants were being sold in parts to the highest bidder and those parts came from people, my people, maybe even the person who held Kuroyuri as well.

  They remained my priority. I’d promised to remain ‘dogged’. That one word I gave myself as a mantra.

  My sister needed me.

  Carne didn’t need me, not essentially, and my Grandfather only needed his own agendum fulfilled. I’d keep a wary eye on that man during my life, but after his betrayal, I could never be close to him. It certainly wasn’t a relationship he’d fostered kindly all my life, so I wouldn’t push one in the future.

  I didn’t even know Kuroyuri but she was honestly the only person I knew, whom I called family that hadn’t lied to or manipulated me. She was definitely on my list of ‘to save’. I had already encrypted our set-up with a hidden Lahrbug virus while Carne had contemplated my cutesy toes earlier. Sometimes his mind was a war of organic information, others, his simplistic instincts seemed prevalent and insurmountable.