The Bonding

by Imogen Keeper

  Woman, you fucking thrill me. If only she’d told him she loved him then. She’d known it wasn’t just the chemistry. She’d known her feelings were strong and good and true even then. Why had she waited? What had she wanted?

  Healing Bay had become a home base of sorts for the Trianni women who still lived on Sierra-Six. It buzzed now with the sounds that women can only make when they don’t carry the weight of a planet on their shoulders. They moved together, talking, planning, laughing. All of them mourned, no doubt. It was there in the curve of shoulders, in the premature lines around mouths, but they hid it well.

  Feola sat with a group of them, their gowns ranging in shade from scarlet to amber. They all silenced when Nissa approached. She greeted them politely.

  “May I speak with you privately?” she asked Feola. She nodded, eyes wide and yellow. So young, yet she was probably close to Nissa’s own age. She felt as though she’d aged a century since she’d left Triannon for the first time.

  “Feola, I wanted say thank you. And beg your forgiveness—”

  “Please, my lady—”

  “Call me Nissa. I insist. I was unforgivably rude and you were so kind to me, taking care of me as you did.”

  “You weren’t, my lady.” Feola offered a sweet, wrinkled-nose smile. “Not unforgivably.”

  She felt her lips curve. “Nissa. I think we’re beyond formalities.”

  The girl blushed, pink and pretty. “I just wanted to say, when we get to Triannon, you have a home with me if you’d like it.”

  The girl shook her head back and forth earnestly. A girl with a secret, willing to share.

  Behind her Ajax moved close by, face buried in a digi-screen, shoulders hunched and stiff.

  “I’m going to stay here a bit longer. One of the warriors has asked me to bond with him.”

  Ajax glanced up at that, gaze sharp, eyes narrowed.

  Nissa raised her brows. “Who?”

  The girl glanced around. There was something odd in her gaze, regret? Or relief? “His name is Utto Upranimous. Do you know him?”

  Nissa shook her head. “But that doesn’t mean anything. I know very few of the Argenti.”

  The girl nodded. “He is very handsome and he says he loves me. We will be moved to another ship, where there are other bonded pairs. I don’t want to ever go back to Triannon. Too much happened there.”

  The thought made Nissa’s heart constrict. She nodded tightly at the girl. “I wish you well.”

  “Thank you, my lady.” The girl paused. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  Nissa didn’t know if she meant her mother or Tam. “Thank you, Feola. And congratulations on your Bonding.” Her breath faltered at the last word.

  Feola moved away, revealing Ajax, seated in a chair right behind where the girl had stood.

  His gaze was locked, unflinching on the floor. He looked as if he’d disappeared, as if his mind had left his body, leaving only the crust of Ajax behind.

  Her face heated. An image flashed before her eyes of Ajax’s face as he watched her in the throes of an orgasm. She was fairly certain that her cheeks were as red as her dress. She forced herself to keep her chin high. “Ajax, I’d like to thank you for your help.”

  He met her eyes, but Nissa would have sworn he didn’t actually register her. Not her face, or her words. His face was blank. He nodded.

  She wanted to ask him to tell Tam something but couldn’t decide on anything that made any sense. What was there to say? Tam had been right. They’d said everything there was to say. I love you. Fuck you. Hard flinty eyes and a granite jaw. And finally I love you. A gruff whisper and a squeeze of the hip. The last touch. Why had they waited so long?

  Ajax’s white-yellow hair gleamed under the overhead lights. Behind them she heard Feola’s giggle. Ajax’s eyes drifted shut as if he were in pain.

  “Can I give you something for Tam?” she asked him.

  Ajax’s eyes were shadowed. He looked violent. “No.”

  “Please, I just—”

  “He’s gone. Nissa. He left yesterday.”

  She shook her head. Tam, gone? How could he be gone? Where would he go? “Where?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ajax said, rising. “Not anymore. Not to you.” He was right.

  Tam was dead to her, she’d agreed, before she wrapped her lips around Ajax’s serum-slicked fingers, as a vicious orgasm tore through her body like an earthquake, his eyes the epicenter. His finger had been rough, like Tam’s, calloused and broad and just a little salty.

  She nodded. “Thank you.”

  She felt his eyes on her as she walked slowly back toward her little chamber in Healing Bay. She sat on the bed and waited. Ten minutes. A glimpse out the hatch told her that Ajax had moved on.

  She moved through the ship like a felon in the dark, in one of the black dresses Tam had bought her. The warriors looked at her with the same curiosity and ill-concealed lust, but a new current lingered in the air. Disapproval. Condemnation. They knew what she’d done to Tam. They blamed her for it. Maybe even hated her. A shiver traced her spine and she closed her hand around the vial that contained the last part of him that she’d never let go.

  Tam’s chamber hatch slid open with the same hiss as always when she pressed her thumb against the scanner.

  It still smelled of him. Dishes had all been cleaned and stored away. The bed, still made with perfectly tucked corners, the bathing pool still swirled, warm and clean. His clothes were gone from the closets. His weapons and their sheaths and the kit he used to polish and oil and sharpen them—all gone.

  The sheets, when she pulled back the covers, still smelled of him, musky, forest- like. At the bottom of the sheets she found an old shirt, dark and black, bundled at the bottom of the bed. She brought it to her nose and inhaled deeply. She pressed it against her empty belly and lay back, pulling the covers over her head.

  She wanted to leave something for him but she had nothing he would want. He’d given her everything she had. She pulled the red dress from the folds of the black one, and tucked it under the covers. Maybe he would find it someday and understand. There would be no joy on her return to Triannon.

  30

  A whole new man.

  But not a better one.

  ACROSS THE BAR from Tam, a pair of males kissed each other as if the room was short on oxygen, and they needed to share.

  Their panting breaths sounded over the driving beat of drum-based music, and the din of tinkling glassware. The bartender, a Silactian female, cast him a wary glance. Silactians had three legs, six eyes and they laid eggs. They looked like what you’d get if you crossed a knock-kneed, fat-bottomed bird with an ugly man and added the extra eyes and leg.

  Tam knew the bartender was a female because of the tuft of hair on top of her head—he remembered that bit from school. Not viable DNA for mating, at least not for the Tribe. They probably found beauty in their own appearance but to Tam’s eyes they were as ugly as shit. How the hell did they mate? He should have paid more attention in school.

  He tossed back his eighth shot of akdov. It was crap. Made on a shitty satellite base but it burned a hole in his gut, deadened his misery and blurred his vision. He didn’t expect, need or want much more than that.

  “Another?” the bartender asked.

  Tam nodded with an affirmative grunt.

  The couple across the bar emitted a low-level groan, or at least one of them did, and he heard the barstool wobble beneath them. Life would have been a lot easier if he could have been attracted to other men. It would have been so godsdamn easy. Men made sense. Ajax, for example, would have been a good mate.

  He grimaced.

  He was drunk. Not drunk enough. There wasn’t enough akdov in the universe. He nodded at the Silactian and a long gray arm delivered another shot. The ice in the glass tinkled. The music beat on.

  He’d come to Piran, a dilapidated, offshoot, drilling outpost only that morning. It was a three-day ride from there to Argentus and
he should probably have stayed on the ship and continued on his un-merry way. He couldn’t do it though. The thought of his home planet made his gut feel as heavy and hard as a stone. If he never saw another female again in his life, it would be too soon. Present company excluded. The Silactian in front of him blurred.

  He closed one eye and his vision cleared. Maybe if he tried harder, he could get into the idea of being with men. He glanced over at the panting couple. Maybe not.

  Tam closed his other eye. An image of Nissa, welling eyes, green and burning, was seared on the backs of his eyelids. I love you.

  Fuck you, he’d said and he’d meant it. Why had she chosen that moment to tell him? He knocked back his akdov.

  “Man on a mission, eh?”

  Tam glanced to his left, but the bar stool was empty. He looked right. An older man, the kind who looked as if he’d seen just about everything life had to offer and hadn’t been too impressed, sat next to him. Gray hair, lined face, pale eyes.

  Tam grunted.

  “Drinking to forget something?”

  Tam grunted.

  “I’ll buy you a drink,” said the man.

  Tam shrugged. And grunted.

  The man laughed and signaled the bartender.

  A new drink appeared in Tam’s hand.

  “Yeah, I know you. Saw you on the digi.”

  “I’m famous,” Tam said, slushy, and the old guy sort of turned his mouth upside- down.

  “Something like that.”

  The couple across the bar rose and took off. At least they were happy.

  Tam frowned, wondering if he’d appreciated enough how it felt to have his arms wrapped around that little waist, his nose buried in soft hair that smelled like flowers, his dick pressed up against that sweet, round ass. Just sleeping together. Best feeling ever. Yeah. He’d appreciated it at the time. And it had all evaporated as if it had never been. Leaving him drunk in a bar.

  He braced himself to keep his stool from falling over. The gray-haired man slapped him on the back and laughed at him, which strangely made him feel better.

  They sat in silence for a while.

  “I’m Reyback,” the old guy said.

  Tam nodded at him. “Tam.”

  “I know,” Reyback said.

  There wasn’t much to say after that, so they just sat and drank in silence. After a while Tam stood on unsteady feet and staggered to his docked ship, where he passed out.

  He dreamed of Nissa and woke up feeling like shit. He went back to the bar. Reyback was there. They drank in silence. Two days passed before Tam started talking. The story just spilled out, thick and viscous like oil from a drum and Reyback didn’t even have to listen. He didn’t talk much. They just kept drinking and Tam kept talking.

  Three days passed before Reyback asked the question that Tam hadn’t gotten around to answering. “What are you going to do?”

  It was a tough one. He hadn’t really thought about it. It hadn’t occurred to him that there was anything he could do.

  Fuck you. I love you. He met Reyback’s weird pale eyes. “Nothing.” Reyback just shrugged in a gesture that said I don’t give a shit. “Gonna go dip my nub.”

  Tam scowled into his akdov. The pleasure bots gave him the willies. He and his fist had grown reacquainted fast. The bots didn’t look right. They looked like plastic molded into the shape of a female, with shining orange skin and wide mouths and big, round breasts.

  Reyback didn’t seem to have the same aversion. Tam didn’t want to judge the other males who used them and a lot did because most of them would never get a crack at the real thing, but they were about as similar to the real thing as a rock was to a rezal gun—they’d both work in a pinch, but...

  “Wanna join me? We could share it?” Tam shook his head.

  Reyback took off, heading for the rear of the bar where curtained booths housed bots.

  He tilted his head back as a stab of pain slashed across his chest, in the seat of his bond, where she’d live with him forever. Nissa. There was nothing he could do to help her. She was miserable. Of the two of them, he’d figured he’d be the worse off but her sorrow scorched sharp. Something else lurked in it too. Guilt. Recrimination.

  Reyback returned about ten minutes and a shot later and slapped Tam on the back. Tam didn’t ask him if he’d washed his hands but he thought about it. Instead he downed the rest of his drink.

  “Let’s go,” said Reyback, something unreadable in his eyes.

  Tam looked around. “Where to?”

  “Anywhere but here. This place sucks a fat one.”

  Tam shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  “The Hive, then.”

  Tam just shrugged. Why not? It was another place known for pleasure bots and booze.

  Tam didn’t really want to go, but it was better than his plan. Which had been nothing.

  So he flew them away from Pilan. And drank enough to make himself sick enough, and tired enough to pass out cold.

  THIS SHIP’S WAILING SIRENS pulled Tam from a dream. His dick throbbed, angry. His head pounded, muddy. His mouth tasted like shit.

  The ship’s computerized voice echoed, eerily calm. “Emergency landing procedures implemented. The ship does not have the necessary energy for continued travel. Locked in for landing at nearest habitable planet. Crew members, please take your seats.”

  Tam lurched upright, looking around his bunk. Flashing lights and shrill beeps. He shook his head, a mammoth hangover making his stomach shudder and his head swim. He swallowed down all the water in his canteen, pulled on a shirt, harnessed up his weapons and staggered into the main cabin.

  Reyback sat in a chair, strapped in, a grin on his face, a bottle of akdov cradled in his arms. “Morning,” he said, sunny as shit.

  Tam ignored him and looked at the ship’s digi, running his hand over the glass screen, checking levels. The solar power was close to zero. They had just enough fuel to change their trajectory but then they’d head out into space, with nowhere to go and no way to land there. What was wrong with their solar panels? They’d spent enough time in orbit around a sun at the Hive. They should have been fine for another week. Tam scrubbed a hand down his face, trying to clear his head. When had he last checked their power levels? He’d been drunk most of the time.

  He glanced down toward the planet the ship had closed in on. There was only one way the solar power had burned down and that was if someone had intentionally run it down. Or turned off the panel’s absorbers back at the Hive.

  “What did you do?” Tam spun on Reyback, all the fury in his heart burning its way out of his eyes. He pulled his nustal off his back.

  Reyback laughed. “You’d better strap in, warrior.” Tam approached the seated man. Reyback’s glance dropped to the gleaming sword. “Put that away. We both know you aren’t going to use it.”

  “You’re right. I don’t need to kill you. We don’t have enough fuel to slow our approach, you madman. We’re going to die, you dumb fuck. You just killed yourself.” He lowered the sword.

  Reyback shrugged. “Doubt it. Though if you don’t strap in, you definitely will die.” Tam sighed and dropped his ass into his chair. “Akdov?” Reyback held the bottle toward Tam and although his stomach churned at the idea, he figured if he had to die, he might as well be drunk.

  He knocked back a stiff gulp and instantly regretted it, his stomach roiling and pitching. He swallowed a wave of nausea. Out the window, the planet still looked small, a good distance off. They wouldn’t hit ground for another fifteen minutes or so. He rose, taking Reyback’s bottle with him. He hurled it down the passageway that led to their bunks, where it crashed against a bulkhead.

  Fuck akdov, he wanted eeffoc. He grabbed some rations too, because why die with an empty stomach, and passed some over to Reyback, who shouted bitterly about his purloined akdov, and settled in with a big carafe of eeffoc. Strapped up. Now he was ready for a crash landing.

  The planet got bigger in the window in front of him.

/>   “You’re a dumb shit, Tam,” Reyback said next to him, irritably sipping eeffoc.

  “Why, because I took your akdov?”

  The ship bucked and shook as they hit atmosphere.

  “No. Because you let her go,” Reyback shouted, over the roar of the ship and the screaming sirens.

  Land mass and water were clearly visible now. The ship shouted out warnings, lights flashed. The temperature inside the ship skyrocketed from the friction of air molecules against the exterior of the ship.

  Tam took a deep breath. “I know.” He breathed again, wishing he believed more strongly in Paradise, so he could at least die with the sure knowledge that he’d see her again.

  “I lost my mate to the virus.” Reyback’s voice carried an uncommon heat. Tam had never seen the man show any emotion at all. “I’d have done anything to keep her.”

  His eyes, when he looked at Tam, that strange, pale yellow-green, were furious under the flashing red and blue lights. Sweat dripped down his nose, shivering in tandem with the violently bucking ship. “You don’t let that go. Never. You fight until you die, asshole. Or it’s a godsdamn slap in the face to every fucking Argenti who ever loved a woman and lost her. You dumb, stupid fuck.”

  Tam leaned his head back against the armrest. The pressure thrusters kicked off, the ship slamming backward as emergency parachutes were released. The carafe of eeffoc flew out of his hands, to clatter behind them. Beeping lights. His chair shook. Tongues of fire curled against the windows. The ration wrapper in front of him burst into flame.

  “And you stole my akdov.” Reyback laughed suddenly. “So fuck you, asshole.”

  Tam laughed, too. Why not? Beat the alternative. “Go to hell, Reyback. You just killed us both.”

  The ground rose up to meet them, filling up the entire window. Another round of emergency parachutes released, slamming them back so hard that Tam’s neck snapped forward and the air left his body. It took a few moments before he could breathe.

  Flames licked the walls of the ship. He closed his eyes. Nissa.