Mutual Trust

by Lea Linnett

  His eyes met hers, and though the hunger hadn’t left them, there was something else as well. Her eyes widened in realization.

  “Is it—I mean…” She swallowed. “We must be compatible.”

  “No,” he said. “That is not a concern.”

  “It’s not?”

  He looked away, his brow furrowing. “Hybrids… cannot produce offspring,” he said quietly.

  Bree’s chest went tight in sympathy, and she touched his face. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do not be. I would not wish a life like mine on any child.”

  “Marek…” But that didn’t answer her question, so she gently turned his face, forcing him to look at her. “What is it, then? You don’t want to? Because that’s fine.”

  He exhaled sharply and clutched her closer as if by instinct, his hand gripping her hip. “I want to,” he groaned into the junction of her neck and shoulder. “I want you.” Her pulsed raced against his lips, a shiver running through her at the intensity of his words.

  She didn’t understand, but she wanted to help, so she placed a hand against his chest, pushing him far enough away to meet his eye.

  “We don’t have to do it that way,” she whispered. Slowly, she rose to her feet, her hand trailing down to where his cock strained against his suit. “I just want to return the favor.”

  His pupils dilated, his lips parting as she dropped to her knees.

  She nuzzled him through his suit, and his cock jumped under her touch. It was large, but she couldn’t feel anything horrific, nothing so alien that she wouldn’t know what to do with it. And even if there was, she wasn’t about to stop now.

  Bree wanted him, too.

  “Take off your suit?” she pleaded, breathing the words over his hard length and meeting his eyes. They met hers with a laser focus, and she wondered how she looked. Was this a different Bree to the one who sat still and silent in the forest, waiting for the chance to make a killing shot?

  Still, he hesitated, his brow pinched with a pain she couldn’t understand, and then…

  BZZST!

  They both froze at the sound of the door. There was a moment of stunned silence, and then a single knock. It was followed by two more, short and sharp, and then the brush of a palm on metal.

  Bree stared up at Marek, her heart in her throat. “Who is that?”

  ---

  He recognized the signal, but that didn’t stop the thumping of Marek’s heart as he helped Bree back into her suit and turned to face the door. His cock was still hard from Bree’s touch, his body thrumming with desire while his mind reeled.

  Pleasuring Bree was one thing. He’d loved the way her hands grasped at him and her thighs clenched around him. He’d loved that he could finally give her something that didn’t feel as if it had any strings attached to the world outside.

  But he’d spent his entire life trying to be levekk, and levekk didn’t fuck sub-species. Some did, of course, but not him. He was supposed to be better—perfect, even. And that didn’t even begin to cover how wrong it was for him as a scientist, as a jailer.

  He could reconcile the desire to give Bree what she wanted. But to take for himself, to seek his own pleasure in her warm, addictive embrace and allow her to see the whole of his body—a body that he had been ridiculed for ever since he was born—felt impossible.

  Marek didn’t realize that his breaths were coming short, a telltale sheen of human sweat dampening his underarms, until Bree’s warm hand caught his arm. Her cheeks were flushed, her wavy hair in disarray and her full lips swollen, but her eyes were sharp when she said, “We don’t have to answer it.”

  “It is all right,” he choked out.

  “What if it’s Urek or Peris?”

  Somehow, even with Bree’s anxious pulse echoing through her hand and Marek’s own chaotic thoughts, her presence calmed him. He focused on the steady grip of her palm, breathing deep. “It is not them.”

  He pulled away reluctantly, slamming his palm against the door panel to unlock it and revealing exactly the huge form he’d expected.

  Silas straightened from where he’d been leaning on the doorframe. “You took your time, Levekk. Getting bogged down by research again?” His gaze flicked over his shoulder to where Bree hovered behind him, his thick brows shooting up. “Oh.”

  “I was showing her my work,” Marek said, trying for that easy disinterest, but his heart vaulted into his throat when Silas chuckled.

  “Just work?” the solayan said, before leaning past him and saying in English, “Hello, Bree. Your hair wild, today.”

  Marek growled, blocking his friend’s view as Bree yelped and dragged her fingers through her dark locks. Silas only grinned, glancing down both ends of the corridor before asking, again in English, “You like Marek work?”

  “Y-yeah.” Bree appeared at Marek’s side. Her hair was tamed, her suit done up in all the right places, but there was no hiding the red hue of her cheeks and lips, and the reminder that he had caused these things threatened to make his cock come alive again. “I was… teaching him some stuff about humans, looking at artifacts,” she said. “I like his office, too. It’s different from the rest of this place.”

  “This good thing.” Silas’ fangs flashed in a knowing smile while Marek shifted uncomfortably. “Marek needs learning. Needs relaxing.”

  A bubble of laughter escaped his human. “You’re telling me. He looks all nonchalant at first, but he’s wound so damn tight.”

  “Like Urek, but no temper.”

  “Like every levekk that I’ve seen.”

  Marek looked between them, his heart racing. This was not supposed to be happening. “You attack me together now?”

  Bree shrugged, a mischievous smile pulling at her lips. “Only the levekk half.”

  As the two of them laughed, Marek felt a pit open up in his stomach. She said it as if the ‘levekk half’ of him were inconsequential, just another facet that made up his whole, but to Marek, it loomed like a smooth and unclimbable cliff that he’d been stuck at the foot of his whole life.

  Switching to Levekk Trade, his brow furrowed. “What are you doing here, Silas?”

  It was rare to see a solayan upstairs. Their hulking bodies and relatively recent addition to the Constellation made them repellent to some levekk, and terrifying to many more. He would never have expected him if he hadn’t recognized the knock they’d developed when Marek was first forced to bunk with the solayans downstairs. Silas’ people were more free with their privacy and personal space than Marek had ever been able to bear.

  For Silas to be upstairs… meant something must have happened.

  But the solayan sent him an annoyed look, returning his attention to Bree in order to ask, “I speak levekk language? It quicker.”

  Bree nodded, clearly surprised that he’d bothered to ask, and Marek felt suitably chastised.

  Thankfully, Silas didn’t comment further. “Urek and Peris found their intruder. A human.”

  “From outside?” Marek asked, his stomach lurching. “But there are no alarms.”

  “I think they wish to keep it secret,” Silas said in a low voice. “They caught her near the door to the sehela pen. I wouldn’t know, except they asked us solarren to fix a rip in the cage, and while we were working we overheard them congratulating one of their own for finding her. Must have thought we couldn’t hear. They are arrogant, as always.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “Urek must have her. What he thinks he will gain without your help, I do not know. Maybe he searches for you now.”

  “I—”

  All three of them jumped as the lights in the hallway suddenly dimmed, an alarm blaring. A hand gripped Marek’s arm, and he looked down to see Bree staring at him, her eyes impossibly dark. “What’s going on?”

  He and Silas shared a look. “I will explain,” Marek told her in English, wincing as the loud alarm pierced his sensitive ears. “But for now, we must go. One of your people is here.”

 
; “My people?” she echoed, her jaw dropping. “But what—”

  A sharp bang reverberated through the corridor, close enough to make Marek step closer to Bree, shielding her body. But nothing followed, and Bree’s eyes turned round with fear. “That was a human weapon,” she said, holding him tight. “We have to find them!”

  He nodded, gripping her hand, but as the three of them headed towards the sound, Marek hoped that Bree could deal with what they might find.

  18

  Bree barely saw her surroundings as she followed behind Marek and Silas. Some other levekk and sub-species had ventured out into the halls despite the alarm, but her eyes were glued to the floor, her heart thundering in her ears.

  There was another human here. Someone from her village. Even with all the talk of an intruder, it hadn’t quite seemed real. Now, she realized she could round the corner at any time and see a face she recognized, and while the thought sparked hope in her chest, it also brought a creeping dread.

  She hadn’t even entertained the thought of being rescued. Freedom would come from her own efforts, just like finding her mother, or hunting down a buck to feed the other soldiers in the Barracks. Bree got things done by herself, but now there was another human in the equation. What if they’d come here looking for her, and she was the reason they’d been captured? What if she’d escaped the day before, and had left this human behind by accident?

  How could she ensure they both escaped this place without endangering their people?

  And what the hell would she do about Marek? Her lips were still warm and swollen from his searing kiss, her core rippling with the aftereffects of two of the best orgasms she’d ever experienced. And that said nothing of the warmth she felt in her chest when Marek’s cool hand squeezed her own. What if she hesitated again, when freedom was almost in her grasp?

  Her head shot up as an angry shout echoed down the hall.

  “Get your fucking hands off me, you snakey freaks!”

  Bree’s stomach dropped like a stone. She knew that voice.

  “I said no! Hey! Don’t fucking touch that—”

  Another deafening bang! rang out through the corridor, and Bree moved without thinking, pushing past Marek and Silas as she sped down the corridor. That was a gunshot. From the kind of gun her people had preserved for centuries and used only sparingly.

  She flew around the corner and into the cafeteria, where everything had gone very still. Urek stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by Peris and her security team, one of whom was holding the gun and pointing it at the floor with a shocked look on his face.

  “You fucking idiots! Grabbing a fucking gun like that—does he even know what he’s holding?!”

  Bree stared wide-eyed at the human woman standing with her arms raised in anger. Her short, blond hair was wild, and a patch of it appeared to have been ripped out, judging by the blood congealing behind her ear. It was Noelle, her best friend, and her bright blue eyes lit up when she saw Bree.

  “Can these fuckers even understand me?”

  “Oh my God, Noe!” Bree yelled, running forward without a thought for the armed levekk mere feet away. She threw her arms around her taller friend, squeezing her so tight that Noe yelped. Her best friend was here, yelling at goddamn aliens like they were brats in her parents’ language classes, and Bree hadn’t seen a familiar face—a familiar human face—in weeks.

  “Holy shit, are you hugging me?” Noe asked in disbelief, although her arms still wrapped tightly around her in return. Bree heard Urek talking angrily in the background, but she didn’t care.

  She wasn’t alone anymore.

  Bree turned Noe’s head, inspecting the bloody patch on her scalp. “Are you all right? What happened? Marek said you were captured, but then the alarms went off and I heard gunshots—”

  “I’m fine,” Noe said, waving the questions away. “They had me, but I got away. Shot in the air to scare them off. Although, looks like they caught up with me.” Her blond brows furrowed. “Who’s Marek?”

  “Bree,” a voice interrupted, and the two of them froze.

  Bree turned to find Marek hovering close by, a pained expression on his face. He looked pointedly to the side, where Urek stood with his eyes blazing.

  “You know her?” Marek asked, and Bree’s insides shriveled a little. It was abundantly clear that it was Urek who was really asking, not Marek.

  “Yes,” she answered anyway. “We’re friends.”

  Urek demanded something in Levekk, which Marek answered tersely, and Noe’s hands tightened on her arms.

  “What are they saying?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That one speaks English?”

  Bree bit her lip. “French, too.”

  From the look on her face, Noe wasn’t impressed, and Bree got the feeling she and Marek wouldn’t be bonding over their shared language any time soon. Before she could ask her how she’d ended up here—and why she’d brought along a loaded gun—Urek turned on them again, his expression murderous.

  “Miyumin saranaar en kataira,” he spat, and two of the security team stepped forward.

  “Bree, come,” Marek murmured, his hand finding its place at her elbow. Fleetingly, she remembered where those fingers had been less than half an hour before, warmth blooming in her stomach, but then the security officers started to reach for Noe.

  “Hands off, assholes,” the blond snarled, batting their clawed hands away like she would a child reaching for freshly baked bread. “I said, off!”

  The levekk weren’t listening—not that they could understand her words anyway—and they tried to grab her by the arms. They didn’t get very far.

  Noe had always been better at close-quarters combat than Bree ever was. She released Bree and grabbed the first levekk by the forearm, pulling him off-balance and using the momentum to slam her knee into his gut. He didn’t go down, but he was obviously winded, and she ducked beneath the second’s reaching arms. A shove to the stomach sent him back a step, then she rammed him with her shoulder, sending him sprawling.

  The first recovered quickly. He moved forward, but Noe was faster, hooking a leg between his in a confusing tangle that sent him falling to the floor. She then dug her heel into his knee hard enough to make him cry out.

  Back on his feet, the second lunged for her, and she kicked out, landing her foot in the alien’s crotch hard enough that even Bree winced. The levekk howled with pain, clutching himself as he backed away.

  “Oh, they’re not so different, then,” Noe said brightly, grinning at Bree over her shoulder.

  “Kokra, salakaan laira ke’ka? Yumin shekra beki kiniralakk!” Urek stepped forward then, his claws flashing in the light, and Bree’s heart stuttered. She’d forgotten how intimidating he could look, with his golden scales catching the light and his dark eyes narrowed. Some of the others stepped forward, but he waved them away. “Ik laira salak sini!”

  To Bree’s horror, Noe got a large grin on her face. “Oh, you want me all to yourself, big guy?”

  “Tell her to stop,” Marek murmured hurriedly in her ear. He had put himself between Bree and the fight, his bearing tense. “They only wish to return you both to your room.”

  Bree froze, her fists clenching. She wanted to help, but they were surrounded by the levekk now, some of whom were glaring darkly at Noe as they picked up their fellows. Bree had been through this before, and she knew there were too many for them to take on.

  “Noe, stop!” she yelled, hating herself for it. “They’re just moving us. They’re not going to hurt us!” Probably. Although Urek looked like he wanted to, his clawed fists rapidly clenching and unclenching as he sized up her friend.

  “You’re not gonna help?” Noe asked, her confusion clear. “Whatever, he’s just big and ugly like the rest of them.” She threw a glare at Marek as she said this, and then returned her attention to Urek, who was close enough now for her to roughly push him away as he approached.

  “Don’t—” Bree starte
d forward, but a large hand held her back. “Let go of me,” she growled at Marek.

  The hybrid’s pupils were slits again, even more alien than when he’d looked up at her from between her thighs, but his voice was soft when he said, “Please. Do not make it more difficult. Urek will not harm her.”

  “You wanna bet on that?” she hissed back. Urek was staring down at Noe with undisguised hate, a cruel grin spearing across his face. Noe was taller than Bree, but Urek still dwarfed her, and his hands looked large enough to crush her skull.

  “He will not harm either of you while you are useful to him,” Marek insisted. “I will not let him.”

  Bree couldn’t reply, because Urek struck out in that moment, his claws missing Noe’s shoulder by inches as she ducked out of the way. She circled him, and none of the other levekk tried to grab her. It seemed they’d learned their lesson, or Urek had instructed them to stay back.

  Bree’s hands fisted at her sides as she watched Noe dance around the much larger levekk. Noe ducked and dived, avoiding his attempts to restrain her and landing small hits in his flanks and back. Urek’s movements were short and controlled, tight with frustration, but Bree couldn’t tell if they missed because Noe was too fast for him or if he was toying with her.

  At any rate, Noe grew bolder the longer it went on, daring to grab him and try to use her bodyweight to topple him. But when she tried the same moves on him that had sent her previous attackers sprawling, Urek remained standing. A couple of times, Bree thought he’d gained the upper hand, but Noe always jerked out of his reach at the last second.

  “He’s good,” Bree murmured.

  “He was a soldier, before.”

  She turned to Marek with wide eyes, before a particularly angry shout brought her attention back to the fight just in time to see Noe land hard on her back. She thought it was over as Urek loomed over her friend, but then Noe did that same, complicated move with her legs and the levekk’s feet went out from under him.

  “You guys need to work on your balance,” Noe sneered, getting to her feet and dusting her hands off as if they were in the training yard back at the Barracks. “You go down hard.”