Chapter 14
“Sit still,”
Kila warned after setting Piras on the tall stool in his bathroom.
“I am sitting still,”
Piras said, though he knew he swayed unsteadily on his perch.
“Ancestors help me,”
Kila breathed, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Let me see that hand.”
In the glare of the light, made even brighter by the all-white lavatory, both men winced at the injuries Piras had inflicted on himself. Kila prodded the swollen flesh, carefully pressing to determine the extent of the damage. Piras marveled at how gentle the captain’s callous-roughened hands managed to be.
“Nothing’s broken, at least,”
the Nobek said. “The grip you had on that bottle attested to that. Do you have a medi-kit of any sort?”
“Drawer in the wall.”
Piras pointed with an unsteady finger to show Kila where.
Kila cleaned off the blood, most of which had dried. As he poured antiseptic over it, Piras yelped at the surprising sting. The numbing effects of the bohut were wearing off. “I already spilled bohut on the damned mess. It’s sterilized enough!”
“Idiot,”
Kila muttered. “I should leave you here to deal with it on your own.”
“You do that. I’m used to being left alone, aren’t I?”
The Nobek shot him a look through narrowed eyes. His tone was even however, as he put a sealing gel over the cuts. “What set you off?”
“Not what. Who.”
Piras laughed. When the hilarity came out high-pitched and screamy, he stopped. The sound scared him. He swallowed and told Kila, “I realized I hadn’t taken my parents into consideration when I agreed to the mission.”
“Hell. Yeah, that’s a big deal, one that should have factored in your decision.”
“No shit. I suppose you’ve already talked to Maf’s side.”
“I did. I’m sorry about that, Piras.”
“Not your fault. Mine. How will your family react?”
“They’ll want to kill me. It won’t be the first time. I’ve not always been a model child.”
Though his answer was flippant, Piras saw the shadow in Kila’s eyes. The Nobek suffered over his decision too. It helped him not feel so lonely in his guilt. “I think you’re as worried about it as I am.”
“In the end, I’m trying to salvage the Empire for them and everyone else. It’s a worthy sacrifice to lose their esteem.”
Kila continued to minister to his injuries. “What else put you into that bottle of bohut?”
“I had the misfortune of bumping into he-who-walked-out-on-me. In short, it’s been a wonderful day.”
Kila paused as he put a cooling anti-inflammatory patch over Piras’s knuckles. His gaze drilled into Piras’s. “You saw Nobek Lidon? Talked to him?”
“Isn’t that what I said? Congratulations, Kila, you’ve been right all along about me still being hurt over him. Does that make you happy?”
Piras waited for Kila’s self-satisfaction.
Kila finished wrapping and dug out a tab of pain inhibitor, which he set on Piras’s tongue. “Not if it makes you tear yourself apart with abuse and drinking. If you think any of this brings me pleasure for one second, then you haven’t got the first clue what I’m about.”
Piras heard the feeling in the Nobek’s tone. It was close to what he’d seen on Lidon’s face, but not quite the same. Not as insulting. After a moment, he was able to put a name to how Kila sounded.
Compassionate.
Though Kila’s caring tone didn’t hurt the way Lidon’s concern had, it made Piras uncomfortable. He tried to come up with a witty retort, something to take his uneasiness away, but his alcohol-soaked mind wouldn’t comply. None of his favorite curse words seemed to fit the occasion either. He was forced to sit in silence as Kila gathered up the first aid supplies and put them away.
That accomplished, the Nobek turned back to Piras. “All right, that hand is as pretty as I can make it. Except for the abrasions, it should be normal in the morning. I assume you have some stim-tabs somewhere?”
“Kitchen, in the cabinet over the cooker. I don’t want to get sober though.”
“It’s a cruel world, boy. You don’t always get what you want. Can you walk, or do I need to carry you again?”
Piras snorted and got to his feet. He had a moment of over-balancing, and Kila grabbed him. Piras steadied himself. “Let go. I can walk.”
“Right.”
Kila’s familiar smirk was making its return. “Lead on then, and I’ll make sure you don’t rearrange any other body parts by walking into the walls.”
“Aw. You’re so sweet. You should have been an Imdiko.”
“Right now, I wish I was. Maybe I’d know what the fuck to do with you then.”
Piras wove his way down the hall, the blank lengths of the walls frequently interrupted by shelves of models. He was as careful as his drunkenness allowed, not so much because Kila had told him to do so, but because he didn’t want to crash into one of his beloved projects.
He couldn’t hear the Nobek following him, but knew he was there.
He could feel the man keeping a close eye on his progress.
Kila’s presence was like a warm blanket around him, keeping him safe from harm.
Piras would have liked to trust that feeling.
He would have liked to bury himself in it.
But he’d felt that way with Lidon too, and that had disappeared without warning. It had slipped away, first by slow degrees, and then all at once. That fierce Nobek protectiveness had gone to another.
Piras felt a heaviness settle over his heart.
Why should Kila be any different? He’d made it plain he had enjoyed fighting his chief engineer for dominance.
Of course Piras couldn’t hold a man like him.
It would never work.
They reached his kitchen.
Piras morosely searched a drawer for the stim tabs.
Kila hovered over him, making sure Piras did what he wanted.
Guarding Piras from himself in his time of hurt. Ready to shield him from trouble. Why couldn’t Piras have someone like Kila forever? Why couldn’t he be accepted as the submissive lover he’d been born to be?
He found the package of stim tabs.
A glance at Kila made his heart slam hard in his chest.
The Nobek’s default expression of a mocking sneer was nowhere in evidence.
For the moment, Kila looked at him with the same emotion Piras felt – with longing and the confusion that spoke of not knowing how to get what he wanted.
Piras couldn’t stop himself from speaking. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“As if you care. Don’t make me feel like I matter.”
Kila cocked his head to one side. “Of course you matter. Why shouldn’t you?”
“Because I’m not like most Dramoks. I’m not what a Nobek wants.”
Kila sighed. “You’re getting maudlin. Take the damned stims, Piras. Two of them.”
Piras obeyed. “I’m only a novelty to you. Not someone you could really care about.”
Kila growled. He slammed his fist on a smooth stone countertop. The boom of it made Piras jump. “You of all people know Nobeks don’t speak of such things to other men. Have my actions not made things clear to you? Do you not see what is in front of you?”
A spike of energy helped shove some of the haze in Piras’s skull away. Lucidity was returning, but it didn’t help his mood. If anything, it made him more morose than ever. “I thought I had something real, something lasting with Lidon. Then he found out the truth about me, and I didn’t matter anymore. Despite all we’d been through together, how long we’d been lovers, I wasn’t enough for him.”
Kila glared at him. “I’ve known about you from the beginning though. We haven’t started on a foundation of lies. I know who you are and how you are, and I’m here. Look at me, Piras. I’m here.”
The Nobek’s words penetrated, finding a way through the clearing mists of drunkenness. How many times had Piras thrown Kila out? Pushed him away?
And yet he kept coming back, kept refusing to be put off for long.
He was here, dealing with Piras at his intoxicated worst. Not running away. Not giving up, as any man with good sense would have by now.
Hope flared in Piras’s being. Maybe Kila did care. Maybe Piras did count for something to the Nobek.
He looked up at the grim, ferocious, and compelling face glowering at him. “You’re here. I see you, Kila.”
The Nobek grabbed him by the back of the neck and snatched him close. Their bodies pressed against each other. “Do you? Do you really?”
Piras clenched the material of Kila’s uniform stretched over his chest. “I see you. I do.”
He pressed his lips to Kila’s. A moment later, the Nobek was kissing him hard, his mouth mashed against Piras’s hard enough to bruise, his tongue invading to plunder. He crushed the Dramok’s body to his. Piras melted against him, giving himself to Kila’s ownership.
He gasped when Kila picked him up and slung him over his shoulder as if Piras weighed no more than a child. The Nobek carried him through the home and into Piras’s sleeping room. He set Piras on the thick fur rug at the foot of his mat.
“Clothes off,”
Kila ordered. “Then on your knees.”
Seeing the return of the Nobek’s wicked, sneering grin, Piras’s heart leapt. He wobbled only a little as he obeyed, but Kila’s hands shot out to catch him by the upper arms and keep him steady.
“You need to sober up a bit more,”
the destroyer captain observed. “But that will work fine with my new plan.”
“Plan? What plan?”
The evil look on Kila’s face made Piras shake even as his cocks gave an enthusiastic throb. He fumbled as he stripped.
“You’ll see soon enough. Ah, there’s that delicious body that belongs to me. On your knees, like I told you. Hands behind your back. Good boy. Now hold still.”
He went to a black object laying on Piras’s sleeping mat. The Dramok’s eyes widened to see it was the ‘bag of tricks’, as Kila referred to it. He rummaged through his sex toys and came up with a pair of hovercuffs, which Kila affixed to Piras’s wrists. “Hovercuffs, freeze in place.”
“When did you bring that bag in here? How long were you watching me get drunk before you announced yourself?”
Piras spluttered.
“Did I tell you to speak?”
Kila’s voice came out low and deadly.
Piras’s jaw snapped shut, but he glared.
Kila bared his teeth, showing fangs. “I don’t like the attitude. Let me fix that for you before I have to take it out on your ass.”
He searched through his bag again and pulled out an elastic blindfold. He ignored Piras’s whimper of protest and put it on him. “There. Much better. And if you open your mouth for anything but the cocks you are given, I’ll shove a gag in your mouth too.”
He needn’t have warned Piras. The Dramok’s momentary pique was quelled by realizing he was at Kila’s mercy. Arousal beat a relentless tattoo in his brain: submit, submit, submit. He knelt and awaited the Nobek’s pleasure.
The growling voice sounded right in his ear. “You thought a lot about our mission at work, did you? About how it would affect your parents?“
The words shouldn’t have been seductive. Kila reminded Piras of everything that had gone wrong with the day. Yet the warmth of his breath in Piras’s ear sent chills down the Dramok’s spine. The gruff tone vibrated through his skull. Calloused hands rasped over his chest and back, leaving fiery trails that spread heat straight to his groin.
Kila kept talking. “You’ve been remembering what happened on Laro Station. Then you ran into the man who starred in those memories? Laro is where you met Lidon, isn’t it? I checked to see if that might be the case. I found out he put in for a transfer to your destroyer soon after both of your ships stopped there about twenty years ago.”
Piras froze as soon as Kila spoke Lidon’s name. The bastard knew everything now. The excitement of the Nobek’s voice and touch ebbed as hurt and shame edged in.
Kila grabbed his cocks, fondling him with rough attention. Lust surged again, washing away the hesitation but not the pain. Piras was caught between the two.
Kila said, “You can’t have him. You don’t need him. Say it, Piras.”
Piras shook his head. He didn’t want this conversation. Not with Kila. Not with Kila’s hands on him, ripping him from the old, familiar grief. “You don’t understand. All the years I put in, all the wasted time—”
“Is that why you can’t give up what is over? Because you gave him sixteen years of your life? Is that any reason to waste more time on something that is never going to happen? No, Piras. I won’t let you.”
Agony tore from its moorings in his chest, barreling up his throat to tumble from his lips. “You’ve never been in my place. To have someone for years and then another man comes and snatches him away in a moment. Leaving you with nothing but dead dreams.”
“No, I haven’t. But no matter how much it hurts, it’s done with Lidon. It’s over, and you have a choice to make, right here, right now. You can keep drifting in the dream that was never going to come true, or you can live the real life waiting for you. I’m going to leave you here to think about it.”
A surge of panic overcame Piras. “Leave me? Where are you going?”
“Not far. You still need to sober up before we go any further, so it might be a while.”
A heavy sigh filled Piras’s ear. “In the meantime, you have a lot of things to consider.”
Piras strained at the hovercuffs locking his arms in place. “I don’t like this. Let me go.”
A hot mouth covered his, shutting off his rising voice. Kila kissed him long and hard, swamping Piras with desire that temporarily eclipsed all fear and heartache. He pumped Piras’s cocks, making him hard and wet with need. The kiss was over far too soon. The exciting touch disappeared too.
The low thunder of Kila’s voice came from overhead. “Be a good boy, Piras. Sit right there with your thoughts. When I get back, we’ll see what you’ve come up with.”
Piras wanted the sorrow to come back. He wanted to be angry with Kila for leaving him aching and hard. Yet neither of those easier emotions would come. Instead, with awakened need foremost, his spirit cried to please the Nobek instead.
Not caring that he sounded desperate, he told Kila, “You can’t leave me like this.”
The voice was gentle but firm. “I am. Think hard about what I’ve said.”
“Kila, please.”
“If you want to have a chance, a real chance with a Nobek who can give you what you want and need, you’ll be right here when I get back. Let’s see if you’re ready for that life, Piras.”
Then silence descended, empty as the blackness before the Dramok’s eyes. Piras’s ears strained. Like all Nobeks, Kila was silent when he departed. Piras knew he’d gone because his musky scent lessened and then disappeared.
He pulled experimentally against the cuffs. In certain cases, he knew how to escape older versions of the manacles, and he was sure the set Kila used to play were an outmoded style. His straining discovered they’d not been affixed as tightly as they should have been. Piras thought he might be able to slip out.
It was not a mistake a Nobek of Kila’s experience and wisdom would make. Had he left Piras an easy out? Was it a test to see if Piras wanted what they might have together?
The man had set up two struggles for him. If Piras was willing to surrender to Kila, he would not break free of the manacles. He would face the task of deciding whether a future with the Nobek deserved a chance. He would determine whether he could put his past with Lidon to rest.
His choices were miserably simple. He could try again with another Nobek. He could attempt to make something happen with Kila. Or he could let the old, but somehow reassuringly familiar agony of losing Lidon continue to rule his life.
On the surface, it seemed an easy enough choice, one any intelligent man would make. Yet Piras was at war with himself. The angry part of him insisted he’d been cheated, that something important had been stolen from him. To give that up now felt like a great injustice. Where was the fairness? Where was the compensation for what he’d suffered?
His intellect knew there would never be a reparation. Even a part of his heart wanted him to give up the fight that had been lost years ago. It yearned for what Kila told him was possible. It wanted to heal in the security of the scarred brute’s embrace.
But a large portion still screamed that it was owed something for its losses. It screamed long and loud, trying to eclipse the sensible, hopeful portion in its agony.
Piras’s emotions tossed to and fro as he struggled with the verdict he must choose. The minutes ticked by, bringing him no closer to a choice. For the life of him, he couldn’t decide.