Chapter Eleven
Vil
I pushed myself hard into working the scrap. Everything in that building had some sort of value in antiques, precious metals, consumables, even broken glass. The silicates and the way it was made on Mater Terra had never been fully replicated elsewhere and while woefully inefficient at shields and windows for space travel—it made lovely artwork. We’d taken a few crate loads of the glass.
I handled what I could until the later hours of the day, where Sarge forced me to go back inside and rest or eat. I loved food and the scrap they were feeding me these days—nutrient paste and protein loaf—made my stomach growl with frustration and hunger.
I hated being empty. Hated having an empty stomach, empty mind, empty bed. I missed Noel. My body craved his scent, his touch. I wanted to fuck him, to treasure and worship him in a thousand perverse ways. I wanted to just watch him sleep, eyes fluttering closed while pale-blue lashes caught the gleam of the ship’s light. I’d count each one of them and worship them all.
I wasn’t sure when my mind had stopped focusing on purely sexual things, but it had.
When I was with Noel, I felt things. Really felt . Not like love or fondness, though I did have a soft spot for him, but like my lizard brain had sated itself with the required mate, had calmed because it’d found the one I needed. He calmed me.
I pushed through my desire to go into the med bay and take Noel back from Doc. I paced my room at night, missing his scent. But it wasn’t until we prepared for takeoff, battening down all the hatches and readying for flight, did I realize the time had passed and that I still craved Noel. Biologically, he was a perfect match for me, and I honestly didn’t feel as if I lost anything. Maybe I could be monogamous? Maybe I could settle down.
Gorm walked by me in the hall wearing assless chaps, cock out in the open, caged for all to see. Atop his head was a little plastic princess crown.
Did I look?
Absolutely.
Did I want to follow?
A week ago, I’d have said yes, and done so happily. Right then? I could only imagine those chaps on Noel.
“Gorm? Why? Just—I’m curious.” I turned to watch Gorm give me a slow up and down.
“I’m the pretty princess and I’ve invited a few men to my ball .” He smirked and sauntered off, leaving me a little sorry I even asked. But still…
“Am I invited?” My tone came out more hopeful than I’d expected. Maybe it was for the best I had Noel ablated.
“No.” He gave me a sad little smile before approaching me, taking my hands in his. I wasn’t sure what I expected when he leaned up on his tiptoes and pressed his lips to mine. I didn’t reciprocate. My body didn’t show any thrill, no matter what memories I recalled of former hookups with the other hybreed. He left a bitterness on my lips, slightly salty when I realized his dark eyes were dry… But mine?
He reached up and brushed a tear away with his thumb. “There’re only a few species that mate for life, and Naleucians are one of them. Our Progenitors took that gift for granted. Don’t you.”
I wondered if I could really go through with it. Have Noel neutered to sate my desire for polyamory…
No. I couldn’t.
And I wasn’t willing to part with him, either.
***
“Set course to Starbase Delta.” I sighed miserably as Merriel made some entirely pointless beeping and booping noises before setting autopilot to the trading base. There was a slightly closer one, but I wanted to—I wasn’t sure. There was more there, better prices on some of our goods by a margin, and I could take Noel to see things he’d never seen before, bring him into this forsaken millennia.
To pass the time, I went through the cargo manifest, itemizing all the things we pulled from the base, logging them carefully as I checked market price. Split among my crew fairly, the total would float us for another few months. A few years if we sold Noel. The dark thought made rage climb in me. I’d not sell him. Ever.
As if sensing my conundrum, Doc escorted himself in, flouncing lightly, his face a mask of polite curiosity.
I found myself inhaling deeply, searching the surrounding air, hoping to catch Noel’s sweet scent around him to no avail. My annoyance must have shown on my face or posture because Doc wore his snide grin with too much glee.
“What are my options?” I didn’t glance his way. The satisfaction he’d get from my submission was far more punishment than I deserved. He wanted to be claimed. I didn’t know better, and he really wasn’t in a state to stop me… Mostly my fault. Somewhat his.
“Well, we discussed his value to us if he were to join with the Alignment of Divinity, seeing as he is a Progenitor.” Doc waved a hand as if even he found the idea distasteful.
“Nah. They worship the Progenitors and curse us in the same sentence. Fuck those bozos. They’d have Noel on some pedestal being experimented with.” I kept my eyes trained on the screen before me, trying desperately to hold a bored expression even as my eyes unfocused.
“And there’s the option of getting them a new identity, having them registered as a hybreed Tal, keeping their hair dyed, et cetera.” Doc sighed, and for some reason, I got the impression the idea was completely off the table in his opinion.
“Yeah, and he has zero idea what era he’s in. No.” I idly drew my hand out in front of me, swapping screens with a gesture.
“We can abla—” Doc growled as those words left his lips, clearly his opinion made up against it.
“Fuck no.” I spat the words out harshly. “Anything but that. Fucking disgusting.”
“What about your brothers?” Doc lowered his volume, and every hair on my body stood on end. The thought of Noct or None getting their hands on him made me want to destroy things. Von and Nex were no better.
“Just bring him to me. I’ll keep him. I’m not— He’s good.” I couldn’t shake what Gorm had said. I didn’t quite want to take Noel for granted.
A voice behind me spoke up, interrupting the discussion. “And what happened to split profits?”
One of our impure human members stormed into the deck, bristling with the urgency to say something. Those humans tainted by hybreed blood, not enough to be hybreed and not pure by any means, found few places in the world where they fit in. Often, they had chips on their shoulders the size of asteroids.
“Dedmond, the profits are being split. Equally. I’m not taking a share this round.” Taking Noel was payment enough, and I still had a reserve of my own. My cut was going to stock the ship, and I didn’t have to say so when I pulled up the manifest and waved at the log.
“Bullshit, Vil. We’ve all heard that popsicle you pulled out is some crazy hybreed—”
“A Progenitor.” Doc spoke out of turn with something sharp in his throat. “We do not trade lives. We do not traffic bodies. Remember our code? A life is their own. Their words their binding.”
Dedmond silenced, lips pursed. My electrosensitive pores picked up on his tense posture. “But his life is not his own, Vil. You took him and didn’t give him to anyone else to share!”
The thought of sharing Noel and offering him up on a platter made me bristle. My fingers dug into the armrests of my chair and I stood, my tail swishing with agitation until a light scent caught my nostrils. My heart clenched, cock pulsing to life as the first notes of Noel’s fragrance ensnared my mind.
“I was given an opportunity. I distinctly recall throwing you off of me when I woke,” Noel’s soft voice made Dedmond stiffen. “And if I had a choice, why was my choice to not be touched by…” He paused, strolling in on bare, padded feet, talons clicking the floor while he inhaled deeply. “Tainted human flesh, marked by my own blood, not respected?”
“Is that why you went off?” Doc whirled on one foot and faced Dedmond with a curling lip. “You were feeling him up on the table?”
“I wanted to see what he looked like down there!” Dedmond snorted like it wasn’t a big deal. “I ain’t never seen a male like him. I heard he had two dicks, so I was curious.”
“Who told you that?” I turned in my chair, brow lowered.
“Kardok came in saying he saw Doc working on a new hybreed and they had two dicks, so I wanted to go check.” He shrugged.
I rubbed my hand over my face. “Noel. What do you want done with him?”
“A handshake will suffice.” Noel flashed a sharp-toothed smile, and Doc nodded before the man hesitated. He eventually stuck his hand out, face a twisted mass of sourness.
“Sorry. I was just curious ’cause you’re kinda cu—” Noel took his hand in a firm grip and squeezed; the sound of gravel crunching under leather made Doc flinch and me grin. Dedmond screamed at the top of his lungs and drew his hand back, the appendage hanging limply.
“Vil’s hand wouldn’t so much have bruised from touching me,” Noel said. He pulled the screaming man close and clenched his neck ever so gently, cutting off his hoarse screams. “If you think my gentle shake there was terrible, imagine what my mating channel would do to your cock.” He released Dedmond and sneered, nodding toward a bitterly frowning Doc.
“Fucking… My hand.” Dedmond pulled away, pale and whimpering, tears pouring from his eyes as he hissed in misery. Doc grabbed him by the shirt, shoulders pinching.
“We’ll go to my office and have a long discussion where I teach you some much-needed anatomy before we tend to your wounds, yes?” Doc kicked the back of Dedmond’s knee, grinning when he fell down at a stumble, still cradling his hand. Without further pretense, Doc grabbed him by the nape of his shirt and dragged him away, stomping out and into the hall.
“You should have said something,” I said before turning to face Noel, who watched the scene peel away.
“I did say. I told him not to touch me. You were the exception. I like your touch.” Noel migrated toward me and sidled into my lap, eyes focused on me in an almost-magnetic way. Strong thighs stretched my lap and before I could say another word, our mouths pressed in, tongues stroking one another’s. The wet heat of it had my cock perking up, and from the reciprocating bulge in Noel’s shorts, he too felt the same urgency.
Our tails wound together and a soft ahem broke the mood. Noel pulled away, nipping my lower lip as Sarge entered the room and took a seat. “No fucking in the deck. It’s one of the rules, remember?”
I groaned in mock protest and Noel slid from my lap to kneel by my feet once more, his posture and presence almost a work of art. I couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke his silken hair. Every pass of his gossamer locks over my thick digits made me want him that much more. “I recall something of the sort.”
“But Dedmond does have a sort of point. If you want Noel to join the crew, there has to be something they contribute to sweeten the pot. Doc won’t let them keep what he is a secret.” Sarge slouched into a nearby chair and Noel watched him expectantly. I slowed my touch and pulled my hand away, wondering what he would have to do.
He nodded, eyes casting down. “I consented to the donation.”
“Donation…” I mouthed the word as I stopped stroking his head. “Donating what?”
“I have a buyer lined up with another hybreed in his line. He needs a heart.” Doc slid over and sat on the console, making Merriel give a swear of reprise quietly in the background.
“No.” I found the thought disgusting. I couldn’t make myself think of it. “Not a chance.”
“I’ve done it several times before.” Noel shrugged. “I don—I don’t like it. I don’t want to but if I have to. It can be an option in the future, like when we really need money. I can… I can help.” He rubbed his shoulder, eyes unfocused. “I just need you. If I wake up and you’re there, and you do the thing and Doc does the medicine, I can get through it.”
Noel tucked his knees and folded his arms, shoulders tensing up and rounding over, the scales down his back shifting under his shirt as if his wings wanted to push free.
“I can’t make you do that, Noel. It’s not my place to make you do that.” I resumed my gentle touches.
Without looking at me, Noel scooted up to my leg again, resting his head in my lap. “If I am really free, then it’s my choice. I can choose to do this.”
“You’re choosing to upset me.” I couldn’t resist making him turn his face to look up at me.
Noel shook his head. “I’m choosing to restore your crew’s faith in you, so you have more time for me.”
I clenched my jaw, teeth creaking. “I still don’t like it.”
“Get over it. He made the call. If you decided to keep him, he gives up a heart. As long as they don’t harvest two at once, it should be golden. Just the one.” Doc nodded succinctly before pulling up a viewscreen from Merriel’s interface and tossing it up into our field of vision. A fat stack of numbers shone before us. “Sarge, make sure the crew sees this. That way, they can welcome our new member, Noel.”
I stared at Noel, who diverted his gaze from my own and swallowed hard. The prospect of it didn’t thrill him, but he’d made the offer of his own will. He’d dedicated the money to us. And still, he thanked me for our bond.
“So, who is it that’s wanting this heart?” I scowled at the numbers and documents before running across the name.
“Roan Canthem,” Doc said, the second I found the name, and every fiber of my being burned with hate. The whiny little rich bitch would stop at nothing until I had lost everything I cared about.