Chapter 2
YIRI
Bruukto Shek could go fuck himself.
Better yet, the blue cekets in the bay could fuck up his gutted corpse when I threw him overboard.
“We want a suitable match before the season ends,” Bruukto said. “Send me your offer, but make it good. She is my only daughter, after all.”
Zacal’s eyes fell on me for a brief moment before he nodded. “Of course,” he said. “Daughters don’t drop out of the sky, do they?”
Their conversation continued as Zacal escorted Bruukto to the deck, but I remained at the table, having no interest in kissing Bruukto’s ass. An alliance with the Cendaquans was invaluable, but I knew what was coming, and I couldn’t stomach it.
D'vinda, Bruukto’s precious daughter, the darling of Cendaqua, was a murderess and a faithless liar. If she were male, she would have been reviled for what she did to Rava. But she was female, and so all her sins were forgiven as long as she was willing to spread her legs for the right male.
“Don’t look so glum,” Evik said, clapping my shoulder. “You’re about to be a mated male.”
“I’d kill you if it wasn’t so much trouble,” I muttered, making my cousin laugh.
“Zacal might thank you.”
I grunted, leaning back and kicking my feet up on the table. “Got any sellah, kid?”
Evik pulled a small bundle out of his jacket and rolled it out on the table. “I’ve got some good shit from Nioria,” he said. “Works fast, lasts all night. It’s a smooth ride.”
I flicked my fingers, giving him the go-ahead to prep some for me.
He babbled about the suppliers he was in contact with up and down the Eissoi Coast, and the various strains of sellah they were cultivating.
The kid was a genius with the stuff. If he could stay off it long enough to convince his father of his intelligence, that would be something. Maybe someday.
Evik passed me a slim cartridge, and I held it near my mouth for my first inhale. It tasted sweet, like eslu steaks.
“What’d you think?”
I looked at him with a squinty eye. “I think I need some to take home.”
He bounced his fist on the tabletop in appreciation. “I’ll tell you what’s good,” he said. “Half tik of this sellah, and some really filthy human breeding recs on the holo-core.”
“Aren’t you too young for that?” He wasn’t, but I had to get my jabs in where I could.
“Nah, but you might be too old,” he said, stroking his hairless chin. “Better do a heart scan first. The sellah’s good medicine, but I wouldn’t kick back for the porn unless you’ve got at least a fifty percent rating on the crusty old rock in your chest.”
“Worry about your own health,” I groused, taking another hit of sellah. It was good shit, I had to give it to him.
“Oh, good,” Zacal said, striding back into the room. “My son and my lieutenant, getting high after an important meeting. Just what I hoped for.”
“You want me high for this,” I said, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You’re about to piss me off.”
“So what if I am?” He glared down at me, grasping the back of his chair. “Pisssed off, I can deal with, as long as you do as you’re told.”
I breathed the sweet sellah deep into my chest like sacred incense, praying for patience with my uncle.
“I won’t mate with that murdering ga’ad.”
“We need this alliance,” Zacal said, baring his teeth. “You’re my second in command, and unmated. I can’t pass her off to anyone else. Bruukto won’t allow it.”
“He said it has to be me?”
He slashed a hand through the air. “He didn’t have to. You know how this works. It would be an insult to you if I gave her to another, and an insult to her if I didn’t promote them to your position. It must be my most senior, unmated soldier.”
“Oh yeah,” Evik chuckled, sucking on his own cartridge of sellah. “You’re definitely most senior, Yiri.”
“Let Evik deal with her,” I said. “It will be good for him. He’ll have to stay sober enough to avoid the knives she’ll try to put in his back.”
Zacal sighed. “Evik isn’t ready for a mate.”
“What?” the kid sat upright, hands braced on the table. “I’m ready. I’d be a damned good mate. I’ve had lots of practice.”
“Holo-core projections are a far cry from the real thing,” Zacal said. Asshole beat me to it.
“I’ve had more than my fair share of females,” Evik insisted.
“A kiss on the cheek from Della doesn’t count,” I teased him. Zacal cracked a smile at his son’s expense.
“Give me a mate. I’ll satisfy her and fill the roster with soldiers!
” My young cousin was incensed, and I couldn’t blame him.
At his age, I was just as eager. But that was before I met D'vinda Shek, the honorless female who lied and cheated her way into my brother’s heart, and then left him dead in a Cendaquan gutter.
“Give the kid a chance,” I said, not all that hopeful Zacal would heed my advice. “If he survives her, he can be your heir.”
My uncle rolled his eyes. “He’ll be your heir. But fine.”
“Fine?” I blinked.
Evik bolted to his feet. “Fine?”
Zacal pointed at me. “Find a mate. Immediately. Make Evik next in line, and I can offer him for D'vinda.”
“Aw, fuck.” Evik slumped back into his seat. “I have feelings, Dad. Why do you get my hopes up like that?”
“I mean it,” Zacal said. “Move quickly. Find a mate.”
“This guy?” Evik complained. “He thinks we hatch from eggs on the beach.”
“Your word,” I asked, “If I find a mate?”
“I’ll hand D’vinda to Evik.” Zacal fixed me with a distrustful glare. “A fertile mate, Yiri. Don’t bring home a widowed grandmother from the docks. I expect offspring.”
“Fine.”
“Where are you going to find a mate?” Evik demanded, somewhere between excitement and anger. “If it were that easy, you’d already have one.”
“I’ll worry about where to find her,” I said. “You worry about your self-defense skills. Might want to train up before the ceremony.”
Back on my own cruiser, I settled in for the search. It was tempting to keep sucking down sellah, but I needed a clear head for this.
I don’t look down on anyone who finds their mate through Bion Marriage Match, but I never thought I would be that guy.
What kind of crazy human woman would want to leave the comfort of her home world to be part of mine?
Then again, I’m not a good guy, but the powerful Venasteans I work for have paid a lot of credits to make sure I look good on the surface.
I’m not lacking power, money, or infamy, but my adulthood has been devoted to crime, violence, and brutality.
Not the kind of stuff you can put on your BMM profile, and lying about the life I lead to a female I plan to claim as mine has never appealed to me.
Growing up in a planetary system with rapidly declining female birth rates teaches a male not to get his hopes up, so I haven’t spent that much time thinking about finding a mate.
But one thing I’ve always known is any female who chooses me has to choose all of me.
There’s no walking away from this life. I can keep a female safe, but only if she trusts me and can stand at my side with her head held high.
Hard enough to find in person, but over the nexus?
Not possible. I wouldn’t even try if Zacal hadn’t forced my hand.
So there I was, uploading a bullshit profile with an image of myself a good five circuits younger, with a few less scars and a lot less body art.
I would have touched it up, removing the art and scars I did have back then, completely if I could.
I’ve heard that not all human women like body art.
But BMM doesn’t allow altered images. I’m surprised my old image was accepted, but after a face scan, I guess the system deemed it a close enough match.
Logging in for the first time is like being slapped in the face with a repressed Ibarutan wet dream.
The pious little moon would be scandalized by the endless stream of females, many of them in little clothing.
By Venastean standards, it was tame, and from what I’d gathered from the steady feed of data coming to us from Earth’s primitive nexus, it was conservative by their standards, too.
Human women were bold, sexual creatures.
The data showed that females slightly outnumbered the males on Earth, but the disparity was nothing like what we were experiencing in Bion 8KV.
Daernir females had their pick of males, most of them taking their time to choose wisely.
Human females seemed nearly as frantic in their search for mates as daernir males.
Until now, I hadn’t wondered why. Were human males unable to satisfy their female partners?
Whatever the reason, there were tens of thousands of human women vying for mates in our planetary system.
I did the required reading about Earth’s mating customs and passed the exam, and then answered a few questions about my preferences so an appropriate algorithm could be calibrated.
How old would I like my mate to be in Venastean years?
Anywhere from thirty-five to fifty. I wanted an adult, not some silly young thing.
But still young enough that we could wait to have children.
Zacal wanted me to produce heirs immediately, but if I had to take a mate in a hurry, I’d at least like to have her to myself for a while.
I saw no reason to knock the woman up as soon as she landed in Covara.
I made a mental note to re-dose my birth control through a black market health tech.
Zacal wasn’t above snooping in my files if he thought I wasn’t doing my duty to the family.