by Jamie Petit
Merrick only nodded. “I’m sorry.”
A strange, sudden vulnerability was on Canthor’s face. A sort of expression that seemed learned from whatever time he’d spent with humanity. He unfolded one of his legs, placing his foot in front of him and leaned forward.
Merrick’s lips parted as if a protest were about to burst forth, but it was silenced as Canthor’s own twin protrusions landed softly there.
Merrick’s eyes fluttered and closed. He fell into the kiss.
In that moment there was no surprise. No curiosity. No confusion. Only solemn desire.
Everything worked with elegant precision in the first few turns of that kiss. It was overwhelming. Merrick had nothing but passion to give, stored away in some deep well within him. Starvation, violence, dreadful boredom—it all made for one compact explosive that erupted at that first spark.
Merrick was lost in that warm, wet kiss, Canthor’s tongue massaging against his inside his mouth. His own arms were too weak to do much, but Canthor held him gingerly, yet tenderly.
Perhaps Canthor had made some gesture towards something further—did his hands inch lower?—perhaps it had just been the nature of such an explosion to be fast and then simmer pensively—regardless, Merrick’s mind cleared and memories came like a winter waterfall into him. Canthor’s stories had awoken them. Love. Lost love.
How could he be kissing another man? What would… what would he say?
He’d probably encourage it. Especially if not for the violence. He’d probably be relieved. After all this time, finally, someone to care for Merrick.
Still, it was too much. He was filled with thoughts of his lover, long gone, the steel and fire, red and orange, mottled scars he held on his hands and arms this very day. That last kiss. And the kiss that should have been their last. A spark brought Canthor’s lips to his, but flame had kept those first, fresh lips of his young PFC lover from him.
Merrick didn’t mean to—it was utterly unconscious—but he withdrew. His body tensed and arched, his whole self becoming a sort of concavity for despair to fill. His lips pulled away.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Canthor
Erupting erupted from the cell, he threw the door shut behind him. The guard outside jumped, startled, and almost went to say something, but a single bark from Canthor was enough to make him scurry off like a frightened animal.
He roared into the night, drawing deep from his primal self an ancestral rage that tore through his throat. How could he have been so stupid? To open himself up? To reveal his past? To explain himself to a… a krathrn’hujk’gakm! He spit that word at the door, saying it low so no one would hear. He hadn’t thought such a nasty swear in many years, much less spoken one out loud. But now seemed the perfect moment for it. And he meant every syllable.
He stormed out to the campfire where the rest of his crew was sitting around. No one looked up.
He marched over to a tent set up on the far side of camp and when he emerged he had Tyllrn grasped in two hand, the hefty, worn blade heaving against his muscles.
One man ventured to ask, “Sir, is it time?”
“I’ll tell you when it’s time,” growled Canthor, swinging the blade around to point at the fool. “Not a one of you is to set a single pace beyond your seats until I return. Piss in the fire for all I care.”
He hefted Tyllrn up and rested the broad side against his shoulder, and marched back to Merrick’s cell.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Merrick
Merrick had never seen a weapon like Tyllrn before. Even the impressively powerful Canthor sagged under its weight, the chipped blade drawing beads of blood where it rested against his bare shoulders.
He should have been afraid. Anyone who could have imagined what was in Canthor’s mind that moment would have been. Anyone sane. But Merrick had lost his mind to a brutal mixture of griefs. There was the grief of remembering his lover. There was the grief of having hurt Canthor.
He had never told anyone about Sean. Hell, he’d managed to avoid thinking about him for years. He’d been a depressed mess for months after… what had happened, but when his superiors told him he was close to destroying his career, he’d vowed to block Sean from his mind. It had worked—mostly.
He figured that Canthor hadn’t likely ever told anyone about his own tragedy on Earth. It was only fair that Merrick share his own loss. Perhaps they could heal together. Or perhaps Canthor would strike him down regardless. Still, it was right.
“I lost someone too,” Merrick said.
Canthor came a sword’s length away and stopped.
“He was beautiful. Human. Very human.” Merrick paused for a deep breath before continuing. “We were friends for a long time. I don’t really remember when that changed. I don’t think either of us ever noticed it happening. We were simply friends and then one day we were more.
“I was a few years older. And maybe a little wiser. I was through officer school as quick as one could go. Made Lieutenant by the time Sean—that was his name—joined. We had to keep things pretty under wraps. Still, we were kind of stupid about how we handled things.” Merrick managed a smile at a memory. “But we had some things going for us. I was working the Jupiter system. At the time it was one of the most remote locations, which meant things were a little lax. You could get away with a lot. So I had Sean transferred immediately to my crew when he finished training around Earth.
“Of course, Jupiter was where the first real, serious rebellions against Earth control began. And, especially back then, fighting in any environment that wasn’t Earth was beyond dangerous. Battles were less about killing your enemy than about seeing whose fleet would simply break down first.
“But I didn’t care, and he didn’t know any better. That first night we saw each other after months apart… I don’t think I’d ever been happier. I had to practically become a bodhisattva when he first walked onto the command deck with the other recruits. All I wanted was to run over and gather him into my arms. I wanted to smile at least. But I kept it together. That night I snuck him into my room and… well, you know.
“The next day I wanted to make sure he’d be able to go on patrols with me so I could share the beauty of the planetary system with him. I got him set up with my squad. I couldn’t swing enough influence to get him in my actual ship with me, but he’d be flying alongside. That was good enough for his first full day.
“I mean, you probably know where this is going.” Merrick took a deep breath and turned his head to the side, a look like steel falling over his eyes. “We were ambushed by miner separatists. They had anti-aircraft artillery camouflaged in the detritus from their excavations. Two ships went down fast. Barely had a chance to realize we were under attack before they were just dead. Sean, however, was in good hands. They strafed as Sean aimed the ship’s guns at the surface and just… just fuckin’ chewed up those bastards. We were low enough, and his shots were good enough, that you could see the blood mixed into the dust.
“They didn’t get ‘em all though. And all it takes is one shot. One lucky shot into the engines as they shifted intake. Ripped the machine’s guts apart. Blew the fuel lines, which reached out along to the thrusters. Fell like a rock.
“Orders were to never set down until you could fully secure the area. I didn’t care. I dropped us down to the crash site, my gunner yelling at me the whole way. Hell, there’s a good reason they don’t want lovers fighting on the same team. You do stupid shit like that. Put everyone at risk.
“I set us down near the wreckage and ran over. I saw the cabin was filled with smoke. Pulled out my pistol, blew a hole in th windshield. Kicked in the rest. Pulled the glass out. The pilot was long dead. Head like a cracked cantaloupe. And… Sean… Sean behind, face grimy from the smoke, choking, coughing. And through his chest a pipe, thick around as your wrist. I remember seeing blood pulsing through the wound.
“I was calm. At first. Really, truly, remarkably calm
. Not thinking, not logical. Just, calm. I took out my cutter, set the plasma at the highest setting and tried to cut him free. But those cutters were meant for ordinary metals and organic material. Not the over-engineered parts meant for a high performance aero-astro vehicle. And I knew. I knew before I started cutting that nothing would happen. I knew before I grabbed the cutters that he was dead already. That pulsing blood was deep red, arterial.
“My gunner was shouting something at me. I remember noting the gunfire behind me. I remember seeing Sean’s lips moving. But I didn’t register a bit of it. I knew what they were on to. Even if the wound wasn’t fatal—even if the pipe could be cut—the separatists were right on us, there were only two seats in the ship, Sean’s suit could never be pressurized to get him to the orbital med bay. He was there, breathing beneath me, but he was dead all the same.
“The worst part is that I can’t remember any of it except the image of him bleeding out. I don’t remember what he said. I don’t know what I said. I assume I said something. But I don’t know if it was comforting or panicked. All that calm started evaporating when I realized how hopeless it was. That he was dead, and it was my fault. I’d inspired him to join the UNAC, I’d gotten him transfered to the Jupiter system, I got him signed to my patrol crew. And there are his eyes.
“His eyes. Staring at me out of pools of memory. Eyes pleading, begging for help. Needing something I couldn’t give. I killed him. The one man I’d truly loved, and I killed him.”
There was long silence. Merrick cried with a passive face, tears pouring out in steady streams.
“I haven’t touched another man since then. I didn’t think I’d ever be able to feel anything for anyone ever again. And I was right. Right up until just before. When we kissed, it was wonderful. But it also reminded me of what I lost. What we both lost. I… needed a moment. But… but I do want you, Canthor. We understand things about each other.” Merrick pushed himself to his feet. A bit of water, a bit of bread, and deep emotion fueling him. He put his hands on Canthor’s chest, leaned up, and kissed him.
Neither one of them pulled away. And Tyllrn fell.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Canthor
For a moment, Canthor stood there gawping, bottom lip drooping wordlessly as Merrick’s mouth seized searingly upon it.
Then he broke—all of him, all of the tension, the terror, the rage, the aching—like a swelling tide against a rice-paper dam. Like morning’s frost under rising sun. Like the flower of hate he’d so long tended at last wilted.
He lost all form in that kiss. The was no beginning or end to his heart, to his thoughts. He merely washed out as a sea of need upon Merrick’s waiting shores. There was nothing left of Wynmere in him, only stardust made mortal clinging to its forgotten self.
His lips closed around Merrick’s. His arms too. Then it was as if his whole body cocooned this strange love and brought it to the floor. Merrick’s body was slight beneath him, worn down from days of neglect. Canthor rolled onto his back, the dusty stone floor chill against his sweat. He pulled Merrick on top of him and ran his lips over his neck, tasting flesh mingled with the bitter tang of torture—blood and dirt and days old sweat.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I know.”
He wanted to say more. He wanted to make his penitence manifest… but all he had was another hushed, “I’m so sorry.”
“You followed your honor. Your truth.” Merrick pulled his head away, stretching out of reach until Canthor would finally look at him. “You’re good. I believe this.”
His strong arms traveled over every inch of Merrick, gliding and clutching. “What am I doing?”
Merrick breathed out a laugh. “I’m not sure, but I like it.”
“Human. This can’t be.”
“And yet…”
Canthor’s teeth dug into tender throat, pulling a pleasured gasp from Merrick. “No. I despise you.”
“Awful lot of despising you’re doing,” he moaned. “And yet you haven’t exactly torn out my carotid.”
“I could,” he growled.
“You could.” Merrick bent in and took his own nibble of his partner’s neck. “Then again, so could—”
“Hardly. Human teeth could never—”
Merrick bit down past teasing and muttered, “Want to try that theory?”
Canthor couldn’t help smiling against Merrick, and they both knew it. Their lips met again.
The heat between them grew and Merrick snaked a hand down over his lover’s chest and abs—shivering at their impossible hardness, like marble—over his hips to his growing member.
Canthor gasped and thrust against Merrick’s hand. He reached out and grabbed Merrick too, clasping both of their hardness in a single palm, letting them slide against each other. He marveled at the sight. It was so tender and soft and firm. Like his own. The color was different, but it was so clearly of the same function, a service to the same primal need.
And yet, at the end of the day, they were different. And their needs stemmed from somewhere else. Whatever Merrick felt, it was… rational, in a way. It had a source. Canthor was subject to his strange biology, the biology that drew Wynmerians to a mate against the will of any conscious thought. It was an incessant urge, one that couldn’t be ignored, one that could kill you if pushed it too hard aside.
All this Canthor knew, and yet he couldn’t help thinking that perhaps his biology has chosen correctly. Merrick felt so incredibly good against him. His body felt good. His words felt good. Even the curl and twist of his life’s story seemed to fit.
What Canthor wanted in that moment was to lift Merrick and sit him right down, sink into his body, fill him up, feel him surrounding, warm, pulsing. He wanted to release his Alpha life-force into the core of the man above him and create something new and wonderful.
Merrick must have noticed the shift in demeanor. “What do you want?” There was tenderness and suggestion and force and heat in those words, all burning as one.
“I want…” This felt like the hardest question Canthor had ever had to answer. “You.” Part of him didn’t really believe it. Part of him was still pulling back. But just a part. The rest of him couldn’t hold out any longer.
Hearing more of what he wanted seemed to embolden Merrick who smirked and narrowed his eyes. “What. Do. You. Want?”
Holy hell. Was Canthor blushing? He hoped not, especially knowing how much more obvious it was on Wynmerian skin than on humans. “I want to… dammit, you know what I want.”
“You’ve put me through a lot these past few days. You’ll survive this.”
“I want to feel you.” Oh, he was definitely blushing now. This damn human…
“How?”
“You’re pushing your luck.”
Merrick’s smirk pursed tighter. He was enjoying this too much. “You can always take me to the chopping block now,” he said and paused, “Or,” and lifted his hips up, letting Canthor’s cock drag along his own until it tickled along the underside and crept closer to where they both knew this was going. “Or you can tell me what you really want.”
“Do it,” Canthor growled. “Let me feel you. I want to be inside of you.”
“You know what that does, right?”
Canthor’s blood went a little cold. “Yes.”
“It’s a big thing to do. We’ll be paired.And if you finish—if you do what mates are meant to do—then there’ll be no going back.”
“I know this.”
“You’ll have to protect me.”
“Yes.”
“Or die yourself.”
“Hir-vaht-las’yek. As sure as the suns set.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Hor-vaht-las’yek. As sure as the suns rise.”
“Then I’m yours.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Merrick
This was hardly the turn of events he’d expected at any point since he set foot on Wynmere. Not since he’d met up with
Andax, nor since he was captured by Canthor. Not since he’d seen that great blade join the room, perched on Canthor’s shoulder. Wynmerian pairing was no joke. How’d he go from execution row to lover in such a short time? And why had their bodies chosen each other? Madness.
Wonderful madness.
A shock ran up through Merrick’s core as Canthor’s warm cock pressed against the entrance to his body. He felt the moisture of the incredible Wynmerian appendage beginning its sexual process. It released a coating that was one part lubricant and one part muscle relaxant. Merrick’s body welcomed Canthor with more ease and comfort than he’d ever taken anyone back on Earth.
His mind didn’t know where to go. It was caught, pulled in three separate ways. First in pleasure, which set a warm fog over everything. Then in bewilderment—he couldn’t forget what Canthor had done to him, though now he understood more of it. And last in love—a love he could only half understand, but was giving himself over to entirely.
He’d gone so long without this. Without someone to entrust his body to. Without someone to make him feel wanted. Without someone thrusting inside of him, giving him pleasure and taking it in return. Without the moans of a lover beneath him. Without being filled by flesh he so desired.
The heat of their passion overruled the chill and dank of the chamber, sweat beading up fast on their skin, sliding between them, pooling in the creases where their muscles met and rolled. He dug his fingers into Canthor’s shoulders, leveraging himself down as deep as he could take the alien’s beastly appendage. Then pulled himself up, letting the whole slide to the precipice and tease them both.
Every inch was his. God, he’d forgotten how good it could feel. Just on the carnal level, feeling that pulsing, throbbing, hotness inside him—he swung his hips down, gasping at the shock of being filled so fast and hard, the clap of their bodies echoing briefly against the walls. Yes, it was good. Canthor seized against him, his cock growing harder, smoother, hotter, pulsing more intensely.