Is there a hickey on my neck? He couldn’t recall if Mike had left any visible marks. Wasn’t something he’d thought to pay any heed to. Maybe he was getting careless. Maybe part of him wanted to be caught, or at least show that he wasn’t interested—strictly speaking, he’d never been interested.
Maybe he should stop thinking.
The general turned and marched toward the barracks. Sergei handed the keys over to a soldier from the motor pool and followed. He’d have to report. Then he’d have to shave, shower, change and find a way to get Mike on the payroll without drawing attention.
As hot a commodity as translators were turning out to be, Sergei felt rather confident he could pull it off. Getting the man assigned to work with him, however, was another matter. Not strictly necessary, but preferable. He felt as if he was going into withdrawal as it was, just knowing he wouldn’t get to spend any time with the man.
The general fired off his questions in rapid succession, in a sharp tone Sergei was accustomed to. Half inquiry, mostly command. Tell me this, tell me that. Times like now, Sergei wondered why the brother general wasn’t with Interior Revision. Because that was pretty much how it felt.
Sergei’s stomach sank further the closer they got to their destination. He really didn’t want this. It would only be, what, ten minutes, but those would feel as long as the chatter about whichever shifting political landscape their host found important.
No doubt that useless noise would go on for the greater part of the evening, too, and it was still early in the afternoon. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t been chosen for officer training, but had been a grunt instead. Give me a plasma rifle and send me off into the nearest mountain pass to die with the rest of them. He’d at least have a fighting chance. Unlike now.
It went as Sergei expected it to. He sat and watched the sun setting behind the jagged line of the mountains, the moon rising to replace it. The distorted gibbous phase still gave off plenty of illumination, the shadows it cast drawing his attention. Single light source, solitary shadows. Nothing like back home.
Everything about this place was different. The officer was just the biggest difference.
The tension in his chest ratcheted another notch tighter when the pleasantries drew to a close and the brother general rose to his feet.
Sergei stood, too, nodded at a few pleasant words, but didn’t respond. He wondered what their host thought. Whether he knew. He didn’t want to think too much about it, or he’d keep second-guessing and driving himself insane. It wasn’t like he had any choice or say in the matter. He walked half a step behind the general up the stairs. He opened the door—always the same room—and locked it. As always.
“Why are you still standing there?” The general’s tone was curt, impatient, and Sergei blinked. The man’s gaze narrowed on him, from the doorway to the bedroom. “You know the drill. Strip. Bed.”
Sergei’s stomach tightened into a small, hard lead ball. He’d done it before, had done it often, at least two dozen times. Three. He hadn’t counted. And it would have been much worse if the officer had attempted any kind of friendliness. The man wanted one thing, and he’d likely get it. He lowered his gaze and began to undress. Thought, unbidden, of Mike sitting on the bed, already naked, watching him with a grin, one leg pulled close and supporting his elbow. He forced himself to breathe regularly.
“I’ve submitted my G12,” he said, casually. The request for permission to marry would entitle him to his own quarters, remove him from some kinds of duties. The officer would have to sign it—if he didn’t, it would look strange. Maybe that was the best way to go.
The brother general emitted a sound. “Way out here in the ass end of nowhere, and you want me to sign that?”
In the privacy of his room, such as it was, the officer had no qualms about relaxing his language. He stood there, the silver at his temples glinting in the moonlight, arms crossed, and watched Sergei disrobe. The dark gaze narrowed. “What reason could you possibly have for such spectacular timing. Meet a local woman while I was gone, perhaps.” They weren’t questions.
Sergei swallowed and didn’t answer. Instead he piled and folded the uniform, taking pride in the calm, efficient movements. He wouldn’t let him see he was nervous. “Civil duty,” he said. More soldiers, the stability of a family unit. The foundation of society. He didn’t meet the man’s eyes.
“Paperwork’s the furthest thing from my mind right now.” Linen rustled as the general shed his uniform, piece by piece. “Right now, your duty is to get on your knees in the bed.”
It wasn’t. Duty was within the confines of regulation. Regulation forbade this. Sergei got on the bed, everything revolting inside him, thoughts, emotions. He’d barely eaten, but even that was too much. He wanted to protest and find any excuse. Illness, something disgusting and infectious, but nothing came to mind, and that could get him disciplined for not reporting it earlier. He just had to get through this. Ten minutes. Maybe less if the officer really enjoyed it. Maybe he didn’t have much stamina. He lowered his head until his face touched the mattress. He didn’t want to see, or feel, anything.
The mattress dipped, the frame creaking faintly beneath the general’s weight as he moved onto the bed behind Sergei. His breathing was already rapid, erratic. The quick, insufficient swipe of oil against his flesh was all the warning Sergei got before the man was pushing in, breaching. Not as big as Mike. Sergei clenched his muscles, hoping, praying to gods he didn’t believe in that the officer wouldn’t notice anything different.
He kept tight and steady, ignoring everything else, focusing now on just getting through this. He’d done it before—it wasn’t so bad. If this was what he had to do, he’d do it. He resisted each thrust, grimacing into the darkness with the strength it cost him, comparing in his mind. But it was no comparison. He’d really, once, believed this was sex. It wasn’t. It might feel like sex for the general, but as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t. Nothing could be further from it, he thought with grim irony, keeping his breaths level as he pushed back.
The feel of flesh against his, of fingers suddenly encircling his throat, jolted him out of his mental state of emotional distance. When that grip tightened, beginning to constrict his airflow, the surge of panic was instantaneous.
The general’s pace increased, each thrust more forceful, the impact of his hips against Sergei’s ass harsh. His pulse quickened, hammering against the man’s fingers. It seemed to make the general’s grip clamp down even harder.
Panic raced through his brain like a rat in a burning cage, frantic with fear. What if he kills me? What if I don’t get enough air and end up nothing but a vegetable? Sergei struggled. Little he could do in this position, fiendish as it was, short of throwing the man off—and that would be a challenge he wasn’t sure he’d be able to back up. There was still fear. Insubordination. The man could cook something up. He moved faster, too, hoping the general got off before he passed out. Close race.
Struggled, writhing, a sick parody of—no, he couldn’t even go there. Not now, not like this. The general’s grip tightened further. Sergei’s vision began to tunnel, graying out along the edges. Just as he was certain he would black out in another moment, the man stiffened, thrust once more and finally reached orgasm. Pulling out to splatter his semen all over Sergei’s back, ass, thighs.
“There’s your G12,” the man snarled, rolling away to lie on his back, gaze on the ceiling. “Get out.”
Sergei got off the bed, feeling drops of come run down his skin. Panic turned to anger, fear, then disgust, all a violently rolling wall of unspeakable emotion inside him. At least it was over, at least there would be no more tonight, likely not tomorrow morning. But he’d still achieved nothing, only made it worse.
He took his clothes, shaking with rage, or maybe it was the aftermath of the strangling kicking his adrenaline into overdrive. He headed out, feeling the general’s disdain follow him. He made it into his own bedroom, had a shower and found himself crouching u
nder the water. Hurt. Scared.
He wouldn’t allow this again.
Grimacing, he forced himself to his feet. Using excessive force, chafing away a layer of skin in some places, he washed away every last trace of the officer’s touch. For good, this time. The soap burned the raw flesh of his abused ass, but he didn’t care. This wouldn’t happen again. It served well as a warning—it could have been so much worse.
Chapter Eleven
Mike had watched Sergei return to the Doctrine command building with the general. Watched, and waited. Saw the two leave again and, like every other venture into the native population, he tracked them easily enough. Took some video of the Doctrine general and the province leaders, finding the reactions of the local politicians intriguing. A few all but salivated at the prospect of what the Doctrine’s presence had to offer.
Others, though, were more reserved. Sat in silence, listened and contributed little over the course of the long evening. Doctrine Command still hadn’t worked out which group held responsibility for the rioting and massacre of the first garrison and its expedition force a while back. Maybe its leaders sat there sipping tea, saying nothing, planning the attack that would wipe out the current Doctrine presence.
Mike meticulously recorded each face for identification. He’d not seen a few of them at any previous engagement of this sort. He took note of Sergei’s tension as the dinner party drew to a close, and though it made his gut crawl with a bad feeling, he packed up his equipment and headed back across town. Just like he always did.
The general had just returned from being off-planet for the past ten days. The potential to find new and valuable intel in the Doctrine officer’s quarters was too high to squander.
The feeling in his gut didn’t go away, though. Mike dismissed it, pushed it away. Didn’t know what to do with it. Obviously Sergei wouldn’t be coming to look for him tonight, like he’d said he would. And that was fine. It gave him time to locate the general’s pad in the locked drawer of the desk. To hack in and copy the digital files—destination coordinates for forward operating bases that didn’t exist yet. Timetables for securing local regions, province by province, for the influx of mining operations.
Pat was going to absolutely love this. And this time? The intel was going straight from one CovOp to another. Oh, CovOps Command would receive the datastream uplink as well, and Herschel would get the datachips. But he wasn’t about to let his fellow CovOp drive into a brick wall just because Herschel gave him the wrong map.
After repairing his hack job and securing the general’s pad where he’d found it, Mike slipped back out the window. It bothered him that the clench of foreboding, that niggling sense of something bad happening, wouldn’t go away. He couldn’t shake it; it just got stronger every time he tried.
It was well into the early hours of the morning when Mike returned to the house he was using. Plain sun-bleached stone, unobtrusive, like every other native building in the area. How Herschel had acquired it, he wasn’t certain he wanted to know. Didn’t much matter. He approached the place from the south, working his way around the perimeter with methodical caution. That clenching in his gut drove him to it, an instinct he couldn’t explain or deny. So he just went with it. Checked every window, wide-open security nightmares that they were. Every door. No signs of forced entry to be seen.
But the feeling continued to hound him.
He stood alongside the door, back to the wall, and rested his head against the stone. Stared up at the night sky, counting the stars, all the rest of his senses focused on the house. Nothing but silence. The occasional chirp of an insect. He wondered, idly, what the pesky creatures ate.
Besides feasting on human flesh.
Mike eased the door of the house open, drew his sidearm from the holster along his ribs. Cleared the first floor of the two-story building one room at a time, thorough and tense. The hairs on the nape of his neck stood up as he approached the stone staircase curling up the interior wall to the second floor.
Then, a sound at the door, a rapping, knuckles on wood. Mike checked the outside area from one of the small windows to the side.
Sergei. Shaved neck, build, clearly him. Nobody else around that he could see, so he quickly holstered his weapon and opened the door. The Doctrine officer slipped inside and leaned against the wall.
“I’m…sorry for that, my superior changed plans.”
Mike hesitated, biting back a quip, chewing on his tongue. His gut was still pinging, nerves still edgy as all fuck. Eyes narrowing, he gave Sergei a quick once-over, head to foot, taking in details of a man he knew rather well. Or thought he did.
Skin was flushed. Abused, around the neck. Hard to tell in the play of light and shadow the moon created. Could just be his imagination.
Mike kept his voice low. “It’s all right. I kept myself busy. Had me worried, though.” He moved around him, pushed the door closed. Glanced back, noticed the tension, the faint tremble in the limbs. “Hey. You okay?”
“Had a rough night.” Sergei didn’t meet his eyes, instead seemed to check the room. “I’ll have to report in less than two hours. It’s just to say, I’ll be here after duty. Unless he’s keeping me in longer to fix something.”
“Can’t stay long, then.” Mike reached out, intending to hook his hand along the nape of Sergei’s neck, like he had a hundred times before—it felt like that much, at least—but caught the increased tension, the ill-suppressed flinch. Turned the gesture into a swipe over the man’s scalp, removing the uniform cap still perched there.
“No. Sadly not.” Sergei gave him a smile and relaxed a little. Just a few days ago, he’d have snatched the cap back, but there was more trust between them. “I’ll raise the translation issue today, so might be able to report completion when I return.”
Mike forced a grin, the thrill a great deal more subdued than it otherwise would’ve been. There was something wrong. “Rough night” could mean a thousand things. He didn’t want to push, though. Would rather find a way to help him forget it, if that’s what he wanted. He jerked his head in the direction of one of the rooms on the first floor. “Fully stocked liquor bar in there. Want a shot of something stiff?”
Sergei laughed. “You come in bottles?” Quirked eyebrow made him look like a remarkably short-shorn, young and attractive professor. “Yes, I’ll have something strong.”
Mike nodded, more to himself than the Doctrine officer. Amazingly relaxed, considering he was still clad in that armor of his. He led the way to the back of the house, into the study.
“Get comfortable, then,” he said, waving at the furniture huddled in a corner near the pair of large windows. Poured two generous shots of a dark liquid so densely alcoholic that the scent of it burned his nose and carried them over. Bottle in one hand, glasses in the other. There was a distinct possibility that searing the memory away might take more than four fingers of whatever the hell this stuff was.
Sergei settled on one of the couches, his jaw tight but half-hidden behind the glass. A deep gulp emptied most of the glass. Eyes watering, he had to clear his throat before he could speak. “That’s…about strong enough.” He blinked the moisture away. “How have you been?”
“Since you saw me yesterday?” Mike gave a lopsided grin and sat by Sergei, careful to give him a berth of space. Didn’t know why. Just seemed to be what the man needed. Gut feeling, and Mike didn’t ignore those—he learned that lesson years ago. Might push them away in favor of other things, but he didn’t ignore them. “Fine. Kept myself busy taking pictures of insects. Local flora and fauna, as scarce as it is. Riveting stuff, huh?” He set his untouched glass on the low table and uncapped the bottle long enough to refill Sergei’s glass. “Might help if you don’t chug it like water. I think.” Smiling, to take any bite from the words.
“And on an empty stomach,” Sergei added, good-naturedly. “What will you do when they…we take over? Will you join the Doctrine? Go home? Or go into exile?”
That was an interestin
g slip of the tongue. Mike frowned, hoping the expression looked introspective and thoughtful. “There are a few other planets with tribal systems similar to this one.” He grabbed his glass and leaned back into the couch, studying Sergei more closely. The moonlight through the windows was a little stronger here. “I can still finish my thesis. But I won’t stay. I can’t.” That much, at least, was honest.
Sergei drew a deep breath. “I understand.” He stared down at his glass, tension on his features betraying that he was keeping that impassive mask on despite himself. “I think I’ll get married when I get back home. Submitted the paperwork a while ago, looks like it might come through.” He frowned, half-thoughtful, half…was that anger?
Mike didn’t know what it was, exactly, that slammed into his chest, but he couldn’t inhale. Not if his life had depended on it. Sergei probably could’ve slit his throat and he wouldn’t have even flinched. Finally, he managed to clear his throat, take a long swig of alcohol. Which made him cough, made his eyes water, just as it had done to Sergei a few minutes earlier. Mike took a deep breath, licked the residue of alcohol from his lips. “Is that what you want? To get married? Have a house, like this one, full of squalling brats?”
“I’m the eighth of ten. It’s not so bad.” Sergei smiled. “Part of my duties to the state. I’ve done worse because it was ordered or desired. Few other choices.”
It came out wrong. There was nothing bad about children, family. Hell, he had very fond memories of his own. But gods, the man looked so young. “Duty.” Mike grunted. Duty was nothing but a cage. He sure as hell didn’t serve in the Alliance CovOps out of any sense of duty. “There’s always a choice. And don’t stick that Doctrine mask on again, or I’ll strip you out of that uniform and make you forget who you are.” He tacked a grin onto the end of that threat and winked.
Sergei gave him a long, thoughtful look. “You don’t. You make me forget who I’m not.” He drained the last bit of the alcohol and reached for Mike’s neck, pulling him close for a kiss. “It’s hard to know a truth when you’ve never encountered one.”
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