Smuggler’s Contubernium (Mea Lupus Series Book 1)

by Kahaula

  “Who is—,” Gaius’s question was lost as Quintillus interjected quickly.

  “I meant more local corruption,” His thoughts now seemed hurried, “I don’t think she’s in any immediate danger from our investigations of the Ferryman.”

  “You’re sure she’s not in danger?” Oli asked.

  “She better not be because of you,” grumbled Conchobhar.

  “I would never put her at risk!” Rebuked Quintillus.

  “WHO. IS. KARA,” Gaius angrily interrupted our back and forth.

  “Captain Kara of the Lyre, late 30s, human, Mortal, captains her own small transport ship,” Adohi methodically listed off her information like a calming mantra, “Home planet unknown, family unknown, past also unknown. Possible lead to the notorious smuggler and murderer known as the Ferryman.”

  Silence.

  “Is she a suspect?” I felt all of our hackles rise at Gaius’s very routine question.

  “What? No,” Quintillus’s quick and shocked reply showed just how deeply he felt for Kara. If I were being honest with myself, I would have replied the same.

  “For the love of the Divine Couple, Quintillus! We barely know anything about her,” Adohi’s exasperation over not finding his true target now refocused on Kara. I cringed inside knowing that while this trait made him a tenacious tracker, it sometimes led to his ire being misplaced. “Just because you’re sleeping with her doesn’t mean she’s who she says she is!”

  “Oh, fuck off Adohi. We all know you’re just as jealous as the rest of us,” Conchobhar’s dismissive words made Oli snort and laugh out loud. Adohi only got angrier. If Conchobhar had been in the room and not in the gym I’m sure this would have started another fight.

  “Send over her information and we’ll take a look at it,” Gaius’s exhausted mental sigh caught all our attention. It was the middle of the day here on Castra 3. We hadn’t even thought to ask what time it must be on Nova Roma. “Either way I don’t like this infighting. If you’re all so enthralled by one woman than, by all means, enjoy. Take it as a practice trial for when we have our mate to share.”

  Gaius’s parting words were a double edged sword. In one slice it cleaved us from our jealousy and encouraged us to pursue Kara honestly, together. It also cut deep into the soul crushing loneliness that we all fought against every day, exposing an already gaping wound. Whatever Kara had inspired in us may well be the closest we would ever get to having a mate in our very long lives.

  Pollux

  The bright screen next to my bed lit up the room and stabbed me in the eyes. Adohi and Oli’s little tussle, resulting in Gaius linking us all up, had interrupted some much needed sleep. It was damn near midnight and I could have murdered Adohi for sending the woman’s data packet so promptly.

  Captain Kara, I thought slyly, at least I got to see the beautiful face that’s leashed my pack mates so well. I didn’t think she was classically beautiful. Her dark hair in its many braids pulled her face tight. It left no softness. The planes of her face were best described the same way one would a sword. Sharpe edged, steady, and regal. Her eyes, like a magnet, kept me returning to her face every time I tried to look down at the attached information. Sparse information at that.

  Adohi really hadn’t been exaggerating when he said they knew nothing about her. But was that really so uncommon on the frontier? From what I could see she was doing well for herself. She owned her own ship. She didn’t have the hassle of a crew. She took what jobs if and when she wanted. She was beholden to no one but herself. I envied her.

  Sighing wistfully I took one last look at her dark and all too knowing eyes. I needed to get whatever sleep I could. The past month here in New Rome had not been an easy one. I smashed my face into my pillow just thinking about tomorrow’s agenda.

  I couldn’t make myself leave. I wanted her all night to myself. All day I had thought about her slick thighs and smooth hips. I wanted to kiss every scar and nick on her body, replace those reminders with my tongue. Compassion. I smiled as I kissed her senseless, making her laugh against my lips. Affection. Warmth. Kara smelled like perfection. She tasted like home. Impatience. Desire. YEARNING.

  Now I was here. I lapped up every drop of her I could get. I was dizzy with the lack of oxygen, and pulled back only to nip at her inner thigh playfully.

  “More!” She cried out. Lust. Longing. Hunger.

  The tips of my fingers became thicker as my claws came out. Her moans and commands set me off. Every. Single. Time. I returned to her warmth, her heat radiating between her scarred thighs. Sucking and rolling her clit between my lips I felt her hips buck. Divine Couple! The taste of Kara was unlike anything I had ever known. Adoration. Worship.

  She ripped my head from the source of the ambrosia dripping down my chin. She kissed and nipped my lips. I knew she loved the taste of herself on me. She tipped me onto my back and pulled back from our kiss. Amusement. Joy.

  Straddling my hips she sank down on my waiting cock. Playfulness. Happiness. Mischief. Kara rolled her hips, swirling and snapping. Disbelief. Shock. Pleasure. I cried out at how good she felt. I gripped her hips and slammed her down on me. Pleasure. Pleasure. Longing.

  Kara leaned back and braced herself on my thighs. We fell into a punishing rhythm. She clenched hard and pulled up, I slammed her back down as I impaled her from below. Pleasure. Lust. Worship. Lust. PLEASURE. PLEASURE. Kara screamed. ECSTASY.

  Her climax demanded my own to join her. I felt my cum fill her and drip down on us both. Her pleasure drunk eyes and soft whimpers touched something deep inside me. Awe. Love. Hope. I pulled her down into my waiting arms, kissing Kara’s damp hair. Contentment. Safe. Loved.

  I needed more. I would always need more.

  I sat up abruptly in my bed and licked my lips. The phantom taste of Kara lingered on in my mind.

  “Fuck,” I was breathing heavily, as oxygen starved as Quintillus had been when he was feasting on Kara’s delicious pussy. I shook my head, squeezing my eyes closed then open. Sometimes when Gaius held the telepathic link open for too long, and when there was too much chatter for him to corral, other thoughts would bleed through. Errant thoughts and memories added to each other’s minds were usually the result.

  Quintillus was truly falling for this woman hard if, he of all people, couldn’t keep his thoughts focused during a pack link up. As our empath he knew how important it was to not let his abilities cross any lines without permission. Worse, his accidentally shared memory was saturated with his and Kara’s empathic information as well. Each emotion both her’s and his were like shockwaves. He wasn’t just sleeping with her, he was hopelessly enamoured with her.

  I dropped back to bed and stared up at the ceiling. My cock was rock hard and ready to plunge into Kara’s demanding pussy. I waited for it to abate, reminding myself that I knew nothing about the woman. I also reminded myself that those were Quintillus’s memories and not my own.

  My cock didn’t care. It wanted relief.

  I groaned. Every small movement only teased my cock as it tented and pushed against the soft sheets. I threw them back and walked into the bathroom. I was not about to make a mess at Gaius’s parents’ villa.

  I leaned against the cool tiled wall and saw my own face reflected in the mirror across from me. My skin was flushed and my muscles were bulging and contracting with strain. Would I look like this if it had been me with Kara instead? In the darkness, I pictured Kara’s face and let myself replay the memory that had woken me up. It was my mouth licking and sucking her swollen clit. It was my cock she sank herself on ever so slowly.

  My pace increased and my fist tightened around my cock. I felt my muscles thrum in my lower stomach and thighs. My breathing became laboured as I pictured her thighs slamming down on mine. Thoughts of Kara’s hips rolling as she bent backwards in ecstasy, a scream ripped from her throat, sent me over the edge.

  I slammed my head back against the wall and held my hand over my tip as I came. Aftershocks shot through me and I fe
lt my own cum continue to spill out and drip past my clenching fist down to my balls. My body shook as I took in deep calming breaths. If this is what a small taste of Quintillus’s memories were like, I couldn’t begin to imagine what Kara felt like in reality.

  I envied my pack mates back on Castra 3. I would be much more careful than Quintillus, but not in denial like Adohi. With thoughts of the mystery woman still in my mind I washed up and went back to bed. Feeling much more sated than I had in years, I slipped peacefully into dreams.

  “Brother!” The loud shout near my ear was followed by laughter. Sunlight streamed in through the windows and the dawn’s chill didn’t do my hard cock any favours.

  “Kastur, what are you doing in my room? My alarm works just fine,” I said grumpily. I rubbed my hands on my face.

  “I wanted to see if you got hit with the same memory I did,” his voice was full of mischief but his eyes were serious. Kastur had a way of hiding in plain sight. His antics painted him as the lovable goofball giant, but anyone who really knew him, knew he was so much more than that. Kastur would say the same about me I’m sure. I was the known serious twin, after all.

  “Depends,” I sat up in bed and leaned back against the stone wall that served as a headboard, “What was your memory about?”

  “The woman all the rest of them are so hung up on,” Kastur wagged his eyebrows before he got a confused look on his face, “What’s weird though is that it seemed a bit... fuzzy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Like it was more a dream memory?” His brow furrowed in confusion and thought, “Everything was really soft and my sense of taste and smell were off the charts. Divine Couple, her taste!” Kastur did a full body shudder and adjusted his cock under his tunic.

  “Sexual memories are intense—“

  “Sex? Aww man, no fair!” He complained and threw up his hands as if to ask the Gods why him. “As mindblowing as the memory I got was, it was just Quintillus going down on Kara! You got a full sex memory? That’s some bullshit right there.” He pouted.

  “Yes, well it was also overloaded with Quintillus’s empathic information and Kara’s,” I shook my head, chiding Quintillus from here.

  “Oh. Wow,” Kastur’s eyebrows climbed up to his hairline.

  “Yeah.” I said softly.

  “Is he...,” my brother trailed off. I don’t think either one of us wanted the answer to that but now that he asked I wouldn’t be able to not answer.

  “He’s in love with her.”

  “Shit.”

  “Shit is right. And so is Adohi,” I got up and walked into the bathroom. Kastur wouldn’t care if I pissed and got ready while we talked. “The information packet he sent over—“

  “What information? There’s barely anything there that couldn’t be summed up in 3 sentences or less,” Kastur snorted. “No wonder he’s so bent out of shape. First the Ferryman and now Kara.”

  “And we’re stuck here for at least another 3 months doing our 10 year reports,” I walked out and began putting on my matching uniform to Kastur. We liked wearing the same clothes to throw people off as to who was who. It made for great intel gathering. This time it wouldn’t be on purpose. Gaius, Kastur, and I would be in our Mea Lupus Senate appropriate uniform.

  While I didn’t relish not wearing my Mea Lupus tech suit there was no way I could get away with wearing it without just cause. Only those on active duty here in the capital could wear their tech suit. All others had to be in their civilian clothing or duty appropriate clothing. It was an old tradition that would make each Mea Lupus easily identifiable on the spot should we be needed.

  The only modern allowance made was our tech suit’s detachable gauntlets. Even those in the Mea Lupus Legion just visiting family or on vacation would wear their gauntlets. They were our communication links to our packs, the Mea Lupus Legion, the Mea Lupus Assembly, the Senate, and our own personal device. Though Kastur seemed to love watching cat recordings more than anything on his.

  We left my room and spoke no more about what was conspiring on Castra 3. We had a full schedule, our pack mates would just have to work things out for themselves. We entered the family eating room to the laughter of Calpurnia and Gaius’s mother, Aurelia.

  “Boys!” Aurelia called out. On the outside she looked no older than fifty but she, like the rest of Gaius’s three fathers, were all well past their 500 year mark. “Come and get something to eat before you head off.”

  “Mother, I stayed for morning prayers but you know we can’t—“ I hid my smile at Gaius’s attempt to get us out of breakfast with his family.

  “You were present for morning prayers to Menrva and Caesar because that is your duty,” chided Gaius’s father Lucius.

  “Yes, my love. We have much to be thankful for,” Aurelia patted Lucius’s hand and gave him a soft indulgent smile. Gaius’s father Julian hid his smile as he happily dug into breakfast. I knew he was just as amused with Gaius’s attempt as I was.

  “Yes, Divine Couple forbid you miss one morning of prayers and let the Gods sleep in for once,” Julian mumbled teasingly. Lucius sent him a withering look. He opened his mouth but before he could go down the familiar, yet loving, rant we all knew, Aurelia slipped in a bit of bread. Calpurnia’s lips sucked into her mouth as she desperately tried to hold in her laughter. As young as she was, compared to us, she still lived at home and probably saw this same scene play out most mornings.

  “Do you need help putting on your paludamentum?” Aurelia asked kindly. Kastur was already wearing his but I had kept the pool of heavy gold trimmed red fabric over my forearm.

  “Gladly,” I smiled. Aurelia whipped the fabric from my hands and wrapped it around me in a matter of seconds. With Gaius’s father, Gaius the Elder, still working, Aurelia was used to handling the traditional and cumbersome cloak.

  Each Mea Lupus in the Mea Lupus Legion had to serve a minimum of 200 years. As no pack ever strayed far from their members, we all tended to serve longer, waiting for whoever was youngest to make their minimum. For any other pack, taking on Oli would have been like starting all over again.

  We didn’t mind because we knew Oli was pack and because by then it was already obvious we would be veterans just like Gaius’s parents. The larger the pack, the lower the likelihood of finding a mate or having a family, I thought grimly. Better to serve and occupy our lives that way than give into the despair of loneliness. Smaller packs than our own were already having difficulty finding mates.

  “Frowning already, Pollux?” Calpurnia’s playful question belied the serious look in her eyes.

  “Busy day,” I huffed.

  “We haven’t even started and you’re already scowling,” scolded Gaius.

  “Can you blame him?” Asked Julian. His gaze was shrewd but empathetic. “The fighting, living on the move, going from one shithole world to another was bad enough. But the paperwork?” He made a disgusted sound and shook his head, “And being dragged back here every 10 years to the Mea Lupus Assembly to report? THAT, was worse than everything else we had to endure.”

  “At least they don’t have to report to the Assembly of Centuries like we had to,” Lucius groused. There was always a bit of friction between the regular legions and the Mea Lupus legions. They bore the brunt of overall conflict as the Imperial Union’s military force, while we handled only special projects and cases. Some of those cases also involved investigating them. Needless to say there was no love lost whenever they saw us coming.

  “True, but now they have to report to the Mea Lupus Assembly and the Senate directly,” added in Aurelia sympathetically, “At least the Centuries understood where we were coming from because they had seen firsthand what was out there. But Senators?” She clucked her tongue in frustration.

  “Yes, trying to negotiate funding with Senators is... a struggle,” Calpurnia added.

  “What funding do you need?” Gaius’s father and namesake walked in so silently I had to stop myself from jumping in my seat. His abili
ty to be unnoticed and unseen was unnerving. It made him a skilled and feared Mea Lupus even now in his older years.

  “Pater,” Calpurnia frowned, “I won’t take any of our family’s money,” he raised his eyebrow but she kept talking before he could speak again, “And it’s important that I stand on my own feet like my brother. Besides, academic pursuits should be supported by the Senate.” Aurelia gave her a proud smile.

  “She gets her stubbornness from you,” he grumbled.

  “And her beauty, and her intelligence,” Aurelia laughed. All three of her husbands gave her a long suffering look wrapped in warmth and love. Gaius smiled at his family. His smile was of course the bigger more overt version of Gaius the Elder’s smaller quirked lips.

  I felt a small pang of jealousy. I looked over to Kastur in my periphery and saw a matching look of longing on his face. Our parent’s pack had been a true rarity. Our mother was mated to a set of twins. Twins, or more in one birth, were exceptionally rare for us.

  People liked to insult Mea Lupus by calling us animals because we could shift or had high sex drives. Some used slurs against female Mea Lupus saying they must give birth to a litter of pups just like wolves in the wild. They didn’t realise that each birth was a gift. Having more than one child at a time was incredibly taxing on the mother. The odds of carrying and surviving delivery for both the mother and children were very low.

  Our own mother didn’t survive our birth.

  She was around Aurelia’s age now, which added a serious complication but they had all agreed to take the risk because they so desperately wanted children of their own. Our fathers were already her senior by 300 years. The likelihood of getting the chance again was slim to none.

  After our mother’s passing, our fathers raised and loved us for fifty years. They lived long enough to see our ability manifest and the two of us enter the Mea Lupus Legion, before they too passed. I always liked to think they waited long enough to make sure we would be okay. When they met up with our mother on the other side, she would know they had done their best for her and for us.