by Kahaula
“Adohi,” she whined my name in my ear filling me with a possessive need to meet every demand she could throw my way. Her honey dripped between her thighs and smeared all over my own.
“I’m here, my fire,” I reassured her, or maybe I was reassuring myself. I couldn’t begin to understand what was happening between us. I felt her inner muscles start to tighten once more, “That’s it. You want my cum you gotta give me yours one last time.” She fisted my hair and bit my ear.
“You give me what’s mine, wolf,” her angry hot breath was my undoing. I dropped all pretence of sanity and roared guttural and deep. Kara screamed as I snapped her hips down hard on my throbbing cock, aching for release. I ground her down on me in circles, making her clit swollen and pink. “YES! More, Adohi, more!”
Kara used her fist in my hair as a tether for leverage as she rolled her hips along with my hard movements. When we both were covered in sweat and I didn’t think I could hold out any longer, Kara pulled my hair one last time and threw back her head on a shout. The warm liquid of her squirting all over me, the tart and sticky sweet smell of her losing all control, had me dropping to my knees as I came with her.
I rocked forward in pain and ecstasy, Kara’s legs limply hanging around me. She held my face in her hands and we kissed sluggishly. Our breaths mingled and we nuzzled our noses and foreheads against one another. Never in my life had I felt my wolf side so keenly. Meeting her challenge, serving her needs, pushing her boundaries, pushing my own boundaries. I didn’t have the words for something that started out as a hate fuck and ended as something too profound to name.
Kara pulled away and stood on shaky legs over my kneeling exhausted body.
“Now, get out.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. I laughed so hard tears leaked from my eyes. Kara ignored me and walked away deeper into the ship. We were still damp with each other’s cum and she was already throwing down another challenge at my feet. I put my tech suit on and smiled sharply at the dark corridor she had walked down.
“Challenge accepted,” I promised.
Quintillus
The investigation was a complete wash. Adohi had abandoned us to do who knows what and we were left to race off as fast as we could to the scene. It had taken all of us to help the local Imperial Union Police to secure the area. Even then it had involved a fair bit of posturing and strong arming to get the crowds back and away.
Shockingly, no one had contaminated the crime scene. No one dared go closer to Fillion’s stinking body. Not with that blood painted scythe next to him. It wasn’t until two hours later that Adohi sent a comm to our gauntlets telling us he was watching over Kara. He coordinated our efforts from the command centre in the Mea Lupus quarters.
Eight hours after that I had stumbled blindly to Kara’s ship. My eyes bloodshot and mind burnt out with fear for her is how I ended up at the bottom of her ship ramp. I had opened my mouth to say something, anything really, but was left speechless with relief and guilt. Kara knew what had happened to Fillion by then.
She got a soft look in her eyes and calmly took me by the hand into her ship.
She had made sure I ate something then tucked us both into bed. I fell asleep with my head on her heart and her fingers caressing my scalp. I didn’t care that I could smell Adohi and her saturating the cargo hold. If anything it gave me such profound relief to know that in those early worry fraught hours, my pack mate had been with her.
I don’t know what kind of comfort or release he had given her. All I knew was that when I woke later in the early hours of morning Kara was warm and willing. I made love to her over hours and hours, kissing every inch I could see. Tasting her, loving her, let me show her I cared. It let me show myself that she was still alive and with me. That I hadn’t destroyed the first good thing that had come into my life in over a century.
Kara dozed, half of her splayed out on my much larger body. I held her to me and breathed through the tears that threatened to break from my eyes. I could have been the cause of her death at the hands of a brutal and cold murderer. I kissed her braids and inhaled deeply. No, she’s here and she’s fine, I reassured myself.
Two tears slipped from the side of my eyes. I smashed down on the guilt and recrimination bubbling back up inside me like a toxic sludge. Kara wasn’t a Mea Lupus, she could be hurt at any moment, she didn’t need me bringing her life to a short and brutal end because I had encouraged the others to tackle a difficult case. I looked up and down her strong body, her scars like constellations.
She had a bit of bruising along her back. I ran my fingertips around the edges of her tail bone down to the very top of the cleft in her ass. She sighed and a wave of contentment washed over me like a cleansing breeze. Kara was too smart to let herself love me, knowing that I would outlive her. But in moments like these, totally unguarded, I felt a well of deeper emotions that lapped at my soul like playful ocean waves.
Kara soothed me, healed something inside me without even trying. I embraced that gift and gave into it before she woke. I knew she wasn’t an empath like me but sometimes when she was along the edge of consciousness I swore she could feel and respond to my emotions. I sighed and held her to me tighter.
“You’re troubled,” Kara’s soft sleepy voice startled me. She reached out and caressed the crease between my brows.
“Rest more,” I ran my thumb under the dark circles below her eyes. She turned her head to look up at me from where it rested on my chest. It was like a plas-gladius with its laser edge had pierced clean through my heart.
“You can’t be with me all the time, Tilli,” my eyes softened at her nickname for me.
“Why do you call me that?” I deflected. She tried to get up but I hugged her to me as I scooted up the bed to sit back against the plain ship wall behind me. Her cheeks flushed a bit and I gave her a teasing smile knowing that for once it was me that had made her blush.
“When I was little...,” she cleared her throat and I gave her an expectant look, encouraging her to share with me. I had seen many of Kara’s moods in our months together here, but bashful had never been one of them. “When I was little, the first Imperial Union Common word I learned was ‘melli’.”
“And how did little Kara come to learn the word for sweetheart at such a young age,” I laughed. She folded her face into my chest and hid her sweet smile.
“I walked in on my parents kissing and hugging in a corner of our home,” her giggle was light and full of love soaked memories. She looked up at me and tried to cover her smiling mouth, but I pulled her hand away to bask in the glory of her sweet and innocent face. “They weren’t doing anything except that, but they were new parents and probably missed being able to be close with a toddler to run after all the time.”
“Gave them trouble did you?” She nipped at my chest playfully in answer to my question.
“I was a good girl,” she said primly before descending into warm laughter again. There was a hint of sadness coupled with the love in her voice, “I always loved honey, so my father said that he was just looking for some that my mother had hidden away in her kisses.”
“He sounds like a good man,” I caressed her hair, trying to sooth the hurt I felt from her.
“They both were,” she whispered. She inhaled deeply, taking solace in my scent. It was actions like that that made me forget my beautiful Kara wasn’t Mea Lupus like me. She laughed softly, “Like a big girl, I asked if that was why he was calling her by all those different names.” I snorted a laugh thinking of two young parents caught canoodling in a corner and having to explain to a very bright little Kara what they had been doing.
“What did they do to address your important question?” I teased.
“My mother took over from there because my father was too flustered to know what to say to his little girl,” she grumped. I smiled hard at the waves of playfulness rolling over me. “Mater taught me the word melli and its origins in the old Terran Latium for the Bee Goddess and Her honey.”
/> “You combined my name with one of your sweetest memories?” My heart spasmed in my chest. When she first called me Tilli while we had sex I didn’t think much of it except to shorten my long name. I thought she had kept calling me it for the same reason. I could feel her start to pull her heart back behind the defences of her stalwart determination.
“Don’t get any ideas, wolf,” she tried to pull away again but I turned her face up to my own.
“I’m honoured, Kara,” I let all my love and respect shine through my eyes to reinforce my words. Her expression pinched in confusion and fear for less than a nanosecond. What did she have to fear? Because sharing any real part of her with someone she knows will outlive her, can only lead to a broken heart. I kissed her softly and deeply. Whatever time we had, I wanted her to know I felt just as deeply for her too. She sighed and shook her head. This time when she moved to get up I didn’t fight her.
“I have work that I have to do,” she mumbled as she stretched. It was now or never.
“More work for the Ferryman?” I asked casually. Her body stiffened with tension. I felt her shut down and pull away from me without taking a single step.
“Work is work,” she said softly, “I take what I can get, sometimes whether I want to or not.” I struggled how to approach what I had to convince her of next. I got up from the bed and quickly put on my tech suit while she put on her’s.
“Come with me to the Mea Lupus Quarters,” I went with blunt honesty and prayed for the best. Kara looked like I had slapped her. She took a step back and narrowed her eyes at me.
“So I can be killed just like Fillion?” She scoffed but I could feel the building fear in her like rising flood waters.
“I can keep you safe,” I pleaded. Her eyes widened at what could amount to an empty promise.
“I go with you and the Ferryman will see me as a loose end and take care of me,” she pushed her finger into my chest, “and you and your wolves will just move on if you can’t catch him. Leaving me ripe for the reaping when you’ve thrown in the towel!”
“No!” I reached for her, but she held up her hands and walked out of the room. I followed hotly behind her, my nostrils flaring in both our frustration. “Damnit, Kara, listen to me!” I caught her arm and spun her around. Every breath in swirled her and Adohi’s combined scent in the large cargo hold. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what they had been doing that had left such a scent imprint on the area.
“NO!” She shouted in my face. I blinked, taken aback by her anger tinted red with rage. “I didn’t survive as long as I have to be anyone’s pawn or chew toy.” She spat the last two words at me in frigid accusation.
“What?” I said in shock, “I would never... We would never think of you that way.” I vehemently denied her accusation that she was a chew toy for my pack. The slur for a Mortal female who was the sexual plaything of Mea Lupus seared my insides like a hot knife. “You can’t possibly think I would ever think of you that way.”
“I saw your face when you got here, Quintillus,” her doubt stung, “I know you smelled Adohi and me.”
“What does you being with my pack mate have to do with going into our protective custody?” I was baffled by how quickly this has turned into a clusterfuck of my own making. Anyone else and I would have been able to read and best assess how to address their many concerns. Instead Kara bowled me over at every turn, which fed into my own fears for her safety.
“So it’s just coincidence that he came here looking to end up between my thighs and now you want me tucked away in your secure quarters, where only your pack will have access to me?” Her bitterness and paranoia burned at the edges of my mind. I had to get control of this situation. Kara was spiralling out and I had to put a stop to it.
“Don’t,” I growled and gripped her waist pressing her body to mine. I tried to slow her quick breaths by pressing her chest to mine. “Don’t think for a moment that we want you close for any other reason than to protect you.”
“We?” She asked quietly. I pressed my forehead to hers and willed her to feel the truth in what I had to say next.
“Yes, we,” I pulled back just enough to look into her eyes. “We all feel something more than physical attraction for you. Do we all want to explore that with you? Yes. Did I expect Adohi to be the first after me? No.”
“He is an asshole,” Kara laughed and the tension dissipated slightly.
“No doubt about that,” I commiserated, “But now that I know where he went when we had to go to Fillion’s crime scene—“
“His murder.”
“Yes, his murder,” I clenched my jaw. “Point being that Adohi ditched us as soon as he found out about Fillion. Leaving us to work on that. But it was only so he could come here as quickly as he could. To see you. To make sure you were safe.”
“Could have fooled me,” she grumbled.
“Yeah, well, you and I both know he won’t be winning any awards for tact or diplomacy,” I said drily. She tucked her head under my chin and giggled softly. Her hands wrapped around me and I knew I had won. “Come be with us, Kara. We’ll keep you safe.”
“You can’t promise that,” she barely breathed the words into my chest.
“I would do anything to keep you safe, melli,” I felt her unease and stab of pain at my use of the pet name her parents had taught her. Under all of that I felt that soft ocean lap at me in affection and approval.
“I have to think about this, Quintillus,” a cold drop of fear slid down my spine that she kept using my given name. Had I misstepped again?
“You’re not safe, Kara.”
“I know I’m not,” she gave a dark and rueful chuckle, “at least give me until the end of the day to come to you or not.” I opened my mouth to argue but she covered it with her hand, forestalling me. “What you’re asking won’t just put me in danger with the Ferryman. It’ll affect my livelihood and leave my ship sitting here defenceless and empty. I won’t be able to go out and make a living,” her lips flattened to a hard line. “Best case scenario you catch the Ferryman and leave, then I’m left with a broken reputation for cooperating with and hiding behind the Mea Lupus.”
“You could come—“
“Don’t offer what you know you can’t,” her eyes softened and she caressed my cheek. “And either way I want to stay in the present. Hypotheticals about the future have no place in my life. Especially if it could be shortened at any moment.”
I didn’t know what else I could say. There was nothing else. She had given me her answer. She had to choose to be with us or not. I turned my head to kiss her palm. We broke apart and she stepped to the side.
“We’ll be waiting.”
Kara
The dark grey walls of my ship seemed colder. It felt like the Charopos knew what I was about to do and wanted to show its trepidation. I stared down at the bag I had prepared. Nothing suspicious or sentimental inside. Everything could be ditched.
A knot formed up in my gut. Ai was working on the last of the new orbs from the specs that I had created. She was two doors down and wouldn’t be checking in on me anytime soon. I could have this moment to myself.
“Fuck,” I muttered, “What the fuck am I doing?” I ran my hands over my face and along my braids. Ai had already helped me weave in some of the new orbs I would take with me as well as other tech bits to get me out safely if everything went tits up.
Bending forward I rested my forearms on my thighs. Kneading the tense muscles was a side benefit of rocking back and forth in thought. Quintillus loves me. The thought was both disturbing and... wonderful. I shook my head and let myself feel the sadness and guilt. He loves a woman that never was.
I was a killer and a criminal. The Kara I showed him, the one who I could have been, would never have hurt him or the others. Even that dickstick Adohi. I had never manipulated good people, good men, like this before. I always accepted the responsibility for my choices and actions. It was why I could look myself in the mirror and not feel disappoint
ment. Would that change after we left Castra 3?
I jammed my thumbs against the highest sides of my nose just under where my eyebrows started. Pressure was building right behind my forehead. All the thoughts and recriminations wanted to blow my skull outward in punishment for what I was doing to these wolves.
I knew that this is what I had to do to keep both myself and Ai safe. I knew the danger of faltering and softening for the pack was ever present. This mini freak out was me acknowledging and addressing the long list of concerns plaguing the back of my brain. Living in denial or pretending that doubts didn’t fester inside me like grave worms wouldn’t help me.
What I planned was so brazen it would forever change our lives. I clenched my jaw. But hasn’t that already happened? From the moment I escaped the program I knew that life wasn’t just. Not for many in the Imperial Union. Clawing my way back to sanity, health, and some sense of prosperity was my big fuck you to everyone who had tried so hard to tear me down.
I sat up straight on my bunk and felt a twinge in my back. Adohi had fucked me so hard against the wall I had black and blue bruises down my spine. I snorted and rolled my eyes. Hate fucking him had been cathartic.
With Adohi I could be honest. I ate up his jaded cynicism and fed him true lies. I felt another twinge but this time it was in my chest. Adohi was just as far gone as Quintillus. He may express it in a different more standoffish way, but the signs were all there. If anything the hard fuck in the cargo hold had shown me how to manage him. He kept me honest. I smiled cheekily. He just didn’t know it.
Conchobhar and Aphelele were obviously together, yet Cassie told me Bhar kept going every night to her bar hoping to run into me. I knew once I was in their Mea Lupus quarters I’d have to work on incorporating myself into their dynamic.