Furrs and humans stared at him, their expressions of shock too similar for comfort.
Even Hamm wore one. Marc could think of no other way to translate the furr’s look. His eyes were wide, mouth open a fraction, lips separated just enough to expose the brutal tips of his large canines. Combined with the adrenaline and lust spiking his blood, it made him furious. And hard. But the trouser-straining erection only fueled his anger even more.
The commander chose that moment to step closer and rumble. Marc flung his hand out to hold him off, what with Cortannas being so jumpy. Not that Marc wasn’t, but his palm brushed against Hamm’s chest and whatever thoughts had jumbled in his head just dissipated. The noise resonated through Marc’s body, traveling from his fingertips, up his arm, and into the base of his neck, like a hand resting lightly on his shoulder in a tentative request for forgiveness.
“Apologies, Sergeant Staille. Tell me how to help.”
He pulled his hand away, fingertips dragging over the soft skin, the faint dusting of hair, with reluctance that he couldn’t shake. It felt strange, and yet it didn’t. He wet his lips and swallowed, trying to recover his ability to form words.
Hamm was too close. Marc didn’t understand how the male’s scent swamped him again, since the breeze hadn’t kicked up. He could feel his higher brain function slipping away as his cock twitched and ached. Marc needed some space. And a great deal of fresh air. He held his hand in the air between them as he sidled away a pace, then two.
“Get translators for them. You want this to work, right?” Marc cleared his throat when Hamm’s eyes narrowed. Did the furr even realize that his claws were sliding in and out like that? Not like a rapid twitch or spasm, but slow and deliberate as though in an act of distraction. “We can work on the cultural and social confusion, but it’s going to take time. Right now? They need to understand your verbal communication. Or the language barrier is going to kill your chance for peace.”
Reccin snuffled, but when Marc glanced past Hamm to look at him, the furr hackled, flexing his hands one last time before sheathing his claws. But he sheathed them, gaze boring steadily into Marc’s.
“Better,” Marc acknowledged with a nod. He considered for a moment that he had only a bare-bones, skim-the-surface comprehension of their social interactions as well. He could be giving mixed signals . . . or worse, making enemies of everyone he encountered. “Commander Orsonna, the translators? We need at least one. For the lieutenant major. He’ll be acting as planetary diplomat for the foreseeable future.”
Hamm glanced at Reccin, who diverted his gaze to the ground. His second snuffed again, twisted his lips to bare a single fang, glancing in Marc’s direction. The commander bristled and seemed to swell in size.
Reccin lowered his chin and ducked a bow. “I’ll bring Sergeant Dehna. And a bio-processor. And I will ensure she behaves,” he added, voice dropping, “where I have failed to.”
Cortannas shifted uncomfortably with every syllable the furrs uttered. Marc didn’t know about Hamm, but he’d be more inclined to relax if the C-C team leader would rest all her fingers on the grip, at least. Her trigger discipline was remarkable, but he really didn’t trust her not to twitch, or flinch, or something equally prone to causing a discharge.
“You need to chill. Sir.” Marc stepped closer to the officer and lowered his voice. “This isn’t totally fubar. But if you can’t maintain some calm, may I suggest you get back on that shuttle.”
She blinked once, and then a few more times. Whatever had crashed in her brain, a light of logic fired in her eyes. She nodded. “I’ll take that under consideration, Sergeant. What sort of population density are we talking about?”
Makko sidled closer, her ears practically pinging like sonar from curiosity.
“Close to a few hundred in this location. From what I can tell, this isn’t so much a community as a military outpost.”
“Lovely.” Andruski edged closer and nodded at Marc. “Interesting conclusion, Sergeant.”
He flashed a smile. “I’m a sniper scout. If I’m not observant, I’m dead, sir.”
“Yes. Then why is it you’re still alive?” His hazel-gray gaze was cool as he indicated Hamm with a meaningful glance. “By all rights, you should be dead.”
“He tracked me to my roost. I’ve had no chance to ask how. I get the impression he took me alive because he wanted answers. Which is why I am currently unarmed.” His shoulders tightened at the reminder of Mat’s absence. He couldn’t tell if he was nauseous from what he’d seen through the scope before he’d squeezed the trigger, or if they were just severe hunger pangs. Either was possible; he couldn’t recall his last meal. Least of his concerns right now, though. A few clenches of his abdominals eased the cramps. Marc glanced at each of them in turn, hoping he conveyed urgency. “This is where you three come in. Chief Reccin will return in a moment with their linguist. You should find her interesting, Captain.”
“Interesting is one way of putting it,” Hamm growled and folded his arms. Instead of attempting to engage in the conversation, he split his attention between listening and watching the clearing’s perimeter.
Marc appreciated the caution, even if he didn’t understand Hamm’s sudden distrust. Hamm spoke freely because only Marc could understand what he said. He had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling. It had him dragging in another long breath just to taste the pheromones still lingering in the air.
“The issue here is that this hasn’t been done before.” Makko made a sharp gesture. “We have a slew of procedures in place, but they’re untested. There’s a general notion of how to verify the requirements for these tawnies to be recognized as sapient. But as far as diplomacy, communication, and understanding go . . .?” She sighed.
“As far as that goes,” Andruski continued, “you’ve managed a grasp of it rather quickly.”
Heat crawled up Marc’s neck. He clenched his hands, fingernails digging into his palms. The lieutenant major hadn’t insinuated anything, just made an observation.
There was no way they could know his diplomatic success involved too many pheromones and a bout of barrel frottage.
“Guess you could say I got lucky.” No idea why. Except that truth was stranger than fiction when it came to his adventures. He glanced at Hamm, who made a show of yawning and licking his lips with a languid swipe of his long tongue.
And then made some sort of rumbling-purr just low enough to vibrate against his skin across the space between them.
As though determined not to let Marc forget where that tongue had been, how that purr felt.
Marc took a slow breath and stared off across the meadow, gaze unfocused as he tried to maintain situational awareness while getting a grip on the southern migration of blood pressure.
The C-C team all turned to stare at the furr commander.
“What was that, just now? It didn’t sound hostile.” Cortannas kept her gaze on Hamm.
“It wasn’t. It didn’t translate though.”
Hamm continued watching him. “Not everything will.”
“I’ve noticed that.” Marc got another lungful of pheromones. Was that the happy juice Reccin referred to? He was, after all, ‘the human’ to these furrs.
“Noticed what?” Cortannas stepped toward Marc, attention still locked on the commander.
“That not every sound they make translates over into words.”
Not just the human, but Hamm’s human to be precise. It made him sound like a pet. One whose existence was indulged at the whim of another. His hands flexed involuntarily, a spasm of muscles trying to grip a weapon that wasn’t there. He desperately needed Mat. He could hardly communicate efficiently without his weapon.
“You turning the happy juice off any time soon?”
It got him a bared fang. “Soon as you learn to control yours, I’ll get right on that.”
Marc shook his head. “I’m not a furr, Hamm. I don’t work that way. Don’t understand why that even works, either.”
&nb
sp; “Makes two of us.” Hamm glanced at Makko. “Think your biologist could figure out an explanation?”
“Maybe.” He relaxed his fists, chafed stinging palms against his trousers. A glance confirmed that he’d broken skin. In more than one place, a crescent of crimson welled up, vivid against the grit on his skin.
Makko glanced between them, fidgeting and nervous at the attention. “What’s happy juice? And what do you mean, you’re not a furr? Is that what they call themselves?”
He could feel Hamm staring at him. Actually, the expression resembled a frown, with the downward twitch at one corner of his mouth and the groove deepening between his brows as his nostrils flared. What were the odds Hamm hadn’t caught the scent of his blood? He cleared his throat and refocused on Makko. “You’re correct, they call themselves furrs.”
Though he attempted to continue, his throat closed up. He had no idea how to respond to that first question. He needed to think. Without an explanation he didn’t have, anything he said would incite alarm. That wouldn’t help the situation. This was why they’d paired him up with Mat and deployed him out into the middle of nowhere, alone.
His people skills sucked. He had authority issues. He had minimal respect for officers.
But he was damn good at squeezing Mat’s trigger. The precise application of eight pounds of pressure. He tried to think of the last time they’d actually missed a target. It hurt too much to think back that far, so he stopped.
Wait. Hamm didn’t understand why his pheromones worked on him. He studied the furr watching the perimeter of the meadow. Saw how he immediately met his gaze. How attuned was he? “Is the happy juice thing a problem?”
“Yes, there is a problem.” Hamm weighed each word with his reluctance, understood that the humans felt outgunned despite outnumbering him. Marc’s question had made the small group uncomfortable, as though the simple utterance of “trouble” would result in bloodshed. Continuing the discussion in this setting didn’t sit well with Hamm. He canted his head and shifted so that he wasn’t shoulders-square to the strange humans.
This entire situation was rife with problems, the foremost being that Marc alone seemed concerned with the furrs’ interests. It was possible he was reading them wrong, that he understood them as little as they understood him despite his interactions with Marc and the translator subroutine.
Still, when the captain grabbed Marc by the arm, he tensed. He was a hairsbreadth away from pouncing, and peace be damned.
“There’s a problem, Sergeant?” The captain’s voice was hard. She radiated tension in every line of her stance; he could see it even with all the pieces of strange pelt blurring her form. She may have put her small death stick away, but she was far from harmless.
Marc rolled his eyes, head tilting back to look skyward. At first, Hamm wondered if the male was tracking another incoming shuttle. One careful sniff was all it took to figure it out. Their languages differed, the nonverbal communication conveyed in myriad signals that made no sense to him. But the pheromones, the body chemistry—or Marc’s, at any rate—he could comprehend. Cues he recognized with ease.
And in this instance, it seemed there was strained patience all around.
“Can you give me a few moments with the commander, Captain? Chief Reccin will return with the linguist before much longer, and I’d like to negotiate for the return of my rifle.”
Marc’s respectful tone resonated wrong, but Captain Cortannas didn’t appear to detect anything strange. “If you feel confident that you’re the best equipped to do so, that’s acceptable. I see no just cause for the furrs to continue holding you prisoner. Do they still perceive that they do?”
A sudden urge to growl almost overwhelmed Hamm’s self-control. He managed to choke it down, a random sound easily excused. At least to these aliens who knew no better.
It did make both Marc and the captain stare at him with expressions he didn’t understand, though.
“I would venture to guess,” Marc offered finally, speaking slowly, “that Commander Orsonna won’t relinquish me quite so fast, Captain.”
Hamm hadn’t thought that far ahead, aside from wanting Marc to stay. The concept of prisoner had fallen out of his mental calculations. He couldn’t pinpoint when. And the sniper’s attitude didn’t smell anything like the captain’s. Hamm didn’t feel ready to put himself in a situation where relinquishing his one ally, tenuous as that label might be, became an immediate requirement. By Soma, nothing had changed yet—the aliens still crawled all over their lands.
“A bargaining chip? Or insurance?” Captain Cortannas’s odor had been strange to begin with, but something in it shifted and made him want to scrub at his nose. “At least that’s assurance that he isn’t going to eat you.”
“I can assure you, Captain, Commander Orsonna has no intention of dining on my raw flesh.”
“You say he prefers to retain you, but you want to negotiate for the return of your rifle?” Her upper lip twisted; Hamm half expected to see fang despite her being human, not furr. “I dislike that you’re the only one who has any idea what’s going on right now. But because you are, I’ll defer to your judgment.” Cortannas shook her head, but released his arm and stepped away. She motioned for the rest of the team to fall back toward the shuttle. Her scent coated his tongue with the acrid tang of disapproval, contrasting his interpretation of her response. He tried to parse their gestures and body language as the three humans huddled close together and began conversing rather animatedly.
Marc studied his fellow humans as they retreated. “What’s the problem then, Commander?”
As though there were only one. Hamm gave a chuff of disgust before it occurred to him that Marc wouldn’t understand the noise for what it was.
“My pheromones shifted to become compatible with yours, your chemistry. For some reason, they won’t shift back.” He knew why, but he wasn’t yet ready to admit it. Not to himself, and certainly not to Marc. “If I can’t get them to, then I can’t shift them at will. That ability is a highly evolved tool and a deeply ingrained mechanism of our culture, society, and hierarchy.”
“What, you can’t lead if your subordinates don’t find you attractive?”
“I’ll have difficulty dominating a fellow furr if, as with Reccin, I’m unable to influence them that way. If I can’t shift my scent, I’m handicapped.”
“Goes both ways. You can’t influence them, but any attempt to do the same to you will be useless, right? Isn’t that what happened with Dehna earlier? So the playing field is level again.”
Marc had a point, and a good one, but it wouldn’t matter much to his fellow furrs. Hamm took a deep breath and almost regretted doing so. The human’s musk still hung on the air. Thick, playing off his—and the blame for its triggering could be laid at Reccin’s and Cortannas’s feet. Perhaps he should tie his second and the captain on either side of a very large tree and let them fight it out. That was how clan fefa traditionally dealt with this sort of headbutting, at least. Words and pheromones. Not that he had any firsthand experience with it or anything. “I guess. Our pheromones seem to have an unusually volatile effect on each other, though.”
The trio of humans hovering near the entry of the shuttle made him uncomfortable. It didn’t much matter if they couldn’t comprehend his side of the conversation. He was exposing his vulnerability for what it was. He needed to, though. Marc was a part of it, and if he was going to find a way to fashion it into something useful—dare he aspire to make it a strength?—it would require this human’s full support and cooperation.
Marc chafed a hand over his stubbled scalp, then rubbed at his face. “They do.” He grinned, a lopsided twist of his mouth, then glanced toward the shuttle and very clearly censored himself. “It’s damned inconvenient when I’m trying to think. Or divert inter-species disaster and interplanetary war.”
Hamm craved another whiff of the male’s scent that didn’t require resorting to burying his nose against his neck again. A trace of mus
k still hung in the air, though it had weakened. The breeze helped as well. But he’d memorized Marc’s blend of sweat and musk, thick with pheromones. That knowledge made it simple to taste his scent on every breath. He needed to maintain some composure, but his instincts went against his efforts and he flexed his hands a few times, hunched his shoulders, even tried purring. Anything to deny the urge a little longer.
“Commander?” Marc studied him, a furrow between his brows. When the male’s gaze slid past him, Hamm gathered his wits and wiped the distracted expression from his face.
The last thing he wanted was someone catching him looking like a moonstruck kit.
Dehna stopped a few paces distant, Reccin pulling her to a halt by the grip on her elbow. She jerked herself from his grasp without so much as a glance in the second’s direction. Her nostrils flared, and she made no attempt to mask her gag as an acceptable reaction. “Still don’t understand why you shifted pheromones, Commander. Domination doesn’t require compatibility. Quite the opposite, actually.”
Perhaps that was how she chose to employ it. She wasn’t fefa battlemonger, though. Hamm glared, considered baring a fang at the blatant disrespect she’d shown his second. They were littermates and had to work it out on their own. If Reccin tolerated it from her, that was his prerogative. Didn’t bode well for Reccin’s tenure as second, but Hamm couldn’t judge on that count. His own tenure was staring at an early grave, too. Unless he could keep this a secret until it was resolved.
“Do you have the bio-processor uploaded with a duplicate program?”
She shook her mane and lifted her nose a fraction, then leaned to look past him at the trio huddled in conversation near the shuttle. “I’ve prepared three. If you can convince them to interface voluntarily.”
“Any chance you can make those processors smaller? Is that even possible? I wouldn’t call it painful, but it’s uncomfortable. I think it has to do with the size.” Marc eased closer and Hamm folded his arms, relaxing. Letting his guard down.
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