No Remedy

by Christine d'Abo

  “What happened?” Byron asked, but Alec felt Mace’s smaller hand brush across the back of his shoulder.

  He tensed, yet somehow managed to keep from pulling away. Gods, he was an idiot for saying anything at all. Byron’s tenacity aside, Mace would never let him drop it without further explanation. It had already occurred to him that Mace wasn’t interested in the science of his work and she wasn’t looking to turn him in for the credits. She was only after the ryana poison’s antidote, probably for a loved one.

  “Alec?” Mace’s voice pulled him out of his darkening thoughts.

  Alec swallowed, ignoring the growing burn in his blood. “Before I ran away from those Loyalist bastards, I was one of them. I worked in chemical research and development. Not for the military. I was tasked with developing a toxin to kill a particular pest that had overrun one of the outlying colonies and was ruining crops. In the pictures they sent—which I later learned were faked, of course—this thing looked like some unholy hybrid of a lizard, a cockroach, and a strat. Features of mammal, reptile, and insect. They gave me a number of blood samples to test. It only took me a few months to find a combination of chemicals they could use to eradicate the pests.”

  Mace’s fingers dug harder into his skin. “Shit.”

  He couldn’t stop his dark chuckle. “The Syrilians started dying off shortly thereafter. It didn’t take me long to figure out who the pests were the Loyalist government wanted dead. When the Loyalists started strip-mining on Syrili Prime, there had been the threat of an uprising. That quickly stopped once everyone started dying. By the time the miners were blamed for the accidental poisoning, half the population was gone or near death. Nobody was in any kind of shape for a revolution.”

  Mace rolled against him. Her breasts were cool against the hot skin of his back. “You didn’t know what they were going to use it for. Surely you could have said something to the Syrilians?”

  “And admit to everyone I was a mass murderer? I would have been shot on the spot. As selfless as you may think I am, suicide was never on my list of ways to die. The only thing I could do was try to come up with a cure. It helped knowing what had gone into the poison. The problem was how I’d engineered the bloody thing. It had already started to transform in response to the environment. It took a long time to come up with a cure, to figure out how to spread it virally, and there are lasting effects in their society.”

  “Brasillian syndrome,” Byron said softly.

  He nodded, not caring if either of them saw him. “I made . . . some modifications, and injected myself with the poison so I could test the virus. I wasn’t about to infect another Syrilian if I could help it. When the council found out, let’s just say the Loyalists’ motivation to find a cure increased tenfold. Apparently I’m valuable.”

  Anger twisted Byron’s face. “Why the hell would you do this?” Grabbing Alec’s chin, Byron forced Alec to look into his eyes. “Are you punishing yourself? Think this will make up for what you’d done? Why the hell didn’t you tell me anything?”

  No. Alec wasn’t about to let Byron make him feel any worse than he did already. Jerking out of Byron’s grasp, he rolled onto his back, letting his anger keep him focused on what he had to say.

  “You remember what it was like. How they manipulated the truth, kept information from me. How many other times before Syrili did I think I was making a pesticide or an herbicide, when I was really making a weapon?” It had taken Alec years to realize how naïve he’d been. His inexperience with the universe outside the lab, his belief that the Loyalist government was a benign leadership, had blinded him to common sense. Byron had been one of the guards keeping the Loyalists’ commodity—him—safe from harm. They’d learned the real nature of their employer together. “I have to make amends.”

  Byron punched the mattress with his fist. “Not this way. How the hell can you travel like this, Alec? We need you healthy if you want to continue the work you were doing on the planet.”

  It had broken his heart to leave Byron, but Alec had decided he wouldn’t be responsible for another life being cut short. He was already living every day in terror that his work on the curative virus would be discovered. Then his superiors had threatened to have Byron killed if Alec revealed the truth about the attempted Syrilian genocide to anyone.

  Instead of staying in place with his head down, waiting for the axe to fall, Alec had disappeared into the black of space, leaving a message for his government keepers. If they so much as looked at Byron or anyone else he cared about, he would reveal them as the party responsible for the poisoning . . . and ultimately the ones to blame for the Brasillian syndrome as well. And a host of other biological warfare agents. Surprisingly, they’d let him go without giving chase.

  What they hadn’t counted on was him working on cures for everything they’d had him create. He made them look like fools with every successful antidote or treatment he discovered. But he’d hidden himself well, made no overt attacks on the government, and had made no attempt to reach anyone he cared for.

  “I don’t understand why they waited this long, then put a bounty on me now.” He groaned as another wave of lust reared up, stealing his breath away. “And I was so close to a cure for the ryana poison.”

  Mace gasped and stiffened before she rolled away. He missed her heat but understood why she wouldn’t want to be near him. Not any longer. The cool air of the room replaced her body heat, and the blood beneath Alec’s skin burned. Byron looked over him, and Alec knew he was watching her dress. The rustle of clothing filled him with lonely dread. The near-silent opening of the door was the final break in his relationship with her—she was gone.

  “She’s not coming back.” He closed his eyes against the unexpected tears threatening to break. He never cried. But knowing Mace could no longer be near him broke his heart. Gods, I don’t even know who she was trying to help.

  “I’m here.” Byron dropped back down to fill his field of vision. “I’m not going anywhere, and I’m going to look after you.”

  “I don’t want you to. I figured out how to look after myself a long time ago.”

  Byron growled. “I want to, you stupid idiot.”

  Alec shook his head, biting the inside of his cheek. The pain helped him focus some, but the burning inside him was growing. “It hurts.”

  Byron didn’t say anything else as he leaned in for a kiss. It was the first time since the start of his seven-year nightmare that Alec felt the cold weight in his chest start to crack. Reaching for Byron, he lost himself in the sweet weight of that familiar mouth.

  The pressure in his cock was a mix of pleasure and pain, merging as it fired the cells in his blood. He shuddered, his body screaming for chemicals it couldn’t produce in sufficient quantities. The more aroused his body grew, the more brutal the attack. He needed to come to stem the pain.

  Byron bit down on Alec’s lower lip. “I’m going to look after you. I’m going to make you scream my name. Then you’re going to sleep while I get something to make you feel better.”

  Alec pulled away, rolling onto his back.

  Byron followed him as he went, hovering several inches above. “You are not the monster you think you are, Alec. I know you well enough to realize you would never have consented to making anything that would hurt a sentient being.”

  The unwanted tears finally escaped, falling in a gentle trail down Alec’s cheeks to pool behind his ears. Gods, he didn’t want Byron to think he was weak. “You always told me I was too trusting and naïve for my own good. I think you were being kind. I was a complete mindless idiot who jumped when my Loyalist masters said to do so. I never questioned. Not once, Bry.”

  Knowing the smallest dose of logical skepticism on his part would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives over the years, Alec had long since come to the conclusion that he didn’t deserve to live . . . except as a form of penance. Byron would have argued with him about experimenting on himself, tried to convince him to do something else to make up
for what he’d done. But it wouldn’t have been enough.

  “Enough thinking.” Byron reached down and grabbed Alec’s still-hard cock. “Right now I’m going to fuck you into oblivion. We’ll worry about the rest of this later.”

  Nodding, Alec closed his eyes and gave himself over to the sensations. Byron’s sure hands teased him, fingers tugging his balls and pressing against his perineum. Moaning, he ground his body into Byron’s touch, trying to increase the pressure.

  “Yeah, you like that,” Byron cooed in his ear. He bit down on the fleshy lobe, flicking the tip with his tongue. “You’ve always been such a slut for my cock, Alec. I’ve fucked you and you’ve come twice and you’re still panting for more. You want my cock up your ass again? Do you?”

  Alec couldn’t pull in breath fast enough to keep up with the pounding of his heart. “Yes. Fuck, I need you, Bry.”

  Byron fell on him, pressing his body down hard so every inch of him covered Alec. Feet, fingers, shoulders, everything protected by Byron. It felt amazing.

  “We’re going to do this like old times,” Byron whispered.

  Without any further warning, Byron curled his hands under Alec’s shoulders, rolling them so Alec was on top. Alec’s stomach flipped when he realized what Byron wanted him to do. He’d dreamed of this so many nights, the look on Byron’s face as he rode him. It had fueled his fantasies as he masturbated alone in the dark.

  Alec was already slick from cum and lube. He shifted his body so his ass was directly above Byron’s cock. Waiting for the nod, he stared deep into Byron’s eyes while his body vibrated from need.

  Swallowing hard, Byron barely moved his chin, but it was enough. Permission. Alec held a breath and slowly let it out as he sank down on Byron’s shaft, inch by blessed inch. Unlike their earlier session, he was coherent enough to fully appreciate how amazing it felt to have Byron once again. They’d always fit perfectly, but there was something different this time. The reconnection sparked something inside him he’d long thought gone.

  He felt alive.

  “That’s it,” Byron encouraged. “Fuck down on me hard. Come when you can.”

  Bracing his hands on Byron’s shoulders, he pushed down until he could swivel his hips and press against Byron’s balls. Byron had always loved when he’d done that—the pressure against the sensitive skin. He wasn’t disappointed when Byron let out a low moan and his eyes clamped shut.

  As quickly as the thoughts came, Alec’s mind emptied out. The sickness running through his blood demanded satisfaction. Using his legs, he began to ride Byron in earnest, slamming down as quickly as he could. The tip of Byron’s cock rubbed against his prostate as he moved, making every thrust more pleasurable. Sweat broke out across his skin, trying to cool the heat raging inside but accomplishing little.

  Byron’s fingers wrapped around Alec’s cock, and he squeezed hard. The smooth brush of his thumb across the tip, smearing pre-cum across the skin, made Alec sigh and increase the pace.

  “That’s it,” Byron encouraged. “You’re so close, aren’t you? I can feel your ass squeezing me tight. I forgot how big your cock is, Alec. Once you get your energy back, I’ll have to get you to fuck me. You’d like to feel me clamping around you, wouldn’t you? I bet you’d come so hard I’d taste it.”

  He continued to jerk Alec in time with the rhythm of his words. The constant onslaught pushed Alec to the edge. But it wasn’t enough.

  “Look at me.”

  Alec’s eyes reluctantly shifted to Byron. He knew what was coming—it had always been like this between them.

  “Alec.” Byron increased the tempo of his hand. “Come for me. Now.”

  Alec’s back arched at the familiar trigger, cum exploding from his cock and a scream ripping from his throat. His blood filled with what he needed, and the burning ebbed as his mind blanked with pleasure.

  A vague realization that Byron was tensing below him brought him back to the present. Byron’s hands squeezed his hips, holding him still as he thrust up into his waiting body. There was a slight pause and loss of rhythm before Byron groaned and hot cum filled him.

  Alec relaxed and leaned forward to cover Byron’s chest. The ache in his bones was fading into the background, though not disappearing entirely. Byron’s hands held him in a loose embrace, fingers tracing lazy patterns on his back.

  “I’m sorry,” Alec whispered after the minutes of silence stretched on.

  Byron’s fingers paused midpath before continuing. “You didn’t mean it. We’ll find a way to make this better.”

  “I’ve tried, Bry. There are so many people . . . I’ve hurt. I need to put things right.”

  A soft kiss to his cheek and Byron reached around him to pull up a blanket. “Sleep now. We’ll worry about fixing the universe later. Okay?”

  “Yup.”

  Whether he deserved it or not, Alec was selfish enough to take the comfort.

  Mace sat in the cockpit and stared out into space. She’d spent months in Alec’s company, had spent so many more researching him in her search to find an antidote for Faolan’s condition. Not once was there any indication he’d been responsible for the creation of the poison they were trying to counteract. Or for the Syrilian poison, or anything like the virus that had caused the Brasillian syndrome. It just didn’t match up with the man who she’d come to know.

  She’d been conned.

  Alec had been on the run from the Loyalist government. He was the creator of poisons and viruses so vicious only a monster could have engineered them. But she’d always considered herself to be an excellent judge of character. It was one of the things Faolan had always commented on, how she’d always been able to just know a person.

  Alec had never struck her as a man capable of killing. She’d known he was intense, always focused. Sure, he had a few weird quirks, some she had yet to completely figure out. But he wasn’t an uncaring, heartless bastard out to murder innocents—she would stake her life on it.

  Alec wanted to save people—she’d been with him long enough to know that. Nothing he did had been for profit or fame. He hadn’t once charged any of the colony’s inhabitants, or any of his mysterious off-world clients, for any of the cures he offered. Which made things worse. She’d never considered that his motivations for finding the remedies were a result of his own active participation in making them necessary. It was simply inconceivable.

  Pushing those thoughts aside, she pulled up the scan of the sector Byron had brought them to. There wasn’t a whole lot in the area, but something about the location was bugging her. Something familiar she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She’d have asked Byron, but it was clear he was going to be looking after Alec’s needs for the next little while.

  And you walked out of the room.

  She’d been moving before her brain fully registered what she was doing. The last thing she wanted to do now was dwell on the dark thoughts circling the outskirts of her brain.

  Alec and the ryana poison.

  Enough!

  It had been two weeks since she’d had an opportunity to talk to Gar and find out how Faolan was doing.

  Wanting to ensure privacy, Mace flicked the lock to the cockpit door before sending out the call over a secure channel to the Belle Kurve. There was no immediate response, so she set the communicator to repeat. Gods only knew where the ship was. Maybe they were in the middle of an attack. While Faolan had gone low profile over the past few years, there were still many enemies out there who would gladly slit his throat if they crossed his path.

  Not that Gar would give them the opportunity to do so.

  Mace stared into the depths of space, enjoying the peace of the stars for the first time in months. While her life may have begun on ground, she had always been a child of space. She’d been reborn the day Faolan hauled her from Zeten and gave her a life on his ship. That was where she belonged.

  Someday she hoped to find a person she could spend her life with, maybe even on a ship of her own. Not that she was
anxious to leave the Belle Kurve, especially now that she had the opportunity to live with her brother and learn about his life and the man he’d become.

  The double beep of the computer announced the incoming communications signal. Sitting up straighter, she tucked her hair behind her ears and grinned as she answered the call.

  Faolan’s thin, smiling face greeted her. “Hey, pet! I see you’ve managed to keep that bucket of your brother’s in one piece.”

  “Hi, yourself. How are you feeling?” She didn’t like how skinny he’d become or the gray pallor his skin had taken on. “You’re looking good.”

  “Bullshit. I look like death on two legs. No fear about my dying today though. But enough about me. How are you making out? I was surprised to get a transmission from the Geilt and not from the planet. Everything okay?”

  She wasn’t about to wear him down with the details. The less Faolan had to worry about, the better. “We’re good. Alec had a run-in with an old friend and we took to the sky. We’re on our way to a place where we’re going to continue work on an antidote for you.”

  “Mace, sweetie, I told you not to bother with that foolishness. I’m dying—”

  “No, you’re not!” The words came out sharp, but she really didn’t care. She wasn’t going to roll over and accept his death when there was something she could do about it. She wouldn’t let him go easily. “We’re really close to getting this figured out. You just need to hold on and stay healthy long enough for me to shoot this cure into your sorry ass.”