Moro's Price

by M. Crane Hana

Val’s slicked fingertip ghosted around the rim. “Forget it,” he whispered, knowing Lyton listened closer. “I want you as you are. If there’s a mess, let Lyton’s folk clean it later. If they dare.”

  “You are insane.” Moro laughed.

  “I’m desperate and greedy. Not to mention spoiled and inconsiderate,” said Val, trying the fluttering taps Moro had used on him. Moro groaned, his arms locked tight in front of him. Obedient to the fantasy. Doubtful but replaying it. Val didn’t want Moro’s tolerance or endurance. He wanted surrender.

  Mindful of Moro’s barely healed body, Val lavished more of the lubricant into Moro’s channel. “We’ll do this my way,” he said. “The opposite of what happened in the cage. Cushions, instead of you straining against gravity. Instead of being tied to a damned pole, a binding you can break. And in place of Kott’s python of a cock, mine.” Val knelt among the cushions and then leaned forward. The narrowed tip of his penis slid between Moro’s cheeks. “I won’t hurt you, Moro. How can this hurt you? Yield.”

  “I yield,” Moro moaned, hips pushing back.

  Val pushed his knees between Moro’s thighs, spreading them wider. He pressed against Moro’s trembling back, and nosed into Moro’s tangled black hair. With every motion, every brush of skin against skin, elusive pleasure surged and faded. He needed more. “I claim,” he growled and breached Moro with one strong, deep thrust.

  Sixty-Nine

  WITH HIS GENERALS gone and his attendants bustling about in preparation, the Ksala Danil had a brief moment alone in his luxurious prison. He twisted his left wrist, feeling the steel finally give way. He caught the broken link before it could fall noisily and doom him. In another thirty seconds, he’d broken the other three chains and rearranged himself as if they were still intact. He waited, with all the patience learned in three thousand years of captivity.

  It had taken him nearly five hundred years to perfect dividing his attention between his greater self and the enticing, addictive focus of a mortal Vessel. His handlers had never noticed.

  The worldships were outside his direct control, as were the attack and guard ships. He knew where a few emergency craft were kept, shuttles meant for transport between worldships. They could be manned by one person in a pinch. Thanks to indulgent handlers, he knew how.

  Not far away, the black and turquoise bulk of the Ksala Danil grazed on a supernova’s leftover dust cloud, idly drifting closer to the worldship containing its captive Vessel.

  Seventy

  WHEN MORO COULD think, he thought, So different from Kott!

  Val’s voice coaxed and sang, marveling with him, neither self-loathing nor gloating. The cushions helped Moro focus only on the pleasure of Val’s fast, hard strokes. Val’s beautiful cock met flesh healed enough to greedily welcome it. Not so slim once it was inside! Val’s cockhead angled just the right way to roughly kiss Moro’s prostate in starbursts of sensation.

  Not many had bothered to finish him without resorting to the collar. Val never touched it.

  Moro was painfully hard again, grinding on the cushions as he countered Val’s thrusts, when he felt a hated, familiar coldness flash down his spine, through his arms and legs. He couldn’t move. “Unhhh,” he tried before speech left him.

  Lyton was cheating, damn him. And poor, silly Val wouldn’t know the difference!

  Val drove deep again, pausing at full penetration. Moro felt warm fingers slide underneath him, between flesh and cushions. Val fondled Moro’s balls and straining shaft, his swollen cockhead and slippery foreskin, the wet slit weeping into the damp towel under him. Finding again all the secret places Val had first discovered in the auto-room, where a mere touch had made Moro howl and scream. Now, feeling everything but unable to respond on his own, Moro thought he’d black out from the delicious torment.

  “Sardis, stop. I know you’re in him,” said Val, easing his attack. “The moment you took over, I knew.”

  Moro felt his body shudder in reaction to Lyton’s surprise.

  Val began to move again. His hip swivel on the downstroke sent white sparks flying across Moro’s vision.

  “Moro said you can’t actually feel anything when you control him. A pity you don’t know what I’m doing to him right now,” said Val, timing words to thrusts. “Between the two of us, we’re driving him wild. Is this new collar better? Can you feel me, Sardis? If you take Moro’s body as your own, very soon I’ll be taking you, this same way.”

  Lyton’s control wavered.

  It struck Moro as unbelievably funny. And wildly arousing. Vicious, perfect Lyton Sardis, undone by the heightened senses of a Sonta body, driven into floundering release by a bewitching Camalian prince!

  “Ah,” Val gloated. “Didn’t you think this through? I won’t ever be your meek toy. I’m an Antonin, Sardis. A Camalian Royal. We get what we want. Even when we bottom, we’re bossy creatures. We’re worse when Cama rides our minds. And I’m exceptional. You must have heard the rumors? Poor Valier. Miswired Valier, always wanting more than decent Camalians are able to give him? Have I met my match in you? They’ll thank you for volunteering. I could take you in public, up against Camonde’s Sunburst Throne during a full meeting of Parliament. I could whip you bloody on the street outside, and no one would bat an eye.”

  Lyton’s control broke. Moro heard the man’s strangled cry of “Valier!” echo in the isolation chamber.

  Freed, Moro howled, hips slamming back against Val’s cock, legs shuddering in Val’s strong grip. His vision drowned in brilliant golden light. This time the faint whisper of Cama’s presence didn’t fade completely away.

  Seventy-One

  “SAVINILAN!” AKSENNA CALLED in Standard. She slipped off Alys’s lap and stretched her arms upward. “Cama tracks them. We require Imraithi in this body now.”

  Hegen saw Savinilan swallow nervously. The smaller Sonta male murmured something in his own language. Odasu patted him on the shoulder, a “go on” motion needing no translation.

  “We did this when we were wed,” Aksenna said.

  “And not since,” he answered. “I’m afraid of your power.”

  “You will sleep and know nothing of it. My dear, your mind is safe in my keeping.” Aksenna held out her arms to Savinilan. He stepped into her embrace, bending for another long kiss.

  Alys Antonin caught Hegen’s eye and nodded to one side of the room. He joined her there. “Are you well, Sera Antonin?” he asked.

  “I don’t envy Lia and Val if they share such contact with Cama all the time. It was intense.” Her stern, dark face softened in a smile. “But not unpleasant. Where is Vilam Volker Sardis?”

  “Bringing his chase ship here,” said Hegen. “We’ll use his locators to pinpoint their destination.”

  “Maitland thinks it might be—”

  A woman’s angry voice made them turn just as Savinilan staggered back into Odasu’s waiting arms. The giant held him close. Savinilan’s head drooped forward, hiding his face.

  The woman who’d been Aksenna stood proudly, hand still raised as if to slap. Her eyes were huge and black, her kiss-swollen lips drawn back in a snarl. In the Sonta language, she berated Savinilan and Odasu equally. Then she paused, looking around her at the architecture. And at the two humans.

  What she said next could only be a curse as she lunged toward a gun on Odasu’s belt.

  Savinilan wrenched out of Odasu’s hold and grabbed her. He stripped the weapon out of her hands and tossed it across the room. “No,” he said in Standard. “Those are allies. I’m here willingly and so are you. We need your skills. Calm yourself. I know you know the language.”

  His expressive lips quirked in a mocking grin Hegen had seen on Aksenna’s face minutes before. Amid the Sonta man’s blue-green irises, pinpoints of pale-orange light looked out.

  Body trading with a kiss. Hegen heard Alys’s under-her-breath obscenity.

  Odasu pulled both smaller Sonta back against his massive frame. “Imraithi Aksenna Sonta, this is Dr. Hegen. He has kep
t your grandson alive. The Camali female beside him is hunt sister to the Camali queen and second mother to the youth mated to Anyatisa’s boy.”

  Imraithi snarled, “Not by our rules!”

  “Later, Imra. We must steal them back first. Then you can argue precedent and ordeal.”

  She struggled briefly in Odasu’s grip, looking sideways at Aksenna-in-Savinilan’s body. “You. You were on my ship. My consort.”

  “He is Savinilan. Wed to me for a year, a mix-tribe boy out of Danil and the Singers’ clans,” said Aksenna, her own mannerisms projecting from Savinilan’s face and voice. “You’ve been asleep. Imra, a great evil has been done against Anyatisa’s son, by Terrani mad folk who would use him to awaken the White Storm.”

  “How could they know?” she hissed in Standard, looking doubtful.

  Aksenna sighed. “Because an innocent scholar talked a little too much to the wrong ears. The thieves stole the artifacts they think will help them. And they couldn’t have done it in the first place, if you hadn’t created Anyatisa with forbidden material! Or driven her and my Merrick away from our safe ships!”

  The fragile Sonta woman snarled, hands clenching into claws. Odasu grunted from the effort of holding his mates apart.

  Into the following strained silence, the conference room door opened. Black-clad Vilam Sardis bounded in, his smug grin vanishing as he assessed the changes with one glance. “Ksala Aksenna.” He bowed to Savinilan. “Vessel of Aksenna.” He bowed more deeply to Imraithi. “I am Vilam Volker Sardis, but please call me ‘Bill.’ I claim blood feud against the man and woman who have stolen your grandson.”

  “How deep a claim?” Imraithi asked, remembering to use Standard, her black gaze frankly assessing Bill’s tall body.

  “They are my parents,” said Bill, kneeling in front of her. “And I’ve sworn to cast them down and kill them.”

  “Every whelp fights its makers eventually. Why?”

  “They used me, without my knowledge or permission, for an act beyond forgiveness,” he said. “They endanger my territory and my legacy. And they have taken a partner I value.”

  She nodded. “You are hard-minded and honest, Terrani lord of Sardis. We can do business. What will your folk require of mine?”

  “A boost,” he said, grinning again. “Our prey has dropped out of M-space.”

  Seventy-Two

  DANIL PUSHED THE little shuttle to its limit of acceleration, flashing past the worldship’s patrols before they could fling a magnetic net around his craft. They’d been wary only of enemies diving toward a worldship or trying to flee into space. Who in their right mind would flee toward a Ksala? Especially one coiling suddenly upon itself, weaving a dimensional portal into M-space?

  Black tendrils swept out and enveloped the shuttle in a protective embrace. In the shuttle, Danil shut his Vessel’s eyes against turquoise light flaring almost white. He felt loss, shock, and terror. His Sonta, joined to him as he was to them, were no longer in comforting proximity. What he felt was a clever illusion. Not his pain but theirs. He hoped they survived long enough to understand his gambit.

  “I am doing this to protect you, my little ones,” he murmured in Sonta and gritted his teeth against the pain of separation. How close he’d grown to them!

  Then the patrol ships slewed around, confronting empty space instead of their Ksala.

  Already half a galaxy away, Danil rummaged in the shuttle’s storage bay for the food, weapons, and armor he’d stowed away.

  IN HIS WAKE, the patrol ships slowed abruptly.

  In the flagship, the elderly queen of the Danil Sonta tribe stood before a holographic image of the Ksala Aiyon. “You were correct, my lord,” she said, bowing. “The idiot boy thought he was being clever and ran. Why? We’ve never abused him. We’re tracking him now.”

  “Flesh is an abuse to one of us,” said the violet-eyed Ksala. “No matter how you dress slavery in silk and gold, it is still slavery. We star-eaters power your civilization from the smallest circuit up to the greatest warships. You give us sensation in return and train us to be good pets. What will happen to you when we burn white, dear lady? By your pacts, you must set us free. Will you honor it, or must we take our freedom?”

  “Take it up with the Banner Queens,” she retorted. “I read the histories. I know your crimes and why you and Aksenna were Bound. I know Tena accepted her binding out of love for you and Aksenna, to wait alongside you both. And I know Danil was a lunatic child before we caught him. We took him from the very jaws of one of the Unbound and gave him sanity.”

  The Ksala Aiyon shook his head. “He remembers. He is terrified of the White Storm’s return. Aksenna made vast errors in judgment. The Terrani compound them. According to the spy he placed among Aksenna’s folk, young Danil feels he must forestall a great danger to all the Sonta.”

  “By slaughtering a genetic aberration, Ksala Aiyon?” asked the queen. “Before Aksenna’s mistake can summon the White Storm? The Storm was always our ally. How many times did your Vessel visit our Ksala Danil before he dreamed up this madness? Or did you whisper it to Danil yourself?”

  “I whispered nothing. He knows what he learned from the Sonta and what is encoded into his very being. The Storm was the biggest Ksala to turn into a Lifebringer since my sister changed a billion years ago,” said Aiyon. “He’s been hiding for a reason. The same reason all the Bound Ksala hide behind Sonta shields and portals. We use you, just as you use us. How many of the Unbound feral star-eaters run free across this part of space? They have little thought, only hungry instinct. That hunger draws them to hunt a Lifebringer’s energy. How many of the Unbound can you catch and tame if a dozen of them show up at once on the Storm’s trail? Could you tame a hundred, or a thousand?”

  The queen of Danil’s tribe shivered, her aquamarine eyes wide and sightless in thought. “We could not take so many. Some must be killed.”

  “Killed by whom?” the Ksala Aiyon asked in a poisonous tone. “Oh yes, by us. Your Bound slaves.”

  “You’d kill and eat them in the wild,” she said.

  Aiyon’s eyes lightened slightly. “Yes, my lady. But you’ve taught us better, haven’t you?”

  Seventy-Three

  HEGEN SHOULDERED HIS restocked medic’s bag, marveling at how much his world had changed in twenty-four hours. A man from frontier Ventana, walking with a Camalian ambassador, the scion of Rio Sardis, two Sonta—and a tamed nightmare made flesh. Easy as a picnic.

  He doubted it would stay easy for long.

  “All aboard for Brightcliff!” Bill Sardis called from the loading ramp of Nineveh. The white ship glowed against the green lawns, easily four times the size of the black Sonta shuttle. “Is your little bucket spaceworthy?”

  Odasu laughed. “We don’t need engines like yours. Nor will you, once we leave atmosphere.”

  All three Sonta had a fierce argument in their own language when it came time to choose ships. Hegen was a little startled when Aksenna-in-Savinilan snarled down both Imraithi and Odasu and stomped over to Bill Sardis’s ship. “I travel with you, Doctor,” said Aksenna. “Alys Antonin, you should journey with Odasu and my unrepentant daughter. My awareness can guide Odasu’s ship, but he will need Alys to remain linked to Cama.”

  Hoisting up a full pack and an alarmingly large hand cannon, Alys considered Hegen. “Last chance to sit this one out, Sero Hegen. Cedar and the embassy are safe now.”

  I’d not bet on it, thought Hegen. One disaster at a time. Aloud he said, “Don’t be daft, Ambassador. Considering Moro’s track record so far, I’ll help pull him out of a crash again.”

  Alys shrugged, then turned, and trotted toward the black shuttle. She had a jaunty lift to her step, thought Hegen.

  “Doctor, Imraithi will have access to a worldship’s medical facilities, should the need arise,” said Aksenna, staring around at Nineveh’s nearly packed cargo hold. “What is this extra weight?”

  “Food, emergency medical gear, hard-credits by the crate, extra
tracking equipment, survival clothing and shelters, drugs, poisons, weapons. Er, lots of weapons,” said Bill Sardis, edging away from the graceful male Sonta. “I really don’t trust my father, Ksala Aksenna.”

  Hegen watched as Bill bumped back against the curved wall of the hold. The Ksala grinned and took one step toward Bill. Then another. The Ksala said, “You claim your father stole a person you valued. A woman? Yet you react to this male body.”

  Bill glared back. “I’m not made of stone, Ksala Aksenna.”

  “All my Vessels are alluring in one fashion or another. It is their purpose. I picked this one myself, from several offered to me in trade by Danil’s folk.”

  “This Danil. Friend or enemy?” asked Bill, forced as far against the wall as he could go.

  “The Bound Ksaloni are not friends to each other. We are prevented from being active enemies. Danil is an ally, no more.”

  “Would you trust him, er, her? It?” countered Bill. “More than the other Ksaloni?”

  Aksenna was distracted enough to stop crowding Bill against the steel wall. “Tena and Aiyon and one other, I know from before my captivity. We alone of the Ksaloni joined forces a billion years ago on a difficult hunt. Danil is but newly chained among the Bound. Why?”

  “Can you read your Vessels’ minds?”

  Aksenna snarled, “They give me everything else. I give them their privacy! Such trespass is unseemly among us.”

  “But you can do it? Read Savinilan’s memories?”

  “I can. Why should I?”

  “While you and the ambassador were in a tangle, I left to retrieve my ship. On the way out of the Camalian Embassy, I saw your man sneak out into a corridor and use some kind of communicator. He thought he was hidden and he whispered in Sonta,” said Bill. “But I can read guilt and subterfuge in a dozen other languages.”

  The Ksala’s eyes blazed sullen orange. “I have no spare Vessels on this journey. My worldship councils already doubt this venture. Imraithi cannot pilot with Odasu’s skill, and I will not leave my ship behind on a Terrani world. Nor will I depart my Vessel while my greater self carries you in transit. I can look into Savinilan’s sleeping mind, but I must not leave him.” Her eyes turned an even darker red-orange, like magma. The lean, strong arms locked rigid on the wall, on either side of Bill. The Ksala leaned forward, an inch from touching Bill’s body. “My Vessels keep me sane, Terrani lordling. And I have grown to appreciate sanity.”