by Robin Danner
She laughed bitterly. “You were right before,” she said. “I guess I don't really know Diana at all. I should have asked more questions. She didn't feel like the Diana I remembered from Circles when I was younger. And I didn't even think to ask Why Deimos? If I were a better worshipper, I would have realized something was off.”
“She made you an Arrow,” he said, unhooking the clasps of the webbing so she could sit up. “You said it yourself, an Arrow doesn't think about its target. The only reason I ran from the Pack was because the stink of the Titan was too much for me to ignore.”
Max emerged from the cockpit. “We're going to Helios. I don't think this can wait.”
“The Helios array?” Lin asked. “What's in the Helios array? Besides a lot of sunshine?”
“I know people,” Max said. He sat down on the edge of the recliner next to Rex. “Sonny Solaverde is one of the chief engineers. He's one of ours. Serves the Olympians. If my instincts are right, he can help.”
Rex's lips tightened. “Your instincts had better be right,” he said.
“Little Brother, if you've got a better idea, I'm open to it,” Max said, flopping back onto the recliner couch next to Lin. He looked up at her. “You don't look too good, Precious.”
Lin frowned. “Don't call me Precious.” She turned on her side. “I can't believe I was so blind. That woman's body…” she broke off. “I've seen death before. Why does that seem so…”
“Profane?” Rex asked quietly.
“People die all the time,” Max said. “All over. It's a natural part of the life cycle.”
“Accidents, diseases. Even the unnatural deaths, like murder, can be laid at the feet of humankind.” Rex stroked her hair. Poor thing. She didn't even know she needed comfort. “This was the direct work of a God.”
“They're not supposed to do that,” Max said. “Gods don't directly interfere with the flow of life.”
“What stops them?” Lin asked, wrapping her arms around herself. “I never knew how close we are to being obliterated. Just on a whim.”
“They have rules, too,” Max said. “They can intervene, but it has to be through human activity. That Mambo had the Titan-stench all over her. Ogun won't be happy he lost a Mambo directly to a Titan. If the Olympians don't take care of things internally…” Max let the sentence hang. Rex didn't want to finish it. If the Voudon Gods declared war on the Olympians…two whole pantheons of deities…
“If more people knew this…”
“The world would go into chaos,” Rex said. “Madness. So we keep the secrets. The Gods keep the secrets. And the world goes on, because it's better than the alternative.”
* * * *
Lin still reeled. Nothing in her experience had ever suggested that the Gods could or would move among people so directly.
“Now you know,” Max said quietly. “We've all been touched by the Gods. We're all Hers, no matter what the circumstances. It changes you.” The residual gravity left over from takeoff faded away and Max began to drift upward.
“Sets you apart,” Rex said. He stroked her arm. “We take comfort in each other, because nobody else understands.”
Warmth ignited from his touch and she looked up at him. The constant, low-grade desire kicked up a notch and it occurred to her that she had no place to go, had nothing else to do, and had the company of two men who were equally unencumbered and offering her comfort. The notion of using sex as comfort wasn't familiar to her, any more than using the need for a drink of water as a security blanket. But they understood. She needed a little understanding right now.
She toed off her magna-shoes with careful movements and stretched, floating just above the recliner couch's surface.
Max pulled her back into his arms to soak up his warmth. Rex's deep eyes held hers as he reached for the fasteners on her coveralls and undid them one by one. Disorienting, she thought, that unsnapping her clothes could hold such…gravity. “You smell so good,” Rex murmured. “On the parade float—I thought I could drown in your scent.”
She laughed. “It was an inconvenience to me, being turned on like that. Cinco City's not a very sexy place.” Cool air swirled around her bare skin, sending goosebumps racing over her flesh. “I realized people could see through my dress and it was a turn-on. I just wanted to scratch an itch.”
“See, that's where we're different,” Max murmured from behind her. His hands cupped her shoulders and slid into her collar, moving the fabric away from her bare skin. His fingers grazed her nipples and slid down to cup her breasts. “It's not just scratching an itch for us.”
Rex pressed his lips to her belly and she shivered, bouncing slightly on the cushion of the recliner and drifting upward again. Part of her wanted to dispense with the clothing and get to having two cocks inside her. The rest of her wanted to explore the idea of being fully engaged with these two particular men. “It's about being together for us,” he murmured. “Reminding each other that we're not alone.”
Max licked the back of her neck and bit down lightly, sending a stab of heat racing through her. “Mixing our energies.”
She shrugged out of the arms of her coveralls, freeing her torso. Rex's arms slid around her waist and he lifted her hips to pull the coveralls the rest of the way down. On his way back up, he stopped to nibble her toes. His legs drifted out past her feet, bobbing slightly upward.
“Hey!” She twisted, but Max held her down. Her movement sent them both into a drift away from the couch.
Rex pulled his way up her leg, kissing behind her knee, nipping her inner thigh, until he reached the thatch of curls between her legs. “I wanted to taste you before,” he said. “You were so ready, so delicious.” His thumb stroked down over her clit into her slick slit. “I didn't get a chance to watch you come.”
Lin's breath caught in her throat. “You were very considerate,” she said.
Max bent over to kiss her and she saw he'd taken off his shirt. His chest was powerful and thick, dusted generously with dark hair. Different from Rex, but no less appealing. Her tongue twined with his, her attention was on his kiss, so that when Rex's tongue delved into her already-swelling slit, it surprised her.
Her limbs went limp and she drifted on the sensations rippling out from her clit to her extremities. Behind her, Max worked himself out of his clothes and cradled her between his bare thighs, the heat from his body surrounding her. Her head in his lap, she could turn her head and nuzzle his cock, and she did so. With Rex's fingers and tongue filling her pussy, she wanted more—both to give and to receive.
Max stretched out over her, his body drifting above hers. His thick cock bobbed in front of her nose, jutting proudly from the patch of dark hair. She closed her lips around the shaft and dragged them down, then up again. He groaned. She felt the tiny tremors racing through his body as his hips moved involuntarily. His scent filled her nostrils, wrapping around the inside of her head. She'd been the benefactor of the inherently generous nature of a good blow job many times, but Max's appreciative noises made her conscious of how good it felt to give.
Rex wrapped an arm around her hips and shifted his body so that she sprawled above him. His tongue worked in and out of her and her hips moved in time. “I need…” she gasped, her voice muffled by Max's cock. It was impossible to get traction in the lack of gravity, and what she wanted was some resistance. Some friction.
Rex slid down underneath her and pulled one of the belt harnesses from the wall. “Hold on,” he murmured. She cupped Max's balls in her hand and used the slight pressure to guide his body towards the wall.
Max laughed, a little nervously. “Leading me around by the balls is just an expression, you know,” he said.
She released his sac and twisted her fingers in the harness straps. Taking his cock into her mouth again, she pushed her body out horizontally and spread her legs for Rex.
Behind her, Rex wrapped his arms around her, cupping her breasts. “I need to be inside you,” he whispered. She nodded and tilted her h
ips. The initial thrust and stretch of his cock filling her released something tight in her chest. She purred low in her throat.
Above her, Max laughed. “That tickles,” he said.
She drew her teeth lightly over the head of his cock, licking the salty bead of moisture from the tip. Rex thrust into her from behind and she rode the first waves of pleasure for a few moments, arching her back to allow him better access. If she'd been with other Lunars, they'd have been done already, and it was all Lin could do to keep from bucking back against him to speed him up. She bit her lip.
Max laughed, bumping against the wall with his own movements. “Patience, Precious,” he said. “We like to take things slow. Helps with the gravity.”
She scowled at him. “Are you enjoying this?”
“As a matter of fact…” Max's gaze went over her shoulder. “Little Brother, will you share?”
Rex withdrew from her and she uttered a whimper. Seconds later, she had nothing to complain about as she felt the blunt head of his cock pressing against her ass. Her nether muscles flexed and released. He eased into her, holding her hips. “Lin, you feel so good,” he murmured.
She didn't have the words to return the compliment. Max slid down carefully, pausing to lick and suck at her nipples before matching himself to her. He fit his cock into her pussy with a careful, gentle thrust and she cried out.
The two men moved inside her, in asynchronous rhythm. While Rex withdrew, Max thrust in, both filling her and releasing her. Their bodies bumped against hers while she held onto the safety harness as hard as she could. Her abdomen tightened, sensations spreading outward in waves that lapped against each other, washing through her and building upwards.
Max pressed his lips on the pulse at her throat, his stubble scraping against her neck. Her head fell back onto Rex's shoulder, his soft lips pressing against her ear. Her hips twisted and bucked, and a shudder from Max rippled through her. Her fingers fumbled their hold on the straps and they drifted away from the wall.
She caught the straps and pulled, slamming Max back into the wall and sending him deep into her pussy with the movement. Rex gripped her hips and pushed up into her ass and groaned. “I'm going to come,” he whispered.
Seconds later, she felt the shudders wrack his body and hot pulses filled her, starting a chain reaction in her own body. Her pussy clenched and a rolling wave pulled her under as she came.
Max moaned into her mouth. “Come around me, Precious. That's it.” His loud groan heralded his own orgasm. Lin's fingers lost the battle with the straps and the three of them drifted out into open space, shimmering pulses of pleasure spinning them into freefall.
Lin had learned from an early age to avoid emotional entanglements with her lovers. Forming bonds with people encouraged expectations, which were too often easily disappointed. She didn't want to settle down and become one of the many homesteaders settling around the solar system and trying to make outer space a cozy neighborhood.
In that respect, she had always empathized with the Diana of the legends who refused the attempts of the other Olympians to force her into marriage. In the Circle skits she'd taken part in as a teenager, her favorite one featured Diana declaring, “I am owned by no man!” just before running offstage with her bow and arrow.
She wasn't fond of cuddling. It created bonds where there shouldn't be bonds created. Yet when Rex's hand snaked around her hip and he pulled her against the warmth of his body, she didn't object. Caught between the warm bodies of the two Canid men, their hands brushing gently over her body in the afterglow of zero-g sex, quiet peace surged within her, and she was content to doze in Rex's arms, secured by the crash webbing and the feel of his even breathing against her cheek.
Chapter 5
Lin slouched in the co-pilot's chair and tried not to touch anything as she listened to Max. “His name's Sonny Solaverde, and he's the project manager for the array's power conversion.”
“How is he supposed to help us?” she asked, scrubbing at her face with her hands. “Who's going to help us go up against a Goddess, let alone one who's on the rampage?”
“Hey, Sonny's good people. I sniffed him out on LEO-2. He needed some help getting out from under the religious zealots.”
“Who are,” she pointed out, “not quite fundamental enough to turn down the cheap power from the Helios array.”
“Just so,” Max said.
“What if he can't help us?” Or more likely, what if he thinks I'm effing nuts and boots me out on my ass?
“Then we're screwed,” Max said cheerfully. “Any other questions, Precious?” The obscenely rapid way in which Max had adopted nicknames for her should have made her feel uncomfortable and highly annoyed. Instead, she only felt mild annoyance for the nickname.
“What's your story, anyway?” she asked. “Why did you leave Diana's Pack?”
His raised eyebrows asked her if she really wanted to know. She folded her arms in unspoken answer to his silent question and waited. After a long moment, he scratched his unshaven jaw. “Let's just call me the black sheep of the family. Or black dog, in this case.”
Lin's lips twisted. “I know a little about that. Lunies are a pretty open bunch as far as genetic prejudice goes, except when you're not sorry for it.” She just wasn't as ashamed of being called the town slut as most of her fellow miners thought she ought to be. People like Chloecouldn't understand Lin and only seemed to get irritated by her.
“You don't apologize for who you are,” Max said. “I like that.” His teeth flashed white behind the stubble of his beard.
She smiled back, warmth coursing through her. “Not a lot of people get that.” It didn't escape her awareness that Max had deftly avoided answering her original question. “So what about Diana? What…”
The golden array filled the viewport and whatever she was about to ask fell away. “Wow,” she breathed. A giant golden flower spun in a graceful, massive pirouette, reflecting enough sunlight that she actually felt warmth on her face from the viewport. Or maybe the warmth was just her imagination. As they approached, the petals of the flower tilted in unison and the center of the flower—a massive orbital ring itself—emerged and withdrew. The petals continued their angling, and then returned to their flat state, flexing inward and outward as they went. “It's beautiful,” she said.
“And expensive as hell. But worth every bit.” Max pulled back on the stick and the shuttle angled in for docking, diving below the delicate photovoltaic ballet towards the flower's stem.
Icarus flew too close to the sun and plummeted to earth when the heat melted his wax-coated wings. Was this humanity's Icarus moment? Stealing the power of the Gods for their use. There was a time when she would have scoffed. Now, a chill chip of ice lodged somewhere just under her heart, along with a pull towards darkness that oozed and seethed and wanted to swallow her whole.
Max told her that Sonny Solaverde was one of theirs. He could be trusted, Max had said, and that he knew what he was doing with solar panels. Max hadn’t told her that Sonny stood a head taller than her, had golden eyes that could have melted chocolate in space, and a smile measured in kilowatts. She wouldn't have expected an engineer—and a Union one at that, he insisted on clarifying—to look like a viddy star and be, well, dazzling. Or for Helios station to be so dazzling itself.
“Oh, it's a working station,” Sonny said. “But its unique status as an Earth-independent entity requires us to have some flash.”
Flash was a long, narrow, curved room with wide, thick viewports on the outer wall, and seats on the inner curve, facing the viewports and the jewel displayed there. A full quarter of the giant sunflower that was the Helios Array filled the viewports, shining golden in the light from the sun. The petals of the array shifted, turned, and tilted according to computer calculations designed to catch solar energy and transfer it into storage cells at the flower's stem.
“Impressive, isn't it?” Sonny asked.
Lin nodded. “I wonder how much we defy the Go
ds by merely being out here like this.”
Sonny touched her hand. His fingers felt warm. “Where mankind goes, the Gods go, too.”
“Isn't that the truth,” she said fervently.
Sonny regarded her through the tops of his eyes. “You're troubled,” he said. “Max told me you're a Lunar, and that you aren't one of Diana's from birth.”
Perfectly normal conversation, she thought. Just chit-chatting about the Gods. No crazy people here. “I…stumbled across her, I guess.” She looked towards Helios's petals. “Ironic, isn't it, since I've been worshipping her all my life.”
“It takes more faith to worship when you don't know for sure,” Sonny said gently. “Maybe if I could see what happened when you met her, I could offer you some comfort. If I may?” He held out his hands.
She nodded and closed her eyes. His large, broad hands settled on either side of her head and warmth flooded through her.
Memories rose in her mind as if pulled. She and her team of survey crew had gone overland, to the first domes ever built on the Moon. Up near the Moon's North Pole, long since abandoned after the mining effort had found more efficient facilities around the equatorial region. The old domes were sunk deep into the lunar surface and accessed through tunnels in the rock.
It was in one such tunnel that the rockfall had collapsed the doorway to the dome leading out. Lin and her team had been trapped. Rescue teams had been dispatched immediately, but the crew had split up to seek separate ways out. In their wanderings, Lin and her partners had stumbled onto one of the oldest domes, and the crumbling section of habitat had made something on the back of her neck crawl in discomfort. Mostly buried under moon dust, the dome's dank gloom created shadows in shadows, until a blue-tinged paleness appeared out of the deepest of blacks.