Ingenious

by Barrie Farris

  One word, yes. Beau would die, and Quiggs was absolved. Say yes, then never look back.

  “On my honor, no! Don’t kill him!” Quiggs shoved at Beau. “Get off me before I change my mind.”

  Beau rolled off and onto his back. His face was blissed out. His wet crotch filled the room with the enticing reek of feral bait.

  Cyrus clearly disbelieved him. “Quiggs, answer truthfully. Were… you… raped?”

  Quiggs stood, struggling for an explanation that didn’t get Beau executed on the spot. “No. Beau would never rape me.”

  “The sex was consensual?” Cyrus made it a question to offer Quiggs a last chance to escape the consequences.

  “You can’t call this sex. We haven’t seen each other in months. We were caught up in… in… hellos.”

  Palmer pointed at the wet patch on Quiggs’s pants. “You obviously enjoyed saying hello.”

  William fanned his perfect nose at the scent drenching the room. “You heard him, Cyrus. The sex was consensual. The marriage is dissolved.”

  Rosamunde pressed a hand over her heart as if staunching the wound dealt her, then turned her face into Palmer’s neck and wept. He swept her up in his arms and carried her out, the red cape she wore parting to reveal her white bridal gown.

  William sneered at Quiggs’s effort to hide the stain with cupped hands. “I am thankful we discovered your deviant nature before you defiled my daughter.” He left the room, leaving Second Husband Cyrus to deal with the legal consequences.

  Cyrus shook his head at Quiggs. “Your hello has cost you everything. You know the terms of the marriage contract.”

  “Rosamunde gets everything.” Quiggs dropped his head in his hands. “I own nothing.” His shoulders quaked. He wanted to squat, rock, and yowl his agony. This could not be happening to him.

  Beau recovered from the aftershocks. He bounced to his feet. The guards backed away alarmed by his size. “You have me. I will wed you and take care of my husband Quiggs forever.”

  Quiggs spread his fingers and glared through them at Beau’s beaming face.

  Cyrus arched a brow. “You’ll have to wait until your Quiggs serves out his three years as a concubine. Since he lacks military training, it’s the lottery for him.”

  Quiggs got to his feet slowly. The lottery? The Academic Champion bending over for an eel skinner? Gagging on a dock worker’s cock? Bracing on all fours for a street sweeper when commanded?

  Because the way his luck ran, he sure as fuck would draw the scum of the territory!

  Quiggs whirled on Beau with both fists swinging. “You ruined my life! I should have cried rape!” He split the skin over his knuckles as he struck Beau’s chin.

  Beau stood still, shocked by the first violence Quiggs had shown him.

  Quiggs pummeled his chest. “I should have let the guard cut your fucking throat!”

  Beau gently trapped Quiggs’s fists in his hands. “My Quiggs, stop, you are bleeding,”

  “I’m not your Quiggs anymore.”

  “You are always my Quiggs.”

  “AAAGGGGGH!” Quiggs struggled to free his fists. “Say that again and I will kick your balls so hard you’ll taste feral bait!”

  Beau lifted his stubborn chin. “My… Quiggs.”

  Quiggs kicked at Beau’s groin and jammed his toes when Beau blocked with his hip.

  Howling and cursing, Quiggs continued kicking until the police arrived with two caged carts to wheel them to jail.

  By the time he was locked in solitary, Quiggs was reduced to broken sobs.

  Chapter Thirteen

  For the swearing-in ceremony in the field arena immediately following graduation, Max dressed in a long navy jacket with tails and epaulets and navy pants with a green stripe down the sides tucked into his fitted boots. His sword gleamed from its yellow sash. The wide cuffs of his jacket boasted tiny red embroidered fanged skulls—over sixty kills in defense of the Triangle.

  Thanks to his feral blood, Max was the most physically elite soldier in military history.

  It also made him lifelong military. His feral blood banned him from marriage. Since Max never took it up the ass, wedding a husband was also out. The law required proof of reciprocation in wedlock to formalize the union. Though he’d found men willing to lie he had submitted on their wedding night, the law insisted on a medical exam the day after. Wedlock was as sacred as marriage. The doctors would scrutinize his ass with a magnifying glass.

  Acceptance as human from birth was easier for Max since he had inherited his father’s thick black hair instead of the blonde hair of ferals. His deep-set gray eyes were human with an icy sparkle belonging to Max alone. When he’d undergone an unexpected transition, the tawny sensory hairs around his hairline appeared. Those hairs had saved his life as often as his claws and strength. To maximize the exposure to vibrations, he cut his dark hair short on the sides and nape but longer on the crown, a style imitated by his soldiers.

  The enlistees Max addressed today went immediately from accepting their diploma in the academy’s closed auditorium to the athletic field for the swearing-in ceremony. Max delivered the same brief, booming speech he’d given for five years. After his speech, he paused, then sneered. “Anyone with doubts he can kill without mercy leave now. The lottery still needs concubines.”

  The roars and stamping feet showed their contempt for mercy and submission.

  Max let the noise die before adding in a silky voice, “And for those who wonder about the proper sexual conduct of soldiers under my command? Always consensual. Never on duty. Otherwise, I don’t give a damn where, when, how.”

  Max grinned at the cheers. Years of activity in the clinic had limited his enlistees to quick uncomplicated sex on a schedule. They’d fuck like vine rats.

  As Max walked down the line of enlistees, he welcomed each with both hands enclosing theirs in a handshake. He noted how their eyes widened as his powerful hands dwarfed theirs. They stared at the wide cuffs, awed at the number of skulls and eager to flaunt kills when they earned dress uniforms. Many enlistees indicated sexual interest. Max noted their badges and gripped their hands a bit longer, sliding away with a caress. Oh, yes. A good year for gorgeous asses. His compliments to Dean Cagney.

  The ceremony concluded with Max telling the enlistees to enjoy the banquet—especially the kegs of ale. Tomorrow morning, they rode the current to training camp in Port Paducah. If any soldier couldn’t walk a straight line to the dock, the military patrol would haul their sorry asses aboard the barge in wheelbarrows.

  Max expected none would walk a straight line.

  Yes, his new soldiers were a handsome, vigorous group. He hoped they survived the next three years and reenlisted. The drinking underway, Max returned to his apartment to relax before the marriage reception for the governor’s daughter.

  “How many enlisted?” Cutty handed Max a flask of brandy.

  Max sighed. “Eighty-seven for us, fifty-one for the lottery. A new breeding cycle is due this year. Families encouraged their sons to enter the lottery.”

  “A bunch of weak livers. I graduated during a breeding year. Never stopped me from signing up.” Cutty had known from his first year he wanted to enlist. He had the heart of a warrior and the tongue of a stinging wasp, but his slim, fem build was his downfall. Though his black eyes sighted targets a thousand yards away, he couldn’t draw back a bowstring for fifty feet. He’d signed up but flunked the physical and served as a concubine instead of a soldier. His three years completed, Cutty followed the military by hiring on as a manservant for Max’s uncle for sixteen years and for Max the last five years.

  Cutty had removed more bloodstains from Max’s clothes their first year than the whole of his uncle’s term. Cutty was happiest when complaining. Max kept him happy

  Max settled back into a deep leather chair in front of the open balcony curtain. He closed his eyes and sipped, savoring the sweet burn coursing through his blood. The early evening breeze drifted over planters of mint berrie
s. His mother’s pen-and-ink sketches of the family’s farm relieved the starkness of the beige walls and reminded him why he defended the Triangle.

  Max seldom visited his three-room apartment in Port Memphis. A committee of Ruling Mothers was always demanding he explain his military expenses, especially since Governor Lyre took office. He furnished the living room with hard chairs to discourage long visits and kept a well-stocked bar cabinet to loosen tongues.

  A Ruling Mother could slug down drinks to match any soldier.

  A collection of military journals filled a pair of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves flanking the bar. At the request of Cadet Quiggs Fallon, he’d loaned many volumes to the academy. This evening, Max would finally meet the genius who’d rescued Beau and outwitted the First Family. The reception wasn’t the time to mention the development of explosive weapons for baited traps. The bridegroom would be salivating for sex.

  How was Beau faring in the pleasure house? The painful ring around his shaft needed draining before his hips jerked from an involuntary orgasm to relieve the pressure. It wouldn’t matter where Beau was or who watched—when the ring swelled to its limit, his cock would shoot. And shoot. And shoot.

  The fem hired to initiate Beau was Max’s classmate Jaimie, who understood how the ring functioned from their times in the sex clinic. Tomorrow, Max would leave Port Memphis with eighty-seven hungover enlistees and one enthusiastic feral baiter.

  At the pounding on the door, Max frowned. He had hoped Beau would spend the night at the pleasure house and forget about his friend’s marriage ceremony.

  “It’s Sergeant Miller, sir. Permission to enter.”

  Cutty opened the door, and Sergeant Miller strode across the room to thump a fist over his chest as he bowed. “About Beau, sir…” Miller hesitated, as if bracing for a thrashing. “He’s in jail.”

  Max smiled at Beau’s apparent enthusiasm. “Pay the fine. Then bring him to me.”

  “It’s five hundred credits, sir.”

  His smile faltered. “What did he wreck?”

  “Beau got scared and displayed his claws. When Jamie shrieked, Beau leaped out the window. Next thing I knew, the heralds were shouting on the corners he was arrested and in the holding cell for having sex with a married man.”

  The hairs on Max’s nape raised, sending tiny shocks down his spine. He knew but stated the obvious. “He fled to his friend Quiggs for comfort and was caught without a chaperone.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  Max straightened in his chair. “Who caught them? Can the witnesses be bribed?”

  “Rosamunde and her fathers walked in on them. There was also a stylist and guards. Professors on the floor ran to the room when they heard the screams. Cum stains supported witnesses swearing Beau and Quiggs had grinded to orgasm on the floor.”

  Max ran his hands through his hair. Damn, this was bad. “Have they executed Quiggs yet?”

  “The marriage contract disallows an execution, so the police placed Quiggs in solitary. Beau’s in his old cell squatting and rocking. He’s devastated. His friend lost everything he owns.”

  Cutty offered his opinion. “Smart as he is, what was Quiggs thinking?”

  “The heralds are quoting Quiggs as insisting Beau and he were caught up in hellos.”

  Max rubbed the bridge of his nose. Public opinion would side with Rosamunde on this.

  Miller choked out, “Sir, I apologize. I looked for Beau as soon as Jamie told us he’d jumped four stories out the window. Thought I’d find him busted on the ground, but he’d vanished.”

  “Not your fault. Not Beau’s fault. Not Quiggs’s fault,” Max said.

  Just rotten luck for Beau and Quiggs and good luck for the First Family, who now controlled the fuel supply, the patents, the farms, the tower with all Quiggs’s research. Still rankled from how Max freed Beau, the governor would lament to the heralds how this scandal justified her reasons for castrating him. Privately, she’d gloat on the political clout gained from having a monopoly on fuel.

  Cutty answered the sharp rap of a baton on the door. “That’d be from her,” he muttered.

  The courier, wearing the armband of the governor’s office, delivered a letter to Max and waited like a statue for a reply. Max read the message, then tossed it aside. “A reminder that had I allowed the breed’s castration, this crime would have been avoided. Governor Lyre declares Beau is unfit for society unless he is castrated.”

  To the courier, Max said, “Remind the governor the commander decides a soldier’s punishment.” From the courier’s raised brows, Max knew the curt verbal response slighted the governor. Her couriers returned with carefully written replies. He jerked a thumb at the door. “Leave us.”

  Max unlocked a chest, counted out credits into a leather pouch, and handed it to Miller. “Pay the fine. Pick a few men to shackle Beau and bring him to me. Do not hurt him.”

  Miller returned within the hour with a subdued Beau. As soon as the shackles were removed, Beau scrambled under the wide conference table, pushed against the wall when not in use. He rocked with his arms wrapped around his head.

  “My fault, my fault, all my fault,” Beau’s eyes were vacant, his golden skin taking on an ashen hue.

  Max squatted by the table and slapped Beau repeatedly to rip him out of his trance, but the marks left pale prints instead of reddened skin. Beau didn’t flinch when Max aimed a fist at his right eye, then pulled the punch at the last instant.

  Max recognized the signs. Beau was willing himself to die like a captive feral.

  The moaning under the table ceased, and Beau squatted motionless. Max placed a finger on the pulse in Beau’s throat. Shit. Slowing.

  “Beau… listen. Not your fault. My fault. I should have gone with you.”

  Beau had given up. His pupils were blown, his skin cold, dry. As if his mind poisoned his body.

  Cutty had a fondness for Private Beau. Tears streamed down his face. “Let me try, Commander.” He soaked a napkin in ammonia and crawled under the table to wave it under Beau’s nose, but Beau didn’t flinch. He twisted Beau’s ear until it tore. The sluggish blood was the last stage before death.

  Sergeant Miller spoke up. “Can medical inject him with a stimulant or a sedative?”

  “A stimulant won’t work on him,” Max said. “A sedative will shut down his organs quicker.” Then medical would demand the body for dissection.

  Max rose to his feet. He would go to the jail and ask Quiggs to sign an enlistment agreement for the military. Max would conduct a one-minute physical aptitude exam in the cell: Lift a marker, throw it at the wall, jump left, jump right. Tests concluded. Recruit passes. Private Quiggs would be immediately released into the commander’s custody.

  A visitor walked through the open door and cleared his throat to get their attention. He wore a black robe with the shaved head and trimmed beard of a professor and carried a scroll tied with a purple ribbon. With the animation of a corpse, he announced, “I am Professor Towers, chairman of the lottery. Congratulations, Commander Max Bronn. You have won a concubine.” He handed Max the scroll.

  Max had forgotten his eligibility. Four years ago, at twenty-two, he’d signed his name on a lottery tile and dropped it into the red lacquered box. Thousands of tiles vied for a few dozen concubines each graduation day.

  The room shrunk to the scroll he held. Holy hell, he’d won a concubine! Concubines behaved like women, only without the bits and bossy rules, and belonged to their owners for three years. Obedience was the law. Hours of heated foreplay or a quick tussle. A blow job goodnight and good morning without complaint.

  Every possessive emotion surfaced, and his cock hardened. He needed a bigger bed. One fitted with special posts and hardware. Max was vaguely aware of Miller congratulating him and the professor waiting for him to slip the ribbon and read the name on the scroll and accept or decline. As if he’d decline a concubine!

  Cutty slapped his back. “Come on, sir. Open it. Who’s the unlucky concubine? P
ity his hole.”

  Miller bit down a grin at the comment.

  Not every anus accommodated Max. By law his concubine had to make every effort to bite the strap and accept penetration. Every concubine understood his fate. A cadet choosing the lottery instead of the military never graduated from the academy without dozens of pricks sampling his ass. A concubine painted his face, styled his hair, and dressed—or undressed—for seduction.

  He thought of the handsome class of graduates. His concubine was one of those fuckable, horny, gorgeous young men trained to please an owner. Max looked forward to coming so hard tears would spill from his eyes. He slipped the ribbon, unrolled the certificate of ownership, an took a deep breath before silently reading the name.

  Quiggs Fallon.

  Max blinked, stunned.

  Quiggs Fallon?

  Max won the single exception to fuckable, trained, gorgeous. How could Max spend three years with an inept concubine who still had a braid? A clueless genius publicly condemned for cheating hours before his marriage bed.

  Governor Lyre would crack a rib from laughter.

  His cock softened at the embarrassment. He’d rather jerk off in the vines.

  Miller dropped formality. “I remember the class two years behind me being a stellar year for pink holes. So who’d you draw? Maybe I know him. I probably do know him.”

  “Give it here.” Cutty snatched the scroll and silently read the name. “Oh.” He passed the scroll to Miller, who blanched.

  Just as Max thought, Quiggs was an embarrassment to any owner.

  Max stared at the professor. “Do you know who I’ve won?”

  The professor nodded somberly. “I witnessed the drawing. Quiggs Fallon waits in his cell for your answer. If you accept ownership, you agree to an exclusive arrangement for three years with a concubine who swears he’d rather be tossed into the canal with stones tied to his ankles than bend over at your command.”

  The tawny sensory hairs tingled over Max’s ears. From the corner of his eye, he saw Beau stick his head and shoulders out from under the table. He’d heard his Quiggs’s name.