Ingenious

by Barrie Farris

  A loud skkkrrriitttch followed as Max sank claws in the padded arms of the chair.

  Miller choked.

  “Spit it out, Miller,” Max growled.

  At ease, Miller dared to say, “Sir, your men are talking about the amount of time Miles spent alone with your concubine. Knowing the sergeant’s reputation, they don’t believe it was entirely innocent.”

  “A bunch of gossiping old heralds,” Max said. “Inform my men that any soldier overheard speculating on what happened between Miles and my concubine will accompany the sergeant on border patrol tomorrow. You got that, Miller?”

  Miller thumped his chest, bowed, pivoted, and left. Max heard open laughter before the front door shut.

  Cutty finished snipping and worked a light wax through Max’s hair to soothe the angry bristling of the sensory hairs along his hairline. After removing the cape, he eased Max into his long blue jacket with tails and epaulets. He pinned a tricolor sash on Max’s left shoulder and draped it to the right hip. On the turned-back cuffs, he had embroidered more fanged skulls in shimmery red.

  Max intended to add a few fangless skulls before this business with Quiggs was resolved.

  Cutty fluffed the lace spilling from the cuffs. The lace minimized Max’s powerful hands. He checked for smudges on the glossy black boots. Satisfied, he completed the attire with a black three-cornered hat, rarely worn because Max detested the curling plume.

  Max frowned at his reflection. “Why’d you cut my hair if you meant to cover it with a hat?”

  “Because you aren’t wearing a hat to bed. Quit frowning. You’re courting a concubine tonight, not hunting ferals.”

  Max inspected his appearance. His gray eyes glimmered for a fight. He breathed deeply to relax the flexor tendons in his fingers. In public, he was careful to keep his hands palms down to hide his distorted digits. At rest, his claws sheathed within protective folds of his thickened fingertips. They displayed when he sensed danger, when he hunted, when his possessions were challenged.

  Due to the governor’s meddling, he had planned a quick but satisfying claiming with a minimum of fuss and bother tonight instead of patiently waiting. A rational arrangement to appeal to Quiggs’s rational mind… and to ease Beau’s distress. That all shot to fuck this morning. His concubine lusted after the man who’d rescued him, and the assassin would strike again.

  Max’s claws tingled at both threats to his ownership.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With its graceful six-column portico and wide curve of steps leading down to an open-air plaza, the Legislative Building stood out from the city’s starkly functional architecture. This evening, the bustling plaza was roped off from traffic, its square block cleared of easels, vendors, and benches and replaced by folding banquet tables covered with pressed linens yellowed with age. Places were set with metal cutlery, glazed stoneware, and stemmed crystal. Centerpieces of fragrant grasses, roses, and carnations, donated from the conservatory at Port Lourdes, softened the mucky air from the canal. Sinewy striped cats weaved between the chairs, keeping excited sucker-toes away. Beneath the plaza a network of kitchens prepared the annual feast, irresistible aromas rising through the street ducts.

  Max gathered with the other owners at the bottom step of the portico a half-hour before dusk. Concubines waited out of sight inside the atrium of the building. At dusk, they would line up behind the flag stretched between the middle columns of the portico, and the Claiming Ceremony would commence.

  The majority of owners drawn from the lottery box held menial jobs without prospects of a spouse. The government loaned them black suits for the occasion and issued special passes to the bathhouses for grooming, in addition to temporary housing for the couple and a monthly stipend for three years.

  Regardless of their background, all owners, including Max, ran fingers inside their tight collars. Max stood a head taller, his embroidered cuffs drawing covert glances. His rank intimidated the other owners, who huddled in groups away from him, keeping their voices low and stiff. He recognized an owner who’d just completed three years of military service in time to cast his name in the lottery box. “Congratulations, Peterson. Your first year of eligibility and your tile is drawn. You must know your concubine.”

  The former Corporal Peterson started to salute, then remembered he was a civilian. “I knew Gordon in the Academy. He called me an ugly buck and told me I’d never tap his fine ass in the clinic.” Peterson rubbed his callused hands together. “Ah, payback’s a bitch, right, Commander?”

  The tension broken, the comments flew back and forth.

  “Don’t care what my boy looks like. Just give me a pink hole and my home tended.”

  “What if mine hates the look of me?”

  “Calvin, you old sack of shit—this is three times you’ve won!”

  “I remember my time waiting up there behind the flag. Coulda shit my pants. Ugly one-eyed weasel won me. Got rid of him after a year because he cheated in a pleasure house. The lottery committee let me draw a new owner. Now there was a fine man! There’ll be no abusing my sweet boy.”

  Sunset loomed. The blue veins in the stone structures softly awakened as shadows touched the surface. Pipes and drums played as the First Family promenaded around the plaza. Max noted Rosamunde wore the high-waisted pink gown of a deb again. With a final wave to the owners, the governor took her seat at a side table with the mayors of the three port cities. The women would leave after the governor’s speech. Max would have sat with them had he not won the lottery.

  As dusk fell, lanterns backlit the flag stretched between the middle columns. A hush descended as the silhouettes of the concubines were seen lining up from right to left with their hands crossed over their chest, their profiles to the owners waiting below.

  They were lithe, well-formed, and skilled in the art of pleasuring.

  Except for the last concubine in line. The one whose elbows jerked for balance while his ankles wobbled.

  The one whose rounded butt thrust out while his braid tangled around his knees.

  Max’s virgin concubine.

  For better or for worse, he owned Quiggs Fallon. Max had faced a trio of ferals bent on mating him with less fear than claiming his concubine.

  The musicians ceased. Professor Towers, the cadaverous chairman of the lottery, stood in front of the flag and gave a long-winded speech on the origin of the lottery and how it restored peace to their Triangle. The drums rolled when he finished, waking up the audience.

  The professor stepped aside, and Dean Cagney took over. The dean’s resonant voice announced by order drawn each concubine and owner.

  His name called out, the first concubine glided out from behind the backlit flag and descended the steps with grace and a smile for his owner waiting at the bottom. In accordance with tradition, the concubine knelt to show obedience by kissing his owner’s extended palms, then stood and presented his face for a kiss. The kiss titillated the audience. Kissing between men was a lewd act, depicting a loose thread in a man’s moral fabric. However, with a concubine, consensual kissing in private was acceptable, though seldom admitted. Some owners prolonged the ceremonial kiss to draw gasps from the audience. Some licked, some marked skin with a juicy suck, some aimed at the corners of the mouth. None locked lips.

  After the kiss—a disappointing peck on the forehead—the first pair presented themselves to the governor before taking a seat at their assigned table.

  The expressions when pairs met were both funny and painful. Max pitied the toned concubine whose kohl-lined eyes flared with revulsion at the stocky dock worker with wet stains under his arms.

  The man ahead of Max whispered back, “Wait ‘til the boy sees Geoff’s thick cock. Got stamina, he does.”

  Max’s chuckle masked his nervousness.

  The Ruling Mothers rolled their eyes at the spectators’ cries for hotter kissing. Men ruled by their hips, women by their superior minds.

  A significant hush fell as Max moved forward and wait
ed for Quiggs’s name.

  The dean gave a dramatic pause, then announced, “Quiggs Fallon, claimed by the Defender of our Triangle, the undefeated champion of our people… Commander Max Bronn.”

  Hearing his name, Quiggs understood why concubines wore the ridiculous platform sandals—to prevent their feet from bolting. His pulse picked up. The corset constricted his ribcage, limiting his breath to shallow pants. He flapped for balance like a bird walking on blistering stones.

  He told himself it could be worse. He could be dressed in a white nightshirt knocking on Rosamunde’s bedroom door, terrified of pushing into her. Of her scathing critique if he failed to please her. Rosamunde could be kicking her heels on his ass tonight, urging him to get it right or get off. Instead, he’d be kicking his heels on the Commander’s ass. Or biting down on the pillow, depending on which position Max favored.

  If honest with himself, Quiggs was curious about the sex tonight. What he resented was losing the right to choose his first partner. What had begun as a satisfactory arrangement with Max two weeks ago felt wrong tonight. Quiggs disliked surrendering his body to a man who’d treat his firsts like nuisances. He wanted a man attracted to him. He wanted laughter and exhausted murmurs between sweaty flesh slapping together.

  He wanted Miles.

  His name announced, Quiggs crossed his hands over his chest and stepped from around the flag, immediately stealing a look at his owner waiting at the bottom for him. Imposing and tall in the sash, plumed hat, and uniform of his rank, the commander stood with his feet apart and hands clasped behind his back. His expression, from what little Quiggs could see at this distance, regarded him like a tardy enlistee reporting for duty.

  Anxiety heightened with each step. He poised on the bottom step, the burst of exercise forcing him to hold his sides to catch his breath. Fucking corset. Dots swarmed his vision, sound faded, and his knees wobbled like his ankles. Unable to kneel, Quiggs sat down on the last step with his knees turned in, legs stretched out. His head drooped, gulping for air like an eel out of water.

  His vision cleared. A pair of black boots shined to a high gloss came into focus, and a hand tipped up his chin to give his owner a look at what he’d won. The commander’s huff sounded disappointed.

  Quiggs stiffened his spine and lifted his gaze. “You don’t have to like the look of me, but you will… you… you… You?”

  “Hello, my baby cadet.”

  A smile stole its timid way across Quiggs’s face as he recognized Sergeant Miles’s grinning face beneath the hat. “It is you.”

  Cheers filled the plaza, feet stomped, whistles loosed. Was Quiggs the only one who didn’t know Commander Max Bronn and Sergeant Miles were one and the same?

  “Do you accept my ownership?” Max flicked back his famous cuffs and held out his palms.

  Oh… yes… the rest of the claiming ceremony. Before anyone challenged the claiming, Quiggs knelt, grabbed his owner’s palms, and smothered them with kisses. Max—or should he call him Miles, commander, sir, master? —was his to surrender all his firsts to. The hands he kissed owned every inch of him. The relief slowed his pounding heart, and his breathing evened. The happiness infusing his blood replaced the need for oxygen.

  “Enough. I’d say everyone agrees you’ve accepted me. My turn.” Max helped him rise, then wrapped his arms around him. Unable to believe his luck, Quiggs melted into him. He rested his cheek against the warm hollow of Max’s throat and inhaled the clean scent of soap overlaid by an odd musky note. This was how they’d said goodbye earlier, with the commander masquerading as Sergeant Miles holding him and Quiggs’s face pressed against his throat.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  His breath moist in Quiggs’s ear, Max whispered. “Miles is a nickname earned when I was a cadet. If I told you who I was, I could not have spent time alone with you.”

  “Heh.” Quiggs nuzzled deeper, delighted Max had bent the rules to spend extra time with him.

  “Our audience is waiting for me to kiss you and show I accept you.”

  Quiggs’s happy grin flattened as his owner arched him backward. Oh fuck, those hungry gray eyes were glued to his mouth. Quiggs turned his face in time to deflect the kiss from his mouth to his cheek. He jumped at the flick of a hot tongue.

  “Remember you’re all mine, baby cadet.” Max straightened and pulled him to his side. He raised their linked hands high to face the plaza and waited for the cheers to subside. “We have a bit of unpleasantness before the banquet.” He wrapped an arm around Quiggs’s waist and led him to the First Family’s table for the governor’s congratulations.

  Quiggs’s feet floated as if they were happy soap bubbles. “Do they know about you saving me?”

  “Everyone in the three ports knows. Heralds have barked the news on every corner. The couriers are exhausted.”

  “Stefan could have warned me.”

  “His revenge for your running away.”

  As Quiggs approached the governor’s table, he smirked at Rosamunde wearing the pink dress of a deb again with her golden ringlets framing her face instead of upswept. The governor had confiscated one of her daughter’s gowns. He remembered paying for a green gown with black bows.

  And for someone fussing at him for putting on weight—Rosamunde was spreading out. She strained the bodice of her dress.

  Rosamunde sat to the left of her mother. William sat to the right of his wife, with Palmer between him and Cyrus. Palmer’s sulky mouth was puffy, his face covered in stubble burns. William and Cyrus sported the heavy-lidded eyes of sated men, their bodies crowding Palmer.

  Quiggs’s situation brightened in comparison to poor Palmer in bed between his much older attentive husbands.

  Max patted Quiggs’s arm. “Governor Lyre, may I present my concubine, Quiggs Fallon.”

  The governor’s smile was brittle, disappointed a ruddy dock worker wasn’t presenting Quiggs. “Congratulations, Commander Bronn.” She pinned him with her steely blue eyes, waiting for him to look away. The commander held his gaze steady until her shoulder blades drew erect when he wouldn’t yield. She turned to Quiggs. “Congratulations on winning the protection of the commander. I am deeply disturbed to learn of the attempt on your life. Rest assured every effort is being poured into the investigation.”

  Rosamunde’s gloating voice jumped in. “There are witnesses who swear they saw Commander Bronn inviting you for sex in an alley. They said he triggered your flight to the rampart where you were attacked.”

  Her accusation earned frowns from her family. The guests seated nearby stirred uneasily in their chairs.

  “I assumed Quiggs was a soft enlistee,” the commander easily replied. “I teased him for amusement, and he ran away. I didn’t know who he was until after I had rescued him.”

  Rosamunde pressed harder. “The question is why did you run after him.”

  When the commander remained silent, Rosamunde fixed her gaze on Quiggs. He saw a tiny smile come and go like the flick of a stinger as she toyed with her cornered prey before dealing a lethal strike. What was she up to? What witnesses?

  Rosamunde struck. “Commander Bronn knows the punishment for soliciting sex after winning a concubine. A hearing will determine if—”

  The commander slammed his palms on the table. The tendons of his hands stood out, and his claws displayed, gleaming like burnished gold. They were three inches long with pointed black tips.

  The First Family gasped with the rest of the guests at the table. Having shared a cell during Beau’s transition, Quiggs remained calm.

  “Your witnesses will amend their statement.” An unnerving chill followed the commander’s soft request. He never retreated from a challenge.

  A pair of bodyguards stepped closer, hands on their batons, their worried expressions pleading for him to back down. He didn’t. The chill thickened.

  Governor Lyre paled. In a strained voice, she said, “Rest assured, Commander Bronn, no infractions against your ownership will reach the Ju
dicial Council. Any gossip Rosamunde overheard will be discredited.”

  “Thank you, your honor.” Max worked his claws from the tablecloth. Though he flexed his fingers to encourage his claws to sheathe, they remained displayed, a cue to the anger boiling inside.

  “Cyrus, take our daughter home. Talk to her.” Governor Lyre motioned the servers to begin as if nothing had happened.

  Rosamunde shot Quiggs a look of pure loathing. “Enjoy the claws tonight.”

  Quiggs let her have the parting shot. In a few hours he’d enjoy sex with the commander who’d fought the governor for him, rescued him, even seemed attracted him for some strange reason. He licked his lips. The giddiness rivaled soaring through the air in his balloon.

  Max’s nature disallowed certain acts. He hoped Stefan had given Quiggs the talk.

  The men started to rise when Max reached his table. He nipped the formalities. “Tonight, I am a citizen. Let us eat, drink, and… get acquainted with our concubines.”

  “Do I call you Max or Miles?” Quiggs asked as Max slid back the hard, folding chair for him.

  “Max, please.”

  Across the table, ex-Corporal Peterson stopped nibbling his concubine’s neck. “We nicknamed him Miles because he ran the complete canal circuit—sixty miles—without a break. Whenever he’s in port and takes a run inside the city, he hates the fist-thumping salutes, so he wears his old Border Patrol uniform. It means he’s not interested in attention.”

  “Not the impression I got this morning,” Quiggs sniggered. He leaned in close, nudging a thigh against Max’s, hinting he was agreeable to some friendly groping.

  Max’s fingertips tingled. He edged away, struggling to fully sheathe his claws. Until Max had established his dominance, his claws reacted to unrequited craving. If he came hard and fast at his concubine, his claws would scare the shit out of him. His seeming indifference, while the other owners caressed their concubines, confused Quiggs.