With Max’s support, women won positive changes. Campaigning for a future seat in the assembly was based on ability, not fertility. Marriage before nineteen was encouraged, not mandatory. Debs dumped pink dresses for wide-legged pants and tunics. They burned their bonnets and cut their hair. Stefan was making a fortune off styling appointments.
The curriculum in both academies changed. Cadets gained access to the advanced studies offered to debs. Inactive cadets explored outside the Academy with a classmate. The braid was banished.
Sadly, the rite of passage snip remained.
To nurture friendships between the sexes, Dean Cagney proposed social gatherings between the two academies. What a windy debate! Max hammered his gavel for order until it was worn down to the handle.
Poor Max chafed from all the diplomacy. He wanted to sail away on his barge with Quiggs but was stuck until a new chairperson was elected. With every man voting for a man, and every woman voting for a woman, the election for a chairperson stayed deadlocked. Max refused to break this particular tie. He wanted a clear win for the next chairperson, and the Assembly clearly wanted Max.
Quiggs lived in his old apartment at the Academy, busying himself with the paperwork involved in transferring Rosamunde’s property back to him. He reopened his work tower with Witters and Meeks reinstalled. They had wept to see him alive.
An unmarried graduate, he was allowed recreational sex outside his apartment. Single men appeared nervous when Quiggs spoke to them, obviously leery of Max’s reaction to a flirtation. Women with marriageable daughters boldly approached him with invitations for meet- and-greets. Dean Cagney urged him to cultivate allies by accepting invitations, and the food served was good. Too good. He’d put on weight. The debs acted besotted with him, gushing over his heroics, his brains, his wealth. They openly discussed bearing his children. Apparently, they genuinely wanted to marry him.
Max visited him daily. They sat across the room from each other in the dean’s office with the door wide open and Dean Cagney sitting behind his desk, ignoring Quiggs’s hints to leave. Max could have said something. He didn’t.
Instead, Max greeted his former concubine with a hand over his heart and a deep bow indicating he desired wedlock. As the suitor, Max left small gifts and teasing letters. The restraint frustrated Quiggs.
Sack of shit! What was holding up the vote? Quiggs nibbled when nervous. The wedding suit Cutty tailored for him, charcoal gray with a dark blue vest over a white shirt, chafed, and he ran a finger inside the starched collar. Stefan had shushed his worries as he’d styled his hair earlier. Quiggs was the darling hero of the Triangle. Max, the reward he deserved. The law would pass with a bit of high-spirited debating to tease Max when he broke the tie.
Despite the gel Stefan applied, Quiggs’s dark hair flopped in the off-center part he remembered having when he enrolled in the Academy. He had thought the years of wearing a heavy braid would have tamed the flop. But no, it had returned along with the soft curls at his nape and ears.
The door opened, and Dean Cagney stepped inside. A smile wreathed his face, crinkling the corners of his black eyes. In his crisp pompous voice, he said, “You win. Civilian status was unanimous.”
“And the restriction removed from wedlock?”
“No. I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.
“I don’t understand. Why didn’t Max break the tie?”
“It wasn’t a tie. Wedlock is revered, and the majority of the men voting are wedded.”
“But Max—”
“He allowed it to pass without dissenting.”
Quiggs massaged his pounding temples. How could Max not speak out? Quiggs had already moved his belongings to Max’s apartment.
Dean Cagney placed a stack of invitations on the sideboard and poured himself a cider. “These are from young men interested in a courtship. I watched each candidate grow up in the academy. Professor Hines knows their sexual quirks. Working together, we’ll narrow the list for compatibility, then proceed to the interviews. We will match you with an excellent husband.”
Quiggs stared at the cards. He’d made his choice months ago. It was Max or no one.
The dean patted his shoulder. “You deserve a respectful, reciprocated union. You’re free to visit a pleasure house. Once you’ve experienced sex with normal men, you’ll understand what the commander taught you isn’t what healthy natural sex should feel like.”
Translation: Once Quiggs fucked a man with a normal appendage, he’d never settle for Max.
Quiggs tossed the cards in a waste bin. “Not interested.”
The dean lost his smile. “Be reasonable. Max is as unable to consummate wedlock as you are to consummate marriage.”
“Oh, yes, he will.”
“You can’t figure your way out of this!”
Quiggs winked at the dean’s flushed face. “Already have.”
This was Quiggs’s second visit to Max’s military office on the third floor of the Legislative Building. Stained woven rugs covered the boot-scuffed floors in the small waiting room. It was lunch hour, and both waiting benches were empty. A no spitting sign hung on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk. Max could have taken over the governor’s suite, but he complained the gilt hurt his eyes. He preferred his plain office with maps covering the boring beige walls and a glass case housing his skulls.
Quiggs’s first visit was during his fifth year with Beau and his classmates. Beau had clung to him, averting his eyes from the skulls. The cadets had taunted him that some were his relatives, and Quiggs had petted him until he calmed.
The receptionist on duty today was a lieutenant with receding blond hair. He wore a fitted brown shirt with a precisely knotted navy tie. Max would likely be wearing his formal uniform with the embroidered skulls on the cuffs after leaving the Assembly.
Quiggs planted his palms on the desk. “I’d like to see Commander Bronn, please.”
The lieutenant reached for the appointment slate without looking up. His voice was polite but firm. “State your business and schedule an appointment.”
“It’s an urgent personal matter.”
The lieutenant tapped his marker on the slate. “Be more specific if—” his voice broke off as he looked up. He sucked in a breath as he recognized Quiggs. “Mr. Fallon. Sir, I…” He glanced behind at the closed door to the office. “This is not a good time. I will send a messenger to fetch you.”
“No, thank you. I’ll wait.”
The lieutenant looked jumpy as a lizard on a hot rock. “The commander really is busy.”
A young soldier stalked from the office, tucking his brown tee inside his opened pants. He had messy dark hair, a roundish face, and was Quiggs’s height but with every inch lean with defined muscle. He left the room, fuming, without a word to either man.
Quiggs’s eyes narrowed on the tight ass, watching for signs of a waddle.
The lieutenant smiled sheepishly. “The commander’s claws bother him when he’s frustrated. His soldiers consider it a duty—excuse me—an honor to draw tiles to see who will… uh… relieve the tension.” At Quiggs’s grinding teeth, he added hastily, “It’s what they did before he won you. He’s never—not once ever—after he won you. But after today’s vote, he’s… uh… really bothered with tension.”
Quiggs’s voice drilled through the jealous lump in his throat. “Tell the commander to pull up his pants. He has another visitor.”
“Please schedule another time,” the lieutenant pleaded.
“Never mind. I’ll announce myself.” Quiggs started for the door, humiliated Max hadn’t waited thirty damn minutes after the vote before finding someone else.
The lieutenant beat him to the door. “I’ll tell him! Take a seat. Give me a minute.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Max picked up the slates his rookie archer had swept off the desk a minute ago. Private Benson thought lying back on the desk with his pants off and his knees pulled up to reveal his prepped hole was the sure cure
for Max’s foul temper. Benson was cute, but he wasn’t Quiggs.
No one appealed to him like Quiggs.
No feelings? Max was miserable with pent feelings. Feelings were dull blades scraping away the flesh of a man foolish enough to let down his guard. Feelings never bled a man out. They shaved him down to a whisper of himself.
Max sat at his desk and dropped his head to his hands, utterly, absolutely miserable.
Before the day ended, Quiggs would visit a pleasure house and understand why Max had not dissented the vote to keep reciprocation mandatory to legalize wedlock. Quiggs was young, infatuated with any sex not involving his hand. Once he lost his virginity, he’d understand Max hadn’t betrayed him.
Max’s fingertips throbbed at the thought of Quiggs with another man, adding wild jealousy to his list of misery. The door opened, and his prissy receptionist stuck in his head. “Sir, you have a visitor with an urgent personal problem for your attention.”
“Tell him I’m not interested in fucking him either!”
“Why not?” asked a strained voice in the doorway.
“Quiggs?” Max lifted his head. The throbbing vanished from his fingertips and dropped to his cock. He scooted closer to the desk to hide his lap.
“We need to talk.” Quiggs closed the door. His dark brown hair was longer and showing reddish glints, the floppy part so damn cute.
Max drank him in. “You’re gaining weight.”
Quiggs pulled a face. “I ate raw goat meat and food pouches scavenged off dead bodies. I consumed wriggling larvae. Be forewarned, I’ll never diet again. You’ll have to tolerate my soft belly after we’re wed.”
“I wasn’t criticizing your weight. You wear it well. Doesn’t matter what I think since we can’t wed.” He braced himself for hurt tears and ragged pleas.
Instead, Quiggs slapped his palms on the desk. He leaned in nose to nose, his voice as flinty as his eyes. “Why didn’t you speak out before the Assembly voted? You knew how they’d vote, yet you didn’t postpone it. What changed your mind about us?”
“Before the session opened, it was brought to my attention by Dean Cagney, Professor Hines, and oh, yes, by every concerned parent with an eligible deb or son that I should keep my distance and give you time to experience wholesome sex with a friendly ass and with a real cock instead of my misshapen appendage.”
Quiggs’s eyes glittered. “What a sack of shit. You made it wonderful for me. We were never an owner and his concubine. You saw me, and I saw the real you. We both agreed the rules endangered our people, and we’re changing those rules. Add up the days, and sex is a mere fraction of our lives. Wedlock should be about two men spending a happy life together while they build a better world for all.”
Max hated arguing with Quiggs. Always so damn rational. He preferred a real fight decided by strength and weapons. “Visit a pleasure house tonight. Finish this conversation tomorrow. You’ll thank me. Dismissed.” He picked up a slate and pretended to read. Giving Quiggs room to argue was handing him an axe while your hands were tied behind your back and your head was on a chopping block.
“We’re not done talking!” Quiggs tore the slate from Max’s hands and bounced it off the back wall. The disrespect would have gotten a soldier tossed out the window. “You have this stubborn notion your feral blood prevents submission, yet Beau offered me his unconditional love. He’s half-blooded, meaning he overcame twice the resistance holding you back.”
“Did you fuck him?”
“No!” Quiggs pulled back, affronted.
“Trust me. Beau would certainly have let you try in the beginning. A newly transitioned male can submit. Later, it would have been physically impossible for him.”
“Like no stretch to his channel?” Quiggs rested his elbows on the desk. Intrigued by learning something new, he wiggled his butt like a baby goat.
“More like a painful spasm of the sphincter. A mature feral can’t tolerate penetration. I’d instinctively display and slash your throat if you attempted it.”
Quiggs scrunched up his face thinking. “How do you know you can’t tolerate penetration unless, oh, you tried?”
His face heated at Quiggs’s crooked smile. “Yes. I’ve inserted plugs. The fullness burned. My sensory hairs fired off shocks. Blind instinct took over. My claws shredded the sheets, the mattress, the pillows.”
“Did your channel tear? Because tearing earns husbands a medical dispensation.”
“No. Just painful spasms. My hairs gave me a headache for days at the insult.”
Quiggs’s voice softened. “Every cadet hates the fullness his first time. Then he adjusts. I certainly adjusted for you. The intimacy is incredible when you have feelings for your partner.” His gaze held Max’s in expectation he’d admit having them.
Max let the silence stretch. His feral reflexes overrode human feelings. If Quiggs penetrated him, Max would slash and kill and weep bitterly afterward.
Quiggs’s gaze wavered, disappointed. He hitched a hip on the side of the desk and folded his arms. “All it takes is once after we’re wed. What about using shackles and chains?”
“The sex must appear consensual. We have twenty-four hours for an exam. If you unchain me, I will not have calmed down for there to be anything left recognizable of you for the doctor to examine.”
Quiggs shrugged. “I’ll drug you to your hairline. I’ll be really quick and gentle.”
Max snorted. “Really quick? That I believe.”
Quiggs kicked his heels against the desk. He stopped and nodded to himself, then looked at Max. “I’ll sedate you until you count three heads on my neck. Shackles will provide extra security. Two sets of plug preps should loosen you. You won’t remember anything.” He stroked the ridge in his pants, voice rasping out, “I’m hard just thinking of prepping you. No problem from me hammering home a load when you’re opened.”
Max clenched his buttocks at the plan. “Find a good man. Fuck him. You’ll understand once isn’t enough. It’s like an addiction. Then you can forget me and move on.”
Quiggs walked to the window. He stood deep in thought a few minutes, rocking back and forth on his heels. Not a typical brain fog, rather a wrestling within himself. When he turned around, his green eyes regarded Max with perfect clarity. “If you care for me, your human side will overpower your feral blood and submit to me without shackles and drugs. You might even enjoy it.”
“Think it’s easy to fight my feral instincts? You’ll get yourself mauled.”
“Do you have feelings for me?”
“You know I do,” Max said softly.
Quiggs crowed with delight. He rubbed his hands together. “Commander Max Bronn, I formally challenge you to prove which is stronger—human nature or feral blood. Academic Champion against the Athletic Champion!”
What was Quiggs scheming? “A formal challenge is physical. Three rounds decide the winner. We use no weapons but our strength.”
“I understand the code. The challenged party goes first. Then it’s my turn.”
“You won’t be left standing to take a turn. This isn’t a battle of words. I’ll flatten you.”
“Give me your best shot. No holding back.” Quiggs removed his jacket and vest. He danced on the balls of his feet, jabbing, lunging.
Max rolled up his sleeves, remaining seated. “What’s the purpose of this challenge?”
“I win, we wed. You win, I walk away.”
“You think I won’t knock the wind out of you?”
“Yep. Your feelings won’t let you hit me.”
“Perhaps I’ll knock the wind out of you another way.” Max pushed his chair back and patted his lap. “A kiss. Whoever breaks it off first loses.”
Quiggs’s arms fell to his sides. He sucked his cheeks in.
“An acceptable physical weapon,” Max drawled. “Refusal to engage loses your challenge.”
“Heh. A strong mind defeats natural disinclination. I can do this.” Quiggs hopped on, grinding roughly to curtail M
ax’s enthusiasm. He wet his lips, lifted his chin, prepared to engage.
Max took control, whisking him sideways with Quiggs’s head falling back into the crook of his arm. Max tipped his chin up. He caught the instinctive flinch before Quiggs disguised it with a cough. “Not so easy, is it?”
Quiggs squeezed his eyes shut and breathed in as if he were about to hold his head underwater longer than Max.
Max stared down, saddened he must win the challenge for Quiggs’s sake. What a journey they’d had their brief months together. His baby cadet had grown up. Fat had melted from the cheeks. The jaw was harder. The long nose suited him. The curls—well, the curls were just so damn cute.
Max nuzzled his clean-shaven jaw. Quiggs smelled like a groom, not a fragrant concubine. Like minty soap, crisp starch, polished leather.
Max wanted to dirty those clean smells with his seed. Until now, kissing Quiggs was like having brandy administered drop by stingy drop, the glowing warmth elusive. Max finally held the bottle.
“I’m ready. Do it.” Quiggs wrapped an arm behind Max’s neck, determined to lock himself in place so he couldn’t break away.
At the light press of Max’s lips to his, Quiggs held himself stiff as a cadet under review. Max slowly settled into the kiss, moving his head slightly side to side. From the frantic pulse in his throat, any moment now, Quiggs would bolt off his lap and heave in a waste bin. Max moaned and licked, urging Quiggs to open. The lush mouth parted in tiny increments as if he anticipated a spoonful of hot mustard slathered on his tongue.
Quiggs’s little whimper as Max’s tongue lazily circled the tip of his shattered Max’s control. Weeks of desperate need funneled into a deep, wet, filthy, consuming kiss. He debauched Quiggs’s mouth, the act as incredibly intimate as sex. He could crest by grinding against Quiggs’s ass. He lifted him atop the desk, pressing him backward without breaking the kiss. He reached beneath to grip Quiggs’s ass—his stone still ass.
Max pulled back panting, afraid Quiggs had focused to the point he’d suffocated. He found Quiggs green eyes wide open, confused, the pupils blown. His puffy lips were sloppy with drool. “Breathe, dammit!”
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