She and Dylan went planetside as well, picking a spot far enough away from Harper to give him the privacy he desperately needed, yet near enough that Agravaine could join them while still being able to hear Harper, thanks to Nietzschean hearing. She could see how uneasy Dylan was for the three of them to be alone, but Rhade looked faintly amused and curious.
"Okay," she said abruptly, plowing straight to the point in typical Beka Valentine fashion. "I know you love me, Dylan, same as I love you, but watching you two dance around each other is making me dizzy. Do something about it!"
Ignoring Dylan's sputters and Rhade's watchful gaze, she continued, "Getting it out of your systems may be all that it needs, but if not, we'll figure something out."
"Getting what out of my system, what the hell are you talking about, Bek?" Dylan obfuscated, not quite willing to admit his desire, especially not in front of the woman he one day wanted to have children with. It was just... obscene.
"You've got sunstroke or something; you need to get looked at, and I... I'm going for a walk!" Standing abruptly, Dylan tried to extract himself from the potentially lethal situation. He was not doing this!
Beka snorted indelicately. "Gimme a break, Dylan. I'm not blind. The pair of you get hard whenever you get within half a ship length of each other." She eyed Dylan. "There's nothing wrong with wanting a member of your own sex, you know."
"And you agree to this?" Rhade suddenly spoke up, looking at the human female with increased respect.
Beka shrugged. "Better that I know about it than you sneak around behind my back. Besides, you're not exactly hard to look at, you know."
Ignoring that and still blocking Dylan from walking away, Agravaine frowned slightly. "Are you planning to watch or participate?"
"Depends on you two."
"Look, I'm standing right here, and guess what, I'm not talking about this. It's ludicrous. And correct me if I'm wrong here, but without my agreement to this sick little negotiation of yours, Valentine, it ain't gonna get orbital, let along make it to slipstream, so you may as well forget the whole scheme.
"And will you get the fuck out of my way, bone head?" Dylan snarled at the bastard Nietzschean firmly planted between himself and the Maru.
Rather than replying, Agravaine caught hold of the aggravated human's arms, pulled him close, and kissed him. Thoroughly. With a great deal of attention, leaving not a single inch of Dylan's mouth unexplored. At the same time, he aligned their lower bodies so that his erection was pressed alongside the human's stirring cock.
Groaning, Dylan fought not to respond, but his cock betrayed him, leaping to attention. He then tried to hold his lips immobile, stiff and hard, but goddammit all, Rhade tasted hot and dangerous and thoroughly delicious. Was this why Harper jumped into bed so quickly with Tyr? Was this what the Pride Alpha did to his friend each and every time they...?
Hands coming up, Dylan pushed hard against Agravaine's chest. "I've never... I don't know how... and I'm sure as hell not gonna start now! It's great for Harper, glad he's happy and lovin' it, but I'm the alpha of my pride, and dammit all, this is not happening!"
Agravaine somehow managed not to laugh, and Beka was able to restrain herself as well. "That logic is somewhat flawed since you aren't a Nietzschean, and Tyr himself proves that this does work for an alpha." He worked a hand between them to cup Dylan's groin, fingers teasing at the hard cock, and he kissed the human again.
Dylan felt his lips and his body soften in spite of his resolve not to give in to what had to be a temporary attraction, nothing more. Damn but the bastard could kiss. It just felt so weird with Beka watching them, watching him being seduced by another man of all things, a Nietzschean no less. And she'd been the one to give said Nietzschean the green light to seduce him. He felt like he'd fallen down the rabbit hole and had ended up in another dimension.
The need for oxygen soon had him pushing away again, but this time he could only sag against Rhade's definitely hard body, worried eyes looking over his shoulder to Beka.
"I don't... I can't... hurt you, you know? I love you, Bek, and if this... I can't cause you pain, not like this. You need to be sure, or I won't, and even if I do, I can't, not in front of you, not the first time, okay? I don't think I could handle you seeing me..." the co-captain of the Maru stammered out.
Beka looked a little disappointed, but she nodded slowly. "If that's what you need, love, that's how it'll be." She moved closer, ignoring her own instinctive tension at being that close to a Nietzschean, and kissed him lightly. "I love you, Dylan Hunt, and I trust you." She glanced at the man watching her so carefully. "And I see the attraction," she admitted wryly.
"I'll be on the Maru." With a final glance at the two men, she turned and walked away, visions of the two of them naked and entwined in her mind. Screw that, she'd use the Maru's sensors to watch. She grinned wickedly.
Agravaine waited silently, his hands still lightly petting the human leaning against him, not wanting to say the wrong thing and frighten him into bolting again.
Watching Beka go, Dylan had the first true inkling of how Harper had felt when he was pinned by Tyr's gaze that first fateful encounter. There was something truly... terrifying about being the object of a Nietzschean's lust. They were rather single-minded and unstoppable when they decided they wanted something, and Rhade had just been given express permission to make good on his wants.
"One question: why now? You've been around all this time; why did you decide to start putting the moves on me now?" the light-haired human asked, not yet willing to look Agravaine in the eyes, something he had had no trouble doing before today.
Agravaine shook his head, amused again. "Dylan, I've been watching you since the first moment I saw you, and this is far from the first time I've offered you openings. As that rather observant female of yours could tell you.
"But the captain has given all of you special status, so there wasn't anything I could do without your consent, something else she seems to have realized," Rhade added, realizing that without Beka's interference he might never have gotten this far.
"I... you have... special status? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? And I hate to break it to you, he didn't give us special status; he let us go. Not that he could have kept us for long, no offense, but having been born and raised a free man, there was no way I was gonna stay a prisoner for long. And neither were my people. Harper just... found a better solution for all involved," Dylan snorted.
Of course, the human knew he was stalling things by starting this argument, but the Nietzschean's cock kept digging into his hip, even through their clothes, and there was no mistaking its size. Dylan was honestly unsure if he could take that inside him, especially when he'd never even done it with another man, not even Harper when the younger man offered himself on a silver platter during those first hours of his withdrawal after being liberated.
Ignoring the human's attempts to start an argument, Rhade simply kissed him again, his hands this time working to divest them both of their garments. He'd waited a long time to touch this man, and now that he could, he found that he had no patience left.
Groaning quietly as his mouth was ravished and his clothes stripped away from his body, Dylan wondered for the hundredth time that hour just what the hell he was doing, letting a Nietz male seduce him, but he could no longer deny that it felt good or that it was what his body was clamoring for. He just hoped this one time would burn it out of his system and leave his curiosity satisfied so he could devote all his passion to Beka again, instead of feeling this strange dichotomy of lust.
He loved and worshiped his lover; Beka was one of the strongest, most capable and sexiest women he'd ever known. She was beauty, brains, independence and sheer gutsy sexiness all rolled into one, and he got hard just thinking about her and how much he loved and wanted her.
But more and more the Nietzschean who was diligently stripping the clothes from his body and plundering his mouth had begun to star in private, insidious fantasies of hot, sweaty, primitive rutting... and then there were those other fantasies, the ones where they made love tenderly and even the ones where Rhade and Beka both took turns on him.
It was depraved, and Dylan thought he really shouldn't want this, yet it was as seductive as hell, and here he was, the Nietzschean's tongue down his throat and him naked; that should be telling him something. And where were those hungry whimpers of need coming from? Dylan wondered, not realizing that the sounds were emanating from him.
Agravaine heard and reveled in every whimper and sound of desire coming from the human in his arms, and he pressed the other man to the ground, sprawling on top of him with their erections caught side-by-side between them.
"Yes, so good, taste so good," he praised, finally releasing Hunt's mouth to allow the human to breathe while Rhade orally explored more of him. Dylan tasted somewhat salty, thanks to the sea breeze, and Agravaine seemed determined to lick every inch of him clean.
Eyes closed, sun floating down on him through the dappled leaves above, the sound of waves, the feel of sand, and the touch of Agravaine all worked to leave Dylan a quivering mass of want. He couldn't remember ever feeling this hungry before. Was that what desire between men was like? All hunger and need and the quest for dominance? It was a side of him he'd never experienced before, and he wasn't sure if he'd be the one playing alpha in this scenario.
Dylan had a feeling he'd lost control right about the time Beka had offered him up to Rhade on a platter, and now he wasn't sure if he even wanted to regain that control.
Dylan's hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, unsure of what he was supposed to do, where he was supposed to touch. This was so different than loving Beka, and for a moment he wished he'd taken the time to actually talk to Harper about the mechanics of what he wanted to do and have done to him. It would have served him well right now, but at the time it had been something he didn't need or want to know about.
The groan burst from his throat with unexpected force, and his body arched up off the sand as Agravaine sucked one of Dylan's nipples into his mouth. Great gods, it was as if someone had set off a nova bomb in his libido; he was instantly harder than ever and leaking heavily. "God, oh god, Rhade..." the human moaned softly.
"Yes, I'm right here, Dylan," the Nietzschean murmured, hungrily suckling on a nipple while one hand petted the human's rippled belly, slowly working downward. He didn't want to frighten Dylan into bolting again, but Rhade was hungry for him, and he wanted him now.
He continued to nurse at a nipple while his hand crept ever downward to cup Hunt's balls, easily rolling them in the loose, velvety sac.
Moaning continuously, Dylan's head tossed from side to side on the sand. Tiny whimpers of need interspersed the other noises he was making and, inanely, all Dylan could think was that at this moment he sounded exactly the way Harper had that one time on the Maru, when rest of the crew could hear what Tyr was doing to their engineer and how much the young man seemed to be enjoying it. Noises that Dylan was now emulating had permeated the crew area of the ship and had left them all hot and flustered.
Every tiny sound of pleasure from Dylan had Agravaine growing harder until he couldn't wait any longer... which was when he realized he didn't have any lubricant with him. His eyes flew open, and he was about to curse when he spotted the small container of lotion on the sand where Beka had been standing. Smiling faintly, he reminded himself to thank her properly sometime.
He shifted down to take Dylan's leaking erection into his mouth while he reached over and scooped up the lotion. Once his fingers were thoroughly coated, he began to glide them along the crease between the human's cheeks, slowly getting him used to being touched there.
Gasping and tightening as he felt Agravaine's fingers slide between his cheeks and slide back and forth over his anus, Dylan's eyes shot open. "I... I don't know how to do this," he admitted, his throat closed and tight. "I've only ever had women; I haven't even experimented. It seemed wrong somehow." Forcing himself to relax muscle by muscle, the human managed to get himself under some semblance of control, but he still couldn't quell the tiny tremors that raced through him.
"There's nothing wrong, and all you have to do is relax," Agravaine purred, still petting him though he stopped blowing him, at least for the moment. "Just relax and enjoy." He slowly slid the fingers back and forth, each stroke growing shorter until he was simply teasing the tense opening, an oil-slick fingertip slipping slightly inside with each pass.
Moaning, Dylan did what he was told and relaxed into the sensation. He wasn't all that sure about the enjoying part, for it was far too foreign and new to him. Sure, Beka had touched him there, had even slid a finger inside him while they'd made love, and they'd even talked about her taking him once, but that idea had sort of fizzled out, but this... the Nietzschean's arm spikes rubbing across his belly were a very real reminder that his partner was not homo sapiens but homo invictus.
"Easier said than done," Dylan gasped as one finger slowly slid inside him. "Whole new ballgame here, this is definitely uncharted territory and more than a little strange," he admitted, eyes finally opening only to be swallowed whole by the hunger in Agravaine's eyes.
"But very, very good," Agravaine promised, sliding his finger a little deeper until he found and nudged the small bump of Dylan's prostate, knowing that would show the human man exactly what he had been missing. "You're going to like this." When Dylan jumped and moaned, Agravaine carefully added a second finger, knowing that he was going to have to take this very slowly. He wanted Hunt to enjoy this, to want more, because he knew that he wanted Dylan as his. If he had to share him with that human female, well, so be it, but Dylan was his now.
"If you say so," Dylan gasped even as he clamped down on the fingers slowly working their way into his body. Closing his eyes again, he forcibly willed his body to relax and accept the invasion. He'd agreed to this, this mating and he was gonna see it through... and then head straight back to Beka and reaffirm the fact that he was straight.
But he couldn't deny that it had felt unbelievably good. Better than he had ever thought it would. When Agravaine's finger scraped over his prostate a second time, Dylan felt his body relax entirely. He could no longer deny that even if his mind wasn't 100 percent sure of what was happening, his body definitely was. "Oh god, that... that..." Blue eyes opened to show hazy pleasure and a willingness to continue. Thighs spread a little wider to allow the Nietzschean more access to his body. "I think I could learn to like this," he admitted softly.
"Pleasure is always enjoyable," Agravaine agreed, fingers lightly stroking inside the other man, stretching him and rubbing the sensitive gland. Smiling faintly, he lowered his head again, taking Dylan's rigid cock back into his mouth so he could nurse upon the hard length. His tongue lashed the shaft, his teeth lightly scraped over the head, and his free hand coated his own cock with the lotion.
Rhade shifted over Hunt, body covering his, and he drew the other man's legs back and apart, settling between them with the head of his cock nudging against his opening. He lowered his head to kiss Dylan hungrily as he slowly pushed inside him, biting back a groan as the tight, no longer virginal heat closed around him.
Whimpering at the slow burn as he was stretched wider and wider while the large organ worked into his body, Dylan moaned into the mouth that claimed his, and his erection flagged slightly with this final breaching of his body. He had forgotten just how big Agravaine's cock was until the Nietzschean impaled him with it.
Breathing hard through his nose, working his way through and past the pain, Dylan finally slid his eyes open to stare up into ones full of hunger and possessive pride. The human shivered slightly at the weakness that insinuated itself in his limbs even as his body tensed and spasmed around its invader. Eyes closed again, and the first officer in him fought to get himself under control. He was the last of the High Guard, goddammit, where was his spine?
When his eyes opened again, Dylan managed a shit-eating grin. "Is that the best you've got, bone head? I still don't see what has Harper following the captain around like a cat in heat. I mean, it's just a cock up my ass; it hasn't done anything amazing yet."
Eyebrows rising, Agravaine smirked down at him. "Just remember that you asked for it." He braced himself on his hands, arm spikes lightly brushing against Dylan's sides, and he drew his hips back, hissing quietly as the hot channel clung to him. Keeping his eyes fixed on Dylan's to see every nuance of expression, he pushed into him again, going a little deeper this time. He repeated the motion again and again, adjusting his angle slightly each time until the gasp told him that he'd found the exact spot he wanted.
Rhade lowered his head again to take Dylan's mouth as his hips began to thrust harder, his cock gliding in and out of the grasping velvet heat, nudging Hunt's prostate with every stroke. Harder and faster he moved, taking the body he'd wanted for so long, claiming him thoroughly.
<>
Inside the shuttle, Beka watched the two on the viewscreen, and her fingers moved in the wetness dripping out of her. She moaned hungrily as she watched the Nietzschean take her lover and saw how much Dylan was enjoying it.
Next time, she promised herself, next time Dylan will be in me while Rhade fucks him.
The thought was enough to make her come, whimpering hungrily as her body clenched, wanting something inside her.
<>
Dylan moaned around the tongue raping his mouth, his ass being plundered just as thoroughly. Fingers tried to grasp at something to anchor him, but the sand beneath them was ever shifting and left him without an anchor of any kind, sort of like his emotions at this very moment. He had been so sure he wasn't going to like this, that this would be an obligatory fuck and then the Nietzschean would leave him alone, and he and Beka could move past this, but now...
Back arching up off the blanket, Dylan turned his head to one side, breaking off the contact with Agravaine's mouth in attempt to keep at least a pretense of distance between them. Panting, Dylan couldn't deny that this was earthshaking, and he felt like he was spinning out of control and heading straight for a black hole.
A particularly fierce stab to his prostate had him once more focused on the here and now, and with a clench-jawed groan, his cock spasmed and shot, dotting his stomach with semen. "Jesus Christ!" Gasping, Dylan couldn't help but rear up, legs planted in the sand as he used his body's weight to push the Nietzschean up further, thereby granting Agravaine deeper access to his body.
He'd always been so careful with Beka, knowing that his size and strength compared to hers would have caused damage if he'd truly let go, but now the rules had changed. The fact that he was part heavy-worlder no longer mattered when his lover was another male and a Nietzschean at that. There were no holds barred, and he found that he responded to his rough handling even more readily than he did to Beka's softer seductions. What the hell was wrong with him?
Gasping out his pleasure in shattered phrases as Dylan came, Rhade continued to pound into him, one hand grasping Hunt's cock, stroking and pulling, not allowing him to soften. "That's one," he panted, staring down into dazed blue eyes. After waiting this long, the Nietzschean wanted more, so much more, and by the Progenitors, he was going to get it.
He bit his way along Dylan's jaw until he could reach his mouth again, his tongue sliding between the parted lips to claim the hot, wet depths once again. His cock drove into the human's ass as he ignored the tiny whimpers of pleasure-pain as he raked flesh sensitized by Hunt's recent climax, and his fingers forced the other man back to full erection.
Biting back a howl, Dylan was not about to give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing how close he was to begging for Agravaine to stop. What the fuck was he, a machine? God, the cock in his ass hadn't softened at all and still pummeled and claimed with inhuman precision. Maybe he'd been a little too cocky saying he couldn't understand Harper's slavish fascination with the Andromeda's captain.
Nails raked across Agravaine's back, leaving bloody gouges in their wake, and then came to rest on the Nietzschean's chest. Pushing up hard, Dylan managed to get some breathing space between himself and his... whatever the fuck Rhade was to him now. "Enough," he panted. "That's enough!"
"Never enough," Rhade growled, hips never stilling as he continued to possess the other man. The slight change in position brought his lower belly against Dylan's renewed erection, so he shifted his hand to Hunt's nipples, pinching and tugging at the rigid buds.
Then he suddenly stilled, cock buried deep inside the human, pelvis pressed against his erection, one hand lying lightly against a hard nipple. He knew that despite his words Dylan's arousal would not permit him to stop now, so he teased him by stopping all movement.
Dylan gritted his teeth and refused to offer up a word of complaint. The son of a bitch was a sick, sadistic bastard; that was all there was to it. But he was damned if he would beg for it. Biting down on his lip until he drew blood, the first officer of the Maru glared at his Nietzschean tormentor, refusing to be the first to break even though his body was screaming at him for movement and his cock was begging for attention.
Dylan was his own man, and he was not ruled by his cock or his need to mate. He wouldn't allow that to change now and especially not for Rhade. "If you are quite finished, get the fuck out of me! I need to get back to Beka, if it's all the same to you."
"But it's not," Rhade replied calmly. Staring into the shuttered blue gaze, he drew his hips back until he was in danger of coming out of Dylan, then thrust forward hard, driving back into him to the root. "We've only begun. There's so much more to show you." His voice grew huskier as the pleasure spread again, and his fingers plucked at the still hard nipple that had been cupped beneath his palm.
<>
Beka watched the two gorgeous men, panting and shaking as she came again and again, still feeling hollow and wanting them. She'd been worried when Dylan tried to talk his way out of this before fully surrendering to Rhade, but she quickly realized that the Nietzschean was more than able to master the situation and the lover they now shared. Soon, soon she would be able to join them and ease this ache inside her, but first Dylan had to stop fighting what he was feeling.
<>
The moan escaped his torn and bloodied lips before he could stifle it. Son of a bitch, he should have known the other man wouldn't play fair. Rhade was, after all, a Nietzschean. Dylan's chest arched up under the assault to his nipple, and he gasped as it was pinched hard, sending a shot of pained lust coursing through him. "God damn you, who says I want to be shown?" he managed to grit out.
The trouble was that the Nietzschean could very well be right that there was more he could be shown and, worse still, more that Dylan wanted to learn. Part of him couldn't help but feel that he was somehow betraying Beka, and that part fought the pleasure, thinking that it was unfaithful to the woman he loved.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place and didn't know how to react beyond the fact that if he didn't come soon, he'd lose his mind.
"Your body does," Rhade purred, his tongue flicking over Dylan's ear. First suckling on the tender lobe then nipping sharply, he drew a gasp from the reluctant man. "Your body tells me that you want more."
And answering that demand, he began to thrust harder, each stroke jolting into Dylan. This time, he wanted them to come together, his own body letting him know that he was reaching the limits of his control. He lowered himself slightly so that his lower body again rubbed hard against Dylan's cock with every thrust, needing to make him come.
It was too much for the human to stand, the constant teasing, the stopping and starting and grinding. Dylan groaned and thrust upwards into the hard male body above him, needing to come yet again. "Son of a bitch, will you just make me come already?" the human demanded with a growl, thrusting up against the Nietzschean aggressively.
"That. Is. What. I'm. Trying. To do." Agravaine punctuated each word with another bone-jarring thrust, slowly losing control and beginning to move faster and less rhythmically. He suddenly pulled Dylan's legs over his shoulders, sinking deeper and feeling the tightness around him, his own body shaking as his climax began to overtake him.
<>
Beka groaned as she came again listening to Dylan demand what he wanted from Rhade. When the tremors faded, she yanked her clothes back into order and headed back toward where the men were. She was only human, and after watching them, she had to be there, to touch them and taste them both.
She shook her head in disbelief. If anyone had ever told her that she would be planning to fuck a Nietzschean...
<>
Shuddering as he came down from his orgasm, Dylan relaxed back into the blanket and ran a hand over his face in disbelief. Maybe if he just kept his eyes closed... The hand running through the cooling semen on his stomach made that thought moot as did the husky laugh in his ear.
"Like I said, I've never done this before, and certainly not with a Nietzschean. A male Nietzschean. I mean with Bek we cuddled and talked and, well, played. But with you, no offense, but I really don't want a bone blade in the guts, thanks."
"I really doubt that he's planning to kill you, Dylan," Beka laughed huskily, sinking to her knees beside the still joined men, knowing that they could smell her arousal.
"You were incredible together," she said, trailing a finger through the thickening liquid on Dylan's stomach and bringing it to her mouth to suck it clean.
Rhade laughed slightly, watching the woman and the stunned expression on Hunt's face. "And now you want to join in?" he asked, knowing the answer perfectly well.
Beka took a deep breath and leaned closer, one hand going to Rhade's shoulder for balance as she kissed him, tasting Dylan in his mouth.
Dylan wasn't sure if he liked the thought of his lover kissing Rhade, but he couldn't deny that there was something incredibly hot about watching Beka thrusting her tongue in and out of the Nietzschean's mouth. "Jesus," he groaned, "never mind Rhade planning to gut me, you're gonna exhaust me to death. C'mon, Bek, give a guy a change to recover here. Haven't you ever heard of refractory time?"
Both the woman and the Nietzschean laughed, their mouths parting so they could look down at the man still impaled on Rhade's cock.
"Just lie back and enjoy, Hunt," Beka suggested, grinning wickedly. "From what Harper's said, you're in for a treat... and while I'm willing to share, I'm not giving up prior claim," she added with a warning glance at the Nietzschean.
Rhade smiled slightly. This woman was worthy of the man he had claimed, and she was not without interest. She was not one of his kind and could never bear a Nietzschean child, but he too was willing to share. "Acceptable," he said.
"Hey, don't I get a say in all of this?"
<>
"You will go down to the planet and relax, you stubborn mule!"
That comment of Trance Gemini's had started an argument that lasted for several hours and showed no sign of stopping even when she essentially dragged him down to the planet and shoved him out the slipfighter onto the beach.
Eyeing the fuming man sitting on the sand, she asked curiously, "What is a mule anyway, and are they really stubborn?"
"Mules are purple skinned and pushy, and you tell me," Rafe snarled as he stood carefully and headed towards the beach and away from the crazy woman who'd ever so thoughtfully taken him under her wing. How'd he ever get so unbelievably unlucky?
There he was on a fucking Nietzschean planet after being on a fucking Nietzschean ship following watching his uncle be shot to death and being captured and 'trained' on a world that still brought nightmares both waking and sleeping. His sister and his crew had rescued him then had been rescued in turn by the Andromeda. More specifically they'd all been rescued because Harper was on the Maru, and Harper belonged to the Nietzschean captain, poor bastard.
Maybe if he were lucky, he'd drown or get eaten by a shark or something. That would save him from the purple Pollyanna and a galaxy full of bone heads. A man could dream, after all.
Eyes narrowing into an expression that no one who'd known the sweet and somewhat ditzy Trance on the Maru before they'd encountered the Andromeda would have recognized, the purple woman stood for a moment before following the irritating man she found herself interested in.
"Are you always this difficult, or is this something special you save just for me?" she demanded, coming to a halt directly behind him. Since the innocent routine wasn't working on Rafe, perhaps it was time to let him see her other side. "Or maybe you just want to remain the injured victim and be pitied by everyone?" she asked sweetly.
"I don't want anyone's fucking pity. What I want is for every one of those Nietzschean butchers to die slow and painful deaths. But since I can't have that, I'll settle for a few minutes of peace and quiet without you constantly trying to get into my head. Why the hell couldn't you be like every other female I've ever met and simply want to get into my pants? Noooo, you have to dissect and slice and try to finish what those bastards started," the former brothel manager seethed.
"It's bad enough that those, those freaks of science raped my body; do you have to try and rape my mind with all your fucking sweetness and light?" Rafe was lashing out, angrier than he'd ever been in his life, and unfortunately the one person who truly wanted to help him was the only one available to let loose the rage. He would have loved to be able to beat the shit out of a Nietz or two, but none were to be found. Instead he was taking out his hatred at the universe in general on the one person who'd...
"FUCK!!!!!" he screamed, turning away from Trance to stare blindly at the clear blue sky. "Why do you care so much? Why do you fucking care?" he groaned, his anger burning out as quickly as it came, leaving him exhausted and trembling as he sank to the beach. "Why the hell didn't you just let me die? Would have been cleaner."
"Because the universe wouldn't be nearly as nice a place without you in it." Trance knelt down behind him, her arms coming around him and drawing him back to lean against her. Stronger than she looked, she supported his weight, murmuring soft words of comfort.
"For the record," she said suddenly when she thought it was time, wanting to shock him back to himself, "I'm not averse to getting into your pants either. I just happen to think that all of you is interesting."
<>
The setting sun prompted Harper to think about heading to shore. He'd been floating on his back, lost in his thoughts or more accurately trying not to think at all, for so long he'd apparently let the afternoon slip away and had lost all track of time. There was just one problem, he thought, as he rolled over onto his stomach and treaded water while looking around. The shore was nowhere in sight.
"Brilliant, just fucking wonderful! Great boy genius I am, shit!" the young man chastised himself. "And naked as the day I was born no less, oh, that's gonna get such a fucking thrill for whoever finds my bloated corpse." Cautioning himself not to panic, Harper tried to think rationally. Overhead a flock of what appeared to be seagull-like birds flew away from the sun. Birds. They didn't go out too far from shore, or they'd die. Follow the birds, Eureka! Keeping his eye on the prize, Seamus Harper struck out for shore, not giving in to the burn in his arms or the ache in his legs. He was not spending the night floating in the middle of the ocean butt naked! Damn, why hadn't he put his swim trunks on before taking off like that?
Harper let out a huge sigh of relief when he at last made landfall. Damn, he'd been way out there. Dusk had long since fallen, and he barely managed to keep the beach in sight as the sky grew darker and darker, night coming faster than he could swim. But he knew which way to go; he just had to make sure not to get disoriented.
He could barely feel the shore when his feet finally touched; numbness and dehydration had set in, the salt water sapping the electrolytes from his body. Harper had no idea where he was or how far away from the others. He was cold; he was hungry; and he hurt inside and out. Damn, what a way to go – alone and miserable on the friggin’ Kodiak homeworld, way to go, Harper!
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When Tyr finally grew aware of his surroundings again, he realized that hours had passed and Harper still hadn't returned to the ship. While he believed that his irritable lover might refuse to come back in an attempt to punish him for leaving him there, he knew the others would have advised him of Harper's plans. If they knew them.
Tyr flowed to his feet in a single movement, immediately establishing communications with Agravaine, who was forced to admit that they had never found Harper, though having a healthy Nietzschean sense of self-preservation, he forbore to mention that they hadn't actually ever looked for him or why. Snarling at his subordinate's incompetence, Tyr directed the ship to search for life signs on the planet, radiating outward from where Harper had last been seen. In moments, Andromeda had found a single human life sign, far distant from the beach where they had had their pleasant and not-so-pleasant interludes, and Tyr sighed.
He realized now that he had overreacted to what had happened, but how in the name of the makers had Harper managed to get all the way there? Shaking his head, he headed back to the planet to find out.
He landed the shuttle at the edge of the rocky beach where Andromeda had found Harper and stepped out, searching the darkness for signs of his lover.
Curled up in a tight ball, trying to conserve body heat and stay conscious, Harper chuckled a bit hysterically. Not so different from some of the things he'd gone through with the Orca, after all. And he'd survived that. He was tough. Tougher than Mr. High and Mighty ever gave him credit for, asshole. And he'd tell him so too - if he ever got back to the Andromeda, that was.
The glaring lights made him wince and close his eyes. Not time for sunrise yet, what the hell?
Tyr spotted Harper almost immediately and sighed before striding across the sand toward the huddled human. Questions could wait. Right now, he needed to get his mate warm and fed. Pausing only long to speak Harper's name so the human would recognize him, he scooped the shivering young man up into his arms and strode back to the ship.
He kept Harper in his lap the entire short flight back to the Andromeda and refused to put him down even once they arrived. Once again ignoring everyone, he carried his lover to their quarters and straight into a hot shower. Only then did he stop ignoring Harper's sputtering and fix him with a steely gaze.
"We'll talk when you're done. I'll be in the main room." He turned on his heel and left before he gave in to temptation and joined Harper in the shower.
What seemed like hours later Harper stepped out of the shower, finally warm and free from all the crusting salt. Rommie had taken the time to scan him and make sure there was no lasting damage and had even augmented his nanobots to work at a more efficient rate to repair his side wound and re-hydrate him as well as deal with the minute tissue damage. Harper actually felt almost human again.
So why did he want to crawl into a conduit tube and not come out again? One word. Tyr. Damn, this whole belonging to someone was too complicated for words. Where had it all gone wrong, and how could he make it right again? Harper really didn't have the answers this time around. He couldn't remember ever feeling this emotionally helpless in his life.
Walking through the bedroom, his feet dragging, Harper took a good long look around, sure it would be his last, and walked out the door to meet his fate.
"Okay, here I am. Get it over with; tell me you're tired of me and my ass is back on the Maru with the rest of the kl... crew," he said resignedly as he stood just inside the door, thumbs in his pockets, slouching against the wall.
Tyr sighed, eyeing his despondent mate. "How many times am I going to have to tell you that I love you and I'll never let you go before you start to believe me?" He glared at the smaller man. "Your ass is right where it belongs, and you're not going anywhere except to bed!"
"I..." Harper's eyes widened, and his voice cracked as he answered. "I'm s-sorry. For everything, the way I-I acted on the beach, getting you mad, being jealous, getting hurt, going off on the Maru to rescue Rafe, nearly drowning an' making you come after me when you obviously didn't want to. Am just a complete wipe out when it c-comes to the relations-ship thing!" the younger man blurted out, wanting to get it all out in the open once and for all.
However, the sudden urge to scream, shout, throw a tantrum or cry his eyes out had Harper wheeling around to race back into the bedroom, where he threw himself on the bed. Burying his face in a pillow to muffle the few sobs that escaped his control, Harper's body was wracked with shudders of pent up emotions that were riding too close to the surface due to his total exhaustion.
The Nietzschean stared after Harper in some confusion. The way that man went from angry to repentant to the makers only knew what was enough to give even a Nietzschean a headache! He followed his lover into their bedroom and sat down on the bed beside the quivering, miserable human.
"Harper, neither of us has done this before. We're going to have a few clashes. That's to be expected. I've watched your Captain Valentine and Hunt, and they certainly argue often enough. Just don't... don't pretend to be in danger when you're not."
"I didn't think," Harper managed to get out, his voice still muffled by the pillow. "I just felt. You make me so mad when you patronize me and treat me like you would Skadi or one of your younger kids. I may be accident-prone and a bit of a klutz at times, but I am an adult, believe it or not, and can take care of myself. Badly but I can do it," the young man groused quietly.
"I'm sorry," Tyr said finally. "You're right, you are an adult. But you humans are so weak and fragile compared to us that sometimes it's hard to remember all that. I promise I'll try."
Harper rolled onto his back, suddenly angrier than he could ever remember being, even though Tyr had been trying to make up. "Weak and fragile?" he bellowed into the older man's face. "You think surviving the Orcas was a cake walk? Or living in the camps? Or being conditioned and turned into a glorified fucktoy slash information retrieval unit? You think having this jack shoved into my neck was a feather tickle? Or killing Guderian?
"You can be such an asshole!" Running out of steam, Harper flopped back on the bed, still fuming but too exhausted to care. "Weak and fragile, my granna's ass!" he snorted.
Tyr wondered vaguely if banging his head on the wall would make him feel better, but he wasn't crazy enough to say that out loud. "Harper, I know your life has been... difficult, but that doesn't change the fact that Nietzscheans are stronger. I could break you in half if I'm not careful of my strength around you... Loki could! No matter how much you wish it were different, that's not going to change. I can't change the universe for you."
"Whatever," Harper replied sullenly. His emotions were riding a rollercoaster right now, and a lot of pent up anger was coming out and being directed at Tyr for reasons he couldn't, or wouldn't, examine. "Being human sucks," the younger man declared vehemently. "Gotta love being an inferior species. I'm going to sleep now. My weak and fragile self can't keep up with your superior genes!"
Tyr gave up. "Fine. If you want to sulk, go right ahead. I've already learned that you can be completely unreasonable when you want to be, and nothing I can say can change it. I'm going to the bridge."
Growling subvocally, Tyr stalked out of the room and up to the bridge, where his suddenly silent crew gave him a wide berth. It was always obvious when their alpha and his human lover had argued; Tyr looked like death looking for a place to strike.
"He's just being honest, Harper. Genetically speaking humans are more fragile than Nietzscheans," Rommie said quietly, appearing next to the bed and trying to comfort her friend. "He didn't mean insult by it."
"He rubbed my face in it, Rommie. And he laughed at me! He didn't think I could tell, but I've learned to read him pretty well. He was laughing at me; do you have any idea how... pathetic that makes me feel?" the human replied.
"They told me for years that I was worthless and weak and if weren't for the fact that I was pleasing to look at and intelligent for a kludge, I'd have been long dead. And they laughed at me too - look at the freakish human kludge who's only good for spreading his legs and downloading information 'til his head explodes from the pain and his nose and ears and eyes begin to bleed. Tyr... I know he didn't mean to, but, well, he made me feel like they did all over again.
"From anyone else I'd laugh it off or get snarky about it, but from Tyr... It hurt, Romster. It hurt bad to think he sees me as so, well, so useless," Harper confessed quietly.
"Harper, be fair. Tyr has lived his entire life surrounded by Nietzscheans. To him any human is a fragile and breakable thing, but he doesn't see you as useless. He's trusted his children to you, Harper. Do you have any idea what that means to a Nietzschean?" Rommie asked.
"I... I don't know, Rom-doll. I guess I fucked up again, hunh? Relationships are a lot harder than they look," the young man choked out, managing a wan smile. "Guess I should go and apologize or something."
Checking on her captain, the ship's AI nodded emphatically. "That would be a good idea, a very good idea. Preferably before he kills someone for breathing too loudly."
Grumbling under his breath about being the one to always give in, Harper stomped over to the com and then composed himself. Opening a channel to the bridge, he made a quick and brief announcement. "I, Seamus Zelazny Harper, apologize to the crew of the Andromeda for getting her captain PO'd, and I apologize to the captain for being an ass. That is all."
Looking over to Rommie, he scowled at her. "Well?"
She just shook her head. "At least it'll get him off the bridge. I'll see you later, Harper." She made a hasty retreat before the captain could arrive.
Moments later, Tyr did arrive, annoyance in every line. "What exactly did you think you were doing?" he snarled.
"Apologizing for being an ass," Harper snapped back at the bigger man. "Apparently I wasted my breath! Geez, not even an apology is good enough for you!" Hurling himself into a chair, Harper crossed his arms, prepared to sit there all night. "Next time I won't waste my breath!"
Tyr glared, arms crossed and feet braced. "You are the only person I know who can make an apology sound like an insult!" He stopped to think about that. "Apart from myself, that is."
"Maybe that's why we're good for each other," Harper replied quietly, trying to meet his lover halfway.
Tyr smiled crookedly. "And make each other so crazy." He took a step toward Harper, arms uncrossing and falling to his sides.
"I make you crazy?" the engineer asked, eyes lighting up as he uncurled from the chair and made his way over to the towering mountain of Nietzschean. "You know, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me, other than I love you, that is. I can make a Nietzschean crazy. I like that."
Wrapping his arms around Tyr's neck, Harper just held on tight, savoring the feeling of them just being together and not fighting. They'd been doing that so much lately, and Harper felt horrible about some, actually about most of the things he'd said and done; however, he just couldn't seem to keep his mouth shut at the time. It was like once he started, he couldn't stop, and it all started when...
When that Sabra bitch had called him to stake her claim on Tyr. Damn. Guess he had a lot more insecurities than he cared to admit.
"Tyr... can I try and explain all of this, really explain?" the young man asked quietly. "Without you getting mad or trying to interrupt me or anything?"
"Well, I can't promise no interruptions," the captain replied, knowing from past experience how frustrated he got sometimes trying to understand Harper, "but I can promise to try. I want to understand, Harper, to know what's bothering you because something clearly is."
He started to stretch out on the bed, then stopped, deciding that if this conversation got painful, he didn't want it to happen in their bed; instead, he carried Harper over to the couch and sat down, the smaller man secure in his arms. It had the additional advantage of allowing Harper to move off his lap if he needed to, but Tyr hoped he wouldn't.
"I guess the immediate reason I was acting like this is because you got married again. To her. And it scared me. I know you love me. I know it in here, Tyr," he said bringing his lover's hand up to his heart, "but sometimes it takes me a while to get it in here," Harper continued, pointing to his head.
"I lied to you, to Dylan, Trance and Beka, and to myself about a lot of things," the young man confessed quietly. "Well, if you call lying by omission a lie. I... Truth is, I grew up on Earth. It was hell; there were Magog raids and Nietzschean raids, and it was just this cesspool of corruption and horror and...
"My da was killed right in front of me when I was four. He was protecting me and my older sister from some slavers who wanted young meat for certain Nietzscheans with certain vices. Da died protecting us, and they got my sister anyway. I was too small and too skinny, and they knocked me down, and I guess there was so much blood they thought I was dead.
"My ma didn't last long after; she missed my da too much, and then I was an orphan, so my aunt and uncle took me in despite the number of mouths they already had to feed. And then a Magog raid came, and my cousins Deklan and Siobhan were... impregnated," Harper all but spat the word out, "and we had to either watch them be eaten alive from the inside out or we had to kill 'em. At least our way their death was quick and painless, but I can't even begin to tell you what it did to my aunt and uncle.
"I fell in with a bad crowd after that. I was maybe seven or eight, I think, and one day the lot of us were caught desecrating a statue of Mussoveni, and the Dragans in charge decided that even they didn't want us on planet, so they made a deal, a sweet deal from what I heard, and we were shipped off to an Orca slave camp.
"Apparently the Orcas needed fodder for one of their more dangerous mining operations, and in return the Dragans got a piece of the action. If I thought Earth was bad, it was a veritable paradise compared to where we were sent. I watched my so-called friends lie and betray and backstab each other, and then one of them squealed on me, singling me out so that he wouldn't be raped. That's how I drew the attention of the Orca Alpha and how I ended up getting... conditioned," the young man admitted, his voice suspiciously hoarse while he refused to meet Tyr's eyes.
"I... Something got hard inside me after that. I didn't trust anyone, didn't want anyone, and didn't let myself feel anything. It just left you wide open for a whole lot of hurt that was worse that some of the beatings and the rapes.
"And then Bek and Dylan rescued me, and I suddenly had a family again, and it was hard. It was so hard, Tyr," Harper admitted, his knuckles white and his entire body taut with his struggle to keep it all in check. "Trusting them, letting them in because I was so afraid that one of them would betray me or hurt me or sell me out or something. I'd go to sleep fully clothed with a stash of credit chips hidden on me so that I could get the hell out fast if it got that bad. I wasn't gonna go back to the camps for anything. I'd have died first.
"But they wormed their way in, and suddenly I was human again and not just meat to eat or a kludge to be used. And then you came along, and I had someone of my very own to love and who loved me.
"I guess she just blind-sided me and brought back all the old fears of being abandoned, being used, being betrayed. I know you'd never do that; I know you love me, but sometimes... I'm scared again, you know? So I try to drive you away before you leave me or something, I guess."
Tyr just held Harper tightly, wishing he could change the past, take the pain away, but he couldn't. "I'm sorry," he offered quietly. "Sorry I didn't talk to you about Els- about her first, but it really wouldn't have helped, would it." He sighed. "I love you, Harper, and I'm not going anywhere... and neither are you," he added possessively. "This having a relationship is more complicated than I thought."
"I guess so. Do me a favor though, big guy? Next wife you acquire, tell me before she does? I mean she was probably just marking her turf or whatever, but I'd rather know before they decide to tell me or one of the crew slips it out?" Harper asked quietly.
"I can take it if you tell me, but not the way this one happened. That's what really hurt worst of all. Finding out from, as she put it, your legitimate and legal spouse, not from you. I'd rather you give it to me straight, and then I can go sound off to Bek and Dylan and blow it off, not let it fester," the younger man continued. "It wouldn't have felt so... bad coming from you. I mean it would have felt bad but not like a set of arm spikes in my gut."
Tyr flinched. "I... I'm sorry. I hadn't thought about that. I was trying to avoid having to face you with it," he admitted, flushing slightly. It had been cowardly and had ultimately hurt Harper far more, but at the time, he'd only been thinking of not hurting him with the news.
"Because of Elsbett's rank, as long as she has children regularly, I shouldn't have to take any other wives," he offered, hoping it would help.
"You do what you gotta do for your Pride, Tyr. I know that has to come first over everyone and everything. The Orca hurt you bad, and you need to rebuild and... you need wives. And more children... just don't tell me about the conception, okay? I really don't wanna know that," Harper replied quietly.
"Guess we both hurt each other this time around, hunh? I really don't wanna do this again. I can't lose you too," the young man husked, his lip quivering slightly. "Forgive me?"
"Always," Tyr admitted. "It seems to be part of loving you." He tilted Harper's head up with a finger under his chin and kissed him, reclaiming his mate. "And I too would prefer not to repeat the experience."
Harper's hands wrapped around Tyr's neck and held him close. He shifted and squirmed until he was straddling the Nietzschean's lap and giving his all to the kiss. This was the one part of fighting he did like. The making up.
Tyr stood up, bringing Harper with him, and started back for the bed. His hands were busily stroking Harper and unfastening his clothing, eager to feel their naked bodies pressed together again, and he was nibbling on the raised flesh around the engineer's implant.
Squirming and whimpering, Harper could only gasp out his pleasure, whisper his need and beg for release. "Please, Tyr, need you, love you, want to. Please need you in me, to know, to feel... need so much," the young man begged needfully.
"I'm right here," Tyr replied, growling as he worked to remove their remaining clothing, then fell upon his mate. A fierce need to reclaim the other man as his rose up in him, and he grabbed for the lubricant, preparing Harper as quickly as possible before pushing inside him. An atavistic groan of ownership fell from his lips as he felt the tight, clinging heat of Harper surrounding him, and he immediately began to take the human hard.
"YES, TYR!!" Harper cried out as he felt himself penetrated and claimed. "God, oh god, love you, love you, love you," the young man whined, his legs wrapped around the Nietzschean's waist as he tried to meet every stroke with a thrust of his own.
Harper's hands raced up and down his chest, pinching his nipples, twisting his nipple ring, and stroking his cock and his balls. Surging up, he began to feast on Tyr's nipples, his tongue piercing lashing the taut nubbins of flesh, wanting to increase his mate's pleasure.
Tyr watched hungrily as his mate teased his own body, heightening his arousal and Tyr's as well. A deep rumbling purr issued from him when his Pet's mouth fastened onto his nipple, and one huge arm wrapped around Harper, supporting him while he continued to pound into the smaller man.
"Mine, all mine," he growled. "Want to feel you come for me, Pet, want to watch you come apart and then come inside you."
Whimpering around the button of flesh in his mouth, Harper let his free hand slide between their pounding bodies and wrapped it around his dripping cock. Stroking himself to the same rhythm that Tyr took him soon had his balls crawling up into his body and his head falling away from his lover.
Sharp, broken gasps escaped his throat, and his eyes rolled back into his head. Unintelligible garbles of want and need poured forth, and with a last jerk of his cock and a last impaling of his body, hot white semen sprayed between their writhing bodies.
Harper's climax triggered Tyr's, and the big Nietzschean groaned his pleasure as he came inside his lover, reclaiming him. Tyr covered Harper's mouth with his own, indifferent to the need to breathe as he claimed his mouth, needing the connection.
"I do love you," he said quietly, brown eyes somber, when he finally raised his head.
Harper's smile was one of mystified delight. "I know you do, I just... it's like a miracle every time I hear it, that you could actually love me, a human," the younger man admitted. "I... you're everything I've ever wanted in life, you know that? You're my heart, my home, my safety, my sanity - everything. I'm not even sure I could live without you anymore, even if I had to."
"You'll never have to try," Tyr vowed fiercely, lying atop his lover and staring down into the bright blue eyes. "I'll never let you go." If someone had told him before he met Harper how much this one human would come to mean to him, he would have suggested euthanasia for the madman, but he could more easily give up his own life than Harper's now.
Harper closed his eyes, trying to live in the moment. If there was one thing he'd learned in his life so far, it was that nothing was certain. The very state of the universe was in constant flux and so too was everything and everyone in it. The now was all he had, and now was good. It was very good.
Opening his eyes, he smiled up at his lover, his mate, and his life. "You know, I even like it when you call me Pet now; it doesn't mean what it used to. I don't mind it when you call me that, Tyr, even in public."
Laughing, Tyr teased, "If I weren't Nietzschean, the shock might have killed me. Pet." He kissed Harper lingeringly.
"You ubers, tougher to kill than cockroaches," Harper teased back when he could speak again. "But I think I'll take you to a cockroach any day."
END