The creature’s chest was twice as broad as he, the winged spine easily head-height off the ground.
“Not a shrinking violet, are you,” Mike muttered. “Of course not. That’d be too easy.” He shifted the hilt in his hand one last time, familiarizing himself with the weapon’s balance and grip.
No time for hesitation or second-guessing what he was about to do. The slightest weakness, he knew, and the winged native would strike him down.
Mike balled up all the rage, hate, frustration and anger he felt, suppressed for too long—at himself, at the Doctrine, at the ones who taught Sergei to wear a mask, at the ones who assured him that he was flawed in some horrible way—and ran at the lizard with a full-bodied yell that would have impressed any drill sergeant he’d ever known.
Caught off guard by the sudden charge, the lizard reared up with an involuntary snap of its wings, and backed off a pace.
That was all Mike needed, though. The space to stand over Sergei, even if it put him in the lizard’s face. Eye to eye, refractive gaze staring him down in challenge.
The thing’s breath stank. Gods-awful stench, whatever that bacteria was. Mike tasted bile in the back of his throat but bared his teeth, snarled like a beast gone crazy, and yelled wordlessly again.
The lizard growled, huffed, gaze flicking down and away.
Mike used his foot to nudge at Sergei. “On your feet, soldier. Move!”
Sergei scrabbled onto all fours, and dashed away a moment later. He could be fast if given half a choice, despite the pain in his shoulders. He even managed to not vomit from the stench and the pain in his shoulder, but his stomach was heaving when he threw himself behind a rock in an incision in the mountain that he hoped was too deep for the lizard to reach him. For a moment he fought the rapidly closing tunnel in his vision, blinked against the grayness closing in, and managed to stay both conscious and operational. Breathing. Summoning down the icy discipline, the ability to work under stress and pain.
This time, being carried in a lizard’s claws, he’d managed to not fight. Which meant that there were no strips of flesh hanging from his shoulders. But the metal arm scrunched when he moved the shoulder. Damage. His other arm hurt like a bastard, but he wasn’t bleeding. The tightly-woven fabric of the combat dress had withstood the claws. Clearly, the lizard had wanted to take him alive—and keep him that way, at least for a while. Still, that felt like lacerations and deep bruises, almost as bad as dislocated.
“Mike?” Anger warred with worry at the sounds echoing into his hiding place, and he slowly, carefully, came back out, hoping to see the lizard before it saw him—in case it was looking for him.
What he did see was Mike facing down the hulking lizard, but very slowly retreating. The lizard screamed and swiped at him with a paw of dagger-claws, which Mike barely managed to deflect against the knife along his forearm. The rip of material was audible in the stillness.
Sergei’s chest tightened when Mike stepped into the lizard’s next attack, moving inside the creature’s arm, almost up against its chest.
“Mine!” It wasn’t so much a word as it was some kind of primal roar.
The two stood, unmoving, staring at each other, eye to eye.
And then, finally, the tension eased from the lizard’s form and it stepped back. Tucked its wings against its back. A fractional bow of its head, as if acknowledging Mike’s claim as superior to its own, the lizard backed to the far edge of the clearing. The encircling lizards shifted, made a space for it to retreat with dignity intact.
Sergei waited for Mike to turn and barely managed to not attack him straight out. Control. Showing emotion is undignified. It’s dangerous. A tactical disadvantage. He rolled his shoulders, tested how bad they were, and they’d hurt badly tomorrow, but the adrenaline was still carrying him through. “Why on earth did you do that?”
Mike’s chest and shoulders rose and fell visibly with each breath. He studied Sergei in silence, gaze roaming over him, lingering on his shoulders. Then he glanced at his hand gripping the knife, as if it took conscious effort to relax his hand. “Do what,” he said, looking back up, inhaling deeply.
“Did you order it to kidnap me? Or was that its own idea?” Sergei stepped closer, fighting the urge to punch the man and then check that he was all right. None of those responses made any sense.
“I was saving your hide. By any means necessary.”
“That is not a fucking answer.” There. Anger was winning out. Sergei could almost hear his discipline crack. Small, treacherous, rapidly propagating cracks. It sounded like wire in frost.
“You asked why. That is an answer.” Another, more controlled breath. Mike lifted his arm and examined the rips in the forearm of his steel-drab Doctrine flightsuit. He looked at Sergei from the corner of his eye, brow arching up a fraction. “Is that anger I hear in your voice?”
Breathe. Control. Sergei struggled to push it down and back—away. Losing control. It wasn’t easy. He hated it. He’d managed to do it in bed, but that was a different matter, and he wasn’t sure he’d trust anybody that much again. He did it when he had no other choice. But giving it away? Never. No. “What else do you want? What else is there to want, Mike? Didn’t you already take everything?”
Mike straightened, didn’t flinch from meeting his gaze. “I want what I deserve, Sergei. Your anger, your hate. Whatever you feel, you have a right to it. I betrayed your trust, repeatedly, and I can’t undo that.” He stepped closer. “What’s it going to take for you to just hate me?” His chest bumped against Sergei’s, rocking him slightly.
The response was immediately visceral, unstoppable. The punch came without Sergei’s consciousness involved. Nobody pushed him. He’d been pushed enough. Plenty. Way too much. Something sounded like a rusty gearbox in his arm when the metal hit the side of Mike’s face. There was a jarring of metal pieces inside that felt wrong and hurt in that odd, remote way that the prosthesis could hurt. He clenched both fists hard to stop himself from attacking Mike. Because part of him wanted to batter him, break him, and then gather the pieces and hold him tight. He didn’t know where to put those emotions. They didn’t fit. He couldn’t feel both of them at the same time.
Mike staggered back a few steps before catching his balance. He shook his head as if to clear it, and stepped back toward Sergei. “How’d that feel, giving me what I deserve? Good?” He spat a mouthful of saliva and blood on the dirt at his feet and looked at him with a serious, somber expression. “Go ahead, do it again if you want. I’ll stand here and take it. You deserve that much. You’ve earned that much. And more. But this is as good a place as any to start.”
“No. It doesn’t feel good.” Sergei exhaled past the discomfort in his chest, not all of it a result of the location taxing his damaged lung. He couldn’t imagine they’d come this far, owing each other so much only to end in rage and hate. He looked around, saw mountains and dust and night sky, constellations he’d seen elsewhere and slightly differently. No rules. No Revision. No Doctrine up here. Dizzying. He could be free if he wanted. Among enemies. He could stay here and keep his memories. Or go away and keep his memories. Or go back home and cease to exist. “It feels wretched and wrong.”
But it feels.
Mike nodded, silently flexed his jaw and rubbed the side of his face. “Yeah, it didn’t feel all that great on this end either.” He grinned, but it was short-lived. “I’m sorry shit got so mixed up. I can’t undo any of it. Still love you though.” And he tensed visibly, as if bracing himself for another hit.
“I’m…not what I was.” From anger and helplessness to guilt again. “I guess you could say I’m only half the man I was.” He couldn’t smile at his own joke.
Pain flicked through Mike’s expression. “You’re only half the man I knew if you’re willing to let them take that away from you. I’m not willing to let you do that, it’s not really a choice, is it?”
“No.” Sergei closed his eyes. “I wanted to belong. All my life I tried to ignore tha
t I’m a freak. I just wanted to be part of it. But I can’t. I want to keep the memories even if they hurt.”
“Take the good with the bad?” Mike sighed. “We can find you a place where you can be part of whatever you want. You don’t have to sacrifice who you are, just to belong.” An edge of anger traced through his words.
“We?” Sergei studied Mike’s serious face. “I’m…half-cyborg. A cripple. Traumatized. Damaged.”
“You expect me to be abhorred by that? Really?” He arched his brows again. “I’ll admit being fascinated by your body when I first met you, but that’s not what I fell in love with. Besides, that metal arm of yours packs one hell of a punch.”
Love—again.
Mike made it sound easy. The truth. And really, another soldier might have the strength to hold him when he woke early, panicked, with a scream on his lips. Mike had lived through worse.
Maybe he could be that weak with him. He’d already been there once. “There’s only one thing I want to be part of. You.”
Mike moved in, hooking an arm around his neck to pull Sergei against his chest. “You never stopped being part of me, Sergei.”
Someone cleared his throat nearby. “Ah, really hate to interrupt the reunion and all, but your mutual love life takes second priority to the security of this camp and the lives of the couple hundred natives in the area.” Pat’s tone conveyed no edge of apology whatsoever, although he sounded…different. More friendly.
Mike drew back and turned to look at his fellow operative. “The hunter-killer drones.”
Pat nodded grimly, then focused on Sergei. “As a member of Alliance forces, I have the authority to accept your request for asylum, if you so petition.”
Very official and formal-sounding. He wasn’t blowing any smoke around. Not that he’d even been the type to, that Sergei ever saw.
Just the last step to turning traitor. He’d already broken his promise to Nikishin. The officer wouldn’t have any choice but to prosecute him with the full authority of the Revision. Hunter-killer drones were the usual response, and Ulyanov wouldn’t stop sending them until they acquired him. Dead or alive wouldn’t matter, they would swarm through the mountains, robotic locusts, hungry only for his head, indifferent to whether or not it was still attached to his shoulders. He had seen it happen before, had even been responsible for deploying them on past occasions.
His family…He wouldn’t be able to tell them. Would they even understand, if he could? He wasn’t sure, and his only real regret was that his aunt had sacrificed so much, standing beside him, supporting him. Perhaps the Doctrine would file him MIA, and spare her the political injury of a defected family member. It wouldn’t just save face for the Committee general, but the lieutenant and the interim commander as well. She’d emerge unscathed, as always.
Sergei took a deep breath. “Yes, I do.”
“Good, because I already requested the emergency extraction team for you two.” He grinned widely, showing all his teeth, which made the expression more…aggressive than humorous. “ETA in, oh…” He glanced at the moon, a fraction of a sliver above the ridgeline. “About five minutes.”
Sergei nodded, then caught a small moving light in the night sky, much like a space station in orbit, moving fast and in a regular trajectory. Did they come via the moon or just hide behind it? Just curiosity, though. The implications didn’t concern him anymore. He reached to touch Mike’s arm with his meat hand, feeling the tension bleed away. “So where are we going?” We—he liked saying that.
“The closest Alliance Space Force base, and from there to the nearest galactic embassy.” It was obvious from his tone that the gears in Mike’s head were working at a furious, breakneck pace. “Best you don’t know the location of the first, and I have no idea where the latter is, to be honest.” He barked a laugh as Pat pulled them closer to the rock formations, to give the compact, highly maneuverable shuttle the space to set down safely.
It kicked up a thick cloud of debris with its anti-grav thrusters, and the hatch popped outward with a hiss of atmospheric equalization. A buzz-headed young buck of a soldier stepped out onto the ramp, his dark blue uniform crisp and formal. “We’ve got about ninety seconds of ground time before our presence on their telemetry makes major problems!” He had to yell to be heard over the idling turbines.
Pat slapped Mike on the shoulder and shoved them both toward the ramp. “Move, you two! Smoke a few for me, sergeant!”
Chapter Thirty
If Sergei would have been asked to define luxury, it would have involved lying in the bathtub, Mike resting against him in the hot water. He noticed that Mike idly traced the lines of the prostheses—both the arm and the leg. From that position, Sergei wondered if Mike could imagine him having those, stretching to his side and below.
He didn’t want to think about it and ignored how thin Mike still was. Much of that might just be dehydration from his time in solitary confinement. The bruises were less easy to ignore, but there in the hot water, he couldn’t feel anything but relief that they’d both made it. That they were alive and whole in Alliance space, where, so far, Sergei had been treated with wary courtesy.
Desire and tenderness kept twisting and coiling inside. Was this worth what he’d lost? And it felt like losing another limb that would never be replaced. The Doctrine. Home. His family. Was it worth it? Maybe. Being able to look at him—Mike alive, healthy and waiting for him in the bed, covers turned back. The smile on his face, lighting his eyes, when he turned to look at Sergei over his shoulder. Maybe it was.
He slid in between the sheets, easing up along his lover’s back to rest his forehead against Mike’s head. “You need your rest, Mike.” And I need you. Very easy. Life could be very simple once a decision was made.
“I’m resting. Just not sleeping yet.” Voice husky, deep, vibrating through Mike’s body into Sergei’s forehead.
Sergei relished the feel of skin on skin. He was fascinated and entranced by the possibility of no longer fearing blackmail or punishment for what he was feeling and doing. The freedom seemed enormous, limitless. A vast new planet without maps or native guide.
Mike turned his head a fraction, the smile still curling the corner of his mouth, creasing his cheek. He reached back, grabbed Sergei’s thigh, pulled him closer. Didn’t seem to even notice that it was metal beneath his touch instead of flesh, fingers stroking up over his hip, teasing featherlight over the curve of his glut.
“Well, I better ingratiate myself with the nearest Alliance representative.” Sergei kissed Mike’s shoulder and neck, breathing in the smell of his hair, of his skin. He felt Mike’s scars under his fingers as he ran them across Mike’s upper back. “Maybe I will be able to make a living as a honey trap or a companion…” Joking about it seemed to be the best way to tell Mike.
The hand tightened against his muscle, tension in Mike’s body drawing him closer. Yet when he spoke, his voice remained low, quiet. “You’ve already ingratiated yourself with me. And I wouldn’t recommend making a living that way. Unless you want a jealous lover on your hands.” His grip loosened, hand sliding back down Sergei’s thigh in a slow, tingling caress.
“Yes, I assume I’d be serving a niche market too. Not sure I could play the housewife, waiting for the tired warrior to come home from battle.”
“This tired warrior is ready for retirement,” Mike objected. “Have trouble seeing you play wife. Don’t want you to.”
Retirement. Both of them. “I can’t cook. But I’m good with children. Several of my siblings have children.” He’d left those behind too. Well, regrets for another day. “Just think of all the things we can do together.”
Mike reached back again, blindly tracing the contours of Sergei’s face.
“Gonna have to teach you how to ride a horse, ain’t I. That should be interesting.”
“You have horses?”
“Ranch. Haven’t seen it…in years.” Mike’s fingers, still twined with Sergei’s, loosened, caressing his han
d, tracing his knuckles. Brushing along his wrist. “Does it feel different?” The rasp of material, as Mike shifted his head, gazing down at Sergei’s hand.
“Like wearing a glove. Most of the feeling will return at some point. They said.”
“Takes time to calibrate.” Mike’s fingers still moving, stroking, exploring Sergei’s hand. “You’d like Kenzis. Mountains. Space. Wild. Think I could too, with you there.”
Sergei pulled back a bit. “I don’t care where.” That sounded maybe wrong, he realized. “I mean, I…just want to be where you are.” He had no idea how wives managed, or anybody else in their position, and buried that thought immediately.
He felt strangely light-headed. They were bantering again, growing closer with every hour they spent, and this time it would last.
Because I love you and I can’t get enough of you. That emotion ran deeper and deeper, like a river than had reached open plains, soft earth, and could burrow deeper now, build more force. There was no sense anymore that it would end, had to end, was better if it ended. Sergei wasn’t sure how he’d dealt with that, but he figured he’d likely called that “discipline.”
He swallowed against the steel ring around his throat and drew Mike into an impulsive, rough hug. Thankfully with his meat arm. “I love you,” he said, voice unsteady. He wanted to crawl into Mike, or wrap himself around him, just never lose contact, never let him go. And he didn’t give a fuck what anybody would say to that.
Mike dipped his head. “Love you too,” he whispered, lips moving over his skin.
Sergei placed his meat hand flat against Mike’s naked belly, the closeness a different kind of intimate to sex.
“I’m no longer afraid.”
“What were you afraid of?”
“Being myself.” Living as he wanted to live. Accepting his nature. No more hiding. “Being alone.”