Chapter 13
Led examined his hands again, turning them over. Big yellow-pinkish fingers with calluses. Bulky musculature. Broad body. No claws. Sparse hair. Big, all-round. Not so bad overall, if not for the face. He wasn’t here to be beautiful though. Not looking in the mirror had become his routine after a new loaner body. Or it would be. Two loaners probably didn’t qualify as a routine.
His nape felt itchy when he thought about the LOANER written across the back of it.
The coach trundled onward, on track, only shaking them a little as it swooshed around curves and over bridges, outside of the city of Quill. The city had taken an hour to leave due to the low speed limits allowed but now this bullet transport was humming along. Fast enough for practicality and to arrive at the siren enclave in good time, slow enough to let them glimpse the green countryside.
Silently, the foliage whipped by, blurring when one focused past it to the blue-topped mountains. The trees here must not be chlorophyll based at high altitudes or the snow was weird. He hadn’t looked up Lura’s flora and fauna yet.
Might not ever.
They weren’t likely to go trekking across country.
The finishing inside this bullet coach was exquisite and of a fineness he’d not seen before. Lord Zarblu might’ve afforded such luxury, but stoneshifters weren’t into frippery, though he had collected antiques. Black trim, gold scrollwork and fanciness in the corners of the ceiling. The taps in the small bathroom were gold-plated, and these red, plumply upholstered seats were on a comfort level with clouds.
Led huffed and shifted, found Thorn studying him from her opposite seat. “How’s the stasis headache?”
“Good. Painkillers worked well. You?” She quirked an eyebrow.
“I’m good.” And she had such startling eyes.
“You know what I want to ask.” Her face slipped into what might be termed a pained expression.
“I can guess.” Led crossed his legs and pulled straight the cloth-covered buttons on his jacket. Black pants, shirt, boots, and jacket, of course. It was his way of grounding himself no matter what species he wore.
“Why? Why that?” Raising her hand from her lap, she flicked open her fingers in his direction. “Anything but a dalk surely?”
“Hmmm.”
Every time he saw her she grew more beautiful to him, more female, more unattainable for someone like him. Her white hair had been styled to perfection, and she’d placed some artwork onto her suit design today. Pink flower blossoms that rained down upon a subtly toned background that blended from the faintest gray to a green, then to a mild golden yellow at boots level.
The more you knew someone, the closer you became, yes? It had the opposite effect on him. Maybe because he saw how different they were.
“I didn’t choose a dalk for prettiness. There wasn’t much in Quill. The bodies were few. This is still in the same corner of the galaxy as BART, and the space-faring races are limited.”
“It’s the teeth.” Thorn pulled a pained face.
He couldn’t help smiling at that, though the long teeth must look fearsome when framed by a grin.
“You look like you’re either going to eat me.” Thorn shuddered. “Or chew down a tree.”
“Trees are good nutrition,” he said dryly.
What he hadn’t told her was that he could’ve picked a plainer man, a more standard human type, but the dalk had...double dicks. And he’d seen her reaction to the smaller thrassian one. His curiosity had grabbed him and said take the dalk, with a few exclamation points on top.
Because, he hoped.
“Anyway, thank you for coming. I needed someone with me. My mother...is a stranger to me.”
There she was thanking him again. Weird. He inclined his head. “She may be just as nervous as you.”
Thorn grimaced and let her gaze drift to the window beside her, where the countryside was still blurring past.
No weapons, bots, or AI were allowed in the siren enclave so Smorg and Jocelyn had been left in the city – hopefully they would be able to purchase some of the suppression drug that Thorn wished to try.
“I’m not the nice man you seem to be thinking I am.”
Warning her was stupid. And there was the niceness, but did this count if he was subsequently vile?
“Am I thinking you are? I guess? Are you sure you’re not? Don’t downgrade yourself.”
“A few charitable acts do not make one an angel.”
She peered down her nose at him, elbow up on the window, thumb underneath her jaw.
He imagined his own thumb there and felt those double dicks twitch.
“Neither does a life of villainy make one a villain if one chooses to change.”
Slowly, he shook his head. Being willing to forgive was a weakness. It left her vulnerable to males like him who wanted to do bad things to her.
“You disagree?” she asked.
Today was not a day for bad things. Mothers should be venerated, he assumed. It was the humanoid way.
He stood, beckoned to her to join him then was surprised at what his mind suggested. “Come. Let me show you what a dalk can do.”
Her wariness amused him, but she did stand. “Yes? Is this a safe thing?”
“It’s safe.” He searched through the coach’s sound database and selected an ancient waltz. The dalk had known how to do this, and now he did too. Which was so very wrong. The hairs on his back prickled alert. “Take my hand.”
There was ample room in here between the facing seats to dance – the central table could be summoned but was currently locked away into the floor.
The music began and he took the first slow step then swirled her and dipped, in an impromptu move. She went with him, smiling at him from where he’d bent her backward.
“You’ll have to lead.”
“Of course I will.” Of course he would.
This ex-cyborg knew nothing of dances.
As he swept her smoothly through the elegance of the waltz, Led was surprised at how it all came to him – he knew this like he did the heft of his two dicks, could feel the weight of past dancing partners in his hand.
Mixing dicks and hands was probably a sensory disaster.
But these muscle memories...
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Loaners did not leave traces of the past user’s memories. They were wiped clean. He should only have his own memories.
Yet, there was more – something he’d dismissed.
When he’d traded bodies at the LoL premises in Quill he’d felt an urge to tell the pog, who seemed a twin brother to Tewel, that he knew something vital about Fellen Zed.
Finding secrets had been part of the deal made on BART, though telling this strange information about Fellen to the pog was as appropriate as divulging a dream.
He couldn’t really know that Fellen Zed was doing something illegal and dangerous and immoral. It was impossible. Yet he did know it.
He could dance when he never had before, and he knew Fellen Zed had cloned himself and had bodies hidden throughout the galaxy. That would explain why he was willing to let strangers loan out his body.
It didn’t explain why he needed to, however. There was a need hidden somewhere in Fellen Zed’s actions, and if he examined those he might see through them to the answer.
The dance took them across the small floor and around again. His boots hit the floor in perfect rhythm, and he had a girl in his arms. Her breasts pressed on his body when she moved the right way, her legs brushed his, and her face was merely a second away from a kiss.
If he leaned down.
“You shock me Led. I didn’t think a cyborg would learn to dance.”
And he hadn’t.
“Does it compensate for the teeth?”
She sighed and he felt the surge of her breasts as they bulged above the top of her artistically uploaded uniform. “It might.”
“I have something else that might appeal more.” He had her in his arms and the temptation was extreme. Bad things were stirring.
“Let me hazard a guess.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is it in your pants?”
“Answering you might incriminate me.”
“Oh my.” She released his fingers and he let her go as she stepped back. “I’m not into sex. I told you this.”
He dared to extend his arm and then, when she rocked on her feet but stayed in place, to lay a hand on her. His thumb did indeed slide along her jaw, his hand cupping beneath it, and he raised her face a little so he could look directly into her somewhat startled eyes.
He’d surprised this little starship captain with his boldness.
“Then why has your breathing hastened, your cheeks flushed, and your uniform begun to look like a surreal mess of pixels?”
It was true. The art was no longer.
“I –”
“I imagine most males would love women to signal their needs so clearly.” He left his hand where it was, watching her intently. At the slightest opportunity he would bend her over, rip open the suit, and try out these new cocks.
Perhaps he should, even minus an affirmative from her.
That would be bad.
He was bad.
But she drew a ragged inhalation then found words. “No. Not here. Not now. Maybe not ever. I told you...”
She had.
For now he would refrain from force. Even if his dicks might explode from their engorgement. Two definitely felt worse than one when frustration was involved.
“Very well. I will leave you alone.”
Then he stepped outside and into the adjoining passageway, to ease his pain by leaning into the transparent wall with his hands flat to the surface and cursing silently.
In the distance, the multi-colored turrets of the siren enclave were visible above the trees and the coach was curving toward them. For the best. If he was going to fuck Thorn again, he wanted time to do it well.
What had happened to mostly needing her for a purpose in life?