But he couldn’t leave his father.

  Oona’s hand lay on his father’s chest. She’d died trying to reach him. Dear, sweet, simple Oona. Her tinkling laughter silenced forever.

  Get up, Jorvik! Get up!

  Now!

  Wet heat streaked his face.

  He flew backwards, yanked up by his hair. “Yah!”

  Mother of Crystals! He grabbed at the arm jerking his hair and spun to face his attacker. Pain ripped through his scalp.

  A guard growled into his face. “What are you doing here?”

  Think! Think fast! If they knew he yet lived, he wouldn’t do so for long.

  If he hoped to get out of this alive, he must deny his father. “Oona,” he moaned, releasing the sobs threatening to choke him. “My sister!” Surely his uncle didn’t care enough about anyone in the palace to ask about their family.

  For a moment his heart lurched in his chest. What if the guard knew too much? They’d worked for his father, after all.

  Even without recognizing him, they might kill him to silence any witnesses. Still, Jorvik eagerly grabbed at any meagre chance to live. He scanned the area for a knife or anything else he could use as a weapon. His eyes fell on Oona’s hairpin, a long sliver of bone with a wickedly sharp point.

  The man shoved him hard. Jorvik slapped his palm against the floor, dragging his hand through the poor woman’s hair while pretending to right himself. His filmy garment didn’t allow many hiding places. He slipped the pin into the top knot of his own hair.

  More footsteps approached, the room quickly filling.

  Pain bloomed on his cheek. Jorvik tumbled to the floor under the force of the blow. His father’s and Oona’s mingled blood seeped into his clothes.

  He dared not look up, couldn’t bear to see who might be standing there.

  His uncle’s voice sent ice through his veins. “Get him out of here.”

  “You heard him, whore. Come with us.” The guard yanked him up, tearing off most of his garment.

  Jorvik stumbled and fell, a hank of hair coming out in the guard’s hand. He quelled the urge to punch the grinning man in the mouth.

  The smarmy ambassador stepped into the hallway, bowed low, and addressed Uncle Otkiovik, “Good evening, your majesty.”

  Jorvik’s knees gave out.

  The guards dragged him down the hall, bouncing his hip against the stone floor. “Ahhh!” Another slap stung his cheek.

  “Shut up.”

  Fire raced up his arms and legs from his knees and elbows striking each step as they dragged him downstairs. He yelled and clutched at his abused flesh, cradling his exposed cock and balls. If he found more than a hairpin to defend himself, he’d show them. Kill them all.

  The guards’ laughter added insult to his injuries.

  They came to the great hall.

  “What are you doing?” a woman shrieked. Matron!

  Jorvik nearly sighed in relief. But wait. She knew him. Knew every single person who set foot in the palace. Though she’d raised him, no telling where her true loyalties lay. Could he count her friend or foe?

  “This is none of your business,” his uncle growled.

  The guard shoved Jorvik. He hit the floor. Pain shot through his knees. Sparing a glance at the closest thing to a mother he’d known since his own died, he yanked on the torn fabric in a fruitless effort to cover his nakedness.

  The matron set her mouth in a hard line. Jorvik nearly yelled for her to run.

  He pleaded for help with his eyes. “My sister Oona is dead.” He wiped a hand over his face and winced. Blood. He’d smeared blood. His own? His father’s? Oona’s?

  His stomach roiled. Bile burned his throat. Please no. Let him not throw up. Not here, not now.

  Oh, stars. He swallowed against the bitterness in his mouth, dragging in deep breaths.

  Matron let her mask fall for a mere moment, enough to assure Jorvik of her loyalty.

  She knew Oona to be his father’s favorite. Would know Oona’s death and Uncle prancing around like he owned Akiak itself meant Jorvik’s father no longer drew breath.

  With a hardened gaze, the most ferocious member of the palace staff confronted the traitor. “This is my business. Everyone who serves in this palace is my responsibility, including this man and his sister. The king himself charged me with their care.”

  A guard stepped between Uncle and Matron. “Be gone, woman. Do you know to whom you speak?”

  “Do you?” she spat. “Go ahead. Have my head. I suppose you can easily find someone to run this palace as efficiently as I have. Who knows every nook and cranny, every servant?” She spared a glance at Jorvik but didn’t linger. “Who also gets a good price for supplies because her name carries weight with the merchants.”

  For a moment his uncle and the woman, who ran the palace every bit as efficiently as she claimed, remained locked together in silent warfare. Neither moved, staring eye to eye, faces unreadable masks.

  His uncle flinched first, backing away with a small nod.

  Matron finally glanced more fully at Jorvik, schooling her expression into her normal businesslike manner. “What are you doing with him?”

  No one answered. The woman turned a glare on one of the guards. Likely he’d tasted her fury at some point. He stammered, “His… his lordship caught this whore where he didn’t belong.”

  The woman plastered her hands onto her hips, a stance often followed by someone’s banishment from the hall. Jorvik recognized the slender shape in her apron pocket, noticed her slipping her hand towards the knife under the guise of smoothing the fabric. “He is not a whore, but a kitchen server. We do not treat our citizens like this. He’s one of mine, and you cannot take him anywhere without his consent.” She turned her attention back to Jorvik. “Dooren, do you consent?”

  All eyes turned to him. Better to die now than later when someone figured out the king’s heir still lived. He shuddered. “No… No, Matron.”

  Shooting a triumphant scowl, she helped Jorvik off the floor and yanked a cape from one of his attackers.

  “Hey!” The guard snatched for his cape.

  Matron slapped his hand. “I’m guessing you’re the reason he’s barely clothed.” She glowered and draped the fabric over Jorvik’s battered body. He hated the warmth and stench of the foul guard less than being naked and exposed.

  Not waiting for anyone’s reaction, she wrapped an arm around Jorvik and steered him away.

  Jorvik hardly dared breathe as he made his way across the floor, painful step after painful step. At last Matron opened the door to a room he’d never seen.

  A narrow bed sat against one wall, up on four legs like off-worlders used rather than the more familiar pallet. Shelves lined two other walls, filled with cloths, tubs, and an array of bottles.

  “This is where we treat the injured servants. Lie down,” she ordered, voice stern but not unkind. She selected a few items from the shelves. Opening a bottle, she sniffed the contents and poured a few drops into the basin of water by the door.

  Silently she wet a cloth, cleaned Jorvik’s face and hands, and set about tending his wounds. All the while she hummed under her breath, a song she’d used to calm a younger Jorvik when he’d awoken from a bad dream.

  Drained. He felt drained. Out of tears. Out of hope. Numb. This couldn’t be happening. “Matron?”

  She put a finger to her lips. “Now is not time for talking.”

  One by one she treated his injuries. The pain numbed in his scrapes and bruises. A particularly nasty gash on his face made her scowl, but only for a moment. She’d never been one to give away her thoughts with her face. Finally, she brought a cup to his lips, helping him drink. Bitterness coated his tongue.

  “My king is dead?” she murmured.

  Jorvik’s throat tightened and he blinked back scalding tears.

  She gave his leg a gentle pat, a sniffle the only indication of her sorrow. Matron served the king well, loyal to a fault.

  Judging by her actions, her loyalty endured.

  She leaned in close. “Rest now. You’re safe for the moment, but we must work fast to keep you out of harm’s way, my prince.”

  Jorvik’s stomach lurched. She’d recognized him. Would others?

  Turning her back, she rose to leave. Crystals along the walls glowed a faint orange. “Matron?”

  She peered over her shoulder. “Yes?”

  “Tha… thank you.”

  The woman answered with a bittersweet smile. “You’re welcome. It’s too late to help your father, but what I can do, I will.”

  He lay in the semi-darkness. His father, murdered. Oona, murdered. Sika. Beautiful Sika and his lover Gris, murdered.

  Himself, murdered as far as his uncle knew.

  His abused body ached, as well as his ass where, a short time ago, Sika filled him.

  Sika, who unknowingly gave his life to spare Jorvik’s.

  Floaty warmth settled over him, likely something Matron put into the cup.

  Sleep claimed him.

  Chapter Five

  Cyber Banks of the Cormorant – Coalition Space

  Tayn sat on a comfortable couch, similar to the one on a holovid show he and Van watched as kids. They’d been fascinated by the adventures of a group of Terrans who’d existed in a time without war, with problems no bigger than who to date. They’d escaped to the televised world every chance they got.

  Their imaginations set the only limits for their surroundings while deep in the ship’s circuitry, though most images came from their memories.

  Some of those memories carried pain. He carefully chose their surroundings with Van’s comfort in mind, picturing the carefree Terrans sitting on the couch. Of course, he couldn’t mentally create other people, or he would have, to take Van’s mind off his problems.

  He idly combed his fingers through his partner’s copper waves.

  Here, in the confines of wiring and cybernetics, Van appeared younger, hair long instead of cropped close to his head, two days’ growth of red beard giving his jaw a bit of a glow in the bright lights they’d conjured.

  While underway, Tayn’s and Van’s bodies had lain together in total darkness. Now Van’s body rested in a pod without Tayn physically by his side.

  No. Tayn wouldn’t think about the hard choice he’d made, the only choice available.

  From the moment the raiders stepped onto the Cormorant’s deck plates, they’d sealed his fate. He’d never let Van share the same fate by following the raider back to Federation space—where a thirty thousand credits bounty made them sought-after targets.

  Besides, he’d seen the cut tubes and wires. They’d tried to take Van too. If only one of them survived the raid intact, he’d have chosen Van. Always Van.

  Who attacked them? Someone after their bounty? Someone with a personal grudge?

  Blow up a few ships, make a few illegal runs to distant outposts, steal whatever they got their hands on, and some people took offense.

  If the Federation didn’t want guys like them taking what they could get, they shouldn’t be such assholes.

  Van rested, head in Tayn’s lap. Neither spoke. What could they say? The nature of their relationship lay shattered in a spray of debris, formerly a Federation marauder ship.

  They hadn’t done nearly enough damage to the Federation.

  Federation, hell. Total domination of the universe, more like, with the rich and powerful profiting at the expense of those seen as “other.”

  Old Terra humans, while resembling many of the Federation’s races, were definitely “other.”

  The Coalition wasn’t much better, but at least Terrans weren’t forcibly strapped into cybersuits and used as cannon fodder for a war no one could win.

  The Federation and the Coalition. The Federation controlled the wealthier planets, conquering the poorer, either assimilating them or destroying.

  The Coalition claimed to champion the less-privileged worlds, pledging to fight for colonists eking out a living on some barely-livable mudball.

  Both existed for profit, despite their propaganda, snarling like two dogs over resources. So far, Van preferred the Coalition—they hadn’t killed his family.

  Hybrid ships like the Cormorant were one of the Coalition’s few advantages over its foes. Upon taking on the assignments of being captain and navigator, beating out thousands of other candidates, he and Van vowed to keep her secrets and swore loyalty to the Coalition.

  For now.

  Because only those with Old Terra bloodlines could withstand the mind outside the body and returning again without going insane.

  Sure, the Federation used sentient ships, but once they wired someone into the ship’s circuitry, their consciousness stayed, bodies tossed away like rubbish, though why anyone would sign up for a half-life, Tayn couldn’t imagine.

  They’d been forced into such a role, according to rumors.

  While he’d love to say he’d fired the shot to protect the technology binding him and Van to the Cormorant, in truth, he’d rather destroy his fleshly shell than let some Federation asshole sell it for profit, or use his physical manifestation as a lure for Van. It was his body, damn it. In the end, he’d made his own decision, unlike those poor souls likely sold by their own families into slavery, to be cut free from their bodies forever.

  However, like them, he could never go back.

  Which left Tayn and Van in a bad state. What would the higher-ups do if they found out Tayn existed only in the ship’s databanks? Not merely his memories, but his mental capacity, circuits taking the place of the brain he once possessed. Coalition scientists gave him and Van the ship to operate with the express intention of them having both virtual and corporeal forms.

  Van broke the silence. “Between the two of us, we’ve been through every circuit on this ship. I couldn’t find one single anomaly.”

  “Diagnostics didn’t show anything either. Yet somehow those raiders disabled our defenses.” They’d appeared out of nowhere, gaining access to the Cormorant’s coded systems. They’d known Van and Tayn’s location.

  How? He’d given fake coordinates for their flight plans at the last space port they’d visited, and anyone scanning the ship would have found the doctored logs saying they were transporting scientific samples.

  Something else Tayn didn’t know: What will we do now? It wasn’t like he could simply find another suitable body lying around.

  Van stared up at the ceiling, unblinking. “We could go to one of the outposts at the edge of Coalition space. I know a guy in the black market there who can get us anything we need.”

  Tayn snorted. “He deals in bodies?”

  Van’s ominous silence didn’t bode well—for somebody. “We’ll never know until we ask.”

  Tayn shivered. Stealing someone else’s flesh? “Have you ever heard of a consciousness put successfully into another body? A random body?” Of course, the Federation threw many away after harvesting minds, but black-market bodies were usually sold for spare parts.

  Or to worlds were Terran flesh served as dinner.

  Van’s hair swept over Tayn’s bare thigh when he shook his head. “No. Only bodies cloned from the original person’s DNA. But those cost one hell of a lot of credits and take years to grow.”

  Yeah, no surprise there, though lack of success didn’t stop the wealthy from trying to transplant themselves into a younger, healthier body in an attempt to lengthen their lives. Or doctors from lining their pockets in the so-far futile attempts. “I have nothing but time.” The sadness in Van’s green eyes chased away his pretended cheerfulness. Tayn agonized over something positive to say, finally deciding on, “At least we’re together now.”

  Van’s deep sigh came as a surprise, since neither of them needed air in this form. “This is no way for you to live.”

  “What’s the big deal? We spend most of our time piloting anyway. How often do we actually need our bodies?”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Why not?” Damn, but Van was just as stubborn in cyberspace as real space.

  Van rolled onto his side, head still in Tayn’s lap. Oh, what a perfect mouth, so near where it should be. Tayn’s cock began to stiffen, nudging Van’s cheek.

  “Are you hinting?” Van lifted his head enough to smirk.

  “Maybe.” Or offering a distraction. Perhaps both.

  Van chuckled. “Why are you naked?”

  Thank gods for a break in the depressing conversation about things they couldn’t control. “Our bodies are… were… naked in stasis.” Tayn grinned at the Cormorant’s captain. “Makes things easy, don’t you think?” Ah, the joys of living inside a ship’s circuitry.

  Since he could imagine himself any way he wanted here, why not imagine himself naked?

  Besides, if he didn’t do something soon to bring them into a form of normalcy, Van might get all noble on him and do something stupid.

  Or freak out and stop fucking him.

  A quick turn of his head put Van’s mouth back within sucking distance. “Ah!” Tayn exclaimed. “Damn, your mouth feels good.” He’d miss the for-real buddy fucks when they went ashore in human form. They’d scope out some hot Terran, or even a non-Terran, in a bar for a threesome or moresome. If they didn’t feel like going out, they’d stay in a rented room and see how many sexual positions they could manage without anti-grav. Or on the ship.

  With anti-grav.

  But here? Disembodied? Not the same, but still good. Tayn closed his eyes and gripped the back of Van’s head. The man sucked cock with the best of them. Not even paid companions on pleasure planets came close. Breathing being optional in cyberspace added a whole new experience to blowjobs.

  Up and down, Van bobbed his head, taking Tayn to the root. Tayn relaxed and enjoyed, currents moving through him. Sex in his physical body? Amazing. But cyberspace worked too.

  He shoved into Van’s eager mouth. Oh, how good, warm, wet. Gripping Van’s copper-colored waves, Tayn directed his head, fucking Van’s mouth in earnest.

  Though not lovers in the conventional sense, they knew what the other liked, the right pressure, the right speeds, when to intensify, when to back off.

 

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