2. Thrax

2

THRAX

" T he Twisted System? Really, Commander?" Andi had raised her eyebrows at their Commanding Officer as they sat in his office learning about their new assignment. "You're sending us there?"

The Twisted System, also know as the Kink Cluster, was the nickname the Salacious System had been tagged with—mainly because the three inhabitable planets in the system were all devoted to different sexual kinks or fetishes.

"I'm afraid so, Agent Peterson," Commander Sylvan said. "We have a warrior who's gone missing on Salacious Delta."

"Which one is that?" Thrax asked, frowning. "The Male Dom one or the Pet one?" He knew a little about the Twisted System—not that he'd ever been there—but the whole system was notorious for depraved sexual behavior.

"Neither," Commander Sylvan said. "Salacious Delta is the female dominated world in the ‘Twisted System' as your partner so charmingly calls it."

"Oh, really?" Thrax felt a muscle tense in his jaw but he forced himself to remain relaxed in his chair. "Never heard much about that one," he remarked, keeping his tone casual. Which was true—though he'd heard plenty about the other two planets in the Kink Cluster.

Salacious Prime was a male dominated world where females were owned by their Masters and went around in scanty outfits and different colored collars to show what kinds of sexual acts they were available for.

Salacious Beta, the second habitable planet in the system, was given over to Pet Play. Masters and Mistresses from all over the galaxy could bring their love slaves who they treated as "pets" there to play sexual games.

Salacious Delta was the planet they were headed—it was ruled by females and that was pretty much all Thrax knew about it. To be honest, that was all he wanted to know about it. But it seemed they were headed there so he'd better pay attention, he told himself.

"Please don't worry—Salacious Delta is nothing like Yonnie Six," Commander Sylvan told them, referencing the other notorious female owned planet in the galaxy where males were used as bodyslaves and kept in pain collars to force their obedience.

Just the mention of Yonnie Six made Thrax's whole body tighten up, but he tried not to show it and only nodded coolly.

"What's it like, then?" Andi asked, sounding curious.

Commander Sylvan steepled his fingers on his desk.

"To my understanding, all the relationships there are female-led—that is, the woman is the head of the household and has the final say in all financial and family matters," he told them. "The Delta Salacions believe women are better leaders and planners than males—and that they start fewer wars and conflicts."

"Hmm, they may be onto something there." Andi shot Thrax one of her irrepressible grins. "Does that mean I get to be in charge of this big lug?"

"Very fucking funny," Thrax growled, but inside him a mixture of emotions was growing, like hurricane force winds forming into a deadly storm. On one hand, the thought of Andi "taking charge" of him had his cock as hard as a plasti-steel beam in his trousers. He could just imagine kneeling to kiss her panties and pressing his face between her thighs to inhale her sweet, feminine fragrance as she moaned his name. On the other hand, the idea of being collared and chained made his balls want to shrivel up and hide inside his body.

Don't be ridiculous, he told himself uneasily. Commander Sylvan said it's not like Yonnie Six. You'll be fine.

"Actually, you will be in charge on this mission—at least, as far as the Delta Salacions are concerned. They won't deal with equal partners—only with a dominant female who has a submissive male-wife," Sylvan said seriously.

Andi's grin turned into an outright laugh.

"I'm sorry—a what?" she exclaimed, leaning forward in her chair.

"That's what the women who run Salacious Delta call their mates," the Commander explained with a completely straight face. "Male-wives."

"Do I have to wear a pain collar?" The words practically forced themselves out of Thrax's mouth. He was still trying to appear calm and collected but he had to know where this mission was leading them—and what he might have to endure.

"A pain collar?" Commander Sylvan raised his eyebrows in surprise. "No, no—not at all. As I told you, Salacious Delta is nothing like Yonnie Six."

"So I won't have to be bound or tied or gagged?" Thrax persisted. "I mean, I don't fucking mind pretending to submit to Andi—I'll do it all day long. But I need to know now if I'm going to be restrained in any way."

"I have never heard that the Delta Salacious restrain or bind their partners," Commander Sylvan said mildly. "You seem…upset, Agent Thrax. Is there a problem I need to know about?"

"What? No—of course not. No problem," Thrax growled defensively. "I just need to know what I can expect—that's all." He noticed that Andi was giving him a worried look and tried to shrug it off by slouching in his chair, as though he was completely relaxed. But inside he was still tight as a wire.

"Well, nothing like that, I assure you," his boss said. "You'll just be looking for a lost warrior—his name is Commander Kier and he's a Wulven Kindred. His ship went down on Salacious Delta a solar week ago. He placed a call to the Mother Ship, which we picked up and traced to the southern continent, but then we lost touch. He's no longer answering calls, so I've officially declared him missing."

"That sounds more like a job for a search and rescue team than a WLA unit," Andi pointed out. "What if he's just wandering around lost in the wilderness out there? You said he's a Wulven Kindred—does Salacious Delta have a moon or moons?"

It was a valid question, Thrax thought. Wulven Kindred were subject to a lunar cycle—they became bestial on the nights a full moon or moons appeared in the sky.

"It has several moons, which could cause problems for a Wulven like Commander Kier," Sylvan acknowledged. "But we don't think he's wandering in the wilderness, as you put it, Agent Peterson. We have reason to believe that he was taken by someone on Salacious Delta. Here—listen to this—it's the last message we got from him."

He placed a round, flat, coin-shaped object on his desk which Thrax recognized as a holographic projector. As soon as Commander Sylvan pressed a button on its side, a 3-D image appeared above it.

It was a male with thick, dark hair tied at the back of his neck. He had a knife-blade nose, thin lips and pale blue eyes. His skin had a grayish tint which told Thrax that Kier was either a Hybrid like himself or he had some Giant Kindred blood somewhere far back in his ancestry, which made itself known in his pigmentation.

"Day three here on Salacious Delta," he said. "The Smart-metal of my ship is almost done healing itself and I've finished making repairs to the hydrogen-scoop drive. I should be ready to take off for the Mother Ship by tonight—tomorrow at the latest." He sighed and Thrax thought he looked fucking exhausted.

"Everyone here has been kind—if extremely condescending. "The females I encounter when I go out into the city for supplies keep asking me where my ‘Queen' is. At first I didn't understand, but it seems that's what the males here call their mates.

"I've had a very difficult time making any kind of transactions, even though they accept standard credits here and I have plenty of them. It seems that males aren't allowed to make major purchases here unless they have a female with them.

"They also aren't allowed to have bank accounts or own domiciles, apparently. I've been asked several times where I was staying and if I had a female guardian like a mother or a sister to ‘look after me' since I'm unmated. I don't think they liked my answer when I told them I was on my own, in my ship. But it's none of their damn business anyway."

Commander Kier's voice dipped to a growl.

"They're just lucky I'm shut up tight and shielded from the moonlight since one of their three moons is almost always full at one time or another. If I didn't have Giant blood in my ancestry, my Beast would have come out a dozen times over already."

He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed.

"Goddess, I'm tired! Just want to get home to the Mother Ship. I'm sick of being treated like a second-class citizen just because I'm male! I don't like?—"

Suddenly a hand covered his mouth.

Because the holo projector only covered a small area, it was impossible to see who the hand belonged to, but Thrax could tell it was a female's. The fingers were long and tapered and slim with well manicured nails at the tips.

"Mmmph! Mmmph!" Commander Kier's eyes grew wide and it was clear he was struggling but someone just out of sight of the projector was holding him in place somehow.

"You're a big one, aren't you, pretty boy?" a smooth, feminine voice purred. "I bet you're a big producer too. Why don't we go find out?"

The voice sent a hard shiver down Thrax's spine and he sat upright in his chair all at once as though someone had jerked him into place.

"Fuck!" he growled before he could stop himself. That voice—it sounded like…but no—it couldn't be. His mind was playing tricks on him—he was certain of it.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Andi shooting him a worried look but he ignored her and forced himself to focus on the holo-projection again.

At this point Commander Kier was dragged away—out of the range of the projector. All they could hear were his muffled shouts for help and then the recording cut off and there was nothing but silence in the room.

"Looks like he was kidnapped," Andi remarked. "But by who? And why? What did the kidnapper mean by ‘you're a big producer?'"

Commander Sylvan looked grim.

"We're not certain, but there have been rumors of an illegal male seed harvesting operation located on Salacious Delta's southern continent. What some call a ‘milking farm.'"

"A milking farm?" Andi frowned. "What in the world is that?"

"It's exactly what it sounds like," Commander Sylvan told her. "Males are kidnapped and stimulated—forced to produce seed which is then sorted by the sex chromosomes present and sold to various conception centers."

"Is that really a thing, though?" Andi objected. "Who needs all that extra, uh, seed, anyway?"

"It's how the females who live on Yonnie Six reproduce," Thrax told her flatly. "It's the fashion there to choose ‘exotic' male seed for your heir."

Or at least it had been during his brief but memorable stay there, twenty cycles ago—but he pushed the memory quickly out of his mind.

"But they only want female children—only daughters, right?" Andi asked. "So what good is, er, Kindred seed to them? Isn't ninety-five percent of it male?"

"Actually, no," Commander Sylvan said mildly. "Just as in humans, Kindred warriors produce seed that is about half male and half female—however, the motility of the male sperm is so much greater that a sperm carrying an X chromosome has almost no chance to make it to the egg before about a million sperm carrying Y chromosomes reaches it instead. That is why our offspring is almost all male—and another reason we value female life so highly. Every baby girl produced is a miracle—a nearly hundred to one chance come to life."

"I've always appreciated the way Kindred treat women," Andi remarked. "It's one reason I quit my job in the Tampa PD and moved up here to the Mother Ship. Down on Earth, women are second class citizens in a lot of different places."

"Well, you heard what Commander Kier was saying—the exact opposite is true on Salacious Delta," Commander Sylvan remarked. He looked at Thrax. "I hope that's not a problem?"

"No problem, Commander," Thrax assured him. And he was positive that was true—as long as he didn't have to wear a pain collar or be restrained, he would be fine—he was sure of it.

"You want us to infiltrate Salacious Delta society and see if we can find out who took Commander Kier and where they took him—which is possibly to this, er, ‘milking farm'—right?" Andi asked.

Commander Sylvan nodded.

"Yes, just be careful. And if he is being held at the milking farm, don't try to rescue him yourselves. As soon as we confirm his location, we can begin a negotiation for his safe return. What we don't want is some kind of intergalactic incident that pits the Salacions against the Mother Ship. The Salacious System—or ‘Kink Cluster'—has some very valuable resources we'd like to trade for. So we don't wish to start a war with them."

"So this is just a fact-finding mission." Thrax already felt better about the mission—or so he told himself.

"Exactly. Just locate Commander Kier and come back. Of course, if you can safely bargain for his release, please do so—I'll give you an unlimited line of credit," Sylvan said. "But if there's even a whiff of danger or political intrigue, please just report back to the Mother Ship and allow the Kindred High Council to do the negotiating. Am I clear?"

"Crystal, Commander," Andi said, nodding. "Thrax?" she asked, since he hadn't answered.

"Oh, uh, yeah—absolutely clear, Commander," he said quickly.

"Good. Kat is getting your Salacious Delta clothing ready—you'll be posing as diplomats from Thrax's home world," Sylvan told them.

This threw Thrax off for a moment.

"My home world? Why?" he demanded.

"Because Dae'mon Kindred are known to be mostly dominant," Commander Sylvan explained. "Your cover story will be that you and Agent Peterson are interested in pursuing the Female Led Lifestyle and you came to Salacious Delta because your submissive tendencies made you unwelcome on your own world."

Thrax felt as though his stomach had dropped to the floor, but he only nodded coolly.

"Yeah—being a submissive male on most of my home world would make you pretty fucking unwelcome," he growled. His insides fisted as he spoke but he willed his face to stay calm.

"Well, you don't have to worry about that, do you, big guy?" Andi shot him a grin that flashed her dimples. "You're about as submissive as an angry bull that just got a good look at a red cape!"

"Ha-fucking-ha," Thrax said flatly, even as his midsection tied itself in knots. "When do we go, Commander?" he asked Sylvan, hoping to change the subject.

"Tomorrow morning—that will give us time to get your clothing ready and your paperwork for entry to the Salacious System completed," Sylvan said. "I wish you very good luck, Agents. May the Goddess go with you and help you find Commander Kier. He's a good warrior and we need to bring him home."

"We will, Commander," Andi promised and Thrax nodded as well.

But inside, he was wondering how far they were going to have to take their new roles and what the outcome might be. For the first time in years, memories he had suppressed were coming to the surface, like drowned corpses floating up from the deep.

Thrax just hoped that after this mission was over, he would be able to bury them and find peace again.