15. Jovi

fifteen

Jovi

S omething hits the side of my head, and I frown over at Phial and Holoth, who are both pretending like neither one of them threw the fork. I grab it, set it next to the two spoons that they've already thrown at me, and return to refreshing the feed on the comm tablet used to talk with the smugglers.

They haven't messaged us since we told them we were at the rendezvous spot thirty minutes ago, but that could mean they just haven't checked their comm tablet yet. Normally, a mission like this requires patience and a lot of waiting for the other party to get back to us before meeting. Right now, I'm tired of waiting, have no patience, and I want Sloane safe.

Something moving catches my eye, and I turn just quick enough to see Phial throwing a cup at me. His eyes go wide, and his feathers stand up on his head and down his back, where they try to lift his shirt from his body. It's too late for him to stop the throw. His fingers have already released it, and I'm much too slow to stop it as it thwacks me right in the nose.

Holoth, who was finding enjoyment in Phial annoying me, watches through his peripheral to find out if I'm about to kill one or both of them now. I try to keep a straight face, but the absurdity of all of it has me throwing my head back in a deep laugh.

"Oh, thank the mother." Phial puts a hand on his chest and relaxes in his seat. His feathers stay up, his adrenaline still bursting through him. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't already camouflaged with how scared he looked for a second.

"You threw everything at me except for the food synthesizer." I throw my hands around at the eating utensils and the cup that's now joined them. "You had to have known at some point I was going to catch you in the act."

Phial rubs his chin with one of his talons and gives me the dumb answer he gives any question he doesn't have an answer for. "Sometimes the mother wants us to do things, and we don't get to know why."

"My mother would've beat my ass for throwing her dishes around," Holoth adds under his breath, a smile creeping onto his lips when Phial shoots him a dirty look.

I swear, every time Phial blames the mother for why he does something, Holoth is always there to tell him that his own mother would've never allowed something like that. It's sort of a ritual at this point, one we all get to laugh at Phial for.

"The mother and your mother are two very different beings," Phial says, always getting up in arms when his species' deity is blasphemed against.

You don't see me getting up in arms when the gods are spoken about poorly. Well, not that anyone really would because it's not like I go around blaming the warrior for my rage or the ilk for how clingy and needy I am for companionship from my friends.

Phial, on the other hand, uses the mother to blame everything on. He ruins a piece of furniture, the mother wanted it to be broken. He eats a special treat from a planet we rarely visit. Well, it's because the mother wanted him to have it.

"Next time we're near my planet, I'll take you down, and we'll have you tell my mother she is not the mother." Holoth stares Phial right in the eye like this is an actual challenge. "How does that sound?"

"I accept," Phial says, a wiggle in the feathers that act as his brows. "Holoth finally gives us a glimpse into his life. Will they welcome us with open arms, or are you a fugitive like me?"

"He hasn't answered that question in six years," I say, leaning back in my chair and kicking my ankle up on my knee. "But if now is the time to share, I'd love the distraction."

"Not almost royalty like me," Essa says as she enters the nav pit, throws herself into the chair nearest to me, and begins to spin around in it.

We've been wondering where she's been since she normally hangs out with Sloane when she's free. Seeing as Sloane is now staying in my room with Alik, Essa will never see her again since Alik will keep her very busy. Hopefully busy enough that when I see her again, she has a bite in her neck.

"Oh yeah?" Phial asks, ignoring how Holoth now hates that he brought up anything about himself because it's all any of us are going to be talking about for the foreseeable future. "How'd you learn anything?"

"She's speaking out of her ass," Holoth says, but none of us believe him. Well, not fully. Even if we believe him, though, Essa can tell us some elaborate made-up story, and we'll eat it up because Holoth sure isn't going to tell us anything.

"No." Essa points a finger at him as she puts her feet down to stop her spinning. "I have it on very good authority that there is one Holoth Lossblonthrow on the run after an incident that happened during a rut run on your planet. It's also said that there are many females who are eager for your return. So how those two things are connected is what we need you to fill in for us."

Holoth's face turns scarlet as Essa talks, and if we didn't give her words much credit before, we sure do now. The furs that cover his shoulders are the only things that hide just how rapidly his shoulders are moving up and down as he tries to steady his breathing.

There's no fun to be had when his face falls, and he looks away from all of us as though he's ashamed that we all now know his past. In fact, as much fun as I have in poking at everyone and having them poke me in return, this one's no fun. Even Essa, who's terrible at reading social cues, isn't missing that we've gone too far without realizing.

"Alik and I only remained on our planet for three cycles of housing females when we reached maturity," I say.

This is Alik's story to tell as well as mine, but Holoth looks so distraught that I need to do something to get the attention off of him. I'll give him a little piece of me to let him know we're all a little traumatized by our own people on this ship. They all know Alik and I left Varon because of a bad housing ceremony, but only Essa knows the full story.

"We'd already decided we wanted to leave the planet and put in an application at the pleasure crew company so we could secure a female as we tried to find work on another planet. Our application was denied because we needed references from other females to make sure we were good males. So, we agreed to stay on the planet long enough to get our references, even though we knew it wasn't the life we wanted."

"The third female we housed wanted us to fight one another to entertain her." I rub the back of my neck, not liking to think about how terrible those three months were. "We didn't want to because we care about each other quite a bit. Our kind, though, has a more primal part of our being and, when not released, becomes impatient and irritable. You've all seen it. We get dead in the eyes, and our demeanor is crueler. She liked getting males like that and making them hurt one another."

"Kiena denied us access to her week after week after week. We held on for a long time and were determined to show up to the gala held between each housing placement, complete wrecks, and show everyone how she shouldn't be allowed to be housed by any males. We almost made it."

The comm in my hands pings with an alert, stopping me from telling the rest of my story. I look around the room, realizing that I'd moved my eyes to my hands as I spoke because I didn't want to see the judgment in their eyes, just as Holoth didn't want to see it in ours. Not that there's judgment on this ship. We're all castaways here, but it still feels strange opening yourself up to others, no matter how long you've known them.

When I look at them, though, it's not a judgment of me. No, they are upset for me, and I know they've misinterpreted who the aggressor was in this story. I can see the accusation in their eyes, and I have to address it before reading the message from the smugglers.

"I was the one who snapped," I say, much to everyone's surprise. "It's the only time I've challenged him. All for a female who told me she'd let me claim her as mine if I did." I grit my teeth together, hating this last part. "I almost killed him."

The others seem surprised by my words, but I don't give them much time to say anything or ask any questions. Instead, I open the notification, and a jolt of panic runs through me when I read the message.

Two days, scouting the area to make sure you weren't followed.

I relay the information to the others in the navigation pit with me, and they all seem just as irritated as me. There's no reason to have us wait out here in open space for two days. Even if we were followed, that's more than enough time to check the surrounding area. We could do it in half a day, tops, since Alik is so good at that kind of thing. That means the smugglers should only need a day.

This is a power play, but we'll play by the smuggler's rules so they feel safe enough to meet with us. The whole mission fails if we don't ever meet with them. Even if we hate it, they're the ones calling the shots.

"Will Alik be able to make it two days?" Essa asks.

I'm surprised that's her first concern, but Essa is fond of Sloane and won't want Alik to be a complete terror to her. Not that Sloane minds him at all. If anything, I'm almost certain she tries to pull that deep, hidden part of us out when she's with us. She enjoys it when we're growly and rough with her almost as much as we do.

On more than one occasion, she's slid down to her knees and used her teeth to undo my pants. It's a testament to my will that I haven't let her choke herself on my cock yet. Because I have no doubt in my mind that's exactly what she wants when she teases me like that. No way she's done it to Alik or she'd already be claimed.

"He'll be fine," I answer.

In all actuality, he was barely holding on as soon as he left Sloane's room this morning before we decided she was going to be the one she would stay with.

I might be a cruel male, but a part of me really hopes that he'll bite her, claim her, and declare her as ours while they're trapped away. Then, it'll be easier for me to bite her as well, and she'll be ours forever. I mean, she'll still have to decide if she wants anything to do with us after the mission is over, but that's something to worry about much later.

"So, two days." Holoth gets up from his seat and moves to the locked armory, where he keeps his other weapons. We only ever use our blasters and daggers, but he has a few more archaic weapons that he's picked up from other planets that he enjoys collecting. "That should be enough time for us to make a plan. Alik will be able to find them and scan them, right?"

Right on time, my personal comm pings in my pocket. A message from Alik telling me he's working on finding where they're hiding out so he can scan their ship. It'll only take us half a day to see if they brought more than one ship, how many are on their ship, and if they still have any humans aboard.

"He's working on it now."

Holoth gives me a nod, pulling out the middle of the three weapons in his collection. He'll spend many hours cleaning each one today and tomorrow. He says it's so they're ready to use in case of an emergency, but he's never once used one.

At this point, it's just one of the things he does. Much like how Phial will groom his feathers incessantly until we get permission to board the smuggler's ship. Essa will go to her room and do whatever she does to prepare herself. She told us once she drains her fangs before fights, and we were all grossed out enough that she never had to explain herself again. Normally, Alik and I will get as much of our aggression out on one another if our pleasure crew is unable to help us.

I eye my personal comm and think about shooting Alik a message to see what the plan is in that regard. I'll need something to take the edge off, but our rules state we won't take Sloane together anymore. I roll my eyes, wondering how much longer we're going to pretend the rules mean anything.

I send a quick message to Alik, knowing he'll have a preference.

Plans for how to get the aggression out?

The navigation pit slowly empties until it's just Holoth and me while I wait for a message from Alik. We can take turns taking Sloane in our bedroom, but with how little control he has right now, I don't know if he'll even go for that. We may be stuck fighting with one another until we're exhausted today. Tomorrow, we can try taking her separately until the smugglers get back with us.

"Thank you for getting their attention off me," Holoth says as he cleans what looks like a dual-tipped spear. He keeps his eyes off me as he says it, almost like he doesn't want me to acknowledge it at all.

"We're a family on this ship," I shrug. "All of us are unwanted where we were born, so we make ourselves needed here. If we were to feel shame always, well, Alik and I have a lot more to be ashamed about than you."

Holoth looks up at me for a moment, his eyes narrowing before he goes back to cleaning his spear. "We've never thought what you two do is shameful. It would be nice if you could find a pleasure crew who likes Phial and me, too, though. Maybe even Essa. We don't get laid nearly as often as you two."

"You don't get laid in general." I tease about what he told us during one of the games Sloane likes to make us all play together. Before he can get all defensive, I keep talking. "If I have my way, we can start requesting a pleasure crew for the rest of you soon."

Holoth says nothing in response. He doesn't even look at me, but the tips of his cheeks, underneath his beard, are scarlet. He's not surprised by me announcing Alik, and I don't want any other pleasure crew, either. I'm sure they've all figured it out by now that we like her way too much.

What we don't know is if Sloane's willing to stay on the crew. We'll take her in whatever role she wants. Pleasure crew, human crew, some other kind of crew that she makes up, and we just accept so long as she's here with us. We just want her.

I know how Alik and I feel, and Essa too, since she is very fond of the human female. I don't think I realized Holoth and maybe even Phial were becoming such good friends with her as well. It makes sense that they would.

Sloane is one of the most amazing creatures we've ever had on this ship. She's always in a good mood and always willing to entertain everyone, and her humor meshes well with the rest of us. Having her as a human crew would be wonderful.

Alik is showering right now and won't let me in :( What do you guys usually do to get your aggression out?

The comm message takes me by surprise, so much so that I lean back in the chair and stare at it for long moments before replying. Alik never leaves his comm unlocked, which means, for once, he was lazy, unlikely, or wanted Sloane to see the message.

Normally, our pleasure crew has already serviced us for the week, so we spar with one another.

Neither of us is a big fan of fighting with each other to get the aggression out, but it's necessary when on missions. It took me a long time to get over the memories of the third female we shared and how she made us fight for her entertainment.

I punished myself in my mind for a long time before Alik convinced me he didn't hold it against me. When I finally forgave myself for hurting him, we found out we could fight to release our aggression, as most males who don't enjoy each other's company do on our planet. It's easier when it's not being forced on us to prove ourselves to a female, using her companionship as the prize for the victor.

When the comm pings Sloane's response, I almost don't want to look at it. What if she thinks less of us for needing to be aggressive with one another? Worse, what if she finds enjoyment in it and wants us to do it for her entertainment? Surely, she doesn't since she seems to care about us, but I don't know for certain where her feelings lie.

"Just check it," Holoth says, his nose wrinkling as he points at my comm.

I don't know what he thinks is happening, but I doubt he knows I'm ignoring Sloane's response to Alik and me fighting with one another. Holoth's kind is aggressive as well, and he'd probably have no issue fighting a male for a female. That doesn't mean I need his opinion on how much Alik and I hate what we need to do to keep level heads during missions.

My eyes scan over the comm message over and over, my arms crossing over my chest to hide the deep violet of my chest as I rise from my seat. As nonchalantly as I can, with my cock solid and trying to tent my pants, I scramble out of the navigation pit and then run at a full sprint to my room. I glance at the message one last time, making sure I read it correctly before bursting in.

Can we just fuck instead?