Chapter 1

A single candle burned on top of the cake, planted lopsided in the thick layer of chocolate frosting. The flickering light cast shadows on Loden's beaming face as she carried the cake into the mess hall.

"Haaa-ppy birthday," Turel started singing in his deep voice, and everyone joined in, in various keys of drunken bellowing.

"Happy birthday, dear Solomon," Samae sang at Sol's side, and Sol elbowed him with a smile. Nobody called him by his full name, not even Loden; not even on his birthday. Even Samae wouldn't get a pass for that behavior.

"Happy birthday to yooou!" everyone warbled. Sol looked around at the twenty-odd faces seated in the mess and felt his smile tugging at his face. Here was home and family. He was lucky to have these people, and lucky, he thought, to know enough to appreciate them. He hadn't always, in his adolescence, when the colony felt stifling at times, too small for a teenager who longed for something more.

One face was missing from the crowd. He didn't notice, though. He wasn't thinking about that.

"Let's cut the cake!" someone called out.

It was a big sheet cake, probably enough for seconds if anyone wanted. Joza didn't like anyone, but he'd made this cake for Sol anyway, and that was more or less the same thing as being liked. Loden wielded an unnecessarily large knife and cut the cake into portions. Sol got up and served the plates, accepting everyone's cheerful teasing as his due. They had made just as much of a fuss last month for Veraline.

The mess door opened. In came Remma, tablet in hand. "Sorry I'm late."

"Just in time to eat," Loden said.

Sol didn't save Remma for last. That would be petty, and he didn't want anyone (Remma) to think he cared. He gave Remma the very next piece, with a smile, and when Remma said, "Happy birthday," Sol only said, "Thank you," and moved on.

Only once everyone else was happily eating did Sol claim a piece for himself and return to his seat next to Samae.

"Got any wishes for the next year?" Samae asked with his mouth full of cake.

Sol thought about it. "A shipping pod full of something really rare and expensive," he decided. "High resale value. Easy to fence."

Samae rolled his eyes. "Something for you."

"That would be for me! A good drop has benefits for all of us."

"How pious," Samae said. "Come on, you can think of something better."

Without his permission, Sol's gaze drifted over to Remma, who was eating cake with the expression of a person who didn't totally know if he was enjoying the experience. Maybe there were no cakes on Tozra.

Samae was Sol's closest friend. He was only two years older than Sol, and colony-bred, too. They'd been raised together. Sol didn't have any siblings, but he'd never felt the lack of them, because Samae was always around. Samae deserved a real answer, but Sol just didn't have one that he was willing to share. His desires weren't complicated, but they were private. And kind of embarrassing.

"I'd like another cake just like this one," he said. "And for Loden to let us adopt a cat."

"A cat would be nice," Samae said wistfully. "See if you can talk her into it."

"I'll do my best," Sol said. Across the room, Remma was talking to Joza, gesturing with one big clawed hand. Sol took another bite of cake. It was really good.

* * *

Sol'sknock on the door was more of a tap, a brush of fingertips against steel in the midnight corridor. Remma would hear anyway, if he was awake.

The lock turned. Sol's pulse throbbed hot and high. He tried to make his face look bored or at least calm, but what was the point, really? Remma knew what was happening here.

Remma knew everything, or that was what it felt like a lot of the time. He understood Sol in a raw, embarrassing way. Like Sol was some microbe in a dish, cultivated for Remma's scrutiny.

Remma opened the door. He was wearing nothing but thin gray pants. His black eyes fixed on Sol's face, then dragged slowly down his body. He stared without speaking for so long that Sol's face went hot as the sun. Then he finally said, "Well, come in."

The lamp was on beside Remma's bed. His desk was covered in the usual crap: circuitry, scrap, random parts. Long past midnight and he was still up and working. Remma slept, he claimed, but Sol had never seen it.

Well, Sol was up, too. So what was his excuse?

"What do you need, Sol?" Remma asked, as if he didn't know.

Sol didn't answer him. He drifted over to Remma's desk to look at whatever he was working on. A circuitboard soldered to another circuitboard. Sol had no skills with tech and barely knew what he was seeing. "Your latest project?"

"Making a new tablet. Mine keeps throwing up error messages and it's not a software issue. Probably got dropped in the barrens one time too many." Remma took a step toward him. "Is that why you're here? You want to make small talk about what I'm working on?"

Sol swallowed. "Isn't that what people do? Friendly conversation?" What the hell was he even saying. He'd already lost the thread of this conversation, and forgotten whatever excuse he'd cooked up to come by.

His eyes slid downward without his permission. Remma's huge cock was already sliding out of his slit, forming an obscene bulge beneath the fabric of his pants.

Remma didn't miss the direction of his gaze. He never missed anything. "Oh, so that's why you're here?" His tone was dry as dust. "Why didn't you just say so."

Sol wet his lips. He couldn't think of anything to say.

He couldn't stop staring at Remma's cock. Fuck.

"You can't stay away, can you," Remma said, his voice dropping into that velvety rumble that made Sol's stomach quiver. "You need it so much." He stepped in close. One six-fingered hand cupped Sol's face. The points of his claws gently dragged over Sol's cheek.

Sol stood frozen, filled with the same thrill as always, arousal laced through with fear. Remma could tear him apart with no effort. He had to take care not to hurt Sol when they fucked. And he did take care: he was always gentle. But he still made Sol feel that he was at the mercy of a creature much larger and stronger than him. At any moment Remma could stop being gentle.

"Little slut," Remma said tenderly. His thumb pressed to Sol's lower lip. Sol, flushed and throbbing, opened his mouth to let Remma slide inside.

Remma stroked Sol's tongue, careful, so careful not to injure Sol with the sharp tip of his claw. Sol closed his lips and sucked, eyes drifting shut, already lost in the haze that came over him, the blind animal lust. He did need it. Remma knew.

Remma took Sol's hand and brought it to the front of his pants. Sol palmed Remma's cock through the fabric, feeling out the shape of it, the thick ridged shaft, the smooth, blunt head. Remma called Sol a slut, but he got hard at Sol's knock, and he always opened the door.

"Take your clothes off," Remma said.

He stood and watched as Sol undressed, his hands tucked in his pockets as casually as a human would do. Sol had never known a Tozren before him and had found him unsettlingly alien at first, with his gray skin and his enormous size and the ridges of black bone curving along his forehead. Now he was just Remma.

Sol's hands trembled as he stepped out of his shorts. He didn't know if he was more embarrassed or more turned on, or if they were both the same thing, two halves of the same feeling. His cock hung full and heavy between his thighs. After this he could sleep, then pretend it was the last time. But he would be back in another week, knocking on Remma's door in the middle of the night. Remma knew. He couldn't stay away.

He lay back on Remma's narrow bed. The sheets were all messed up from Remma's habit of working on his tablet there. The bed smelled like him, a little like pine needles. Sol sank back into the pillow and flung his arms above his head. "Don't keep me waiting."

Remma watched him, impassive. His gaze felt like a touch, heavy on Sol's bare flesh. Sol's cock twitched and dribbled pre-come onto his belly. He wasn't going to beg—not this time. He would get off the bed and leave before doing that. He spread his legs, hoping that Remma could see the shine of lube on his inner thighs and that that would be enough to snap him into action.

Remma's eyes slid downward. His lips parted and his black tongue touched one corner of his mouth. He wasn't so mysterious, in moments like this. He was just a man.

Sol had learned after the first time that it was best to get himself ready before he came to Remma's door. Even with practice, Remma was too big for him to take without being loosened up a little first. Remma couldn't do it because of his claws, and Sol refused to do it to himself while Remma stood there and watched. It would be too embarrassing. Sol would like it too much.

It wasn't easy to hold his tongue and wait for Remma to do something, but he managed, somehow, and finally Remma came over and joined Sol on the bed.

He was so big. Not just his dick—the whole mass of his body, broad in Sol's arms and heavy, too, crushing Sol down into the mattress. Sol liked it. He squirmed under Remma's bulk, hungry for anything Remma would give him. His cock leaked all over Remma's belly as their bodies slotted in together.

Remma tucked his face into the crook of Sol's neck. He opened his mouth over the joint of Sol's throat and shoulder and pressed his teeth there, sharper than a human's. He did this every time they fucked and Sol always had the feeling that Remma wanted to bite him, and that he was barely restraining himself from sinking his teeth in deep and doing some real damage.

"You could do it," Sol said. His hands held Remma's hips, clenching and releasing in a compulsive rhythm. "I know you want to."

Remma grunted. "You're too fragile, little human."

"Fragile," Sol repeated, disbelieving—hadn't he saved Remma from a pinecat just a week ago? Shot it right through the heart while Remma muttered nervously about trying to throw rocks at it, as if that would accomplish literally anything?—

Remma was laughing. "Calm down. I know you aren't. For a human. By my standards, though, you are." He pressed his teeth down again, only slightly harder than the first time. "I won't hurt you."

"You could a little," Sol offered.

Remma grunted again and reached down to hoist one of Sol's thighs toward his chest, opening him up. The thick length of Remma's cock settled into the cleft of Sol's ass. Okay: message received. They were done talking.

Remma didn't bother lining himself up. He moved his hips in lazy thrusts, stroking his cock along Sol's taint, a cruel tease that set Sol squirming again. Finally the crown of Remma's cock caught against Sol's hole, and Sol sucked in air as Remma pushed inside.

It wasn't fast. Even with all Sol's efforts with the lube, Remma was too big to slide in easily. He went in a bit at a time, with Sol bearing down, and Sol could hear himself making little hurt noises, even though it didn't hurt; it was just so much. His ears were ringing. He was stuffed so full he couldn't even breathe. Remma was shoving all the air from his lungs.

"Good, there," Remma murmured. His cock plunged deep into Sol's guts. The head touched something so tender that Sol went rigid as it slid by. Remma stopped, made a thoughtful noise, and rocked in place there, probing what he'd found, and Sol's toes curled as his cock spurted. He came so fast, with Remma only halfway in.

Remma sank all the way in while Sol was still quaking. He could hardly bear it—the searing thrust setting fire to his already overstimulated nerves. His thighs were clamped to Remma's ribs and that was the only reason they weren't trembling.

"Oh, oh," he heard himself say. His temples throbbed with his pulse. He pressed his hot face to Remma's shoulder and tried not to dissolve into helpless noises as Remma began to flex his hips in the brief, devastating nudges that were all he could really manage. Sol was too tight around him, clamped down on the massive intrusion.

"How quickly can I make you come again?" Remma asked. "I don't think it will take long."

It never did. Sol chewed on his lip, trying to pretend he had any dignity left. He didn't, and they both knew it. He was addicted to what Remma could give him. To how Remma could make him feel.

In the warm lamplight, Remma rocked inside him as Sol clung to him for dear life. He was entirely filled up. He could feel Remma in his chest and his throat, in every beat of his heart. His arms quivered where they were locked around Remma's neck, and a muscle jumped in his belly with every thrust.

"Your tight little pussy," Remma muttered, and Sol cried out at that, hot on the crest of orgasm but holding back, somehow, still managing to hold it in.

Remma fucked him. He hadn't even bothered to take his pants off, just pushed the waistband down below his cock, and the small added stimulation of the fabric dragging against Sol's thighs was almost more than he could bear. He wanted to hold out—stupid pride. But his cock was throbbing and he just couldn't. He couldn't.

"Oh," his little voice said into the quiet of the room, and he came again, even harder this second time.

Toward the end of it, Remma groaned and went still, his cock pumping come deep into Sol's bowels.

Sol quivered with aftershocks. He went limp, panting, coated in a sheen of sweat.

"Not bad," Remma said.

Sol huffed. Remma always had something to say.

They lay entwined for several minutes, their breathing gradually slowing. At last Remma said, "You could stay here."

"Hm," Sol said.

"I don't mind."

"Bed's too small," Sol said, and he pushed at Remma until Remma rolled away, and then he got up to put on his pants.