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There was whimpering, crying, and a lot of hateful insults thrown at Chef, but the woman backed away. Suddenly they were all competing to behave, but not one of their eyes ever left Hive and Kaav. Comms was paralyzed on the floor, but her eyes darted wildly from Kaav to Hive, as if she couldn’t decide which one she liked better.
Kaav took me by the arm. “Chief has this under control. Let’s go.”
He pulled me out of the mess hall, and then I was in the corridor and alone with with Hive and Kaav for the first time.
The air between us felt thick. There was this palpable tension between us. For me, the tension was all sexual, but the tension between Kaav and Hive was entirely different. My heart pounded as I watched these two powerful men sizing each other up, then both looking at me.
“All the women are in the mess hall,” Hive said smiling, “we can take any room we want.”
Without waiting, he walked casually down the corridor. I tried and failed to not stare at his muscular silver ass as he walked. Only by looking at Kaav’s butt was I able to stop myself.
Hive opened up a door and barged right in.
“We got a bed,” Hive shouted from the room. “I hear human women like those.”
“We?” Kaav’s voice boomed as he stepped inside. “There is nowe. You stole my body.”
I followed Kaav inside, and Hive leaned against the wall, further cementing his presence in the room. He sighed. “You knew better, Kaav, than to blindly accept the deal you made with me, but Weapons gave you tunnel vision. You made a rash decision, and me taking this body was the consequence of your poor choices. You gave up a tactical advantage over your own fate just to steal Weapons as fast as possible.”
“And you’d have waited?” Kaav asked, getting up in Hive’s face. “You’d have sat there like some kind of robot spider and bided your time? And what if Thuliak had tightened security and you never got a better shot at taking her?”
I hadn’t thought of what might have gone through Kaav’s head just before he took me. I’d always imagined that taking me had always just been part of his larger strategy. Hearing Hive’s account of it jolted me out of that notion. Kaav had given upeverythingfor me. And everything he was doing now—like losing his body to Hive—was just him fighting even harder to protect me, and to keep us together.
Hive spoke in a soft voice. The voice was shockingly empathetic and comforting compared to the taunting and cruel tone he’d taken with Hypatia. His voice was like a kind of magic spell. I didn’t think the spell would have made me believe anything he said, but I did feel deep in my bones that even if he was lying, he really didn’t mean any malice by his lie. “I probably would have done the same thing you had done, Kaav. The fact of the matter is that without my help, Weapons would have slipped through your fingers. Had I never spoken to you, you would have been discovered and thrown intoWrath’sbrig. Maybe you’d have found a way to break yourself out of the brig and get Weapons before Thuliak had paired her off with some scion, but probably not. You knew how poor your odds were, so you took my miraculous offer. Miracles aren’t free, and your second body was a fair price to pay for what I gave you. I consider us even now.”
“Couldn’t you just have made yourself a new body?” I asked, stepping forward. I’d been lingering in the doorway, but I stepped all the way into the room now.
The breeding urge was still there, but it simmered just under the surface. I still didn’t know where Kaav’s head was, and after realizing he’d given up everything for me, I felt fiercely loyal to him. If he thought Hive was a cockhead that he wanted nothing to do with, then me and my kitten would just accept that and wait for another Third that got along with both of us.
Hive shrugged. “I could have done anything, I suppose, but I chose to do it this way.”
“If the ships are all going to fall,” I said, “then aren’t you dooming the Khetar?”
“No,” Hive said. “This was always the plan, Precious.” He stepped forward, close enough that Kaav put himself between me and Hive.
He’d called mePrecious. He’d said it like it was my name, and by the same not-quite-magic he’d had in his voice before, he made me believe that it was my name.
My body reacted to being called that, and I fought to keep that reaction contained.
“The Khetar’s physical form had stagnated for generations,” Hive said.
Kaav scoffed. Then growled. “Then give me my stagnant physical form back, you smug cocksucker.”
Hive shot me a look that said he didn’t have any hate for Kaav, but he found his anger amusing all the same. Ignoring Kaav, he risked a half step closer to me. He was close to me now, but Kaav was firmly and imposingly between us. The tension was visceral, on many confusing and overwhelming levels. Was Hive going to touch me? Was Kaav going to try to kill Hive? What would I do if Hive touched me? The tension of all of those unanswered questions was thick in the air.
“He’s angry,” Hive said, “mostly because I’ve turned everything upside down. No one knows what will happen next. Not even I know anymore. I’ve injected myself into this situation, and I’m going to live through it as any Khetar would.”
“Will you go back to controlling things after?” I asked.
He shook his head. “This begins the next stage in Khetar evolution. I want to live out the beginning of it, and I can’t say I’ve really lived it out unless I eventually die. There is no life without death, so in order to truly live, I must die as any Khetar would.”
“How noble of you,” Kaav rasped.
“He’s also angry,” Hive said, “because he thinks I should have retained my powers to protect you.”
He smirked, and the way his tongue ran across his shining white teeth was just right. It made me incredibly, frustratingly,powerfullywant two Khetar cocks in me. Maybe Kaav and Hive would make up with each other. Was that too much to hope for?
“The desire for a triumvirate is natural,” Hive said, patting Kaav on the shoulder. Kaav tried to shove him, but Hive weaved to the side and laughed. “I say that to both of you, by the way. You’re both feeling like you want to let me in with you, but you’re each holding back in your own ways. Talk about it with each other. Discuss it. Go ahead.”
