Fragile Bond (12 page)

A sudden urge to growl almost overwhelmed Hamm’s self-control. He managed to choke it down, a random sound easily excused. At least to these aliens who knew no better.

It did make both Marc and the captain stare at him with expressions he didn’t understand, though.

“I would venture to guess,” Marc offered finally, speaking slowly, “that Commander Orsonna won’t relinquish me quite so fast, Captain.”

Hamm hadn’t thought that far ahead, aside from wanting Marc to stay. The concept of prisoner had fallen out of his mental calculations. He couldn’t pinpoint when. And the sniper’s attitude didn’t smell anything like the captain’s. Hamm didn’t feel ready to put himself in a situation where relinquishing his one ally, tenuous as that label might be, became an immediate requirement. By Soma, nothing had changed yet—the aliens still crawled all over their lands.

“A bargaining chip? Or insurance?” Captain Cortannas’s odor had been strange to begin with, but something in it shifted and made him want to scrub at his nose. “At least that’s assurance that he isn’t going to eat you.”

“I can assure you, Captain, Commander Orsonna has no intention of dining on my raw flesh.”

“You say he prefers to retain you, but you want to negotiate for the return of your rifle?” Her upper lip twisted; Hamm half expected to see fang despite her being human, not furr. “I dislike that you’re the only one who has any idea what’s going on right now. But because you are, I’ll defer to your judgment.” Cortannas shook her head, but released his arm and stepped away. She motioned for the rest of the team to fall back toward the shuttle. Her scent coated his tongue with the acrid tang of disapproval, contrasting his interpretation of her response. He tried to parse their gestures and body language as the three humans huddled close together and began conversing rather animatedly.

Marc studied his fellow humans as they retreated. “What’s the problem then, Commander?”

As though there were only one. Hamm gave a chuff of disgust before it occurred to him that Marc wouldn’t understand the noise for what it was.

“My pheromones shifted to become compatible with yours, your chemistry. For some reason, they won’t shift back.” He knew why, but he wasn’t yet ready to admit it. Not to himself, and certainly not to Marc. “If I can’t get them to, then I can’t shift them at will. That ability is a highly evolved tool and a deeply ingrained mechanism of our culture, society, and hierarchy.”

“What, you can’t lead if your subordinates don’t find you attractive?”

“I’ll have difficulty dominating a fellow furr if, as with Reccin, I’m unable to influence them that way. If I can’t shift my scent, I’m handicapped.”

“Goes both ways. You can’t influence them, but any attempt to do the same to you will be useless, right? Isn’t that what happened with Dehna earlier? So the playing field is level again.”

Marc had a point, and a good one, but it wouldn’t matter much to his fellow furrs. Hamm took a deep breath and almost regretted doing so. The human’s musk still hung on the air. Thick, playing off his—and the blame for its triggering could be laid at Reccin’s and Cortannas’s feet. Perhaps he should tie his second and the captain on either side of a very large tree and let them fight it out. That was how clan
fefa
traditionally dealt with this sort of headbutting, at least. Words and pheromones. Not that he had any firsthand experience with it or anything. “I guess. Our pheromones seem to have an unusually volatile effect on each other, though.”

The trio of humans hovering near the entry of the shuttle made him uncomfortable. It didn’t much matter if they couldn’t comprehend his side of the conversation. He was exposing his vulnerability for what it was. He needed to, though. Marc was a part of it, and if he was going to find a way to fashion it into something useful—dare he aspire to make it a strength?—it would require this human’s full support and cooperation.

Marc chafed a hand over his stubbled scalp, then rubbed at his face. “They do.” He grinned, a lopsided twist of his mouth, then glanced toward the shuttle and very clearly censored himself. “It’s damned inconvenient when I’m trying to think. Or divert inter-species disaster and interplanetary war.”

Hamm craved another whiff of the male’s scent that didn’t require resorting to burying his nose against his neck again. A trace of musk still hung in the air, though it had weakened. The breeze helped as well. But he’d memorized Marc’s blend of sweat and musk, thick with pheromones. That knowledge made it simple to taste his scent on every breath. He needed to maintain some composure, but his instincts went against his efforts and he flexed his hands a few times, hunched his shoulders, even tried purring. Anything to deny the urge a little longer.

“Commander?” Marc studied him, a furrow between his brows. When the male’s gaze slid past him, Hamm gathered his wits and wiped the distracted expression from his face.

The last thing he wanted was someone catching him looking like a moonstruck kit.

Dehna stopped a few paces distant, Reccin pulling her to a halt by the grip on her elbow. She jerked herself from his grasp without so much as a glance in the second’s direction. Her nostrils flared, and she made no attempt to mask her gag as an acceptable reaction. “Still don’t understand why you shifted pheromones, Commander. Domination doesn’t require compatibility. Quite the opposite, actually.”

Perhaps that was how she chose to employ it. She wasn’t
fefa
battlemonger, though. Hamm glared, considered baring a fang at the blatant disrespect she’d shown his second. They were littermates and had to work it out on their own. If Reccin tolerated it from her, that was his prerogative. Didn’t bode well for Reccin’s tenure as second, but Hamm couldn’t judge on that count. His own tenure was staring at an early grave, too. Unless he could keep this a secret until it was resolved.

“Do you have the bio-processor uploaded with a duplicate program?”

She shook her mane and lifted her nose a fraction, then leaned to look past him at the trio huddled in conversation near the shuttle. “I’ve prepared three. If you can convince them to interface voluntarily.”

“Any chance you can make those processors smaller? Is that even possible? I wouldn’t call it painful, but it’s uncomfortable. I think it has to do with the size.” Marc eased closer and Hamm folded his arms, relaxing. Letting his guard down.

Sergeant Dehna frowned at the satchel of devices cradled in her grip. “I didn’t consider that.”

Hamm shifted his attention to the humans, still wary and suspicious. He didn’t trust them, and wasn’t sure why he trusted Marc
more
than he did soldiers outranking the sniper.

Except he sensed the male’s
ethos
, the solidity and honor ingrained in him. Sure, he crooned to his death stick. Hamm doubted that was the strangest thing about him. He understood the soldier’s mind despite the differences between them. It seemed as though some things remained universally constant.

“The feather version might interface better,” Dehna mused. “I should’ve considered that in the first place, actually. Their physiology is more fragile. Much like yours,” she added, eyeing Marc up and down with a less than complimentary expression. “It’ll take me a few minutes to alter the interface coding.”

Hamm nodded. “That’s a great solution, Sergeant.”

Dehna wandered off toward the tree line, digging into the satchel hanging at her side. She gave an odd little rumble of amusement as she went, and the sound caught him off guard. Even Marc took note of it with a curious expression and a cant of his head that made Hamm want to purr.

“What was that about?” Hamm asked his second.

“Her good mood, you mean?”

Hamm just stared at Reccin.

The chief shrugged. “She was ’nipping when I found her in the rec.”

He huffed and chafed his thumb over the center of his chest. “Oh well. High and happy is an improvement. I’ll take it.”

“Agreed,” Reccin deadpanned, glancing between Hamm and Marc.

“Do I want to know?” Marc gave Reccin a cautious glance, the fingers of his left hand sliding up and down the side of his neck below the bio-processor’s interface site.

“Probably not. Everyone’s got their psychotropics, right? Feathers go crazy for gink seeds. For us
fefa
clan, it’s ’nip.” Reccin dismissed it with a poorly feigned casual air, and Hamm tried not to growl. No doubt Marc would pepper him with questions about it later.

“It shouldn’t be bothering you so much.” Hamm motioned toward Marc’s neck, and the male immediately snatched his hand away. Any coincidence he was doing it after being licked? There hadn’t been any sign of sensitivity or awareness before.

Marc clenched his hands into fists, the skin over his knuckles paling. The same way his face had when he’d gone limp after the initial interfacing. “It isn’t bothering me. It’s fine.”

Well, obviously there wasn’t any need for alarm, because even though his hands were pale, there was a good flush of healthy color showing in his neck and face now.

Strange creatures, humans. Under other circumstances, he’d wonder if it were a camouflaging technique. But at the moment? No way.

Damn the furr, anyway, for licking his neck like that. The sensation had seared into his skin, Hamm’s saliva branding every last nerve. He wanted to run his fingers up the side of his neck again, just to remember how it felt.

He clenched his hands repeatedly until his forearms ached with the effort. And then he squeezed a little harder, the lack of Mat’s solid grip and barrel acute and bordering on painful. Hamm looked at him with a curious expression, which just annoyed him further.

He just wanted his fucking rifle. Mat was a part of him. He didn’t know what to do with himself when he wasn’t roosting somewhere, scoping for a target. Lost in the Zen of silence.

Marc shifted, watched Dehna’s barely visible form off in the hazy shadows of the tree line. Now and then the breeze kicked up for a second, and every time it gusted, he swore she was talking to herself. But the translator ignored her words. Was it designed with a fail-safe against eavesdropping? Or had it just not interfaced fully enough to be sensitive to everything he could hear?

Either way, it was damned inconvenient. Proving more annoyance than assistance.

He gave up trying to figure out what the linguist was up to. Hamm had his gaze trained on the landing party still, but appeared more relaxed. Reccin, on the other hand, was studying
him
. Did it have something to do with his proximity to Hamm? That when Marc had stepped closer, Hamm had folded his arms? If it had been a human, he’d say it signaled a defensive stance. But Hamm wasn’t human. And he couldn’t see furrs being defensive. He’d seen their aggressive body language communicated more than once—arms down, muscles flexed and tense as the claws unsheathed. With his arms folded, Hamm’s fingers curled around his own flesh. It conveyed quiescence. An invitation to invade his personal space? He didn’t know how furrs even defined such a concept—if they did at all.

It didn’t make any sense for Reccin to be upset. But then, neither did the fact that Marc was standing this close and Hamm’s scent was faint. Sure, he felt something, but he wasn’t sure what it was, and couldn’t say if it had anything to do with the commander.

Thinking about it gave him an ache behind his eyes, the birthing of a migraine no doubt, so he stopped. Marc didn’t need to try to figure it all out. He wasn’t here to be an inter-species diplomat like the C-C team. He was here to be a ground-pounder, a grunt with a gun. And at present, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it. So thoroughly distracted that he wasn’t noticing the important stuff. Like why the shuttle hadn’t taken off and retreated back into orbit. He’d never heard of them hanging around planetside for longer than it took to disgorge their passengers. Granted, they were sturdy and designed for atmospheric flight and turbulence, but the longer the time away from Mother Diaspora, the greater the probability of irreparable damage. He’d seen the stats. They had no armaments, no gunship accoutrements.

This one had been grounded for much too long, considering this sector of Horace Deuce-Niner was still classified UH—an unsecured hostile zone.

He reached up and keyed his radio. “Mike-Tango Seven, come back.”

“Go ahead for Mike-Tango Seven.” The response had zero lag.

“This is Red One. Why’s your belly still in the dirt?” Marc pivoted to study the craft. He hadn’t seen any interference on entry and touchdown, but the possibility existed that he’d missed something damaging it.

“Mother’s orders. Lag ninety minutes from touchdown to liftoff. In the event that swift extraction is required.”

Marc laughed and scrubbed a hand over his face before massaging the bridge of his nose. “Copy that. Be advised, in the event swift extraction is required, there will be fuck-all you can do about it and we’ll all be dead before you can cycle the engines for liftoff.”

“Copy that, Red One. I’ll take it under advisement. I’m also providing Mother with live-stream audio and video feed for documentation of first contact.”

Marc dropped his hand from the radio control on his lapel and grinned his best cheesy, toothy grin at the shuttle’s cockpit. The pilot was a barely visible shape in the relative darkness, waving a hand at him.