Date: 2019-09-12 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: M M Romance; Science Fiction; Transgender; M M M; Aliens; Demons; Fantasy; Menage; Polyamory; Humor
Description: Someone abandons a pedigree hellcat right where Shax can conveniently claim her and sets off a cataclysmic domino line of events. It's time for the other shoe to drop since the Brimstone has a shadow cabal after them—partly due to Shax's own, er, interesting decisions and partly due to the presence of Agent Julian Parallax onboard. As ship security officer, Ness has a lot on his mind—a dangerous new pet, even more dangerous criminals tracking the Brimstone, and yet another unexpected rescued guest. The last thing he needs is a distraction and Julian, who confuses and confounds him more every m
Publisher: Mischief Corner Books, LLC

The Hunt for Red Fluffy

Brimstone 6

Angel Martinez

Edited by Jude Dunn

Copyright

This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this book ONLY. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the authors. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Cover Artist: Freddy MacKay

Editor: Jude Dunn

First Edition

THE HUNT FOR RED FLUFFY: BRIMSTONE 6 © 2019 Angel Martinez

All Rights Reserved.

Published in the United States of America.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: The Hunt for Red Fluffy is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are fictionalized. Any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The story contains explicit sexual content and is intended for adult readers.

Any person depicted in the Licensed Art Material is a model and is being used solely for illustrative purposes.

PUBLISHER

Mischief Corner Books, LLC

Dedication

To all the cats who have supervised my writing over the years - walking on my keyboards, demanding laps, telling me when I've been sitting too long - this one is unequivocally for you.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Dear Reader

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About Angel Martinez

Also by Angel Martinez

About Mischief Corner Books

Chapter One

"Don't overtighten that bolt, Cap." Mac waved a huge hand at Shax's enthusiastic wrench turning. "These new auto-wrenches pack a—"

The cursed thing stopped short, sprang from Shax's grip, laid open his knuckles, and smacked him in the forehead. "Blast!"

"Punch." Mac sighed and retrieved the wrench. "One of these days you'll jump feet first into something and end up grated and flayed."

"Who said he hasn't been?" Verin grumbled from the other side of the disassembled front loader.

"Hey, now. It was a partial flaying."

Gently, Mac moved Shax to one side and took over reattaching the loader arm. "I'm not going to ask, and don't tell me."

Irritated that Verin had gotten the hang of things so quickly, Shax left off sucking on his bleeding knuckles to grumble, "Goodness, no. Wouldn't want to overset your delicate sensibilities."

"Oh, Cappy-poo!" Ivana sang out. "Are you too injured for receiving guests?"

"That depends on the guest, my dear." Shax quirked an eyebrow at the nearest speaker, knowing the ship's AI would see. "If it's station security, I'm at death's door."

"You better get to sickbay then, sweet buns. It's the station security chief."

Shax heaved a put-upon sigh. "Did he mention why he needs to see me?"

"Well, that's the thing." Ivana sounded puzzled. "The poor thing's vitals are doing a tippy-tap dance, and he says he needs your help."

"Does he, now?" Shax's figurative ears perked up. "How interesting. I suppose I should see the old dear, then."

"Should I let him in?"

"No, no, I'm going out to him. Thank you, Ms. Ivana."

Orion Station wasn't his favorite rest stop. Perfectly good place for a restock and refuel, but he couldn't shake the memories of the Birthday Cake Fungus incident early in his space pirate career. He and Verin had been covered in itching, rainbow-colored lesions for days, and his reporting the restaurant to the station's health and safety office hadn't made him any friends among the merchants. It followed that the security chief had regarded the Brimstone as a potential catalyst for trouble, which had made him also not terribly friendly in the past.

If Chief Carlisle had been in the habit of wearing hats, Shax imagined he would've come cap in hand, his expression was that flummoxed and anxious. His normally crisp black uniform gave off a definite impression of rumpledness, and all hell's gates forbid, there was dust on both knees.

Shax pulled out a serious and professional expression, barely pummeling the urge to laugh into submission. "Good morning, Chief. Something I can do for you?"

"Captain Goldner. Morning." An anxious, wide-eyed nod replaced the normal squinty frown the chief would've reserved for Shax. "We have an…issue. An animal control issue down near the shuttle bays."

"I see? No, I don't see, to be honest. What does this have to do with me?" Shax ran through his crew complement frantically, but Rosa had been in her stall, happy as a clam with her breakfast, and Nic and Max had been with Leopold in the galley. Nope, none of his.

"Someone suggested it might be a creature of hellish origin and that a high-echelon demon might be able to… to…"

"Sweet talk it? Be eaten by it?"

"Control it?"

Shax drummed his fingers on his trouser seam, considering. Security was generally a pain in his gorgeous ass at any station, but if this was something with which he could assist, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a security chief owe him a favor. Decision reached, he tapped at his wrist comm. "Mr. Angelus, if you could meet me stationside, please?"

For his part, Ness understood the nuances of communication perfectly well and responded with nothing besides, "On my way, Captain."

In the way of good security chiefs everywhere, Ness obviously knew about the meeting outside the Brimstone's docking port, since he appeared a scant thirty seconds later in professional, if rather ominous, black leather and wing-tailored shirt. Shax found he approved heartily. If Ness had come to understand the effect of showing his fallen status proudly, it could only add to his mystique when among humans.

A look passed between them, amused heat and promise. "Captain?"

"Ah, Mr. Angelus. Thank you for joining us. Chief Carlisle has a little problem he'd like us to look into." Shax waved a hand toward the interior corridor. "Lead on, Chief. Let's see your monster. Er, animal control issue."

The chief turned and hurried off, looking back over his shoulder from time to time to add bits of information such as, "We've done a search of manifests" and "No one's reported one missing."

Though one what he still wouldn't say. He was either so rattled that he'd forgotten that he hadn't mentioned it, or he was afraid Shax would change his mind if he knew.

At some point during their walk to the other side of the station, Julian fell into step beside Shax, slipping from the shadows far too quietly for Shax to notice until he spoke. "It's a hellcat, oh lovely demon. Been awfully amusing watching the station boys trying to catch it."

"Is it? How odd." Shax ran through various scenarios while a thrill of excitement ran up his spine. "There's no one from the family here that I know of."

Ness leaned closer, shooting a quelling look at Julian. "What does that mean, love? Would it matter where the cat came from?"

"It would." Shax reached over to give his angel's hand a quick squeeze. "It's illegal according to several treaties to take an unregistered hellcat from Earth, and no one can register ownership other than a demon of the blood."

"I'd wondered," Julian murmured. "Curiouser and curiouser, as our Captain Shax would say."

"You do know I stole that from an Earth writer?"

"Did you? Never had much time for Old Earth literature. Though I do like Poe."

Ness's wings rustled with a visible shudder. "Really? Still?"

"He's having you on." Shax found himself torn between smacking Julian and patting Ness, settling for neither. "Julian has an odd sense of humor sometimes."

"Twisted, you mean," Ness muttered under his breath.

Shax pretended he hadn't heard. He needed to do something about the strange hostility that still lingered between his beloved and one of his dearest friends, but he hadn't the foggiest notion what. Not now, though. Now he wrenched his attention back to the harried things Chief Carlisle tossed back at them as they neared the arm of the station reserved for shuttle bays. The cat had been in a maintenance hallway. How long, no one knew. No vid footage picked up where it came from. Attempts to stun it had failed—it shook the effects off and got right back up. Attempts to trap it resulted in shredded nets and smashed traps.

"If you can't do something, Captain, we'll have to shoot it," Chief Carlisle said as he slowed his steps near the first shuttle bay. "And if the monster belongs to someone, it might cause an incident."

The last was said with such a hiss of dismay that Shax wrestled with another ill-timed laugh and barely won. "Well, we can't have that now." Despite his amusement, he did mean it—human/demon diplomacy being rather shaky at the best of times.

Questions ran around his brain like nervous mice before an earthquake, but he couldn't answer any of them without more information. Concentrating on the immediate task would be more productive. If the cat was half-crazed by illness or injury, which was possible, since it had gone to ground, the day might end rather unpleasantly for demons trying to intervene on its behalf.

As they rounded the last bend to reach the bay in question, an unmistakable snarling howl rolled over them, loud enough to vibrate the deck plates.

"That's a hellcat?" Ness's eyebrows appeared to be plotting an escape as they climbed his forehead.

Shax smiled, fond memories splashing about in his mental pond. "It most certainly is."

"I see." Ness turned to him, obviously still perplexed. "From your stories, I'd imagined them as small and fierce. Like housecats. That sounds somewhat, ah, larger."

"Some are larger than others." Shax rocked on his heels as he listened to the cat's snarls and rumbles, trying to gauge size and temperament by sound alone. "But none of them are small, precisely. I do apologize if I ever gave that impression, cupcake."

Ness leaned across to pin Julian with a sharp look, though his words were mild. "I suppose you knew?"

"My first hellcat encounter," Julian mimicked Ness's careful tone. "And I'll confess that I still haven't caught sight of the beast." The hellcat let loose a savage roar that sent several security men staggering back. "I'm not entirely sure I want to at this point."

Head cocked, Shax analyzed the timbre of that roar, trying his best to anticipate what breed she was. She, he had no doubt of, and he couldn't even say why. He called for meat, pleased that one of the security boys had shown enough sense to bring some, then turned to his shipmates. "Wait for me here. I'll call if I need you."

He left it to Ness and Julian to decide whether the comment had been meant for one or both of them and eased the door to the access corridor open with his shoulder. Auto lighting kicked on when he stepped inside, which told him the cat was farther in and hadn't moved toward the door for some minutes. One step at a time, Shax moved into her territory, alternating between a low clicking of his tongue against his front teeth and the universal rhythmic hissing used to call cats everywhere.

"Tk, tk, tk, tk, psss, psss, psss. It's all right, sweetie. I know the bad men scared you."

He knew nothing of the sort, of course. She might just as easily have been enormously pissed off rather than scared. A flick of motion drew his attention to the shadows under an air duct. Ah, there you are. From the length of her shadow and the size of the one visible paw, Shax determined she was one of the hunter breeds that demon nobility kept to run alongside nightmares—guardians and trackers better than any human-bred hound. In one smooth motion, Shax sat cross-legged on the floor where she could see him clearly.

"Hello, pretty. That doesn't look like a comfy spot for such a big kitty. Why don't you come out here where there's more room?"

A black-tipped tail twitched out of the shadows and back in. Out and back, out and back, while the cat considered him. The one visible paw became two. Two paws patted forward along the deck plates until head and shoulders slid out from the space under the duct. The beast emerged, stretched and shook herself, all the while sniffing in Shax's direction.

Here it was, then. He would either be acceptable, or he would be dinner because, oh yes, she was one of the larger breeds. She sat and lifted a paw to wash, eyeing him with a wariness that fell between hope and hostility. Shax dared not breathe or maybe the sheer beauty of her took his breath away. Dark red, the red of blood not yet dry, her tufted ears had black tips, and black tipped her paws and tail. Black even outlined her eyes as if she had raided someone's makeup drawer for eye pencil.

"Are you hungry, pretty?" He held out a piece of meat to her. Poor, freeze-dried offering that it was, it was all he had.

At first she pretended to ignore him, turning to wash a spot on her side. Shax held steady, keeping the offer open, and finally she deigned to lean forward, stretching her neck to sniff at what he held. She rose and approached a step, then another, always with one paw held off the floor.

"That's it. You know what I am. I smell of home, of companionship, of food…"

He realized his mistake in wording a hair too late as she pounced.

The quiet was unnerving. While the sounds of bones crunching and flesh rending would have been more so, Julian hated a lack of clear information.

"I don't like this." Ness straightened from where he'd leaned against a corridor wall. "I should go after him."

Julian barely suppressed the urge to grab Ness's arm. With Shax, he would've offered both restraint and comfort without hesitation—or he would if they'd been alone. Ness still flinched if Julian touched him, though, and while the flavor of the flinches might have changed since they'd danced together at Shax's Yule party? A flinch was still a flinch, whether it was angry, irritated, or guilty. "Give him a moment. We may be more of a danger and distraction right now than a help."

"But it's taking so long." The words sounded as if they strangled Ness, his wings snapping out behind him in his agitation.

"Steady on. He said he'd call for us. Give him—"

The access door opened, and it was Ness who grabbed Julian. His anxious grip was painful, his angelic honey-and-almond scent exquisitely distracting, but Julian forced himself to focus on that dimly lit portal. Shax stumbled through and Julian's breath caught, restarting when he didn't find any blood in evidence. His shirt was half-untucked, one pant leg had escaped from its boot top, and Shax's carefully brushed hair was mussed, but he didn't appear harmed. Even better, Shax flung them the I've-eaten-every-canary-I-could-find grin that made Julian's insides an adolescent mess, and Julian had to lock his knees or risk stumbling in relief.

"Oh my," Ness breathed out as Shax stepped out far enough to reveal what walked beside him.

A cat. Yes, it was that, but even with Shax's earlier warning, Julian hadn't imagined it would be quite so enormous. The hellcat's shoulder was nearly at Shax's waist, and the demon walked quite comfortably with his hand on its back. Lion came to mind as a size comparison, though Julian had never seen one in person. The cat didn't look anything like the vids he'd seen of lions, though. It was rangier, all sharp angles, with legs hinting at speed. Its ears were tall—slender and tufted in black—while its tail ended in a black fork that appeared more like a bladed weapon than a proper tail tip.

And it's red. So red. Almost as if it were smoldering. Possible. It was a hellcat.

Ness took a few hesitant steps forward as the station's security officers scrambled back. "Captain, are you…unharmed?"

"Quite well, Mr. Angelus, never fear." Shax offered a careless wave before he turned to Chief Carlisle. "I'm claiming her, Chief. As my bloodline allows by law, I claim her."

Hellcats, hellcats… Shax had always kept a pride back home in Hell. Julian ran his tongue over his teeth, turning over facts, since he wasn't a fan of coincidence. When Shax had fled Earth, he'd had to leave his beloved cats behind, and some of them he'd had since childhood. Some of the heartbreak had been relieved when he later found out his mother had rescued them before they could be destroyed. And now someone had left a beautiful cat, just perfect for a demon prince to claim. Not that Julian begrudged his dear Shax anything he loved, but there were too many whys and not enough answers for comfort.

The chief kept his distance, his expression a fascinating mix of alarm and relief. "I…suppose that's within regulations." He consulted his wrist comm briefly. "Ah. Here. Yes. I will need to register breed and the animal's name."

"She's a garnet courser, one of the finest of the breed I've ever seen. And her name is…" Shax hesitated, scratching behind her ear as she head-butted him and nearly knocked him over. "Fluffy."

Ness dropped his head into his hands. "For the love of—"

"Er, sorry?" Chief Carlisle paused in his typing. "I'm sorry, Captain. Did you say Fluffy?"

"Yes." Shax gave a firm nod, obviously digging his heels in when his decision produced doubt and confusion. "Fluffy. There you are, Chief. All sorted."

"Ah. Quite. Thank you, Captain Goldner." Chief Carlisle shifted uncomfortably. "Please keep in mind that dangerous livestock regulations apply."

"Of course. Come along, pretty." Shax bent to rub his face against the top of the big cat's head. "Let's get you some proper dinner."

Julian maintained a serious and concerned expression, though inwardly he laughed at the brawny security men scrambling back from the big bad kitty as she strolled past at Shax's side. Station regulations clearly stated she should've been transported through the corridors in a crate. No one said a word about it to Shax, though.

"Terribly sorry," Julian murmured to a stone-faced Ness as they trailed Shax back to the Brimstone.

Ness turned narrowed eyes on him. "What are you sorry for?"

"More an expression of sympathy than apology." Julian pointed with his chin to where Shax swaggered beside the hellcat, his grin widening every time someone scrambled out of the way. "He's going to be insufferable for a little while, isn't he?"

That surprised a laugh out of Ness before it collapsed in a soft sigh. "Yes. You're probably right. I won't say anything about it, though. He's missed his cats so much."

He has, hasn't he? I'm missing something here…

The cat, by virtue of its existence, had rattled Julian, and the unhinging of his normally well-oiled brain irritated him. Concentrating only on his breathing, as he so often did to banish emotions that distracted him from his business as an assassin, he didn't make the right connections until they were nearly at the Brimstone's bay door.

"Shax, no!" Julian surged forward, skidding to a stop when the cat turned to snarl at him. "Wait. Stop. Don't take her onboard."

The frown Shax turned on him was darker than Julian had ever seen before, more demon prince than friend. "And why not, pray tell?"

Julian held up both hands, pacification and a plea for a moment's patience. "Think, oh demon prince. Somehow a creature you've missed horribly ends up ownerless, on a station far from Earth, just waiting for you to claim her. Doesn't that suggest something a little sinister to you?"

"You're suggesting she's a plant and possibly compromised." The royal displeasure in Shax's expression gave way to a more familiar expression—still unhappy, but pensive. "Of course. Of course… There are people hunting us. Specific, nasty people. Ness, love, open the bay door, please."

"But you just said she might be—"

"Yes. She might. I want Ms. Ivana to do a proper scan, yes?"

"Don't you think you should step back a bit?" Ness made shooing motions with his hands. "Just in case?"

"I really don't think she'll explode, cupcake." Once in place, the idea obviously disturbed him as Shax took half a step away from his new hellcat. After a few speaking looks had been exchanged between captain and security chief, Ness hit the palm lock to open the door, and Shax requested the scan, adding to the cat, "Stay still, Fluffy. Let Ms. Ivana see all of you."

The cat couldn't possibly have understood him, yet she sat staring at the door, unmoving except for the occasional twitch of tail or ear.

"Captain," Ivana spoke up after the hum of her scan quieted. "Your new kitty has a hitchhiker."

Shax raised an eyebrow at Julian. "Does she? What sort, my dear?"

"It's one of those nasty little tracker things."

"Well, well. I suppose some of us aren't at all surprised."

The worst thing to say at that moment would've been I told you so, though Julian had to fight the temptation to both say it and stick out his tongue. "It does make sense. She's perfect bait and left so conveniently for you."

"For me… Yes," Shax muttered. "I suppose so. Kind of them to think of me." He ran the tips of his fingers over the cat's head, and she leaned into the touch. "Very kind… Well, then. Shall we board?"

He meant to take the Trojan-horse cat no matter what the risk. Julian smiled and shook his head, arresting the motion when he realized Ness echoed him. Intrepid fallen, we have more in common than you want to admit. Not something he wanted to say aloud to Ness right then. Possibly never.

"Aww, fuck, Shaxy," Verin grumbled as the hold door shut behind them. "What followed you home now?'

"Ver, this is my new cat, Fluffy. Fluff, this is our Verin. Go say hello."

Ears swiveling, the hunting cat stalked toward him. To Julian, the set of head and tail was threatening. His hand strayed instinctively to the pistol on his right hip, but Fluffy sniffed at Verin and butted against him briefly.

"Yeah, yeah. Hey to you, too." Verin kept his arms crossed over his massive chest. "Fucking cats."

Shax introduced her to each member of the crew in turn—Ness with a cursory acceptance sniff, probably since he had Shax's scent all over him, Corny with considerably more sniffing, and Mac with a low growl that thankfully didn't escalate into anything serious.

Toward the end of introductions, Heckle clattered down the hold steps, wide-eyed and impetuous with excitement. Without hesitation or caution, he flung his arms around the hellcat's neck and exclaimed, "Kitty!"

Every muscle in Julian's body had tensed, ready to strike and save sweet little Heckle, but Fluffy only nuzzled his jaw and licked him until he laughed and pushed her away. "Is she staying, Captain?"

"Oh yes." Shax's nod was nothing short of regal. "Wild trolls won't take her from us. Where's Leopold?"

"I am here, Papa." Leopold stood on the landing, Max and Nic conspicuously absent. "You seem to have a hellcat? Is it one of yours?"

"Not one of mine from Earth, no." Shax stroked Fluffy's ears and had to take a step sideways to catch his balance when she butted at him, purring. "But she's mine now by right of blood."

Leopold descended the stairs on his back paws, careful to hold the rail as he did so, and approached—regally, if Julian was honest with himself. The cat lay in classic sphinx pose, head up and ears swiveled forward. Inwardly Julian twitched, though he held himself scrupulously still. Fluffy could have devoured Leopold in two bites. Of course, hellcats weren't ordinary big cats, Julian knew that, and yet he couldn't shake the certainty that he was about to witness the demise of a small and extraordinarily pink demon prince.

With what Julian had to suppose was a princely waddle, Leopold reached the cat and held out a paw.

"Here, pretty kitty. I am a prince of the blood. We will be great friends."

One long tapered ear twitched toward Leopold. The cat opened its mouth, displayed its saber fangs…and licked Leopold's face quite thoroughly. The hedgehog prince, most likely unprepared for the onslaught, fell over onto his prickly back with a surprised peep.

"All right, yes, good girl." Leopold waved his front paws in a vain attempt to fend off the rasping tongue. "You can stop that right now, please. Before I've been drowned."

Somewhat to Julian's surprise, and it was quite difficult to surprise him, Fluffy stopped and sat back, giving Leopold room to regain his stubby feet. A quick glance around showed Ness wearing a smile strained toward breaking and Shax wiping at his eyes with a sniffle.

"Terribly sorry." Shax's breath shuddered through a second sniff. "They just grow up so fast, demon princelings." He turned to Julian and waved a hand at Fluffy. "Your turn, Agent Parallax."

Julian took an extra step back. "I'd really rather not, Captain. Didn't I ever tell you about my run-in with someone's guard tiger? Avoidance would really be the best strategy here."

"Julian…" Shax pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "My dear Julian. I do not want my cat shot because she surprises you in a corridor. Nor do I particularly want you to lose important extremities because she doesn't believe you belong here. For the matter at hand, you are crew, and as such you will introduce yourself to the hellcat."

The demon prince was one of the few people Julian had ever met who could successfully speak in italics without raising his voice. Always gave him a jolt and a bit of an electric thrill down his spine. "Shax—"

"Pet the kitty!"

Jaw tight, Julian walked in a wide arc around the cat to face her. It's not as if you're alone here. Several people, including Ness and Mac, would pull her off you if it comes to that. Or maybe they wouldn't. He was an intruder on this ship, no matter what Shax said, an outsider in the midst of this tight-knit crew. Julian knew perfectly well that he excelled at being charming and failed miserably at making friends.

Except for Shax. Who's still a demon, let's not forget. And what does that say about you? You pick the best times for introspection, Parallax…

Fluffy rose, tail lashing. Julian stood his ground and slowly extended a closed fist toward her. No fingers. Those could be seen as threatening. Or chewable. The cat rumbled at him, ears flattening, head and shoulders lowering.

Hold. Hold. Don't run. It's just an invitation to chase.

The pounce was so sudden, Julian didn't have time to fling himself out of the way.

There wasn't even a butt wiggle! There should've been a damn calibration butt wriggle!

Instinct took over from Julian's scandalized brain, and he curled into as tight a ball as humanly possible, with his arms flung up to cover his neck. A huge paw held his legs down, and another kneaded at his shoulder, sharp claws sinking in and retracting in a steady rhythm. He just had to hold out until someone pulled her off.

A paw withdrew, then hit him so hard he rolled across the floor to fetch up against a crate.

"Aww, fuck. Look, Shaxy," Verin drawled from somewhere in the spinning room. "She thinks Parallax is a toy."

The answering exasperated noise had to be Shax, followed by, "No, Fluffy! Bad kitty!"

The hand that settled on Julian's shoulder was much smaller than a hellcat paw. He risked uncurling far enough to find Heckle regarding him with concern.

"Julian? You okay?"

With a reassuring pat, Julian rolled and bounced to his feet. "Never better. Though I think the shirt's seen better days."

Heckle picked up a tattered scrap from the floor. "That was an understatement. I recognize those."

"Julian, I'm terribly sorry. She was just playing," Shax called from across the hold where Fluffy was rubbing her face against his side.

Deep breath. He couldn't let his voice tremble. "Tracker, Captain. Maybe take care of that first? We'll resolve cat relations later."

"Right. Of course. Come along, Miss." Shax bounded up the stairs, which the cat took in two leaps directly behind him. "This won't take but a moment, and then you can nap."

Ness followed at a less-hyperactive pace, while everyone else stood in a rough semicircle near the foot of the stairs. Julian did not, under any circumstances, admire either beautiful demon or gorgeous angel back views. Not at all. And while running after them would've been only pitiful and ill-advised before, now the addition of Fluffy made it probable suicide. Julian pretended his boots had been nailed to the decking.

This assignment should've been easy. The day to day of it, at any rate. ISE had lent him to the Brimstone, officially for once, to assist in taking down the cartel conspiring to murder Shax and brand Julian as a criminal with a side of execution. Preferably in that order, apparently. Walk in a landscaped park. Julian knew the crew, adored Shax, and understood who the players were. Except he had to keep his distance from Shax, not tick off his dangerous fallen lover, and also keep his eyes in his head where said lover was concerned. In some ways, he'd had easier assignments in swamps.

"Um. Julian?" Heckle tugged on the ruins of one sleeve. "Maybe medical's not a bad idea?"

"Wait for it." Julian tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. "I feel a cliché coming on."

Steam snaked around their heads as Verin blew out a long breath. "I've got a bad fucking feeling about this."

"And there we are. Now we can begin."

"Begin what?" Heckle stared up at Julian with his tail in both hands.

"Whatever this is." Though clichés are, by their very nature, often true. Bad feeling, indeed.

Chapter Two

The tracker had been no bigger than the nail on Ness's little finger, and once out of its feline transport, Shax had gleefully crushed it under his boot heel.

"Shouldn't we have tried to determine where it came from, love?"

Shax stroked his cat's long, tapered ears with no response from her. The sedation had been enough to put even Mac under. "No need to bother. Limited selection of choices, you see. I can't believe they thought I'd fall for a Trojan cat."

"That… Does that fall under mixed metaphors?" Ness swept up the tiny electronic bits and tossed them in the hazardous disposals chute. "Besides, you did fall for it. Julian was the one who realized."

"Pardon? Did you just say something nice about Julian?"

"I was telling the truth, not being nice." Ness snapped his mouth shut, irritated by his own scathing tone. Wings fluttering, he pulled in a steadying breath. "Credit where credit's due. It's only fair."

Brow furrowing, Shax wrapped his arms tight around Ness. "You're worrying, cupcake. We're all right. Still two steps ahead."

Yes, but for how long? He knew the names of the major players of the cabal stalking them—Federico Duomo, Amerin Nast, Talon Karnos—but except for that greasy sadist Duomo, they were only names to him. What mattered more were the power and finances behind the names. This unholy alliance had the resources to track them indefinitely, while the Brimstone couldn't run forever. No one had said that out loud yet, but Ness was certain even Max the centipede understood it. Someday, probably soon, Shax would have to turn at bay.

The only reason it hasn't happened yet is they all know firsthand how dangerous a cornered demon prince is. They're testing. Prodding. Gauging reactions. I have to be watchful. Know more. How can I protect him if I don't?

It was an uncomfortable realization Ness had been coming to over the last few months. The nightmare house had been a disastrous security failure. They couldn't afford another like that. Ness wouldn't be able to live with another failure like that. He needed to start using his resources more efficiently, and unfortunately, his best resource right now was Julian—his second uncomfortable realization.

His sharp jealousy over Julian's attachment to Shax, however much in the past, had smoothed out into something quieter but more persistently distressing. He…noticed things about Julian. The shadows that lurked in his dark eyes sometimes. The way his elegant fingers twitched sometimes at loud sounds. The predatory grace of his movements. He didn't hate Julian any longer, but he shouldn't be noticing these things.

Shax nuzzled against his chest. "You're still worrying. I can hear it all the way through your lovely skull."

"I suppose I'll have to look into soundproofing." Ness kissed one adorable red horn, then the other. "Yes, that was a joke."

"Hmm. I could distract you."

"Maybe later. You do have a new cat to settle."

Somehow, Shax managed to wriggle closer. "But she's sleeping."

An ear flicked. Fluffy's barbed tail twitched. "I don't think she will be for long. We're going to have to be careful with Nic and Max, aren't we?"

"We'll have to introduce them before she comes across them accidentally, yes. Once she knows them, she'll protect them, too."

Ness leaned back so he could see the subtle changes of expression on Shax's face. "So, what was that with Julian?"

"He's human." Shax blinked up at him in earnest confusion.

"True, but so is Corny."

"Oh. That. Yes. Corny sleeps in the same bed as Verin. He has Verin all over him, so to speak, so Fluffy would see him as just another demon. A puzzling new sort, but still demonic. While Julian… Our Agent Parallax smells like prey."

"Wonderful." Ness stepped back to rub both hands over his face. "And how do you propose to resolve that?"

"Your faith in me is heartwarming," Shax said at his driest.

"I'm sorry, love. I'm just—" Bad enough he still had flashes of the nightmare room where he'd been forced to watch a version of himself rip Julian to pieces. He didn't want to come across an altogether too-similar sight in reality when Fluffy did it.

Shax regarded him through narrowed eyes, though he seemed to discard whatever his thoughts were with a gentle smile. "Worried. Yes. I promise that Fluffy won't harm our Agent Parallax." Shax patted his chest in a distracted way as Fluffy yawned, her scimitar claws unsheathing as she flexed her paws. "I have trained these cats before, you know. From the way she reacted to Heckle, she was obviously someone's palace cat. Learning who not to eat is part of the curriculum."

"Also, now that she's onboard, shouldn't we be leaving? Whoever planted her must know she reached the Brimstone."

Shax stood on his toes to plant a soft, lingering kiss on Ness's lips, making it harder by the moment for him to harden his resolve. And easier to harden other things. "We're nearly underway, my beloved security officer. Refueling's complete, and Ver's getting us launch clearance."

Shax untangled himself and jogged over to the medical table when the hellcat opened her eyes. He ruffled the fur on either side of her face as he bent over her. "There you are my pretty fluffy-wuffums. Who's a good girl, then? Who's the best girl? Is it you? I think it's you."

This is going to take some getting used to.

"Next shoe, please," Julian murmured as he scrolled through alerts and surveillance reports on his secure ISE feed.

"I don't understand. I hardly ever wear shoes. Which shoe, Julian?"

Julian glanced up to find Leopold seated across the galley table, a screen open on the table's holopad, staring at him with unnerving intensity. The hedgehog had a knack for it. "Sorry. Just an old expression about dropping shoes." Half a beat later, he asked, "You have shoes?"

"I do have slippers. Just for formal occasions. From my grandmama."

Ah. There had been a hint of offense in that answer. It couldn't be easy, balancing becoming used to the thought that one was demon royalty and being small, adorable, and pink. "If you'll excuse me. Sorry to disturb your reading."

Leopold did have the gracious nod down, though. Probably from Grandmama as well.

Head down, Julian meandered down the corridor toward Heckle's domain in storage. The imp had his own work to do and most likely wouldn't mind sharing space while Julian researched. He had to admit it was a little worrisome that his queries weren't coming up with anything, as if their adversaries and associated minions had vanished into thin space.

He needed a place to think where he wasn't being…judged? Watched? Dissected? Heckle never did any of those things and would let him be if he needed quiet. There. Maybe Heckle was a friend, yes? They always had fun during weapons training. Helped that Heckle was an excellent student, of course, and simply accepted everyone as they were. Unlike a certain pair of summer sky-blue eyes that never gazed at him with anything but unease.

Something about him still made Ness twitchy and prickly. It wouldn't have mattered in any other circumstances. Ness was beautiful and quite rightly unattainable to someone like Julian. But in close quarters, a less-guarded relationship would've been preferable.

Brimstone was well underway, at least, managing to get away from the station before any attack manifested. Julian considered that a win. Tracker destroyed meant their adversaries had been overconfident and had lost their advantage.

He'd gotten as far as the top of the ladder leading into storage when his hindbrain pricked up its ears and whiskers. Something vibrated the deck plates under his feet. He barely had time to register it as a sub-audible growl when his instincts took over and flung him down the ladder, barely evading the swipe of one huge black-tipped paw. He hung by his right hand from a rung halfway down and risked a look up into glowing red eyes.

"Nice kitty?"

The eyes narrowed. Powerful shoulders lowered. The barbed tail twitched. Julian let go, dropped the rest of the way to the floor, and made a leap for the nearest pile of crates. A heavy thud and scrabble of claws on the decking announced the cat's otherwise silent pursuit. At the top of the crate pyramid, Julian ran out of space to flee. He might have managed the leap to the next pile of crates, but that particular might have loomed large, accompanied by possible broken bones.

Fluffy prowled up the crates at her leisure, her burning gaze never leaving him. She knew she'd won and had no need to hurry.

Desperate, Julian looked up and found another route. It wasn't that he couldn't handle a hellcat, but this was his friend's cat, and shooting it would've been poor form indeed. The option of being ripped to pieces didn't appeal, either. Instead, he leaped and swarmed up into the ceiling girders, shimmying along a beam until he was out of reach.

"Heckle?" While he didn't expect an answer—Heckle would've said something by now—it was worth a shot. Below him, the cat rose up on her hind legs and swiped at the air, her scream of frustrated rage raising the hairs along Julian's arms. "Ms. Ivaaaaana!"

That didn't sound like yelling for Mom. Not at all. But Ivana was his best option, since he couldn't get to the comm pad by the door and couldn't patch into ship's systems without a free hand.

"No need to yell, Agent Cutie Pie," the ship's AI purred through the speakers. "Ms. Ivana sees all. Captain Hot Stuff is on his way down."

"Oh, good. Thank you." Julian shifted his grip, unwelcome memories surfacing of trying to hide in the boarding-school roof beams from bullies as a child. He hadn't thought about that in decades. Though Fluffy was just acting as her nature predicated and would never taunt Julian with a name and pronoun that wasn't his. "Not that I really need help."

"Of course not, sweetie. We just don't want the pretty kitty getting hurt."

To prepare for Shax's arrival, Julian shimmied along the girder until he hovered over the next stack of crates, with the cat snarling her disapproval. She clawed at the straps securing her pyramid of crates, shredding them one by one. As soon as the demon prince had his pet distracted, Julian could get his feet back under him on a stack she wasn't destabilizing and flee if necessary.

Good plan. Which was why everything chose that moment to go wrong.

A heavy thud shook the compartment, strong enough for Julian to lose his grip and fall heavily onto the top of the crate directly beneath him. A second concussion nearly made him tumble from the stack.

We're under fire. I should—

A piercing beep came from the comm system, followed by Verin's bellow, "Going Copernicus now to outrun these fuckers! Thirty seconds to strap in or grab a friend and hope real hard!"

"Unholy shit," Julian muttered under his breath, his body moving before he had the chance to tell it. He half-leaped, half-plummeted down the crates to the decking—never mind what the damn cat was doing—and wedged himself into the barely adequate space between crate stacks. "Cat! If you don't want to be a smear on the wall, get down here!"

Another strike rocked the ship. If Julian knew ordinance—and he did—they were short-range plasma, probably from a QR320 cannon or newer. Quite expensive. Though if one of those had hit straight on, there would've been considerably less Brimstone, so Ver was doing some fancy flying. A creak came from above, and Julian glanced up in time to catch Fluffy in a last, desperate attempt to stay atop her crate pile as the whole thing shifted, broken mooring straps and all.

The crates tumbled, clattering and thudding to the decking directly outside Julian's hiding spot, creating a cave shape that effectively blocked out most of the light. The alarms began to sound. Fluffy lay on her side in the tunnel created by the loose crates. Copernicus acceleration would shift those crates hard, and Fluffy, too, and she would be an ex-hellcat in short order.

Julian cursed himself for a softhearted fool, low-crawled out to the cat, dragged her back to the relative safety of his niche, unwound a climbing cable from his belt, secured it around her, then himself, and fastened it to the moorings on either side. Best he could do on short notice.

Risky on several levels, not the least of which was the possibility that she would bite his head off when she woke. The thrusters kicked, slamming cat and ISE agent into the crates, then back the other way as they entered Copernicus space. Julian clung to the cat's neck, buried his face in the fur of her shoulder, and hung on for all he was worth.

Finally, the transition ended and the familiar chirrup-thunk of the Brimstone's Copernicus drive vibrated the deck plates gently. Shax referred to the sound as a cricket with a wooden leg, but Julian had no experience of crickets to gauge the accuracy of the comparison. A different sort of vibration rumbled more directly against Julian. It took him a moment. Fluffy was purring.

Other sounds filtered through when he lifted his head. The pounding of deck boots in the corridor above, accompanied by cursing chief among them.

"Imp shit, imp shit, imp shit!" That would be Shax. The hatch to the storage compartment flew open. "Fluffy!"

"Julian?" And that was Ness. Interesting.

"We're both here," Julian called back. "Behind the pile of loose crates, not under it."

"Oh, thank all the flaming pits!" The breathy sigh was a little overdramatic for anyone not Shax. "Get the loader arms working and, ah, dig them out."

"I've got it, Captain!" Heckle called out from somewhere farther inside the room.

"Why weren't these crates secured?" Shax's words whip-snapped through the air.

"Not Heckle's fault!" Julian rushed to intervene, envisioning Heckle wilting under the unjust criticism. "They were secured. Your new kitty clawed through the straps."

"Ah. My apologies, Heck!"

Ness called over the whine and clank of robotics, "Are you both all right?"

"I think so? A little bruised and banged around, but I think we're both whole." Julian pushed Fluffy's head away when she licked his face. "Stop that. I'm trying to…"

He trailed off and turned to stare at her. She flicked her ears at him, batted at his jacket, and licked his chin.

"So we're friends now, is that it? Since I saved your tail?"

Fluffy butted her head against his chest, purring. The denizens of Hell didn't usually have friends, Shax had said. They made alliances. While Shax and Julian were friends despite everything, Heckle offered friendship to every being he could, and Julian's relationship with Verin ran more toward "familiarity breeds both trust and friendly contempt," he realized with an inward start that he'd forged his first actual infernal alliance.

"All right, fuzzy butt, I officially declare us on the same side. Now don't bite me while I get us untangled from the cable."

She didn't interfere beyond the occasional bat at the carabiner end each time it came around, and soon enough, crates moved out of the way to reveal the worried faces waiting beyond the avalanche zone. Julian rose carefully in case he wasn't as whole as he claimed, then walked toward Shax's outstretched arms…

Which he realized weren't for him when Shax went to one knee to hug his cat. "There's my Fluffykins. My pretty fuzzy-wuzzy. Papa Ness and I were worried."

"Always good to know where I stand." Julian's laugh sounded hollow even in his own ears. If anyone had asked about the ache in his chest right then, he would've told them it was heartburn. Yes. Just a bit of a nutritional disagreement.

Ness didn't even try to hide his eye roll toward the ceiling. "Ms. Ivana had just let us know where you were when the alarms sounded. Since there's nowhere to secure yourself down here, we worried."

We were worried or you were worried? Stop it, Parallax. Not the time. "Thank you. Do we know anything yet?"

"Not yet. Needed to account for everyone first, since that was all rather, ah, sudden. Wasn't it Fluffy-wuffy?" Shax rubbed his face against the cat's before he stood. "We got away, though, and Ver's headed us somewhere off the usual shipping lanes. So now's the time for sorting the pieces."

"He does know where he's going, though? Doesn't he?" Ness's wings ruffled in an agitated way.

Shax gave him a too-bright smile that didn't reassure anyone. "Ms. Ivana's helping. Don't worry. Let's convene in the galley in fifteen and we'll see where we are."

The cat followed Shax as he climbed back up the ladder, though she gave Julian a prrru-mre on her way past. While she didn't climb the ladder, she managed it easily with a leap and a back-paw launch from a rung halfway up to reach the top.

"I'll help you re-secure the crates, Heck," Julian offered after Ness had followed Shax out of the hold.

Heckle bounded around the newly piled containers with replacement straps but stopped to regard Julian in his earnest way. "We're in trouble, aren't we?"

"Odds are good." Julian shrugged, going for an outward nonchalance to avoid frightening Heckle. "But I don't recall odds ever bothering Captain Shax too much."

Shax considered the universally worried faces surrounding him, and they were all worried, in spite of incidental ancillary expressions. Verin—pissed off and worried. Ness—impassive but with the little crinkle between his eyebrows that said worried. Heckle—twisting his tail in both hands hard enough he might break it off. Julian—that ironic curl of lips that clearly said, What now, tough guy? Worried.

His next words could make or break morale.

"Well, that was fun, wasn't it?"

The solid wall of unbelieving stares wasn't the response he'd been looking for.

"Ahem." Adopting a more serious expression, Shax turned to address the speakers in the galley. "Ms. Ivana, do we have a damage assessment?"

"The nasty old plasma raked us, but no hull breaches, Captain Hot Buns. Engines and guidance are undamaged."

"But? I hear a but in those statements."

"Our itty-bitty aft gun is out of commission, Captain."

Shax rubbed his palms over his temples. That gun—far from itty-bitty—was the Brimstone's only defensive weapon. They'd always operated under the rather prudent assumption that a ship Brimstone's size shouldn't be engaging in firefights, so he'd never added additional armaments.

"All right. Not a disaster, all things considered. We're all alive and well away." The slot beside the galley table opened, and several mugs trundled out on the conveyor. Shax grabbed his current black-and-red one, took a sip of his bourbon and coffee, and closed his eyes on a contented sigh. "Thank you, Ms. Ivana. You always know how to make it better."

"You're welcome, sweetie. Always such a gentleman."

A few minutes ticked by as everyone claimed their mugs and sipped their respective drinks. Even Nicodemus the spacer rat and Max the millipede had tiny mugs of warm milk.

"It don't make no sense, Cap, if you don't mind my sayin' so," Corny finally broke the silence.

"I don't mind. Pray, continue, Mr. DeGroot." Say what we're all thinking.

"Well, now, seems to me it was mighty convenient that someone leaves a present only you had a right to." Corny leaned back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.

"The point's been made, yes."

"So whatever varmint left her made for damn sure they could track her. Goes to all that trouble to be sure she's marked and left for you so's they could follow us wherever we went, then waits behind some space rocks to bushwhack us when we came off station?"

"It does seem unlikely behavior. Though Fluffy's acquisition and the attack could have been unrelated events." All eyes turned to the beautiful hellcat curled up by Shax's feet.

"But you don't believe that, do you, Cap?" Mac rumbled.

"I don't have enough informa—"

Verin cut him off with a snarl. "Don't even fucking say it, Shaxy. We all feel it. Looks like we walked out of a troll shit trap, but it feels like we're walking into the real one. Deny it and I'll put you through the damn wall."

"Er, no need for that." Shax edged away just in case. "That was some damn fine flying, Ver. You can't deny that, either. It wasn't as if we were meant to get away. Though speaking of— Do we have any ID on the firing ship?"

Julian cleared his throat and tapped the table's display on. "Ms. Ivana managed some vid. It's a little fuzzy, but clear enough, I think."

The image, which was rather shoddy resolution since Brimstone's optics had been undergoing some violent shaking at the time, showed the prow of a sleek, nasty little ship, and on her hull, a mark. A symbol. It looked like the black rook from a chess set.

"Duomo," Ness breathed out in an arctic whisper.

"Ah. Stands to reason." Shax nodded, trying to get his brain turning.

Mac drummed his fingers on the table. "Wanna fill us latecomers in, Cap?"

It's not as if you didn't know it was coming. Things have been too peaceful, after all. "Federico and Achille Duomo run… ran a sophisticated fencing operation. A criminal empire all their own. I put it in the past tense, since apparently, Federico murdered Achille, who was the reasonable, sane one. I did business with them from time to time, until I did something unforgiveable to Federico."

"Did you steal from him? Or maybe cheat him, Papa?" Leopold piped up. "And now he hates you?"

"I did worse." Shax grimaced around a sip of coffee. "I humiliated him."

Ness patted his hand. "It was a joint effort, love."

"Doesn't precisely make it better, since he also hates you specifically, with rather specific malice." Shax heaved a steadying breath. "But he can't follow us into C-space. He's lost his tracking. Though I have my doubts that the ship held Federico himself. That was a sleek clipper, not the vast, ungainly lump of his flagship, Pinochet. For now, we have a bit of a respite. Can we repair the gun, Ms. Ivana?"

"It's slagged, hon. I'd have to build a whole new one, and that kind of fabrication's too hard on a girl's nails out here. Not happening, sorry."

No, if the housing had melted, Shax understood that Ivana didn't have that level of manufacturing ability onboard. If that had been the case, the Brimstone could've had several guns.

When Shax looked up from the depths of his coffee again, he found everyone watching him, each with their own variation of expectancy. "They've been quiet since the Poe house. Staring at the board. Plotting. We still hold the high ground, though. Their opening hand failed."

Mac snorted. "You really should get fined every time you mix your metaphors that badly, Cap."

As everyone left the galley for various duties and so on, Shax caught hold of Ness's hand to prevent his exit. His angel gave him a quizzical look, waiting until everyone had cleared the room before asking, "Everything all right, love?"

"Certainly not. I've put my crew and ship in peril. More peril than usual, at any rate."

Ness offered a soft smile. "You're only now realizing this?"

"Ness…" Shax gripped both his hands. "You know if I thought any of you would go that I'd send you somewhere safe, yes? Back home to my mother, where no one could get at you?"

"I know. I do." Ness lifted their joined hands to kiss Shax's knuckles. "But Verin can't go back, so Corny wouldn't. And a demon palace is no place for Heckle. And our son is as stubborn as you are and certainly wouldn't go. And your mother wouldn't take Mac in out of old prejudices. And I'm never leaving you, no matter what you say."

"And Julian?"

The smile vanished, replaced by a worried frown. "Julian could go."

"My angel, do you still hate him so much?" I know you don't, but far too many things lurk behind your eyes that you won't say whenever Julian's in the room.

"No. No, of course not." Ness actually squirmed. "He's your friend. How could I hate him? But he's human and more destructible than the rest of us. He'd be safe at ISE headquarters, wouldn't he?"

Shax tipped his head in acknowledgment. "Most likely. But Julian is Julian. He would never stay there. Besides, the rest of us, barring Corny, might be essentially immortal, but we're all quite destructible. Are you worried about Julian in particular for some reason?"

"What? No. That is, not beyond the fact that he's more vulnerable here." Ness looked at every spot in the galley except Shax, and wasn't that telling?

Oh my darling angel, my own. I hope desperately that what I think is happening is happening, but if I push too hard now… Of course he would settle for Ness and Julian being friends, but Shax was greedy by nature, and his little black heart sped at every hint that it might be developing into more. Possibly. Though he could be misreading the situation, and this was something Ness had to arrive at on his own, if that was where he was heading.

Inwardly, Shax sighed. For Ness, he trotted out a brilliant smile and leaned over the table to kiss those soft angel lips. "He's been assigned to us, and he's more stubborn than the rest of us put together. I'm afraid you're stuck with all of us, cupcake."

Ness's answering smile didn't quite erase the sorrow in his eyes. "I suppose I'll just have to protect you all then, won't I?"

Chapter Three

He hadn't been worried. He hadn't.

Yes, you were. You raced down that ladder, afraid you'd find squashed Julian.

Ness shooed away the annoying voice in his head. Of course he'd been worried. He wasn't a monster. Usually. Not to mention the fact that he still had a lot of residual guilt regarding things that had never happened, and if he was truly honest with himself, he'd not always been exactly kind to Julian, so there was that added guilt. And yes, Julian could be annoying in an I-know-things-you-don't sort of way, but he wasn't any more annoying than Shax could be.

He sent those thoughts packing as well, having determined that he was spending altogether too much time thinking in circles, and returned his attention to the navigation charts in front of Shax.

"It's a good stopgap." Shax squirmed back in the copilot's chair, tipping his head to look up at where Ness leaned against the back. "But not a spot for an extended stay."

"Shut up," Verin growled. "It's the perfect fucking spot for quick repairs and a refuel."

As far as Ness could see, the perfect fucking spot where they would emerge from C-space was within spitting distance of an enormous asteroid field. The Brimstone's pilot and AI would have chosen it for its mineral and ore content… "Not enough in the way of water or organic materials for us to stay too long, is that it?"

"Exactly so, cupcake." Shax's fingers flew over his boards. "So let's be prepared this time and find a nice nearby spot outside the normal avenues where we can procure the rest of the necessities."

"There's a nice little Earth-normal approximate just here, Captain," Ivana offered as a point of red light pulsed on Shax's charts.

"Habitation?"

"Not even a peep of one, cutie."

"Well done, Ms. Ivana." Shax settled into the chair in that satisfied, lordly way of his, hands on the armrests, one booted ankle up on the opposite knee. "Let's get that second course laid in. No more surprises." He froze, then his next words were soft and careful. "Ah, do we have any read on biodiversity on this planet? Say…carnivorous plants and such?"

"Just stay inside the ship, hot stuff," Ms. Ivana crooned. "I'll keep you safe from all the big, bad plants."

Verin spouted steam as he didn't try terribly hard to hide his snickering.

"Hilarious."

"Seriously, Captain, I can't get a reading on biologicals from Copernicus space. My sensors are fabulous, but not that fabulous."

"Well, it doesn't hurt to ask, my dear. I'm constantly surprised at what you have socked away in your vast data storage." Shax visibly cringed at the offended gasp from the ship's speakers. "Your beautiful, perfectly-sized and proportioned data storage."

"Hmph."

"You take such good care of us, Ms. Ivana. Thank you," Ness added, which wasn't flattery. It was simple truth.

Verin managed to stop snickering and hit the ship's comm. "Ten minutes to decel. Secure your shit or lose it." Off comm again, he pointed to the floor. "Put your damn cat somewhere, Shaxy. Don't have any fucking webbing for her in the pod."

"I'll take her." Ness kissed the top of Shax's head. "I know you'd rather be here when we come out into regular space. Fluffy."

To his amazement, the hellcat stood, stretched with a fangs-exposing yawn, and followed him without objection. She even let Ness ruffle the fur atop her head as they walked, though she snarled when he touched her ears.

"You can have the webbing under the desk," Ness told her as they reached the cabin he and Shax shared. "And I'll take the bu—"

The moment the door opened, Fluffy galloped to the bunk and flopped down on it.

Ness pointed to the floor beneath the desk. "No, Fluffy. Over here."

She curled up with her nose tucked under her tail.

"Oh, fine. I suppose I might be able to squeeze under the desk. Let me just—"

Meep.

"Did you just meep at me, Miss?"

She did a quick knead-pat on the blanket with both paws. Mrep?

"I see. Since you rode out the last Copernicus event snuggling with Julian, you think that should be the normal way it's done?" Ness frowned at how uncomfortable the phrase snuggling with Julian made him.

Meep.

"I suppose this once. But keep those claws in, please."

He'd certainly done stranger things than acquiescing to a huge cat who didn't want to be webbed in alone, and her fur was wonderfully soft, at any rate. All in all, an uneventful Copernicus deceleration until the shouting started.

He hadn't even managed to untangle from the webbing when Shax yelled over the comm, "Ness! Ness! Get up here!"

With his heart slamming against his breastbone and his feet tangling in the net, Ness half-leaped, half-fell out of the bunk. Barefoot, not even stopping to send an acknowledgment over comm, he tucked his wings in tight and pounded through the corridors to the pilot's pod while terrible visions of what might have gone wrong built leaning towers of anxiety in his head.

"What's ha—" he began just as he caught sight of the viewscreen.

Shax waved him closer. "Shh. Look."

"I'm looking. Oh…my."

A soft, shifting glow filled the pod as if several nightlights were having a quadrille outside the ship. Ness leaned closer, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The glows, hundreds of them, floated between the Brimstone and the asteroid field, though floated, it soon became apparent, was a misnomer. The lights propelled themselves through space in careful, often-corrected trajectories. Figures resolved in the glow with a bulbous protrusion at one end and several—hoses, lines, tethers?—at the other.

"They're coming back around," Shax murmured. "No movement, Ver. Not even a tiny course correction."

Four of the lights approached the ship in a stately, zigzagging dance. Their movements appeared slow but with distances and relative velocities… Ness had yet to feel comfortable with the mathematics of space, but most things in the vacuum of space tended to travel at frightening speeds. Though it was all relative. And there he had to leave it.

The lights soon resolved into somewhat less mystical beings in luminescent EVA suits. Helmets containing a viscous fluid covered the large heads, eyes regarding the Brimstone with what seemed gentle curiosity. The eight appendages below could, perhaps, have been robotic arms controlled from within the helmet, but to Ness they moved in a way that was too organic.

"They remind me of the Tkld," Shax murmured. "You remember them coming to Earth sometimes, Ver?"

Verin snorted a small cloud of steam. "Yeah, but these glowworms have got eight legs or whatever. Fucking space octopuses."

The beings outside the ship did look like octopuses, or nearly so. Their heads were perhaps a bit larger in proportion to their…tentacles? Difficult to tell with helmets on, and their pupils were more of a cross shape than the classic octopus rectangle. One of them peered intently at the pod's viewscreen as if trying to see through the light filters and patted the ship with an appendage. The beings moved off to rejoin the luminous cloud of their companions clustered around a nearby ice asteroid.

Even the Brimstone herself seemed quieter as they watched the dance of graceful glowing figures.

"They're beautiful," Ness whispered.

Shax laced their fingers together. "They are. But I wonder… I don't see a ship."

"Maybe they're like Luna?"

Ness blinked in shock at Verin's profanity free sentence but declined to say anything, since their pilot was obviously mesmerized.

"Hmm. Luna's a vacuum-adapted space shark, though." Shax tapped a claw softly against the arm of his chair. "She doesn't require a suit. These pretties must have a habitat or a ship somewhere close. Let's proceed with care, please. Harvest where we don't interfere with them."

Ness stayed leaning against the copilot's chair as Verin eased them toward the points lit up on his navigation. A bump against his hip unbalanced him, and he glanced down to find Fluffy butting her head against him. She rubbed her face on his thigh, then squeezed past him to wrap herself around Shax's feet.

Careful of the busy octopus spacers, Verin edged them around the sizeable ice asteroid and…

"Oh," Ness whispered. "Oh my."

It hove into view as they cleared the asteroid, since hove was the only word one could use. The ship, station, or habitat was nearly as large as the asteroid, the size of some systems' moons. So huge the mind rebelled, especially since its shape was reminiscent of a many-tiered wedding cake or a tower of fancy hatboxes, all decked out in thousands and thousands of glowing lights. Moving, glowing lights, Ness had to correct himself as he realized each tiny light was an octopus spacer working at various tasks.

"There's a ship to make a girl feel positively frumpy," Ivana broke the awed silence.

"We love you just the way you are, dear," Shax soothed. "Now let's harvest what we need and leave these lovely people in peace."

"Scared of little fuckers with tentacles?" Verin put extra sarcasm into the sentence, but he still piloted the ship carefully through stray spacers.

"No."

"Why're you worried about them, then?"

Shax's rapt stare hadn't left the viewscreen. "They're gloriously beautiful. I won't have us disturbing that."

And if they had been ugly? Ness stopped the thought before it left his mouth. To be fair, Shax found beauty in the strangest things sometimes. Probably came from growing up in Hell. Even if he had found the octopus people ugly, careless destruction was always something that wrinkled Shax's perfect nose.

Perfectly plotted destruction was another thing entirely.

"I hope you're not thinking about acquiring an entire colony ship."

Julian's voice, unexpectedly behind Ness, made him jump and flush in embarrassment. How did he move without any sound? He stepped away to get some distance, telling his traitor brain quite sternly how inappropriate it was to think about how good Julian smelled up close.

"Oh, very droll," Shax grumbled. "You try to steal one house and no one lets you forget it. Terrible attempts at humor notwithstanding, Julian, you're on scans just in case, while I go down to help Ms. Ivana with the mining equipment."

Ness tried for a steady voice. Bad enough that the banter between Shax and Julian sent irritated prickles along his arms, and he couldn't have voiced coherently why. But he was head of security. That was his job. "But I'm more than capa—"

"I know, cupcake." Shax patted his chest as he squeezed by. "Indulge me on this. Julian has some frightening sixth sense for trouble on the horizon. Or maybe a seventh sense, who knows? Come with me and be an extra set of hands. Things will go that much faster."

I'm going of my own accord, and I'm not angry about something so trivial, even though it's just another way to be supplanted, and I am NOT JEALOUS OF JULIAN—

Oh, dear. That had nearly gotten away from him. Deep breaths. His eyes hadn't started glowing, had they? His wings were still folded? No one had noticed? As an angel, he would never have understood how many flavors jealousy had, and the last thing he wanted was for someone to think he still was jealous of Julian's past with Shax. He was. A little. But the anger that had nearly gotten away from him was all sharp edges and confusion rather than the towering, scarlet-soaked insanity from a few months ago. He was jealous of…what, exactly? Shax's respect for Julian? Shax's easy manner with Julian? Jealous over instead of jealous of? No, bright heavens, no. He couldn't think like that.

Thoughts of cinnamon buns, that's what he needed, and less Julian on the brain. Helping with the loaders and conveyors in the cargo hold while Ms. Ivana used her external excavators and the little sonic blasters certainly refocused Ness. Fluffy assisted too, batting at the broken-up chunks of ore as they trundled up the conveyors. Maybe Shax had sensed a need for refocusing. Either way, Ness had nearly regained his calm when the ship's comm gave a shrill whistle.

"Incoming!" Julian shouted over the comm. "Captain, Duomo's clipper on our three!"

"Hell's pits!" Shax swore. "Ivana, are we ready?"

"Just pulling in my little pails and shovels now, hot stuff."

Shax hit the comm. "Have they spotted us?"

"Not yet, Captain." Julian's voice came through from the pilot's pod clipped and sharp. "Still on decel. We have possibly three minutes before they'll be able to."

Drumming his claws on the bulkhead, Shax shot Ness what he probably hoped was a reassuring smile before he got back on comm. "Ver, as soon as Ms. Ivana's secure, evasive maneuvers. We can't jump to Copernicus in this rock field. Crew, secure anything not fastened down. The flight's about to get a bit…choppy."

"Dang it, Cap. Rosa's about to go spare on me with all this webbing and un-webbing," Corny called from across the hold.

"Sincere apologies!" Shax called back before muttering under his breath. "How did they find us? My dearest angel, I want you and Heck armed in the eventuality of boarding."

"Do you think that's likely?"

Shax stood on tiptoe for a quick kiss. "Let's cover the possibilities, shall we?"

The decking rang with the sound of running boots as Ness headed for the arms locker while Shax raced back toward the pilot's pod. Their lovely quiet time had officially ended.

How in all sulfurous pits did they find us? Shax's brain stuck on that thought, looping it over and over. They'd found the tracker. Removed it. Disposed of it. He reached the pilot's pod and told his brain to shut up. It wasn't being at all helpful.

"Julian, down to the airlock, please. Just in case."

The Brimstone's private, on-government-loan assassin didn't ask why. Julian simply went with all possible speed. If their enemies did mean to board rather than simply blow the ship to dust, the airlock would be the most reasonable option and Julian their most effective defense.

Shax threw himself into the copilot's seat and strapped in. "How are we doing?"

"Keeping ahead of those piles of imp shit," Ver muttered through continuous curls of steam. "Should have a clear field in about five. Five fucking minutes. All I need."

"Every confidence, Ver." Anything else would have just made Verin angry and ruined his concentration. Shax took in the scans, locating the approaching clipper on proximity scans and easing the readings over to show energy signatures. "Decel complete. Clipper's switched to normal space engines."

"Yeah, yeah."

The one thing Shax wanted more than anything in the universe at that moment was to allow his faithful bodyguard to concentrate on flying. Sometimes the universe had a nasty sense of humor. "Ver…weapons powering up."

"Fuck sakes. I've got tons of rock between us!"

"I think they're trying to clear a path. And I don't think they're aiming for the rock." Shax swallowed hard. "Ver…"

"No. Oh fuck no. This isn't our problem, royal boy. The tentacle people can take care of their own shit."

Shax turned his chair, staring at Verin until he snorted. "Ver. It's not our problem, but it's our fault. We led them here."

"Hell's gates, Shaxy. They're not yours. Your royal ass isn't responsible."

"Good thing, too, since my ass may be the least responsible part of me." Shax tapped at the control panel. "Turn us around. Now. I won't have that lovely colony slaughtered because of us. Let's show ourselves and draw them off."

"Royal pain in my ass," Verin snarled even as he turned the ship around.

"Fasten your seatbelts, darlings," Ivana crooned over comm. "It's going to be a bumpy ride."

Shax had a few moments to wonder when Ivana had gotten hold of any Bette Davis movies before they rounded one of the larger ice asteroids and flew straight into chaos. Octopus spacers scattered at astounding rates of speed as the clipper attempted to fire through their midst and, for whatever mad reason, at the gigantic Christmas-light wedding cake of a colony ship. Either they feared it, or they were bent on destruction for the sake of thuggishness, though Shax didn't care much about the motives.

"Straight for them, Mr. Hammer," Shax ordered softly. "Cut them off."

"Are you out of your gravel-brained, tiny mind?"

"Are you saying you can't outfly them?"

"Shut up!" Verin jammed an unlit cigar between his teeth, eyes narrowing as he concentrated on vectors.

Hard turns in space were never quite what they would have been in a gravity well, because of, well, gravity. Though Verin's slingshot around the ice asteroid did have a definite heave to the left, since huge asteroid compared to Brimstone equaled gravitational pull. Occupying his mind with physics was vital during this sort of maneuver for Shax. It prevented him from screaming.

An angry glow around the clipper's port guns heralded its plasma cannons facing the colony ship powering up. Shax had just enough time to think, I can't die now, not before I can sort out this odd thing with my angel and my assassin before they fired. With Brimstone's engines screaming, Verin heeled her over and down just in time to catch the edge of the blast on her shields. The ship shuddered, but the shields held and the plasma dispersed wide.

The cloud of octopus spacers fled toward their colony ship as if their luminescent suits lent them light speed, trickles of them from all directions becoming one enormous flood. They didn't even head for specific points on the colony ship—no queueing up for hatch entry or opening of giant hold doors. No, they simply reached the ship and winked out as if they'd boarded by osmosis.

A harder shudder wracked the Brimstone, but again Verin shimmied and danced them to the edge of the field of fire. This was a far different game from being ambushed without time to raise shields.

No more octopus pretties darted about in the interstellar sea. The colony ship pulsed from white to red to blue…and winked out. Just like that. No run-up of Copernicus engines, no increase of power signatures—she was simply gone.

"They're away!" Shax crowed. "Our turn, Ver!"

"About fucking time. Firing up the Copernicus."

Shax had half a moment to feel inordinately pleased before he grabbed Verin's arm. "Oh no. Wait. Look."

As the ship turned, one sad remaining glow appeared in the viewscreen—one last octopus spacer who had missed their ride and now floated in vacuum with an aimless stillness that often accompanied no longer living spacers.

"Shaxy, no. So much fucking no."

"We can't just leave them out there."

"Pretty fucking sure we can."

"But we're not." Shax hurried to unbuckle with one hand as he hit the comm with the other. "Julian, I'm coming down. I need the retrieval arms unshipped. Emergency EVA retrieval." Fluffy yowled as he half-lifted, half-shoved her onto the jump seat behind the copilot's station and webbed her in. "And you stay here with, Ver, Fluffums. No running about the corridors right now."

"Make it fast, your ridiculous highness. I can't keep dodging these shitheads forever."

To that end, Shax ran, skidding around corners and pounding down the corridors to the airlock. Ness had arrived ahead of him—not terribly shocking, but so had Leopold. How did he…? Never mind. I don't want to know.

"Gentlemen, I don't think I need you all here." Shax squeezed by Ness to get to the airlock control.

"You don't know what you're bringing on board, love." Ness said it gently, but steel glinted in his eyes.

"Fair enough, I suppose. Julian? How are we doing?"

Julian hadn't turned from where he'd thrust his hands into the retrieval arms' controls, eyes glued to the guidance screen. "Nearly there." Another shudder jerked through the ship. "Just need the ship steady for a few seconds more."

"Good man." Shax realized he'd whispered the words as he kept watch over Julian's shoulder. It wasn't as if his voice would actually break Julian's concentration, never that. But pulling in an unconscious body with the padded claws was a horrifically delicate operation. One false move, one wrong twitch, and the rescuee's suit would tear. Whispering was appropriate to the occasion.

"On my mark, Captain." Julian's soft voice was uncharacteristically strained as the glowing suit inched toward the ship. "Steady…steady…now!"

Shax slammed his fist onto the outer airlock control, trying to will the damn iris to open faster. Then the retrieval arms maneuvered into the airlock to deposit their catch, and Shax fumbled the grab on the lock's safety harness the first time. Cranking back and trying a second time took an eternity. Finally, the octopus spacer was secure, the retrieval arms disengaged, and the outer airlock sealed again with their rescuee safely webbed in the cushioned emergency alcove inside the airlock proper.

"Ver, we're clear! Go, go, go!"

Julian's head jerked around. For three heartbeats, they stared at each other. "Shax…did you just tell Verin to jump to C-space with all of us standing in the airlock access?"

"I…did."

For one more stricken moment, Shax stood frozen. Then he surged through the lot of them, tucking Leopold under his arm like a football as he raced past, and sprinted for the nearest cross-corridor and one of the emergency alcoves. Ness arrived directly after, then Julian rounded the corner and nearly skidded into him. They glanced at Shax in the alcove, side-eyed each other, looked back at Shax…

Panicked, Shax pulled out the royal voice. "Get in here, the pair of you! This is no time for silliness!"

It was good to see that the voice still worked in emergencies. Both security officer and government assassin scrambled into the alcove. There was a bit of jockeying for position as Shax secured the webbing over all four of them, and he eventually ended up holding Leopold to his chest while sandwiched between Ness and Julian, who were both holding him.

Socially awkward perhaps, but forcing certain people into close proximity could only be a good thing. Though he hadn't planned it, no one could have accused him of a lack of ulterior motives. Even if someone was growling. Shax couldn't quite tell who, since the claxons had kicked on, and any thought became something of a moot point after that as acceleration kicked in. Squashed yes, but the position between Ness and Julian was giving Shax all sorts of ideas that could only lead to trouble, so he carefully thought about the day long ago that he'd spent mucking out his mother's Nightmare stables. This became more difficult when Julian's knee became wedged between his thighs, and Ness's unmissable erection ended up poking him in the hip. Rather delicious torture that Shax had to keep to himself since no one had agreed to it.

When the ship's gravity had sorted itself out again, with the wooden-legged cricket sound of the Copernicus drive chirp-thumping in the background, Shax tried to move an arm.

"Papa, I am squished." Leopold's voice came muffled from Shax's collarbone. "Could we leave the alcove now? I'm a pink pancake."

"I'm trying, my dear, but this alcove was really designed for one person. Could one of you gentlemen manage to reach the release, please?"

After a bit of grunting, cussing and additional squishing—and someone's hand on Shax's ass, but he wasn't going to complain about that—the webbing released to wind back into its slot in the wall. Leaving the alcove was as much of a fall as a scramble.

Shax placed his son on the floor, ran a hand through hair that desperately needed a brush, and hit the comm. "Ver? Heading?"

"For Ms. Ivana's not populated planet. And you're fucking welcome."

"Amazing flying, Ver. You've saved our proverbial asses once again."

"Pretty sure I saved our actual asses."

Ignoring Verin's comment, Ness's eye roll, and Julian's snicker, for which he felt he deserved a blue ribbon in Competitive Ignoring, Shax strode back toward the airlock with the comm still open. "Corny, Heck, Mac, I need you in the cargo bay in five. Gentlemen, we have a visitor whom I very much hope is still alive."

With Ness gently removing their visitor from the airlock and carrying them just as carefully, they all arrived in the hold at more or less the same time, with Fluffy following Corny down from the pilot's pod. They didn't dare touch the seals on the visitor's suit, especially since it still glowed, which possibly indicated life.

After a cursory examination of the suit, Mac sat back on his heels with a dark frown. "Suit's leaking. It's a small one along one of the, ah, tentacle seams, but I don't think I can seal it."

"Some kind of cement? Glue?" Shax suggested, though he knew better than to offer such stupidly simple solutions.

Mac shook his head. "The suit's full of fluid. No way to know if any seal I'd use might contaminate it without a barrier."

"Fluid? What sort of fluid?" Shax could feel his brain gnawing on something. He just couldn't see it yet.

"Looks to be mainly saline." Mac stared at some meter or other he'd produced from one of his many pockets. "Ms. Ivana? A little help with composition here?"

Ivana, with a direct link-up to all Mac's meters and gauges, crooned, "Oh, it has some fabulous calcium and magnesium accessories. Just a splash of arsenic."

"Are we in a position to replicate it, Ms. Ivana?" I'm not going to let this happen. No. This lovely, graceful creature can't die, leaking out all over my deck.

"Easy as apple crumb pie, Cappy-poo."

Shax tapped his fingers on the seam of his pants, staring at the ceiling as he searched for a thought. "All right. Good."

"Cap?" Corny pushed his hat back on his head so he could look up from where he crouched by the slow leak. "We still got any of the fishbowls from the frogs?"

Fishbowls…ah, the tanks. "Heck, did we get rid of the old plexi tanks that used to be in storage?"

"There…" Heckle was twisting his tail hard. Not a good sign. "A lot of them were broken, Captain. I…um… took apart the ones that weren't and…and crated the panes."

Mac tilted his head toward Heckle. "You still have the connectors, little bit?"

"Um…yes? In the crates?"

One huge hand on Heckle's shoulder had him turned and propelled in the direction of storage, imp legs running to keep up with Mac's purposeful strides. A bit apart from the crew, but Shax couldn't help noticing a good line of sight on their visitor, Julian cocked his head in that curious raptor way he had.

"Frogs… Frogs…" Realization dawned on Julian's face with a little smile. "Oh, yes. Those frogs."

"Yes, those frogs." Ness nodded, his expression altogether too blank.

Shax's nerves twitched at every repetition. "Could we please stop saying the F word? If you don't mind terribly, thanks much."

Any other time, he would've been happy to examine the phenomenon of Julian and Ness working together to tweak his nerves. On any other subject. Again, a highly developed talent for ignoring snickers was vital to being a ship's captain. It helped, of course, that Mac and Heckle returned quickly, and all hands were needed to assemble the tank quickly and pipe in the modified water to Ms. Ivana's specifications. Shax frowned at the finished piece. Not as big as he'd hoped, though their visitor wasn't any bigger than Heckle. He just hoped the octopus spacer, if they regained consciousness, wouldn't see it as a prison cell.

Gently, Ness lifted the visitor and eased them into the tank where the still-suited octopus spacer immediately looked less…dead as they floated in the green-tinted water.

"Well done, gentlemen. All we can do for now, I'm afraid." Shax turned until he spotted Fluffy curled up asleep on a packing crate. "And now, let's figure out how those pit-reeking bastards found us."

Chapter Four

Julian cleared his throat, hoping he wasn't about to be skewered for withholding information. But to his everlasting shame, he hadn't thought of it until the second attack. "I…have some thoughts about that."

"And no one's at all surprised," Ness muttered just loud enough for Julian to hear.

Shax gave his lover a hard side-eye. "Lovely. Please share."

"I'd rather not just yet." In case I'm wrong. It'll only worry you. "But I need a sample of your kitty cat's blood and an atomic-level magnifier."

"That…wasn't what I was expecting." Shax stared at him, waiting for Julian to break, to explain, then he shrugged. "I'll get the blood, Mac, if you provide the instrumentation."

Blood from a hellcat sounded like one of those items a mythological hero was tasked to retrieve by someone who never wanted him to come back. But Shax managed it by snuggling up to his sleeping cat, doing a lightning-fast retrieval from the large muscle in Fluffy's back leg, and getting away with only a minor scratch on his arm when she roared and swiped out blindly.

"Sorry, sweetie." Shax leaned down and kissed the top of her head. "Just that once."

"You really can steal anything." Julian took the little vial with a grin.

In years past, he would've followed up with a kiss, but Ness watched his every move again like a starving eagle. Having a head still attached where it should be was something Julian wanted to hold onto a while longer. He didn't mind Ness watching him, not exactly. Ness had the face of, well, an angel, and the body and beautiful wings to go with it. But there was that odd shift tugging at Julian again that something had changed recently. The long stares full of suspicion and barely checked anger had turned into something else, and Julian was uncomfortable not knowing what that was.

And now you're getting distracted. He shook himself back into full situational awareness as he trailed Mac to his workspace.

"Magnifier's in the corner." Mac waved a hand at the far side of the room. "I have a bad feeling I know what you're looking for, Julian. I hope I'm wrong."

"I try not to hope too much. Saves unpleasant surprises." Julian slid onto the stool by the counter and loaded the vial into the magnifier.

It was blood of the usual sort found in oxygen-breathing Earth mammals. Was it odd that hell mammals were that similar to their terrestrial counterparts? Probably not. All the same planet, after all. Corpuscles, lymphocytes, all the…aha. What's this? Trying to be terribly coy and hiding amid the platelets, Julian spotted them as he increased the magnification. Tiny constructs that looked like scout landers for inhospitable planets.

"As Ness likes to say, no one is surprised," Julian muttered with his eyes glued to the viewer.

"What are we not surprised about?"

He turned to find Shax leaning in the doorway. "Your new kitty has nanite trackers." Julian held up a finger when Shax opened his mouth. "Which Ms. Ivana didn't find because you didn't ask her to look for them."

"Not something one thinks of in everyday situations," Shax said with his darkest frown.

"My dear, handsome prince, there are no everyday situations around you. Your next question—I see it brewing—is how do we get rid of them?" Julian heaved a sigh. "We don't. Her immune system's already destroying them, but it's going to take a few days. Unless you get rid of the cat, we're trackable."

In some things, demon princes were entirely predictable. "She's mine!" Shax snarled, his horns picking up an ominous glow.

"Notice that I didn't say, 'Get rid of her.' I'm just telling you how the Duomo goons have been finding us."

"Quite. Yes." Shax turned to his engineer. "We truly don't have a way to get rid of the little beasties?"

Mac shrugged, the heaving of a small mountain range. "Don't think anything I could do would be any faster, Cap."

"Ah. Well." Shax brightened. "We'll simply have to keep ahead of them, then, won't we?"

"Of course." Julian returned the smile, since he knew Shax was doing his best to hide his anxiety. "When we get planetside, I might have some ideas about that, too."

"Would have been shocked if you didn't." Shax gave his shoulder a pat. A kiss would've been better, of course, but at least the "unspoken several feet of space between them" rule seemed to be relaxing. "We'll all spill our ideas on the table later."

That was that. Any other captain would've had some sharp questions, and there probably would've been some bellowing and possibly shrieking in a similar situation. Shax, though? Shax still considered himself the most dangerous thing in the room in most circumstances. The gears spun without rest. Unless frogs were involved.

With the captain's departure, a definite sense that Mac wanted his space back permeated the room. Julian gave the giant engineer a mock salute and wandered off, meandering the ship's corridors, thinking. Not planning. That was done—the easy part.

Mostly, he had been enjoying this assignment. He had backup, people he could trust. That in itself was a rarity. He had a place to sleep where he wasn't on constant alert for ambush. He had regular meals. The extended exposure to the same set of people got to him, though. Shax was as familiar as Julian's own hand, and if he was honest, he still loved his prince. Verin was still the same old grump—predictable, reliable. But there were so many new crew members, so many prickles and social pitfalls that being dangerously charming just wasn't enough after months in close quarters.

Corny had been kind to him, Leopold seemed to tolerate him well enough, Heckle was always sweet, but Julian didn't think any of the others particularly liked him. And when did Agent Parallax start worrying about people liking him? Oh, yes. When he'd started worrying about the good opinion of fallen angels. One fallen angel. One prickly, possessive, fiercely loyal, dream-hauntingly beautiful… Not again. Stop. You're far past old enough to know you can't always have what you want.

His feet had taken him back to the cargo hold where he leaned his elbows on the railing at the top of the stairs, unwilling to disturb what was happening below. The rescued spacer floated free in the cobbled-together tank, conscious now and well enough to have pulled their vacuum suit off. Free of coverings, the overall effect was astonishingly like an old Earth octopus. From what Julian recalled of pictures, perhaps the head was a bit more spheroid, but the overall shape screamed cephalopod.

Corny had Rosa out of her stall to brush her, maybe to keep from staring at their guest, while Leopold had no such inhibitions and sat directly in front of the tank, watching without blinking. What their guest thought about all this was difficult to say, though Julian had to admit that the octopus person had every reason to be frightened witless. Maybe the rhythmic tucking and untucking of the arms was a sign of agitation or discomfort, but then an arm would sneak out, tentatively exploring the material of the tank or testing the air above the water.

After a few more of those testings, Leopold pulled a draw screen out of his backpack and, stylus firmly clutched in his pink paw, began to sketch. Julian wasn't at the best angle to see the drawing, but he didn't want to interrupt the tableau by clanking down the stairs. After a good deal of intense sketching, Leopold turned the screen to show the octopus, patted the deck plates, and pointed to the sketch.

Sliding sideways and craning, twisting his head a bit, Julian made out a passable sketch of the Brimstone from the port side. The octopus person floated as close to the glass as possible to examine the sketch, then three arms shot out of the tank and over the side, reaching for the screen. The transfer from hedgehog hands to octopus arms was done gingerly, further slowed by Leopold demonstrating the screen's functions, but the octopus person had the basics within seconds and drew at dizzying speed, stylus clutched with the tip of one arm.

When they turned the screen back to Leopold, it showed an excellent rendering of the octopus spacers' home ship. One arm tip pointed to the screen, then to the octopus person, and finally to the outer hull of the Brimstone.

Communication begins.

Julian wandered off again before they could catch him watching. He needed to have a word with Fluffy, whom he believed understood more human language than she let on, and Nicodemus the spacer rat, whom he knew understood, the little stinker.

"I have nothing but the highest respect for you." Shax's words were so taut they quivered. "But, my dear Agent Parallax, you've lost your mind."

"Not at all. It's the only reasonable option." Julian kept his smile in place. He didn't need permission to do what had to be done, but his life might contain a bit too much of the spice of danger if he took Shax's kitty without his agreement. "We'll have a few hours at the most before that cutter catches up, if previous experience tells us anything. You need time for repairs, and Fluffy's a giant glowing beacon. Let's use that to our advantage."

"You're making yourself bait."

Julian shrugged as he fastened up his synth-leather jacket with its armored lining and myriad pockets. "Not the first time. We lead them away. We keep them confused. And I cause as much trouble for them as I can. This is part of my job, Captain. Let me do my job." Let me keep you safe. Let me keep your love safe. Your friends. Your ship. Let the outsider take the risks.

"And Nic?"

"Will help me cause trouble."

Shax's eyebrows drew down. "You've cleared this with Ness, of course."

"I really don't think—"

"About Nic."

For a moment, Julian found himself in the uncomfortable position of having bad intelligence. "Leopold agreed. He said it was… Nic doesn't belong to Leopold, does he?"

"Belong? Nic belongs to himself." Shax sighed as the rodent in question ran up to them with his camera gear strapped on. "Ness is his surrogate parent, more accurately."

Their exit from Copernicus space had been uneventful, as had their landing in a clearing of sorts on this extraordinarily green planet. The vegetation had bent with their landing and had subsequently straightened after their passage to close them in a verdant, invisible-from-above canopy.

Now it was time to move, to act, to stop reacting and steal their enemy's impetus.

Julian sank to one knee to synch his wrist comm to Nic's camera. "I'm going, oh lovely prince, with or without the rat. Though he'd be a big help."

"Damn it. You know it's hard to say no to you when you're on your knees," Shax muttered. "All right. Fine. If Nic's willing, go on then. Just…bring everyone back in one piece. You come back in one piece."

"Oui, mon capitaine." Julian leaped to his feet, let out a pss-pss-pss to call Fluffy, and hit the controls to open the cargo hatch. He had to go quickly before Shax's concern made him all sentimental and squishy.

"Wait. You're not taking your hover cycle?"

With a laugh, Julian leaned over to plant a kiss on the end of Shax's nose. With Ness not in sight, he risked it. What a shame if he didn't claim something and then failed to come back. "In a jungle? That's just asking for disaster. No, Fluffy and I are both made for this kind of environment." He opened a pocket not filled with dangerous things and Nic scrambled inside. "Ms. Ivana? How long do you need?"

"For everything to be close to safe and tidy?" The tartness in Ms. Ivana's voice made it clear. She would have preferred perfection. "Two days."

"I'll buy you every moment I can. Don't wait up."

"It's not as if I actually sleep, Julian, dear." Ms. Ivana tsked. "But I promise not to be in my curlers and slippers when you get back."

Shax wrapped his arms around his giant kitty's neck. "Be good for Julian. Keep him safe."

That made the backs of his eyes sting, curse them. Past time to get going. For her part, Fluffy's patience for snuggling was short. She meeped at Shax and shook herself until he let go, then bounded to Julian. With a jaunty salute, he jogged down the hold ramp and into the jungle…forest…whatever the proper word was for an ecosystem of woody stemmed giants and what appeared to be impassable undergrowth that nevertheless let one…pass.

Certainly irony lurking in there somewhere.

The skyscraping trees were of two types: one Julian thought of as a willow on growth hormones with long, sweeping leaves the length of battle cruisers, and the other more of a fern, if ferns had trunks twenty feet in diameter and waving fronds several hundred meters in the air. Underneath the high canopy, understories—several—thrived with more frondy things of various dimensions and profusions of flowering vines. A little tricky to navigate if one tried to move too quickly, but Julian soon had the hang of how to slide around and through the planet's vegetative denizens.

But Fluffy? She slid through the forest like a native, silent despite her impressive mass. Not that Julian was afraid he would lose her, since he had one of his tracking channels tuned to her nanite passengers, but something in the arsenic-heavy leaves blocked infrared scans. He lost visual contact almost immediately.

"Don't get too far ahead there, Miss."

A soft mraa answered Julian, up ahead and to the right, and after that Fluffy offered little chuffs and growls to confirm her position as they sped along. Julian's goal was to put twenty kilometers between them and the Brimstone before the enemy broke atmosphere.

They'd managed a little better than that when the thunder of a ship on hard decel finally broke the forest's peace. Julian veered north, toward a promising valley that would be ideal for landing for them, and for a bit of harrying for him. Casting about for the best place to go to ground, he realized he'd lost the cat again. Oh, she was in the immediate vicinity, but he couldn't pinpoint exactly where.

"Miss Fluffy? You can't go after the ship on your own. Your demon prince would never forgive me."

An extended prrrrrrrrrruh came from directly overhead, and Julian tipped his head back to find two glowing red eyes staring down at him.

"And what are you doing up there?"

Meep.

"You know that's a terribly undignified sound for such a fearsome cat, don't you?"

Meep.

"All right, I'm coming."

The giant willow Fluffy had climbed into proved easy to summit, though Julian was grateful for armored gloves as he grabbed for handholds on the shockingly spiky bark. Fluffy had found a spot near the crown where branches had twisted together into a kind of platform, the perfect spot from which to peer out through the leaves into the valley below.

"Clever, clever kitty." Julian activated the scope on his helmet to better observe the landing craft. "I see why demons take you hunting."

Tail twitching in lazy swipes, Fluffy purred her approval.

The cutter settled, oh so predictably, in the convenient valley with its convenient water source. Julian drew his rifle from the holster on his back, popped up the scope, and watched the show as cooling metal pinged and settled. Inside, he imagined the crew were scrambling to pinpoint the Brimstone and failing miserably. Right on schedule, a hatch opened, and black-armored figures swarmed out, firearms waving this way and that as they secured the perimeter. After a fashion, at least.

"Overconfidence, the friend of every sniper," Julian murmured as he tracked one goon headed for the trees.

Mrrrep?

"Not yet, pretty. We don't want to give away our position quite so soon. Patience…patience…"

Though he understood her impatience. He tracked the goons individually as they took positions around the cutter. So easy, it would be so easy to pick them off, but this wasn't about surgical assassination. It was about buying time, seeding confusion.

He waited until the scouting goon, wandering the forest alone for whatever moronic reason, picked up Fluffy's nanite signal and turned toward them. He moved toward their tree, raised his faceplate to recheck his readings, and Julian shot him. Neat and quick. The body hardly made a sound as it collapsed into the foliage.

Once upon a time, there had been a terrible joy in success, and ISE found that perfectly normal in their assassins. Sociopathic killers, but properly channeled ones. Useful sociopaths, at least according to the ISE psychiatrists. Now, so many years later, Julian still did what had to be done. What he was good at, so stunningly, frighteningly good.

There was satisfaction in a job completed, but the arc lightning of joy was gone.

Beside him, Fluffy kneaded the branches with a little growl.

"You can have the next one." Julian patted her shoulder. "Promise."

That seemed to settle her, and she tracked the remaining goons with avid interest, tail waving. Cats were, by human standards, sociopaths too, and hellcats would have to be the pinnacle of sociopathicness. Sociopathicity? Whatever the word, her presence was oddly calming. Julian generally hated assignments in tandem with anyone else, but she exuded competence. For once, he was enjoying not working alone.

When a second goon left the landing field, probably because the first hadn't reported in, Fluffy descended the trunk headfirst. Effortlessly. Soundlessly. Oh, to be a cat. This goon proceeded with more care, weapon sweeping back and forth in one hand, scanner checking for life signs in the other. Moving from cover to cover. Julian almost admired the professionalism. It kept the goon safe—until it didn't.

Fluffy didn't even break cover. One moment the goon was standing, the next, he wasn't. She pulled him down and dispatched him so swiftly that he didn't even have time for a scream. Just one muffled sound of shock, and there was one fewer Duomo employee in the universe.

Efficient.

For a moment or two, Julian considered simply sending her off to take out the rest of the guards, but that would raise the alarm too quickly. The goal was to buy time here, and if a plea for assistance went out, Duomo drop vessels might overrun the little planet. They'd find the Brimstone simply by being too numerous. Federico wasn't one of the galaxy's largest players, but he was a formidable one—a born spacer with no ties to any gravity well, his own moveable empire his greatest asset.

No, best for the two of them simply to keep moving. Julian climbed down with considerably more effort than Fluffy had demonstrated and joined her by her kill.

"Fluffy, sweetie, don't eat the poor thing."

Using one paw, Fluffy daintily cleaned the blood off her face and whiskers. Mrrrrr.

"Of course it's your kill, but I'm not sure Prince Shax would approve of you eating humans. From a hygienic stance, especially. You've no idea where that's been."

She huffed and left her kill, pacing Julian as he took them southwest. Keep moving. Keep them confused. Keep ahead of them and everything would be fine. They were looking for a ship with a cat in it, and they obviously had no clue about how to look for a de-shipped cat.

Chapter Five

"You let him do what?" Ness fought against the storm rising around his heart. His wings had already snapped out to their full extension, quivering, and he couldn't relax enough to pull them back in.

Shax had his arms crossed, chin coming up in defiance. "He asked to borrow Nic, and Nic agreed. I don't think it's at all outrageous."

"They're out there being tracked! Without backup!"

Ness had gone to the weapons locker to start handing out everyone's preferred firearms. They were in a precarious situation, stuck on the ground while repairs went forward, and he wanted every crew member armed. When he'd opened the locker, he'd found Julian's rifle and hand weapons missing.

"I consider Fluffy rather more than adequate backup." Shax had the nerve to grin.

"DO NOT TAKE THAT FACETIOUS TONE WITH ME, YOUR HIGHNESS!"

Shax stumbled back, all the color drained from his face, and Ness turned away quickly. He knew his eyes must have been glowing, and he hadn't meant to use the Voice. The sincere, unfeigned terror in Shax's face nearly had Ness in tears.

"I'm sorry. I didn't… I'm sorry I got so angry. But sometimes the things you do frustrate me terribly. Just so irresponsible."

"It was the best plan," Shax replied softly, his voice edging nearer. "And Julian is more than capable of looking after them."

He thinks I'm angry because he let Julian take Nic and Fluffy. Oh, Shax. "But you didn't ask me. You didn't even let me know. The Brimstone has two actual trained fighters aboard, only two, and I'm one of them."

"Ness…sweetheart…"

"Either you begin to trust what I've become, or you stop this fiction of giving me a job on the ship's manifest that you think I can't do. And Julian. Julian's not twenty any longer or whatever age he was when you met. If something goes wrong out there, on an undocumented world I might add, do you think a cat or a small rodent will fetch him help in time?" Ness didn't wait for an answer. His back still turned, he shrugged into his coat, carefully working his feathers through the wing holes, strapped on his pulse rifle, and strode for the cargo ramp. "I'll be back when I can bring them all back with me."

"Ness!"

Now he turned as the cargo ramp lowered. "I'll be back, love. Don't worry. I'm still angry, but that doesn't change anything." At the bottom of the ramp, he relented, strode back up, and planted a fierce kiss on Shax's mouth. "I love you. Even when I'm shouting."

With little wisps of steam curling around his horns, Shax only nodded mutely. When Ness reached the bottom of the ramp a second time, he managed half a smile as Shax croaked out, "I love you, too. Especially when you get bossy."

The bit of heat Ness took with him into the forest was definitely not anger anymore. As soon as he was out of sight, he adjusted his achingly bent erection. Then he turned for one last look, gratified that the Brimstone vanished entirely when the cargo ramp closed again. Visually, she was erased with her shields up, and this strange arsenic jungle damped down her residual heat signature.

Ness gave a sharp nod. Good. Unless someone got close enough to hear the repair work—and with Fluffy's tracking nanites miles away, this was unlikely—Brimstone was relatively safe. With advantages most of his crew mates didn't have, Ness took to the air, keeping carefully beneath the canopy to keep out of sight, flying a twisting path through the strange trees. The echoes of Earth trees were so strong that the differences were doubly jarring. A landscape too close to familiar made it that much more alien.

His wrist comm pointed him toward Fluffy, still heading away from their landing site, though she seemed to be circling around a particular point. Not sure yet what that meant, Ness went carefully. Ms. Ivana had confirmed the enemy's landing but wasn't clear on exact coordinates, so the most obvious possibility was that they were skirting around the Duomo cutter.

A bit of guilt niggled at him over misleading Shax. Not that it was a dangerous or hurtful sort of misleading, but Shax had believed him angry about a matter of injured pride. Ness just couldn't bring himself to say, No, I'm terribly worried about Julian. Some of that was his own guilt aggravating him, causing him to lash out. His—he had to say it in his head or brand himself a liar—attraction to Julian was something he couldn't consider. Unfaithful, disloyal, when his heart belonged wholly to Shax. Partly, though, it was Shax's own cavalier attitude toward Julian that rankled, especially since he still so often treated Ness like spun glass.

Ness knew the why of that, of course. When Shax had found him, he had been frightened and hurt, sheltered and naïve. While Julian? It had been a younger Agent Parallax who had first met Shax, certainly, but Julian had already been a whole person then. The years had given him more experience, made him even more deadly, but not changed him in any essential way aside from the possibility of slowing reflexes. In Shax's eyes, Julian was supremely competent, while Ness still struggled with some of the galaxy's most fundamental realities.

But… Julian was still human, with all the fragility of any mortal, and not even the infamous Agent Parallax's safety should be treated so lightly. The dark demon-of-sexual-jealousy part of Ness whispered still that he shouldn't care, that if something happened to Julian, it would be good riddance to a rival. The rest of Ness knew by now that demons couldn't deny their infernal natures but weren't required to be driven by them, either.

At some point, the guilt over murdering Julian in his mind, several times in horribly bloody fashion, had settled into the surety that he never would, even when Julian's presence irritated him in irrational ways.

And he's crew right now, and it's my job to keep the crew safe.

The first mile or so was quiet, nearly silent, and Ness began to wonder if the planet had any life besides giant trees. Eventually, he started to spot the wildlife, though.

Small creatures to tiny ones, nothing larger than his fist, and everything he spotted seemed to work on a theory of propeller locomotion. The largest ones that he came to think of as birds had single rotating…wings, Ness supposed. A set of four whirred above the animal's…head?… allowing it to move in any direction and hover in one spot. A smaller set Ness thought of as reptiles, since they were longer and more sinuous, with smooth, shining skin and propellers both back and front. The smallest ones he designated insects, the ones in a riot of bright colors and patterns who had two to possibly four close-set propellers that enabled them to zip about at blinding speeds.

A scent of blood reached him from below, and Ness landed in one of the huge trees near the cutter, just for a quick check on the situation. Guards had taken up stations around the ship, but otherwise all was quiet for now. The blood smell came from the forest floor—lots of blood. With anxious thoughts spinning in his head, Ness dropped down, but the dismembered arm he found first wasn't Julian's. Too big. Wrong sort of body armor.

The rest of the body… Ness turned away quickly. The claw marks were a sure sign that one was Fluffy's kill. The second body nearby was intact, the shot surgically precise. That was Julian's. All a little gruesome, but at least the blood didn't belong to anyone he knew.

Keeping out of sight and out of range of the cutter's crew, Ness returned to the air to follow Fluffy's signal. Around…about…southwest of the cutter…back within range of it… Near the top of a tree just ahead, Ness spotted the end of a black-tipped tail as it flicked down and back again. He whistled a soft birdsong as he approached in case Julian hadn't seen him yet. Wouldn't do to be shot down by a startled assassin.

Ness took a moment to navigate the snarl of branches and found Julian and Fluffy stretched out side by side on a platform of boughs, looking like two kids conspiring to do mischief. Julian had his rifle pointed toward the cutter's landing site, and Fluffy was snuggled right up against him, as if she were sharing the rifle's scope.

"Hello there, Mr. Angelus. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

All of Ness's eloquence deserted him in the face of that dazzling smile. "Backup. Yours."

That got a blink, and Julian's charm faltered into puzzlement. "That's kind of you? Ah…have a seat?"

"Hmm." Ness folded his wings tight and found a good spot in the branch tangle to settle cross-legged. "I just… I didn't like the idea of anyone being out here as bait. Alone. And no, Fluffy doesn't count. You've no idea if she would get help if you needed it."

"I do have a comm channel for the Brimstone. And I need to point out that Miss Fluffy, who's been doing a superb job, is really the bait here."

"Yes. I saw part of the job she's doing." Ness shuddered. "Hunting humans isn't something you should encourage."

Julian turned back to his surveillance. "Nothing to do with me. She came that way. That's what hellcat prides are for, I hear."

"That's horrible." Ness snapped his mouth shut, afraid he'd sounded stupid and naïve again. It was horrible, but it sounded like something he should have known.

"Ness." Julian's voice sounded suddenly weary and colorless. "This might not be the best thing for you. I will do what I have to. I always do. No more. No less. But there will be more death. I can guarantee it."

"I have killed, you know." Ness spoke gently now, because something in Julian's voice had been so nearly broken. "With the hosts. I can if I have to."

Julian heaved a barely audible sigh. "That's just it. Someone like you should never have to. That's why the universe has people like me."

Hints and clues started to add up for Ness. While he kept an eye on the cutter, he began to do the sums—the subtle lines around Julian's eyes that said he wasn't twenty-five any longer, the sudden bouts of melancholy Julian tried so hard to hide, the unguarded moments when he simply looked bone tired.

"How long until you would be allowed to retire?"

"Retire?" An entire planet's worth of scorn colored the word before Julian laughed. "Oh, my dear Mr. Angelus. Field agents don't retire."

Ness floundered, completely shocked. "But…they can't mean for you do to this… That is, the human body…"

"Isn't designed to last forever, yes." Julian's chuckle was softer this time but no less bitter. "Do you know I'm the oldest field agent on record? Most die before they're thirty when their luck runs out. Often small mistakes, but still quite dead. Those who survive eventually drift into desk jobs or instructor assignments."

"But not you."

An insistent squeak from one of Julian's pockets signaled Nic's patience with his confinement running out. Julian's answer had to wait while he lifted the white rat out and set him on Fluffy's back, which Nic chose to scamper up to perch on her head. Fluffy twitched a tufted ear but otherwise didn't react.

"I haven't felt the call to come in out of the dark," Julian answered the non-question. "A desk job would kill me more surely than anything out in the field, and death by boredom doesn't have any appeal."

"You'd be a good instructor," Ness suggested. "You were so patient with Heckle."

"It would take effort not to be patient with Heckle. Not an arrogant molecule in him. I've done some teaching in those cases where the Agency needed someone unconventional. Nic, hold your head up a touch more. I need to check your camera."

Waiting quietly didn't get Ness any further, so he finally prompted, "And?"

"That's perfect. Excellent definition out here." Which was obviously meant for Nic. "And what? Oh. Instructing." Julian shrugged the shoulder that wouldn't disturb his rifle. "Students learn and move on. I get restless."

So, you have a death wish, a long, drawn-out one. And what could one say to that? Please change how you think about life? A bit of shame niggled at Ness. He'd resented Julian for being so self-assured and self-contained, so independent and flawlessly graceful, but a tangled ball of pain sat at his core. If Ness had stopped being angry with him for more than a few moments, he might have seen it before.

"Finally. They're moving." Julian scrambled back from the leaves and returned his rifle to its holster on his back. "Took them a bit to gather the courage for another try at tracking. That's your doing, Fluff. Back inside, Mr. Nic. Time to move."

Ness moved aside to let them climb down, Fluffy with all the care of a charging ram, and Julian, Nic safely pocketed, with more cautious grace. He stopped halfway down and glanced up.

"Ness?"

"I'll follow through the trees. My wings are less of a liability up here."

"Good." That bright grin flashed. "Air support."

A laugh surprised Ness, but he quickly stifled it. If Duomo's people were moving out from the cutter, they would need silence now. Julian and Fluffy nearly vanished in the underbrush while Ness took wing and tracked them by the subtle disturbances of leaves, like the tracks of water striders on a glassy pond.

"What are we doing, my dear?" Shax had watched the back-and-forth tablet game between his son and his alien visitor for some time, with no enlightenment occurring. Not one jot.

"Talking in drawings." Leopold waved his tablet, which currently had… Shax had no idea what the picture was. "Three Arms Circling is hungry. We're discussing food."

"Three Arms Circling?"

"Possibly Waving. Direct translation is hard. But that is their name."

"Ah. I see. Are they well? I'm not sure the autodoc can do much for them if they aren't, but if there's anything we can do?"

"They state they're unharmed. They only wish to go home. And they are hungry."

Shax turned to find Three Arms Circling staring at him. It was more than a little disconcerting. "How would we know what's safe for them to eat?"

"The suit, as far as we can figure out, has analysis capabilities," Mac said from where he was hooking up a bent metal arm to the side of the tank, for hell only knew what purpose. "Probably have to trust our guest to know what's safe and what isn't."

The thump of muffled hooves on the steps turned Shax's attention to Heckle trotting toward them with a covered tray.

"I see the offerings have arrived."

"Um, these are for Three Arms Circling, Captain." Heckle looked left and right apprehensively, whispering, "Did we summon someone? Do we need offerings?"

"A figure of speech, Heck. No actual summoning circles were drawn today." Shax pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger.

"That's good." Heckle trotted past with a cheerful whistle. "Demon lords get so cranky in summoning circles. And then they don't like any of the offerings, and the whole place fills up with smoke, and—"

"Heck," Mac interrupted gently. "Tray, please."

Shax gave his haughtiest sniff. "I was never cranky when summoned."

"People called for you a lot, then, Cap?" Corny asked from where he leaned against the nearby packing crates.

"All the time." Shax cleared his throat when Heckle gave him a sideways glance. "Often, that is. Once or twice."

The sounds of the crew trying their best not to laugh at him were very loud indeed. Mac recovered first and placed the tray of offerings—of food choices, damn it—carefully in the frame he'd constructed above the tank. Three Arms Circling poked their head up above the water as far as their eyes. The careful, thorough perusal of the food made Shax wonder if they were a scientist or an engineer or if the octopus spacers even had careers or job specialization. Maybe they were all scientists.

Shax had plenty of other things he could have been doing. Worrying. Fretting. Being annoyed at certain people who rushed off impetuously into alien forests. At both of them. All three…four of them. He wanted the annoyance to outweigh the worry, which it didn't even have the grace to do. The anxiety over what could happen out there sat like a lump of cold, undercooked oatmeal in his stomach. Oh, he had a good idea about why his intrepid loves had sallied forth, and the reasons had mostly been unstated. Julian with his fatalistic I will probably die today, but I'll save those worth saving attitude and Ness rushing off not for reasons of responsibility alone but in a manner that suggested going after someone he had feelings for. Shax risked falling into an endless loop of anxious speculation, so setting aside all of that for their guest was a good distraction.

Finally, Three Arms Circling selected a piece of carrot. Maybe the color was attractive. Who could tell? They held it carefully with one arm, examined it visually, then ducked back underwater to consult with their suit's instruments. Lights flashed. They tried a different part of the suit. After more flashing lights, Three Arms Circling resurfaced and carefully replaced the carrot slice on the tray.

They repeated the process with a small cube of beef, an orange section, and a piece of boiled potato, each item carefully returned to the tray. When they reached for the sardine, Shax had a moment of hope. Three Arms Circling consulted the suit for longer with the sardine than any other food item. After an additional examination involving four of their arms, they brought the sardine underneath their body, where presumably a mouth equivalent was located. It might have been an exaggeration to say everyone held their collective breath, but there was a definite leaning toward the tank as they waited.

Quick as a whip, one arm shot up out of the water and hurled the sardine out of the tank. Sardine, now slightly chewed, smacked Shax between the eyes before it slid down to flop onto the deck plates with a wet splat.

All eyes on him, some apprehensive, Shax glanced down at the violently rejected sardine and turned to Leopold. "We'll put that down as a no, shall we?"

Leopold nodded as he made a note on the list Shax hadn't realized he had, and there was more than one sigh of relief from the watchers. When all the food items had been examined and tested with no repetition of the Great Sardine Toss, Three Arms circling had eaten a cube of tofu, some dried nori, and a piece of one of Ms. Ivana's cinnamon buns.

"Ms. Ivana?"

"Yes, Cappy-poo?"

"We may need more research, but I think your cinnamon buns are quite possibly a universal food."

Chapter Six

They'd made it through the night without much effort. Having Ness as his wingman—ha!—allowed Julian to snatch ten-minute catnaps, which he could run on for days. Ness dozed when they switched watches but confessed that he could go without sleep for weeks if he had to.

"Not with the best brain function after a while, but I can do it," Ness said as he snuggled down next to Fluffy, who had napping down to an exacting science.

Whenever the cutter's crew pinpointed them and sallied forth to hunt them, they moved. Never too far, always in a wide, ragged circle around the landing site. Julian credited their continued success to the fact that the goons didn't seem to understand that they were hunting a cat and not a ship and that they'd been made timid by imagining the fates of those who didn't return. That single kill of Fluffy's had done it. They were convinced that the planet hosted large and vicious predators.

Of course, the planet did. The vicious predators simply weren't native.

There had been ill-advised hunts by hover cycle as well. Hard to spot anything at all from above the trees and impossible to navigate successfully below the canopy. One of the goons had even managed to take himself out with no interference from Julian whatsoever.

"Julian?"

Ah, the angel wakes. "Hmm?"

"Why are we playing cat and mouse with them still?"

Julian turned for a brief glance back at his companions, trying to stop his puzzled frown. "As a distraction."

"Oh, yes. I understood that part." Ness twitched his wings, fanning and resettling them. They truly were glorious. "But you're an expert saboteur. I don't like saying it, but why not, um…"

"See to the ship itself?" Julian turned back to watching the landing site, not wanting to focus on Ness's lovely face as he talked about wholesale slaughter. "For now, while the Brimstone's grounded, we need them still operational. As soon as we have word that we're ready to go, I'll consider the more complete option, but while they're still reporting in, there's less chance of additional Duomo ships coming to check on them."

"I see." A bit of chill had crept back into Ness's voice, but for once Julian didn't think it had to do with him. "I hadn't considered that."

Several meanings came to mind, but Julian took a stab in the dark. "I hope you're not blaming yourself for not thinking of all contingencies. You've been out on your own in a treacherous universe for… What? Two, three years at the most?"

"That's not relev—"

"But it is, oh lovely fallen. It is." Julian continued without looking around. "Constant vigilance and adaptive learning are key to surviving the human universe. Humans have an entire childhood to start figuring it out—and some have to learn faster than others. Even Shax was a bumbling idiot on his first adolescent adventures with humans."

"Surely not."

Julian chuckled. "He hasn't told you those stories because he doesn't want to look like a fool in front of you. Ask Ver sometime. He's always more than happy to share."

"No doubt." The tone was dry, maybe a little amused, but the brittle cold had thawed.

I see you, Sagnessagiel. I see how deeply you consider everything, how you wrestle with yourself, how fast you learn, how fiercely protective you are. Maybe someday you'll see me, too. None of that made it out of Julian's head, of course. They were working well together. Best to leave well enough alone.

A flash of blue drew Julian's attention, though it turned out to be another group of helicopter wildlife. Pretty. So much of the planet's small fauna tended toward green and brown. This flock had bright-blue bodies with delicate yellow curlicue markings, the spinning rotor-wing blurs of summer sky. They weren't anything like the vids he'd seen of Earth butterflies, and yet the way they dipped and rose in the air made his brain insist they were.

The buttercopters drew closer, most likely drawn by beings who clearly didn't belong there. Were they curious, thinking creatures? Or just drawn by an unusual scent? One landed on the back of Julian's glove, its delicate body no thicker than his little finger. At rest, the whirring wings were as translucent as tracing paper supported by a fine mesh of darker-blue membranes.

"Well, hello there, pretty." Julian brought his hand around so he could watch both the landing site and the buttercopter, fascinated by the arrangement of wing blades. To his delight, several more landed, his black-clad arm suddenly a carnival of color.

The branches rustled as Ness moved in for a closer look, his breath brushing Julian's ear. "How amazing."

The buttercopters walked carefully on Julian's arm and hand, their tri-hooked feet scratching along the armored synth-leather. The one on his hand finally settled at the base of his thumb, feeling around with a proboscis appendage.

"It's licking me." Julian tipped his head and smiled at the strange little beast. "It's seems to have—ow! Damn it!"

"What is it?" Ness's hands hovered over him.

"Little bastard bit me," Julian grumbled as he detached it from his hand and tossed it away from him. "How in the name of armory gods did it get through my glove? Ow, ow, ow, fuck! They're all biting me!"

Face set with grim determination, Ness plucked one after the other off Julian's arm, hurling them away. Fluffy sat beside him, swatting down the ones who tried to come back. Apparently this was great fun, since she caught a few and ate them for good measure. The swarm eventually gave up to look for less-dangerous meals, but now Julian had other concerns.

"My hands are tingling." He scrambled up onto his knees and tore his helmet off as the blood began to sing in his ears and his chest constricted. Not panic reaction. He knew the difference. With shaking hands, he holstered his rifle and tried to fumble open his jacket. "I don't want to alarm you. But I think I've been poisoned. Venomed. Whichever."

"What?" Ness had a supporting arm around him immediately. "We need to get you back to the ship. Now."

Julian shook his head. "It's moving too fast. Probably wouldn't make it." His vision already darkening around the edges, he leaned against the solid angel chest at his back. "Inside the jacket. Right side. Second vial in."

"All right…okay… I have it." Ness's words barely made it out through clenched teeth, probably holding back his own panic. "What now?"

"Inject, please. Muscle between neck and shoulder."

He barely felt the nip of the autoinjector, though the click and hiss echoed in his head.

"Julian?"

Maybe he patted Ness's arm. Hard to tell when he couldn't feel his hands anymore. "If I don't wake up? Explosives on the left." The chuckle probably worried Ness more, but it was an old instructor joke—don't mix up your antidotes and your incendiaries. Ah, well. He'd had more time than he had any right to, and there were worse places to die than in an angel's arms.

A certain vibrating tension vanished when Julian lost consciousness, as if all of the ISE agent's limitless energy and vigilance had been tangible things. Ness checked to be sure his pulse was steady—not strong but steady—and gathered him in closer, trying not to be disturbed by how small Julian's body was without him actively occupying it.

Beside him, Fluffy's tufted ears jerked forward as her growl vibrated through the branches.

"What? Oh, perfect. Of course."

Now there was movement from the cutter. Seven heavily armed and armored crew emerged as a block, checked readings, and began a ponderous course into the forest as they tried to keep every compass point covered.

"Ms. Fluff, we have to move." I could try to pick them off as Julian would, but my aim isn't nearly as good. I'd just put us in danger. He tapped Fluffy on the shoulder. "I have a very odd request. Though maybe not as odd if you're a cat."

Meep?

Ness pointed to a particularly dense tangle of branches. "Could you do a poo over there? You should be, ah, shedding some of your nanites by now and we'll be able to fuddle their tracking."

Mreh.

As he'd already suspected, Fluffy understood far more language than a cat should have, and she made her way carefully to the indicated spot.

"I'm going down to the ground so you can track me." Ness wasn't about to watch her do her business. "Catch up to us when you can."

Julian's helmet tucked under one arm and the assassin himself held close to his chest, Ness spread his wings and glided to the forest floor, where he took off running. The enemy was moving slowly enough that he had plenty of time to circle around the ship until he was essentially behind them. Confusion to our enemies, as Shax liked to say. Carrying Julian—rifle, helmet, and all—made it clumsy, and the underbrush didn't entirely move aside for him, but Ness kept barreling on, determined to keep them all safe.

At approximately the right point along the circumference of the landing site, Ness took to the air again to gain the shelter of another tree tangle. Fluffy joined them no more than five minutes later, looking altogether too pleased with herself.

With Julian wrapped up in Ness's coat and Fluffy obligingly curled around him, Ness used the scope on his own rifle to spy on their hunters. They milled about the base of the last tree where Fluffy had left her present but didn't seem to connect the dots far enough to figure out that the nanites were above ground level. Their apparent inability to move from searching for a cloaked ship to searching for a rather more moveable cat gave Ness and his companions the advantage still.

Torn between watching the hunting party and keeping an eye on Julian, Ness pulled the assassin into his lap to accomplish both. Julian's color had improved from a distressing gray nearly back to his normal mahogany. That was encouraging.

"Please don't die," Ness murmured, stroking Julian's hair in a distracted fashion. "I know some nightmare part of me wanted you dead, but not anymore. And how in the world would I explain it to Shax? You're one of his oldest friends out here. I know he'd be heartbroken." Ness sighed and risked a glance down at that almost elfin face with its narrow, regal nose. "I'd be sad, too, Julian. I truly would be."

Sprinklings of white salted the hair at Julian's temples, either the result of more years than Julian admitted to or simply because of a human life lived on a razor's edge. Even with Corny as part of the crew, Ness rarely considered normal human mortality. With some intervention, humans lived easily past two hundred, but it was still so brief. So terribly brief.

Julian hadn't stirred.

"We have to get you back. I don't know what's wrong or how to help you." Ness slid his arm under Julian's knees again, preparing to take flight with him.

Quick as a snake strike, Julian's hand shot out and gripped his arm. Shocked, Ness looked down into dark eyes that had opened but wandered badly.

"Not yet." Julian patted at him. "Not yet. I'm…better. Won't be ready. Brimstone. Need us out here."

Ness did his best to look stern. "Like hell we do. You need the sickbay."

"Getting better at the cussing." A hint of a smile tugged at Julian's mouth. "They need a little more time. We have one last trick." A wheezing cough interrupted, followed by another ghost smile. "Or Nic does."

Three Arms Circling had consumed five tofu cubes and half a cinnamon bun, then waved any other food away. Either their guest was on a diet or the octopus spacers ran on super-efficient metabolisms. Shax was betting on the latter, certainly the case with other beings he'd known who spent much of their lives in space.

Now, though, his son and Three Arms had returned to their visual communications, passing what appeared to be a star chart back and forth. Shax sat on a nearby crate, near enough to keep an eye on proceedings but far enough that he wasn't looming. As far as he could tell, Leopold didn't need his interference.

Plenty of things he could have been doing. Helping with repairs, for instance. Though Mac was handling all of that better than Shax ever could, and he had Heckle and Corny helping. Much more practical, of course. Heckle was perfect for helping in small spaces, and tools never flew out of Corny's hands.

But he didn't want to be alone with his worries, either. Ness and Julian still hadn't called in. Yes, yes, he understood about the need for radio silence. All the levels of hell, yes. Something, though. A tapped-out signal. A half-second communication to say, We're fine.

He'd do everything in his power to find them if they didn't return. Tear the planet apart to find his love, his…friend, and the first cat he'd had in decades.

Distracted nearly to the point of anguish, he didn't notice Leopold in front of him until his son cleared his throat. He held out the tablet to Shax in both pink paws.

"They want to go home. This is the asteroid field. The one where we were."

Shax took the proffered tablet. "Yes. All right. Is Three Arms Circling indicating that this is home?"

"It is not quite home. But it's where home could find them. If we go back there."

"I see. Maybe. So if we return to the asteroid field where the cutter attacked, their ship or crew or family, however they think of that lovely wedding-cake colony ship, will find them?"

Leopold nodded, holding out his paws to take the tablet back. "I do not know how. Trying to find that out still. Perhaps they have comm."

"I'd imagine so. The suit seems to have everything else." Shax put a hand on his son's spiny shoulder. "I can't make any promises, and there's probably no way to communicate that. If we have to run, we're concentrating on running."

With a sad peep, Leopold gave another nod before trundling back to the tank where Max was singing to Three Arms Circling. They had surfaced as far as their eyes, watching Max intently where he perched on the edge of the tank. Shax tensed, fully prepared to snatch Max away when an arm came out of the water toward the millipede.

Hell's gates, I hope they don't think Max is food.

But no, the octopod arm reached over with great care to touch Max behind his head and pet gently. Max responded with a happy trill and launched into a Bach cantata.

"No."

Startled, Shax glanced up at Verin. "How long have you been there? I thought you were sleeping."

"Couple seconds. I was. Too much banging and shit with repairs." Verin stood with his arms crossed, glowering at the tank.

"No, what?"

"You can't keep the ET, you little shit. I see that look."

"I was thinking no such thing. Not a snowball's chance." Yes, our visitor is adorable and would make an interesting addition to the… No. Stop that. "Though I was pointing out that getting them back to their own might get sticky if we're running."

"Don't know how we've survived all the shit we've been through, Shaxy, with you turning into such a fucking softie."

The insult was a soft grumble, though, without sparks to back it up. I'm not the only one squishy on the inside.

"Now you're thinking about going after them, you pebble-brained shithead."

Shax managed to keep his double take internal. "Stop reading my mind."

"Centuries, your pain-in-the-ass highness. Centuries. Don't even fucking tell me you don't know what I'm thinking, too."

"You're thinking of telling me off some more." Shax heaved a put-upon sigh. "That's not difficult to guess. And you're thinking that I need to trust the galaxy's best assassin I sent out there with a full-grown hunting cat and the capable battle angel who went after them."

"Well…yeah." Verin side-eyed him. "Not in those words, but yeah."

"And it's insulting and condescending of me to want to go check on them."

"Give the boy a fucking prize."

Shax chewed on his bottom lip, his voice a good deal smaller when he said, "But it's Julian and Ness and my new cat."

"Yeah. Sad. Those Duomo boys and girls don't stand a rat shit's chance." Verin actually had the gall to flash him an evil grin before he wandered away again.

Maddening. Shax hated it when Verin was right.

Three more changes of location—Julian thought it was three. Unable to do much more than drift in and out, he might have lost count.

"Time?" he croaked out when Ness's face swam more or less into focus again.

"Hello." Ness gave him a smile that kept twitching downward. "We're about four hours out from Ms. Ivana's two days now."

"Hmm. Secure for now?"

"We are." Ness shifted, settling Julian's head in the crook of his shoulder, comfortable without the hard lines of the coat. In any other situation, Julian would have encouraged Ness to remove the black wing-tailored shirt, too. Lovely thought. "We've moved position three times, and Fluffy has left a…deposit each time. The nanites she leaves behind are causing a useful bit of confusion."

"Depos—oh, I see. Brilliantly clever."

Ah, there was a real smile. "Thank you. It's so close to time now. I really think we ought to be getting you back."

"Not much longer. Any more of them down?"

A visible shiver ran through Ness. "Fluffy got hold of one more. She's, ah, efficient."

"And quiet." Julian closed his eyes as pain rattled through him. He'd bet on the planet's high arsenic content when he'd selected an antidote. The results were looking partially right, since he was still breathing. He opened a pocket on his jacket. "Nic? Ready for shenanigans?"

The little pink rat's nose emerged first, whiskers twitching as Nic tested his surroundings. The rest of him soon squeezed out, the height of rat couture with his camera pack attached.

"Julian…"

"No danger to Nic. Just need him to leave some tiny presents for me." Julian lifted Nic in one shaking hand so they were eye to eye. "Just like we practiced."

"What did you practice? If you're sending him to the cutter, we're at least two kilometers out now. Not far for us, but that's too far for Nic's little legs."

"He'll have transport." Julian glanced over at Fluffy.

"I think you might be delirious," Ness murmured with obvious concern. "You can't send Fluffy toward their ship."

"Counterintuitive, yes."

"I don't really want to leave you for any length of time, but I could get Nic close."

Julian shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut at the knifing pain, and took a long, slow breath before he could answer. "Put us all to shame being brave and selfless. But your lovely wings are too visible against all the green. Fluffy's the better choice. She knows how to sneak." He coughed, breathed again. "They're hunting at least four of her now for that extra dash of confusion."

"But I'm armed…" Ness trailed off with a huff. "Yes, I know. So is she. Just tell me what needs to be done. I don't think you should be talking this much."

If he'd had the energy to spare, Julian would've laughed at Ness's contradictions, but breathing took concentration. Annoying when autonomic functions weren't so autonomic any longer. Having an angel fumbling around inside one's jacket was nice, but Julian retained some pride. He waited until his hands were steady enough to retrieve the palm-sized net full of tiny discs from an inside pocket.

Nic reached for the parcel, cheeping.

"Not yet, littlest saboteur." Julian pulled a scarf from another pocket, the snowman one from the Brimstone's most recent Yule party. What a wonderful evening that had been. Ness had even danced with him—stiff and perplexed at Julian's invitation, yes, but they'd still danced. "Too far for you to carry this. When you get there, take one at a time." He handed scarf and bag off to Ness. "Around Fluffy's neck, please. And tell Nic again? Not always certain he listens to me."

A frown creased Ness's perfect forehead as he took the net between thumb and forefinger. "I'm afraid to ask. And you practiced with Nic? With these…?"

Not falling for that, beautiful Fallen. "Yes."

"I…see. More or less." Despite the skepticism, Ness secured the net to the scarf and the scarf around Fluffy's neck. It looked good on her. "Nic, you are to leave these alone until you and Fluffy reach the bad ship, understood?"

Rubbing over his whiskers with both front paws, Nic gave a sullen cheep.

"You'll get to play with them when you get there. One at a time. And…and Julian and I will tell you where to place them?" Ness waited for Julian's nod before he went on. "So take one, place, run back to Fluffy. Take the next one and so on."

Peep.

That sounded more cheerful.

"Good." Ness stroked the spacer rat's head with one finger. "Go on, then. The sooner you get back, the sooner we can get home."

Fluffy watched with avid interest as Nic climbed her foreleg and settled on her back where he could cling to the scarf. With a quick nuzzle for Ness, she took off down the tree trunk at dizzying speed.

"Ness?"

Immediately, Ness's full attention turned to Julian. "Are you all right? Is it worse?"

"No worse. It's nice being held in your lap, but could you sit me up, please?" Julian tried for his best smile. From Ness's expression, he failed miserably. "Easier for us both to watch Nic's camera that way." Over the years, Julian had been shot, thrown, burned, sliced, and squashed, but nothing had felt as awful as that simple act of sitting up. Fire seared through his bones. The blood-hum in his ears blocked out all other sounds. I am not going to throw up. Absolutely not. Alone? Maybe. But not in front of Ness.

"Julian?"

"I'm all right." He grimaced at the quaver in his voice and hid his discomfort by propping his arm on Ness's bent knee so they could both watch the image above his comm unit. For now, the image only showed leaves rushing past as Fluffy raced through the forest. Every few yards, the leaves stilled when she must have stopped to listen, making sure of their surroundings before she dashed off again through vegetation that appeared to sense her passage.

"Strange planet," Ness murmured.

"Mostly because it's not ours." Julian risked skimming over sensitive waters as he went on, "I've heard that Shax found you on a stranger one."

To his amazement, Ness didn't bristle or jerk away. He just shook his head. "So I've heard, but I wasn't conscious to remember it. Shame, too. I would have liked to have watched Shax fighting off red-licorice vines."

"That would've been quite a sight. I would've paid to see it. Nothing like first meetings, at any rate."

And still there was no bristling. Julian didn't have any illusions, of course. Protective, nurturing Ness had roared to the forefront the moment Julian had been bitten…proboscified? It had nothing to do with him personally. He'd take the odd closeness while he could, though. It was nice, except for the suffering-from-symptoms-of-venom part.

"Were you, um, also new?" Ness's wings rustled behind them. "When you met Shax?"

"Was I new? Hmm. Hardly a baby agent at that point. I'd gone into the field as a teenager, so I'd enough years in to be a cocky little shit by then. But young…yes. I was still young enough to think I knew everything."

The silence that followed had a heavy quality. Julian waited.

"Could I ask you something? That is…if it's too personal, please just tell me."

Julian's head was suddenly too heavy to hold up, so he leaned it on Ness's shoulder. "I won't know until you ask."

"Oh. Yes. Of course. How old were you? When you started training? Do you remember your parents at all?"

That sort of question. All right. "You're looking for childhood trauma. I can tell." Julian stopped to cough, which ruined his rakish smile, damn it. "I have no idea who my parents were. Nor have I ever felt curious. Planetary Children's Services shuffled me around until I was five. Then I went to boarding school until I was eight. Then the Agency came for me. Okay, maybe the boarding school was a bit hard on me, but it wasn't long."

Come with me to begin your real life, Julian, the recruiter had said so long ago, when adults had still been giants.

"You didn't have a childhood, then," Ness said in a voice so soft and sad it nearly cracked Julian's heart just to hear it.

"Hey. Don't look at me in that tone of voice."

"You can't see how I'm looking."

Julian chuckled and patted the knee on which his arm rested. "Not every human has a tragic childhood. Once the ISE found me, I had a great childhood. My own room, plenty of food, playmates with my interests, good teachers. They don't push agents into the field before they're ready." He shrugged. "I was ready sooner than most."

"Do you ever have regrets?" The sad tone had turned inward, and Julian wagered that Ness was having memory cascades. "About killing?"

"The weapon has no regrets." Good thing you're an expert liar, Parallax. "The people I'm assigned to kill are the worst of the worst, you know. The ones too elusive or too powerful to be brought in for the courts to deal with."

"Many of the demon soldiers were so young."

"War's different, lovely fallen. And so often stupid." Julian made certain every grain of cynicism and irony were absent as he said, "I respect your choices. They were ones of conscience."

Ness let out a hard breath and moved Julian between his legs so he could better lean against Ness's chest. Apparently, question time was over.

In the view, Fluffy continued her stop-and-start journey with the occasional odd bit of wildlife hopping or helicoptering across the image. Julian put his head back and napped, sure that Ness's reactions would alert him to any changes.

The nap devolved into deeper sleep, complete with distressing dreams involving faceless beings chasing him, shouting, Julia! Julia! He woke disoriented and displaced to Ness shaking him gently.

"Julian. The ship."

"The what now?" Julian blinked at the blurs in front of him, alarmed that he couldn't immediately place himself in time and space, while reassured that Ness's arms were still around him.

"Fluffy's reached the ship."

Right. Yes. "Good. Could you ask Nic to tilt his head up?"

Ness relayed the request, and the image followed a landing strut up to take in the port side of the ship where the ident code was painted. Extra confirmation never hurt.

"Perfect. Do you see the little opening next to the landing strut?" Julian turned his head so he could see Ness nod, his eyes glued to the image with laser-beam intensity. "Right. That's where Nic needs to go with one of the little discs. I'll call out when he needs to place it."

"How does he do that?"

"Nic knows."

Ness let out a huff that might've been some sort of laugh. "Oh, yes. You practiced. Of course you did."

"We did. I'm sorry I commandeered your rat, Ness. I really thought he was Leopold's."

"They do spend a lot of time together." Ness hesitated as they watched Nic leave Fluffy to run through the vegetation. "Nic isn't really mine, either, if I'm honest. He came to me when Ver had frightened him and, I suppose, he agreed to live with us. Shax hasn't always approved of the arrangement."

"Something in his royal demon blood makes it an obligation to be annoyed at certain things."

Now Ness did laugh, a silver cascade of notes, and Julian wasn't certain he'd ever heard a real laugh from him before. He relayed Julian's instructions to Nic before adding in a softer tone just for Julian's ears, "That's true. Sometimes Shax gets annoyed for the look of it."

Nic had reached the ship, the metal strut looming like a giant skyscraper from his perspective. The image tilted as Nic began his climb, which forced Julian to swallow hard a few times. Watching rat climbing while already nauseated wasn't a good idea.

"As soon as he reaches the top, ask him to look for the top joint of the strut. However, he might recognize it."

"All right." Wings rustling, Ness leaned over Julian's shoulder to speak closer to the comm. "Nic, look up. Do you see the round thing sticking out? Go there." To Julian, he said, "Now what?"

"Please ask him to place his first disk there, on the round thingy."

Ness relayed the instructions again, and the process of Nic peeling the backing off the disk and placing it on the joint was more entertaining than it probably should have been. Those little suctioned paws were so clever, though.

With scenes of tall vegetation alternating with scenes of giant metal structures, Nic ran back and forth between Fluffy to retrieve another disk and the ship to place the new disk on the next landing strut. He only erred once when he ran up a strut and found a disk already there, but the whole operation couldn't have taken more than half an hour. It only felt longer because of the pounding in Julian's head. Disks placed, Nic returned to perch between Fluffy's ears.

"Back to the ship?" Even Ness's soft voice stabbed into his brain.

"Yes. No." Julian gripped Ness's arm, struggling to put words in order. "Send Fluffy back with Nic. Then you…could you take me up? Where we can see the cutter?"

Ness hesitated on a long, indrawn breath. "All right. Fluffy, back to Brimstone. Hurry. Back to Shax."

A feline chuff came back through the comm link, then Nic's camera showed the forest flying past again. Fluffy had taken to heart the admonishment to hurry. After enough time to allow Fluffy to make it past the idiots still stumbling around looking for her poop, Ness gathered Julian up in his arms and launched into the air. The force of takeoff stole Julian's sight, but the minor blackout only lasted a few moments. They were clear, above the canopy, the brilliant sunlight glinting off the nearby cutter where it sat largely hidden in the trees.

Carefully, since he didn't want to drop anything into the dense understories, Julian drew off his right glove with his teeth and reached into his topmost inside pocket.

"Detonator?"

"Got it in one." Julian's heart skipped when his sausage fingers fumbled the tiny oval, but Ness snatched it out of the air and handed it back. "Thank you. Now let's see how we did."

He flicked the tiny switch on the detonator's side, waited for the green lights to flash, then pressed the center button. There was a click. A flash. A flump came from below the ship, followed by coils of smoke.

"That was a bit…anticlimactic," Ness murmured.

"Give it a minute."

A creak came from below followed by a wrenching metallic shriek. There it goes. Slowly, as if the ship were simply tired of standing upright, it heeled over to land with a resounding boom, its starboard bottom edge well buried in the dirt.

"I see. Much bet—" Ness surged skyward as a white-hot explosion rocked the clearing, his heart hammering against Julian's ear as black smoke poured up from the landing site. "Goodness. Was that supposed to happen?"

"Not as such. One of the charges must have been too close to ordinance." Julian sighed and rested his head on Ness's wonderfully solid shoulder. "Tsk. Messy, but I'll take it. I'm done here."

Understatement of the century. He was past done to overdone and should've been removed from the oven an hour ago. Some consolation that he'd bought the Brimstone a little breathing room, of course, but he wasn't sure he would even make it back. Could've been worse. Ness's wings thumped a steady, soothing beat through the gathering evening, and Julian let himself slide down into the dark.

After all, how many assassins got to die in an angel's arms?

Chapter Seven

"It's been too long. I'm going after them." Shax checked the charges on his weapons and holstered them at thigh and hip.

Mac put a hand on his shoulder, preventing him from reaching the hold ramp. "We just finished repairs, Cap. Ms. Ivana said two days. Julian's giving you two days."

"Or they could all be dead! Let go!" Shax took a deep breath and lowered his voice. "That's an order, Mr. McDougall. Let g—"

We're coming in.

"Ness?" Shax clawed his way free to hit comm. "Ness!"

But Ness had apparently risked getting on the ship's channel for just those three words. Only white noise answered him. Calm, calm, the crew's watching. Shax pulled in a slow breath before he turned.

"Get that ramp down, Mac, and stay on the switch. They may be coming in hot, with pursuit. Heck! I want you on the right side of the doors, Corny on the left. Ver, with me. Weapons ready, gentlemen. Make certain of your targets before you fire."

He strode down the ramp as it was lowering and took up position at the bottom, determined to cover his lover's retreat his own damn self if he had to. Rustling approached through the undergrowth, something large heading toward them at speed, big enough to be a hover cycle driven by a maniac.

"Stand ready," Shax ordered, just loud enough for his crew. A small eep from behind told him that Heckle was doing his best to be brave. "Steady. Steady…"

A red blur broke through the underbrush, not motorized, not human. Shax just had time to point his laser pistol skyward and bellow, Hold your fire! before slam-thud, he was down, pinned under the paws of a full-grown hellcat. She sniffed him once and licked his face with her raspy, forked tongue.

"Gah!"

Trying to fend her off wasn't helped at all by a spacer rat jumping onto his nose and trampling over his head to get up the ramp to Leopold. Naturally, at this precise moment, and not when Shax was heroically positioned to guard his lover's retreat, Ness soared out of the sky and onto the ramp, Julian in his arms.

"Off! Fluffy, off!" Shax struggled out from under his cat, who still insisted on licking him as if he were a dust-covered kitten. He holstered his weapons and managed to recover some dignity before he turned to Ness. "Pursuit?"

Ness shook his head, his expression twisting with sorrow. "They're busy. Julian…"

The anguish in that one word drew Shax's gaze to Julian, still held in Ness's arms—Julian, lying inert in Ness's arms. "What's happened? Ver, go fire up the auto doc. Was he shot? Where was he hit? Go, go, go. Inside. Talk to me on the way to sickbay."

"Poisoned buttercopters," Ness managed in a strangled voice. "Their ship's seriously damaged. Julian took an antidote. I don't think it worked."

Shax jogged to keep up with his angel's long legs. "We need to talk about giving a coherent report, I think."

"They don't have a ship! Fluffy's poop confused them! Julian needed sickbay hours ago!" Ness broke into a run, and Shax had to settle for sprinting through the corridors until he caught up at sickbay.

"Cupcake, you're not making sense," he panted out. "Is he still breathing?"

Ness nodded miserably as he started working on the collection of buckles and fastenings on Julian's jacket. "Barely."

"All right. It's all right. You got him here." Shax hurried over to relieve Ness of rifles and Julian's helmet strapped to Ness's belt. "Poison, you said? Let's get a blood sample first, get the autodoc started on analysis."

Still nodding mutely, Ness pressed Julian's hand into the sample tray and waited for the click and beep that signaled a successful blood draw. Gently, calmly, Shax helped with Julian's jacket and boots before taking both Ness's hands in his.

"That's fine, sweetheart. That's good. Leave Julian his privacy. Tell me what happened out there."

Shivering, Ness came into his arms and clung there, telling a tale of strange wildlife and of the oddest games of cat and mouse Shax had ever heard. A few questions had him convinced that the Brimstone was safe to take off, though, whenever Mac and Ms. Ivana said equipment was secure. The cutter was surely and neatly scuttled. During the telling, the autodoc lowered the screens around Julian, probably due to Ms. Ivana's prompting. She was quite protective of her Julian. The creaks and clicks behind the barrier illustrated the autodoc's many arms and instruments going to work. Julian, Julian, I asked you not to go. The urge to shake him warred with the urge to gather Julian up in his arms and sob, but Shax didn't have the luxury of either choice. Ness was already so distraught.

"The buttercopters didn't go after you at all? Or Fluff? Or Nic?"

Ness bit his lip, forehead creased in a puzzled way. "No. Just Julian. I hadn't really thought about that."

"Something in human blood components or human scent, I expect." Shax patted Ness's chest. "I also expect that the planet's going to take care of the remaining Duomo goons wandering around the forest."

"That's a horrible thought."

Shax shrugged and took the opportunity to snuggle closer. "It's a practical thought. The forest that eats my enemies is my friend. Or something like that. I missed you."

"I missed you, too." Though Ness's arms remained firmly around Shax, distraction colored his words, and his attention was definitely on the privacy screens.

Understandable. I can't help being worried, too. Don't you pick now to die, Julian. Don't you dare.

Eventually, the screens scrolled back into the ceiling. Julian lay stripped to his skin, his belongings neatly stacked in the cubby behind the bed, blankets piled on top of him. Shax stifled a snort when Ness immediately disentangled himself and headed straight for the medical bed.

"Julian?"

Lines ran from under the blankets, probably hydration and whatever meds the autodoc had prescribed. Shax's heart climbed into his throat to see Julian like that—with a stillness he didn't even exhibit in sleep, his glossy hair a dark cloud on the sterile white of the sickbay linens.

Though he'd seemed deeply asleep, Julian's eyes snapped open and searched the room until he focused on Ness. He struggled against the blankets, and Ness helped him free an arm, their hands clasping without hesitation. Shax tried his best not to react to this newest shift in assassin-angel interpersonal relations, but his eyebrows crept up regardless. Holding hands was good, though. Wasn't it?

"Hey," Julian whispered.

"How are you?"

"You got us here." Julian drew their joined hands to his chest. "Ness. No regrets. None. I've already outlived them all."

His eyes slid shut, and Ness let out a strangled cry, but if Julian had wanted a dramatic death scene, his slow but steady vitals gave him the lie. Thank all the levels of hell for that.

"He's all right." Shax came to wrap an arm around Ness's waist. "My angel, my own, he'll be all right."

Ness swiped impatiently at his eyes before carefully placing Julian's arm back under the blanket.

What happened out there, Julian? What in all hell's pits happened? What strange, shared experience, what odd conversations? My Ness was starting to tolerate you, yes. Even like you. I think he was. But this…this heartbreak over your health crisis? Maybe he was a terrible lover and friend to have a little hope glow building in his chest even as it hurt to see Ness so upset and Julian laid low. But there it was—a recalcitrant little gleam. Shax drew the line at fantasizing about the three of them, though. Too soon. Not yet.

"He wouldn't let me bring him back," Ness choked out. "He wanted to give you time. Was it enough? Time?"

Shax took Ness's head between his hands. "Plenty of time, cupcake. Beautifully done. Come away now. You need rest. Julian needs rest."

Perhaps there were more surreal things in the universe than a demon tucking his former angel lover into their bed and kissing him on the forehead before tiptoeing out, but Shax couldn't think of any offhand.

So many questions for them both, preferably together. I want this sorted sooner rather than later, because they're both so dear to me and they're making me a bit nuts. Still, he couldn't interrogate either one, since they were both unconscious. Shax decided not to keep picking at it for now. At least not as much.

He meandered. There was no other word for it. The ship was shut tight and shielded against discovery, and even with Fluffy back aboard, there were so many apparent Fluffy's out there in the trees now that Shax had no fear of discovery. No need to ask Ms. Ivana to hurry. He checked the time. Well, not for a few hours, at any rate.

No, he was the captain and he was inspecting. Yes. That sounded better. Checking in with Heckle, who was down in storage counting and organizing bins of Ms. Ivana's synthesized food stuff. Looking in on Mac, or really Mac's boots since the rest of the giant nephilim was under the Copernicus housing in his never-ending quest for perfect calibration. Catching up with Ver, who was on scans in the pilot pod. Stopping in the cargo hold where Leopold was sketching again, ready to show…

Where is Three Arms Circling?

The tank's water stared at him, if water could have stared, completely motionless and empty except for the abandoned many-armed suit. Shax checked every side of the tank just to be sure, but no octopus spacer. "Leopold, where has Thr—"

Shax stopped at a tug on his trousers. Startled, he glanced down to find his gaze met by golden, cross-pupiled eyes. A damp, suction-cupped arm rested on his knee.

"Oh. Hello. So you can manage outside the tank?"

"For short periods," Leopold said. "Three Arms has something to ask. I'm not certain what."

While Three Arms might have been happy communicating with Leopold in pictures, they seemed determined to talk to Shax in tugs. This was neither dignified nor practical, so Shax offered them a hand. The end of the tugging arm wrapped around his fingers in a rather endearing way, the feel of Three Arms' skin smooth and rubbery like a dolphin. Three Arms' many appendages allowed them to flow across the floor beside Shax, leading him toward one side of the cargo bay.

One of the arms not directly acting as support and not holding onto Shax pointed.

"You want something in the toolbox?"

Three Arms rose up, giving the impression of standing on tiptoe, and ran the pointing arm over the box from one end to the other.

"You want me to take down the whole box? It's a bit heavy."

Corny snorted from where he was cleaning Rosa's stall. "Big, strong demon should be able to handle a little toolbox."

"You have been spending altogether too much time with Verin." Shax allowed himself an offended sniff before he set both hands to the box and heaved it out of its clamps. "All right. Here we are, then. Where do you want it?"

In answer, Three Arms flowed back across the floor to the tank. Shax obliged by lugging the toolbox in their wake, making certain not to make any sounds of effort that Corny might hear. Impertinent crew. Every one of them. Expecting Three Arms to request the box to be opened so they could select a tool or two, Shax set it down beside the tank.

Apparently ignoring everyone now, Three Arms climbed into the water. This might have been a rude gesture from anyone else, but Shax reasoned that Three Arms had been out of the water far longer than most people could hold their breath underwater. The octopus spacer had probably been getting a little desperate.

Three Arms turned in the water to face Shax and lifted one arm over the edge of the tank to point down at the toolbox.

"Now, now, I can't put the whole toolbox in the water. That is, I suppose I could, but I don't think it would do the metal bits any favors."

A second gesturing arm joined the first, the tips meeting, then pulling apart. After a few repetitions, Shax thought he had it and opened the box, moving it closer to the tank and unfolding the drawers to display its contents. Suckers pressed to the glass, Three Arms peered at the offerings in a way that Shax could only read as perplexed.

"Leopold, could you—" Shax startled to find his son right beside him. "Ah. Very good. Could you perhaps lend Three Arms your drawing pad so we might be able to determine what sort of tool they're searching for?"

He needn't have bothered, since Leopold was already handing pad and stylus up to the arms reaching over the tank. Three Arms clutched both close, going quite still in a thinking pose, before they began to draw in rapid strokes. When they had returned the pad, Shax turned it this way and that, trying to make sense of the wand-like object with…something coming out of it.

Corny leaned over his shoulder to have a look. "Looks like one a' them blowtorches, Cap."

"I see." Shax didn't at all see how Corny had reached that conclusion, but at least it was a conclusion. "I don't know if ours are any good underwater, though."

"Welp, Mac uses 'em out in vacuum. Cain't see underwater causin' more trouble than that."

After some rummaging, Shax came up with one of the handheld torches. He flicked on the gas and pressed the ignition, showing the little flame to Three Arms, six of whose arms shot above the water, waving wildly.

"That was either a very excited yes or an extraordinarily frightened no," Shax ventured.

Carefully, Shax turned off the torch and held it over the tank, where Three Arms snatched it and dragged it under. They nearly took Shax with it but realized their error when Shax's head broke the surface. Three Arms carefully released the suction cups holding Shax's wrist and patted him on the shoulder as he wrenched his head back out of the water, gasping.

Shax sputtered and wiped the water from his eyes before muttering, "You're welcome, I'm sure."

Admonishments regarding etiquette were lost on Three Arms, of course, who had scuttled to the corner of the tank where they kept their damaged suit. After fumbling a bit with the controls, they switched the torch on and held the flame over a spot on one of the forward arms. Shax had thought the intent was to burn through the material, but instead, the heat caused a piece to pop open. Behind it lay a neatly arranged storage compartment.

Three Arms considered the contents before selecting two mysterious tools, one of which appeared to be a delicate pair of forceps and the other a…Shax had no name for it, but it excreted something. They turned the suit over to the small tear, and in a surprisingly nimble procedure for someone with no fingers, used the liberated tools to patch the tear in their suit. The smooth competence of the procedure made Shax wonder again if all octopus spacers were mechanically inclined or if Three Arms was an engineer of some sort.

After they'd returned the tools and shut the little compartment, Three Arms touched the front of the suit in a complicated pattern. The material split along the front in three places, allowing Three Arms to climb back in, head into helmet first, then one arm at a time. When the last arm had shoved into the tip of its matching sleeve, the suit sealed up again.

"That's handy. Though I suppose if you live a good deal of your life in vacuum, an easily donned suit is more of a necessity." Shax stepped back and caught the blowtorch as it came flying out of the tank. By now, he was expecting it. Three Arms Circling tossed. One was supposed to be paying attention and catch.

With movements that were stiffer and less flowy, Three Arms climbed out of the tank, shuffled right, then left. Finally, they raised four arms above their helmeted head in a ta-dah gesture.

"Capital!" Shax applauded, for the whole operation deserved it. "This will be much better for your safety during takeoff and Copernicus jumps than being stuck in a tank. Leopold, Corny, please make certain Three Arms knows where and how to net in when the alarms sound."

Basking in the glow of being a good captain who solves things, Shax wandered up to the galley, surprisingly empty for once.

"Ms. Ivana, how are we doing, my dear?"

"Oooh, is that a royal we, Captain Hot Stuff?" Ms. Ivana crooned from the galley speakers. "I'll take it, since I am a queen. We're buttoning all the fussy buttons and doing up every last little zipper right now, hon. No more than five minutes."

"Excellent. You are, as always, a wonder, Ms. Ivana."

"Flatterer." Ms. Ivana's voice gave the impression of both eyelash and fan fluttering. "But don't ever stop."

"Never, darling." Shax leaned over and hit the comm pad by the table. "Ver? Ready to get off this rock? Ms. Ivana says we're set to go in five."

"Was ready to ditch this shithole five minutes after we landed," Verin growled back. "You wanna give me some fucking idea on heading, genius?"

"Yes. We're backtracking to the asteroid field."

"Are you out of your pea-brained, ass-backwards tiny little mind?"

"Not as far as I can ascertain, no. Thank you for checking. We have some breathing room, so we need to try to get Three Arms Circling back to their folks. At least make an attempt. You said it yourself. We can't keep them."

"Damn it to all levels, Shaxy."

"If we find trouble, we'll run. Simple as that."

"Nothing's been simple since I met you, you little shit."

Shax grinned broadly at that. "Never bored, though, are you?"

He got a snort for an answer just before Verin bellowed into ship's comm, "Secure your crap or get impaled by it! Takeoff in ten!"

A few moments later, claws clicked on the deck plates in the corridor, and Fluffy trotted to him with an anxious meep.

"Heard that, did you, Miss?" Shax rose from the bench and stretched. "Come with me. We'll strap you into the jump seat in the pilot's pod so you know where I am and you'll be safe."

She trotted along at his side, apparently happier. Even for a hellcat, she understood an astounding amount of non-cat speech, which was why Shax was definitely not mentioning that he always rode in the copilot's chair for takeoff so he wouldn't be embarrassingly sick.

Ness woke from distressing dreams of sorting tiles into an arrangement of boxes that made no sense to him but was obvious to everyone around him. Julian sprawled atop the boxes in the burgundy utility kilt he'd worn for the Yuletide party and nothing else, pointing in a complicated pattern that Ness couldn't decipher, since his brain had focused on the play of muscles across Julian's chest. The launch alarm was sounding. He reached up without thinking and pulled the bunk's netting over him to keep him secure.

Even through launch and the uncomfortable pressure of leaving a gravity well, he couldn't quite escape the muddled fuzz of sleep and the anxious cloud of his dreams. Guilt gnawed at him in strange ways. Images and half-formed thoughts haunted him.

I'm a hypocrite. It's as simple as that. I was so furious at Shax, furious enough to channel new, infernal powers. All over him spending time with Julian. Having a history with Julian. Shared experiences I'll never have with him.

And here he was, thinking about Julian, and not in a pure, platonic sort of way. That was it, then. He'd left everything angelic behind and had become a terrible person. Could one be a demon of jealousy and infidelity? Was that possible or a contradiction in terms? Maybe it would make him explode. It might be best.

He'd pledged his undying love to Shax, his Shax and he did love his demon prince, more than anything. And still…still…he couldn't banish the soft silk of Julian's hair under his fingers, the way the shadows played along that perfect throat.

How am I going to face him and pretend things are normal?

Chapter Eight

Ness dozed fitfully through the flight out-system and only woke properly when Shax strode in after the jump into Copernicus space. He stopped and bent down to regard Ness with a frown.

"Sweetheart? Are you feeling quite the thing?"

"I'm fine," Ness answered, maybe too quickly and emphatically.

"Hmm. I only ask since you're always in such a hurry to de-net. You've said it smushes your wings."

"Oh…yes." Belatedly, Ness unhooked the net and let it slide back into its slot. "I guess I was a little tired."

Shax flopped onto the bed beside him and stretched out with his head in Ness's lap. "Understandable. You had quite the adventure out in the alien wilderness."

Desperate for something to say, Ness managed, "How is everything here?"

"We haven't been engaged in a secretive excrement war or fending off precisely targeted alien life forms, but we have managed to communicate with Three Arms Circling. They've repaired their suit and would like to go home. We are, despite our pilot's protests, making the effort."

"Good. That's…good."

"You seem a little distracted, cupcake. Are you sure you're all right?"

Ness tried a smile and wondered how awful it looked. "Fine. Really. I'm fine."

The look Shax threw him was narrow-eyed and calculating, not something Ness expected from the vantage point of looking down at his lap, generally. But this was Shax. While Ness was scrambling around in his brain for better explanations, a knock on the door interrupted the interrogation.

"Typical," Shax muttered as he scrambled off the bunk to open the door lock. "Come!"

To Ness's horror on several levels, Julian leaned in the doorway, looking delicious and vulnerable in a loose white shirt, black leather pants, and bare feet. Lovely, elegant feet…

Ness lurched up and hurried to the door, concentrating on the one horror that wasn't awkward. "Julian! You shouldn't be up!"

"I'm fine," Julian protested, though a certain grumpiness to the tone said otherwise. "Ms. Ivana said I could leave sickbay."

Still, he looked too gray, and Ness slid an arm around his waist, half-helping, half-pushing him toward the bunk, where he insisted Julian sit. Only then Ness remembered he was naked from the waist up, his bare skin against Julian's thin shirt, his body heat suddenly searing into Ness's bones. He twitched away, stumbling in the process, then backed off farther out of embarrassment.

Shax gave him an unreadable stare that vanished when he smiled at Julian. "She may have said you could go because you sound like a cranky toddler. Had you thought of that?"

"Your highness is as hilarious as he is gracious," Julian said with a little snort. "I might be a little tired."

Shax ruffled his hair in a too-familiar way and flung himself into his desk chair across the cabin. "Seems to be catching. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"I have to have a reason to visit?" Julian's smile returned, partially. Maybe it was the lasting effects of the poison, but Julian seemed so tentative to Ness, as if unsure of his welcome.

And Ness was still staring at his feet. He hurried over to one of the wall cabinets and retrieved an extra blanket. "Your feet. They must be lovely—cold! I mean cold. You shouldn't be barefoot on the deck plates."

Too late, Ness found himself kneeling at Julian's feet, wrapping a blanket around them. It was as if he'd blacked out, since he had no memory of getting there.

Julian had frozen, eyes wide as a rabbit in a spotlight. "Ness…"

"Very thoughtful, sweetheart," Shax intervened softly, a bit too carefully. "It's good to see you up and around, Julian. You had us worried there."

"I have to be honest. Thought my luck had run out there. Ness, thank you. You were superb." Julian gripped Ness's arm and offered a more convincing smile.

Every point where skin met skin was on fire, and instead of making Ness go up in roaring conflagration, it went straight to his groin. He jerked away with a muffled cry, scuttling backward, since he couldn't find his balance, and ended up facing the corner by Shax's closet, head gripped tight in both hands. Tears stung his eyes, but this wasn't the time. It wasn't the time for hiding in a corner, either, but that couldn't be helped.

An arm slipped around his waist. Ness twitched, but he knew by scent, by the weight of that familiar arm, that it was Shax. "What's all this, Ness? Are you ill after all?"

"No. Yes. I can't do this anymore." Ness leaned his burning head against the wall, his eyes squeezed shut so he didn't have to acknowledge the full body blush he knew had happened.

"Can't do what anymore? Cupcake, I'm not ashamed to say you're scaring me here." Shax leaned in, wrapping both arms tight around Ness. Then he took a deep breath in through his nose and went still. "Ah. I see. Well, I suppose that might be disconcerting."

Oh no. Somehow his desire showed so obviously Shax could smell it. Could Julian somehow discern it, too? Was there something he didn't understand about these things that was obvious to others? Worse and worse. "Disconcerting? I'm horrible. The worst lover you could have." Ness pulled in a shuddering breath.

"Just when I think I understand what's going on." Shax sighed. "I'm going to say it quite plainly, and then it's your turn. You're attracted to Julian. Sexually attracted. The scent is impossible to hide."

From the bed, Julian murmured, "Oh gods. Shax, that wasn't delicate at all."

"Some things call for blunt instruments."

"No need to tell me that, but this is Ness."

Ness banged his head against the wall. Now Julian, who usually communicated with teasing and irony, felt bad for him, which only made it all worse.

"I'm not upset. Julian's not upset," Shax said gently, stroking Ness's shoulder. "Maybe you could tell me why you're upset?"

Muffled muttering came from the bunk. "Julian's definitely leaning toward upset, and not with Ness, I'd like to add."

"Hush, you. Ness?"

"I'm such a hypocrite," Ness whispered through the granite boulder lodged in his throat. "I raged at you for going to see Julian, and you didn't even do anything. Jealous and suspicious and now…this."

Shuffling came from the bunk, and Ness turned in time to see Julian stand with the extra blanket clutched to his chest. "I think I should go."

"That's the last thing you should be doing." Shax pointed at the bed, all royal imperiousness. "Sit down, Agent Parallax." Julian sat while Shax turned his haughty and expectant gaze on Ness. "Now you, cupcake. Go sit down."

Mortified and ashamed, Ness slunk over to the bunk and eased down onto it as far away from Julian as possible. Shax plunked down between them in a way that made Ness wonder if he was losing patience, but his tone was still gentle when he spoke again.

"My angel." Shax took his hand with a little squeeze. "I think, maybe, that you're getting all tangled in the concept of one and only."

Ness stared at his feet. "I made you promise to be faithful to me."

"Now, now, you know better than that. No one could make me promise anything." Shax stroked the back of Ness's hand with his thumb. "And you know quite well you're not my first."

"I know," Ness whispered miserably. So far, this wasn't at all comforting.

Shax abruptly changed tactics and offered a warm smile. "Do you recall the lovely throuple we met on Titan recently? What were their names?"

Puzzled, since Shax wouldn't forget such a thing, Ness blurted out, "Jade, Barna, and…Twig?"

"Those would be the ones. Did any of them strike you as unhappy?"

"I… I don't think so."

Shax's smile slipped a hair. "So which one was the one and only?"

"That's completely different."

"It is." Shax gave a little nod. "Julian, why is it completely different?"

Julian made an uncomfortable sound. He pulled his feet up onto the bed, arms wrapped around his knees. "Ness isn't a child, Shax."

"No, he's not. He's an ancient immortal who lived nearly the entirety of his life in a closely regimented, isolated environment. Being thrust out into the chaos that's the rest of the universe has shown him to be one of the most adaptable beings I have ever met. But even Ness hasn't been able to learn everything all at once."

"Of course." Julian hunched a little smaller as he said, "If you met a throuple, you've seen they have a specific arrangement, one that's only their business. But you better believe they've all talked about it and set boundaries and expectations. While we've just been fumbling around and stepping on each other's toes."

"Just so." Shax patted Julian's knee with a firm nod.

Ness had understood all the words. He even understood the concepts, since he had read up on polyamory and had gotten caught up in its possible variations. But still his brain felt like it might explode. Shax was saying…what, exactly? "I don't think I truly understand."

Shax moved around to kneel in front of him, holding Ness's gaze with the intensity of his own. For a moment, a hundred thoughts rode in those black eyes—Ness knew him well enough by now—a hundred explanations, a hundred justifications. But in the end, Shax shook his head and only love shone there, fond, warm, and familiar. "You find Julian attractive. No, let me back up. You are attracted to Julian."

Ness winced. "Yes."

"And I'm attracted to Julian—no, don't bristle. This isn't news." Shax held both Ness's hands tight. "And I do believe you both still have feelings for me."

Julian let out a raw laugh but didn't deny it. Ness nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

"And by his reactions, I have a suspicion that Julian finds you attractive as well."

"Who wouldn't?" Julian's attempt at glib collapsed in a sigh. "Yes. Desperately, unattainably attractive. And I thought I was being relatively discreet, your highness."

"I grew up in a royal court. Do you really think these things get by me? Ness." Shax leaned forward, his black eyes boring into him. "I give my consent. Do you understand?"

That statement was so unexpected, dizzy waves washed over Ness. "But why?"

"Why, he asks." Shax raised his eyes to the ceiling as if asking for patience. "Because I'm more than fond of you both. Because it breaks my heart to see you both unhappy, and I do so want all of us to be happy."

Warmth blossomed in Ness's stomach, not the terrible heat of shame that still occupied most of the space, but a more diffuse and pleasant heat. "You think I'm ridiculous. Getting all tangled up and upset like this."

"No." The flat denial shocked Ness, but Shax went on. "Possessiveness is a key component of your new demonic nature. You needed to work through that first, and I could have saved us both a good deal of grief if I'd been astute enough to figure that out a good bit earlier. My darling angel, the heart exists on an infinite piece of real estate. You can add as many new rooms as you desire without risking the integrity of the existing ones."

"Oh." Ness returned to staring at his feet. He should have felt relieved but instead felt small and tired, as if he would never catch up with more worldly beings.

Shax stood and brushed the nonexistent dust from his knees. "I should go and let you two have some space."

"No!" Ness and Julian turned to each other, equally shocked at their vehement, perfectly coordinated mutual denials.

"I see." Shax gave them a regal nod as he settled back down. "Of course, of course. I am the fulcrum here, after all."

"Just a small part in a simple machine." Julian heaved a theatrical sigh. "And here I thought I was dealing with someone important all these years."

"Hilarious, Parallax. Could we stay on topic, perhaps?"

A little smile migrated up from Ness's weary heart. Their exchanges were often like this: tart, amusing mini-duels. But Ness had been unable to hear them before without a filter of irritation, or later, guilt.

Julian leaned forward to peer around Shax, his expression devoid of mischief. "Ness, the thing is…with a polyamorous group, everyone knows what's happening. It's not cheating, infidelity, or anything to feel horrible about if everyone's agreed. If Shax doesn't think your feelings for me are cheating, then it's a terrible thing to do to yourself to still insist they are."

"And no one gets jealous?" Ness matched Julian's lean, shivering when Shax used the opportunity to stroke his wings. "No one feels… left out?"

Julian reached across Shax's lap to twine their fingers together. "Of course they do. It's not like becoming a triad suddenly makes people perfect. Jealousy, anger, lonely moments—all the things you can have with two? They don't magically change with three."

"I… No, I didn't think that." Ness chewed on his bottom lip as he traced Julian's fingers with his thumb. The nailbeds still showed a hint of blue. Tiny tremors ran up from Julian's arms. Ness realized with a shock that this was hard on both of them. "Would you, Julian? Agree to…to being a triad?"

"I would." Julian didn't even hesitate, a tiny smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. "If it's what we all want, it's an enthusiastic yes from me."

"Shax?" Ness stayed leaning forward, the wing stroking far too soothing to interrupt. By his movements, Shax seemed to be stroking Julian's back as well.

Shax huffed out a breath. "You do know I've been waiting for this, don't you?"

"No, how would I… Never mind." Ness nudged his knee. "I need you to say it, love."

"I, Prince Shax of the royal house of Ashtaroth, do consent to this arrangement," Shax said in his most regally snooty tone, somewhat spoiled when Julian snickered. "Will that do?"

"Yes, thank you." Ness still side-eyed him for not taking it seriously. "I don't know how all this will work yet, but I consent, too."

"Oh, thank pits." Shax carefully disentangled himself and stood. "My heart was about to explode with the suspense. Julian, you're still exhausted. Why don't you lie down here and rest? Ness, perhaps you should stay to keep an eye on him. There's my lovely angel. Excellent. All settled. I'll be back later."

At a snort from Julian, Ness turned from gaping at the closing cabin door. "I think I feel manipulated."

"By one of the best, lovely angel." Julian ran a hand back through his hair. He did look as if a hard breath might knock him over. "I should…you don't mind if I nap here?"

Please do, so you don't collapse in the corridor. "Not at all. Is it… Do you mind if I lie down with you?"

"Not at all," Julian said with a smile equal parts shy and ironic.

They lay on their sides facing each other, with Ness on the outer edge of the bunk. Hands clasped between them, they simply stared at each other for a few breaths. For Ness, it was a chance to let his brains unscramble and his thoughts slow. The ride from harrowing guilt to a quiet, growing joy had been heart-stopping.

Julian broke the silence. "Ness? I know you're not…that is, that you haven't had many lovers. Just so you know, I'm not constructed quite like you or Shax."

"But…I know that." Ness blinked in confusion. "You don't have wings or horns."

"True. I'm only human. But I meant more personally speaking."

"I don't—oh. Yes, well, you were shirtless at Yule since we all were, so I just assumed." I could have assumed wrong, and I'm about to offend Julian and make a fool of myself. "You are trans…yes?"

Julian opened his mouth, snapped it shut again, and finally said, "Well, that was the easiest coming out ever. I mean yes. Is it all right to be surprised?"

"Sexuality and gender were very confusing for me when I left the angelic hosts. I've done quite a lot of research—reading, and, ah, visual."

"All right. That makes sense. And please don't be shy about asking questions. You won't offend me." Julian stopped to cover a jaw-cracking yawn. "I'd love to watch some visual research with you some time, but right now I can't keep my eyes open."

Ness leaned in to brush a chaste kiss across Julian's cheek. "Go to sleep. I'll be here."

Within moments, Julian was out, though he twitched and shivered in his sleep. Ness swept a wing forward to cover him, and the soft sigh Julian let out twinged at Ness's heart. It occurred to him that it was likely Julian rarely slept soundly or felt safe doing so. His heart melted further when Julian rooted closer, snuggling into Ness's arms.

As he watched over Julian, a realization hit him like a crowbar to the head. The separation, the exclusion, that's what had caused the rage. Possessive. Yes. He wasn't angry about the idea of Shax and Julian together—all right, yes, he had been that first time, since he hadn't known Julian then—but about the thought of sex behind his back.

Now that he'd taken the ISE agent, quite literally, under his wing? The possessive fire no longer raged over exclusion but had expanded to include Julian.

Shax swaggered to the galley, sternly squashing the urge to skip instead. He deserved a celebratory drink. Or two. Finally, finally. It took those two long enough. I thought I'd have to bang their heads together. And all it took was venomous buttercopters and shared peril. Ha!

As long as they'd gotten there and survived the journey—that was what mattered. The anxious pall around Shax's heart had lifted, leaving him lighter, practically transparent. Ms. Ivana could turn up the gravity and he'd still feel like flying.

Verin was at the table with Corny, heads bent together reading when Shax strode in.

Without more than a sideways glance at him, Verin growled, "How many fucking canaries did you eat this time? What's that shit-eating grin for?"

"Think you might could know that, Ver." Corny did look up, eyes dancing mischief. "You get your boys corralled and sorted, Cap?"

"I did." Shax sat across from them with a mock-offended sniff. "Not that it's anyone's business."

"Imp shit," Ver grumbled. "All three of you idiots moping around and snapping each other's stupid heads off? Yeah, it's everybody's fucking business."

Shax didn't dignify that with an answer beyond an annoyed grunt. "Ms. Ivana? Could I have a scotch, my dear?" After his drink had trundled out, he deigned to turn his attention to them. "What are you two so intent on?"

"Tryin' to reckon how many cutters Pinochet has," Corny said with a frown. "Ain't an easy thing."

"Fuckers have the registrations all screwed up, so you can't tell."

"Mmm." Shax sipped, forehead creasing. "I'm sure that's purposeful. Duomo has at least five remaining, from what I recall from previous visits. The Pinochet has several armed shuttles as well, which they are not required to register separately. Ver?"

"What?"

"A single well-piloted cutter with a good gunner would do for us. What would knowing numbers accomplish?"

"Julian's already taken out one of the fuckers." Ver shrugged. "If he's as hot shit as he says, he can take out more."

Corny cut in before Shax could say what he thought about sending Julian after a coterie of gunships. "It'd give us just that itty bit of an advantage, Cap. Knowin' how many are left. Does she have guns, too? The Pinochet? You've been aboard a bunch of times."

"I have no idea." Shax tried to think if he'd ever heard of the wallowing craft firing on anyone. "Perhaps?"

Ver snorted. "You're a fucking terrible spy, your royal peabrained-ness."

"Yes, well. My talents in that direction aren't normally engaged except for a specific purpose." Shax tossed back the remainder of his scotch, too deep in thought to enjoy it. The dreadful thing was that Ver was right, damn him. They'd been reacting, waiting for their enemies to move, then acting on far too little intelligence. If they survived this current predicament, that would have to change, especially if they expected to survive in the long run.

"When we're no longer being tracked, we need to get to Barbary." Shax tapped his glass on the table before he rose. "Back to the beginning, gentlemen. Where we start asking questions at the source."

If we get out of this. When we get out of this. I have questions for Madame Phoenix. Shax halted in the doorway. "Why aren't you two shagging each other stupid?"

"Did that," Ver muttered, gaze glued back on the holoscreen.

Corny leaned back, arms behind his head, with an expression that could only be called smug. "Just restin' up for a spell."

"Cowboy got the better of you again, did he, Ver?"

"Shut up, you troll-ass flattened git."

Shax fled before Verin could start throwing things. Honestly, they were the only couple he knew who made sex a competitive sport.

Ness hadn't meant to doze off, and he certainly hadn't meant to wake Julian when he withdrew his wing oh so carefully to leave the bunk. He hadn't factored in all of what Julian was.

His eyes snapped open, though Ness couldn't swear to Julian seeing him or the room. For a handful of moments, Julian lay completely still. If he breathed, Ness neither heard not saw it. With snake-strike speed, he leaped up into a crouch on the bunk, obviously reaching for weapons that weren't there.

"Julian!" Ness backed up, giving him space. This was Julian's training in the pilot's chair, the training that kept him alive, not the fully conscious agent. "Julian, you're all right. It's Shax's room. You're safe."

The reaction was immediate. Ness pinpointed the moment Julian saw him. He sat down hard, running both hands back through his tangled black hair. "Sorry. Ness…I'm sorry."

"Does that always happen?"

Julian shook his head, pulling his feet in to sit cross-legged on the bunk. "No. No, I'm sorry. Just when I'm overtired and I wake up not knowing where I am."

"It's all right. We'll find better ways." Ness patted his shoulder and reached around to open one of the wall drawers. "Would you like me to brush your hair?"

"Wait, that's it?" Julian stared up at him, anxious shadows clouding his eyes. "You're not…"

Ness sat beside him with the brush and turned Julian away from him with gentle hands. "I'm not frightened. Or repulsed. Or even very surprised. It's all right, Julian."

With a slow breath out, Julian nodded, relaxing bit by bit under Ness's slow brushstrokes. Partly, Ness felt as if he calmed a half-feral cat. The larger part of him simply reveled in the silken slide of Julian's hair through his fingers. He refused to feel bad about that.

The tangles had vanished under his careful ministrations when the cabin door opened and Shax poked his head into the room. "Is this a bad time, cupcake? Should I go?"

They both turned to face him, with Julian scooting away toward the foot of the bunk. Not quite guilty, Ness thought. Still uncomfortable, though.

"No, love. Your timing's perfect." Ness replaced the brush and closed the drawer. "I'd rather you didn't go."

"Ah. Well, then." Shax flopped down on the bed with his head in Julian's lap and his feet in Ness's. "I'm more than happy to stay, of course. Always glad to be of service."

Julian managed a real laugh, soft and purring. "Are we shocked, Ness?"

"Not at all." Ness found a smile as his concerns melted into the background with Shax there. "Though I don't think I appreciate boots in my lap."

Without waiting for permission or invitation—Ness certainly wasn't that naïve; still, he knew Shax's not subtle hinting—he started on the buckles of Shax's deck boots with shaking hands. Is this…all three of us…happening? Is this not as strange as it feels to me? While he felt more unsure than afraid, he did wish he'd done some more research on the subject. He couldn't for the life of him puzzle through the mechanics. Or would one person always watch? Ness believed he wouldn't mind watching if he was invited to, though two or three other solutions did finally come to mind when he put some effort in.

He swallowed against a suddenly dry throat and told himself sternly not to adjust his painful erection until he could do it discreetly.

"Ness?" Julian stilled the hand raking through Shax's hair. "All right there?"

"I…" Ness put the second boot down beside the first and tugged off Shax's socks. "You know, I think I'm more all right than I have been in some time."

Julian leaned over to take Ness's face between his hands and brush a hesitant thumb over Ness's lips. The touch sent shivering electric sparks chasing down Ness's spine. Eyes half lidded, Julian shifted closer and pressed his mouth to Ness's in gentle exploration, the kiss brief but with an unmistakable whisper of heat.

"I've wanted to do that for months," Julian whispered against Ness's cheek.

Ness had to remember to breathe. "Have you?"

Still stretched out between them, Shax let out a whimper only partially muffled by the knuckle he'd bitten down on. "You two are so delicious together. I might just expire quietly while I watch."

"Drama demon." Julian snickered.

"I'm not convinced quietly would work for you," Ness said with a fond smile.

Shax shoved them apart and popped to his feet as he clawed his sweater off over his head. "What should we indulge in? We have absolutely hours before we come out of Copernicus."

Sitting cross-legged on the bunk, Julian gave him an odd look. "I thought you were orchestrating this, maestro?"

Shax's bright grin faded to something softer, almost shy. "Ness generally takes charge. Quite sternly sometimes."

"Well, well, Prince Shax." Julian arched one perfect eyebrow. "Just when you think you know a demon."

The breath caught in Ness's chest, and he waved his hands in desperate negation. "I don't think that I'm, ah, ready for all of that. Just…" Boundaries. "What would you like, Julian?"

Julian stared at his hands. We're all being shy now. For a long moment, Ness thought he might not answer. "Penetration is a no-go, and pain isn't something I seek out during sex, though a partner who needs it is another matter." He glanced through his lashes over at Shax.

"No one said anything about needing pain." Shax crossed his arms with a little harrumph. "It's simply fun sometimes."

"Could you give me a minute?" Julian slipped off the bed, kissed Ness atop his head, and hurried out of the cabin.

"Of course," Ness said to the cabin door as it closed. "Huh."

Shax returned to the bunk and nestled close as if he were cold. Perhaps he was without his sweater. "Julian… Blast. I suppose it's not my place to tell you things about Julian now."

"It's not? You've told me plenty of Julian-related things before."

"Yes, but they weren't personal. Now we have a trust issue involved, since we're involved."

"Oh." Ness stroked one of Shax's horns. "I see. No, Julian and I already talked about that."

"Did you? Well done, cupcake. Well done, indeed." Shax gave a contented sigh. "No, no, don't stop. A little lower. Mmmmm."

Good as his word, Julian returned in under a minute carrying a black case the size of a portable comm station. He set it on the bed, unzipped it, and stood back. The contents were definitely not comm equipment. Ness perused the selection of cocks carefully rather than opening his mouth and saying stupid things as his thoughts spun things this way and that. Some of them had straps—of course. He did understand variations in male anatomy. Research, as he'd said. Despite their earlier conversation, Julian's smile had gone a little crooked, and sadly, Ness understood that as well. Humans routinely made him feel unwelcome for being different.

"What a lovely selection." Ness leaned over the case, his breathing harder and harder to control. He finally reached down and adjusted his cock, simply no other option at that point. "May I?"

Julian waved a hand at the case. "Be my guest."

In a stage whisper, Shax offered, "Ness does like choices."

"So do you, love. You're always happier with more." Ness managed a dry tone, though his face was hot enough to power the ship. He picked up a royal-blue one with a hefty circumference and black leather straps. "This one's especially nice."

"That one it is." Julian tipped his head in a nod and shut the case.

"Could I put it on you?" To Ness's horror, his voice cracked and squeaked.

A desperate sound came from Shax, currently on the floor in the middle of the room fighting to get out of his clothes in record speed. "You two are trying to kill me."

His demon's impatience steadied Ness somehow. "Not at all, love. We'll need you in a moment. Julian?"

Julian—was he blushing? He stripped off his shirt, holding it in front of him like a shield. "I think I'd like that."

"Come here, then." The heat pouring up from Ness's core colored his words.

Julian's brilliant smile flashed before he buried it in mock seriousness. "You are bossy."

"I did tell you," said a now stark-naked Shax.

"Hush, love. Not another word." Ness kept his attention on Julian, hooking fingers in his belt loops to pull him close. "Up on the mattress, highness, on all fours."

Out of the corner of his eye, Ness made sure Shax did as he was told. Not only did he comply, but he did it with eager speed, ending up with his beautiful ass facing them. He did, because he was Shax, break one point of the instructions and whispered, "Will there be a gag?"

"No, not this time." Ness tried out his commanding voice and found it nearly worked properly. "We'll need that mouth."

A visible shiver ran through Shax, one Ness knew from experience was of anticipation rather than nervousness. He stayed quiet, apparently resolving to be a good demon prince. Ness shifted his attention to Julian, who was just turning back to Ness, and they shared a chuckle over being caught in mutual admiration of Shax's assets.

"Are you truly sure you're all right with this?" Ness sat on the edge of the bed so he wasn't looming over Julian.

"I'm fine. Really. As long as you're not planning a three-hour marathon here."

"Good to hear." Ness tried again. "But I mean about all of this. You're not doing it just because…" He couldn't quite finish the sentence or stop the sideways glance at Shax.

Julian moved between Ness's knees, sliding both hands back into Ness's hair. "I wanted Shax from the first time he brazenly propositioned me. And it was brazen. I also want you. Really want you. I wouldn't have been here if I didn't."

"All right, good," Ness murmured, his thumbs caressing along Julian's waistband.

"Gah!" Shax buried his head on his forearms, which only served to display his rounded ass to better advantage. "Julian's fine, you're fine, I'm fine. We're all fine! Can we please, please, I'm begging, get on with it?"

Without turning, Ness reached out an arm and smacked Shax across both cheeks, eliciting a delicious moan from his favorite demon. "That's for speaking."

"Yes, sir," Shax whispered and received a second spank for it, which was exactly what he wanted.

Consent received, and in one case nearly pummeled to death, Ness worked open the fastenings on Julian's leathers while Julian simply dropped his shirt. Given his profession, Ness knew there were scars. He hadn't expected so many, new and old, the long one running from right knee to hip the pinkest. None of them detracted from the lean, whipcord strength of his body, but they represented so much pain it made the backs of Ness's eyes sting.

To distract himself from impending tears, Ness leaned in and kissed a soft trail down to Julian's navel while he peeled the leather down past hard-muscled thighs. He took his time kissing the set of crosshatched scars near Julian's left knee, then helped him step out. The clothes had only hinted. Fully revealed, Julian seemed more deadly, with nothing to hide his sleek grace.

"Breathtaking," Ness whispered between kisses along Julian's forearm.

Yes, the shape of Julian's cock was different from his, as he'd expected. It nestled in its forest of black curls, eager and beautiful.

"Could I touch your wings?" Julian's smile was brighter now, though his hands hovered above Ness's shoulders.

"Yes. They're…yes. Stroke with the pinions, please, never against." Ness shivered under Julian's sure touch, though it had nothing to do with being chilled. "May I touch you, too?"

"Please," Julian whispered, spreading his feet apart.

Ness ran his hand down from Julian's hip into that nest of curls. When his fingers brushed over the tip of Julian's cock, a soft sound of approval accompanied the twitch, and Julian hung his head, panting, as Ness let his fingers glide back and forth. Julian surged forward to claim a fierce, demanding kiss before they broke apart, both panting now. A tortured whimper came from the bunk.

Julian's chuckle wheezed a bit. "We better get on with it before our Shax expires."

Denying Shax was fun to a certain point, especially because Shax craved it sometimes, but making himself impatient as well didn't appeal to Ness. He fed the bottom leather strap between Julian's legs where it met at the back with a leather loop and buckle arrangement on the straps circling Julian's waist.

Our Shax. Was there still…? Yes, just a hint, a buried ember of anger in Ness's jealous fallen soul, but his now-demon heart was finding it easier to expand his possessiveness. Why strive against a rival when one could claim him instead? Of course, it wasn't that simple. For a true demon it might have been, but despite everything he thought he'd felt, Ness had grown fond of Julian.

Heaven help me.

"A notch tighter, please," Julian requested, and after Ness had complied, he wriggled his hips in a discerning way, then added, "One more."

"It's not too—"

"No." Julian climbed onto the bed behind Shax with another wriggle, his eyes shining. "It's perfect."

Ness halted in his turn for a long, hungry stare. The black leather tight against Julian's skin, the beautiful blue of his cock the perfect shade for his complexion. "You should wear that color more often. It's beautiful on you." And I usually only see you in black.

"Thank you." Julian's voice was soft, his smile somehow younger than it had been a moment before. "Lube?"

While Shax didn't need it, Ness usually insisted. He reached into the little drawer under the bunk and tossed Julian the tube, who snatched it from the air quick as a cat batting down a wasp. While Julian prepared, Ness could turn his attention to his poor Shax, whose thighs quivered in forcibly banked anticipation.

"My love, my beautiful demon." Ness placed his knees on either side of Shax's head while he stroked the base of his horns. With a heartfelt moan, Shax leaned into Ness's hand, rubbing his face against the palm like a cat. "Such a good prince today. Would you like your reward now?"

With full knowledge of how his body affected his lovers, Shax dropped his shoulders and spread his knees, pushing his ass into a supremely inviting position for Julian, who drew in a slow breath as if otherwise he might faint, and lifted his head to gaze up at Ness. Shax's black eyes pleaded with such hungry sincerity it took Ness's breath away. He patted the buttons of his fly, a signal Shax understood quite well, relief shining in his eyes as he reached up to undo Ness's pants.

Apparently done with waiting, Julian spread lube over the lovely blue head of his cock, holding Ness's gaze with a roguish little smile. Ness couldn't look away, licking dry lips as Julian positioned himself and pushed in slowly. The moan that rose from Shax was pure chocolate-wrapped sin as he thrust back and tried to wriggle closer against the tight grip Julian had on his hips.

They're so beautiful together. As he knew they would be—strength and grace, Julian's focused passion meeting Shax's wanton need stroke for stroke. And there's no reason why Shax can't have us both…

Ness stilled, his hand tightening on Shax's hair as his spinning thoughts found a resting spot. Shax didn't need to choose. Ness didn't need to choose. Julian didn't need to choose. So absurdly simple, and yet he'd struggled against it for months, trying to be a contrary salmon swimming upstream.

I am the demon of ridiculousness.

His thoughts skittered off when Shax pulled him free of his pants, laving Ness's cock with greedy licks as if he'd been starved without it.

Ness leaned over him, stroking his horns, and whispered, "Would you like to suck it?"

"Please?"

"You've earned it—" Ness might have said more, but he had to break off on a strangled gasp when Shax lunged for him, taking him down to the balls in one swallow. One hand buried tight in Shax's hair, the other on his shoulder, Ness gave up thinking entirely in favor of riding that luscious, talented mouth with his attention divided between the breathtaking sights of Julian fucking Shax and Shax taking all of Ness's cock.

The harder Julian rode him, the louder Shax moaned, the vibrations driving straight down to Ness's balls and making his eyes cross. Head down over Shax's back, Julian was huffing, driven in deep and rolling his hips against Shax's butt. Helpless between them, Shax was in his own private paradise, full and used as his most cherished fantasies dictated, something Ness knew, since he'd heard them all in vivid, hopeful detail.

With a hard squirm, Shax cried out around his mouthful, shuddering and bucking back and forth as he shot cum all over the blankets scrunched beneath him. Almost there himself, Ness reached across and seized Julian's chin in his fingers, forcing his head up and claiming his mouth in a searing, tonsil-expedition kiss. When Julian bit Ness's lip, it flung Ness over the edge as well, thrusting hard into Shax's still eager mouth, making him swallow every drop.

Julian broke their kiss and dropped his head to Ness's forearm, soft cries of pleasure muffled against Ness's skin as he shuddered and writhed through orgasm. They clung together, shaking and panting in time to the chirp-thud of the Copernicus drive while Shax still licked at Ness's over-sensitized glans.

"That's enough, love… oof. That's too much."

Ness pushed Shax off gently, and his demon prince collapsed atop the now-wet blanket, with Julian sprawled on his back until he caught his breath. Once he withdrew and got up to unbuckle and toss the blue cock over the side of the bunk, Ness worked the blanket free before it and Shax dried together in a spackled mess. That went over the side, too.

A little prodding and nudging gained Ness the center of the bunk, with Shax nestled up on one side and Julian curled against the other, each claiming a shoulder as a pillow. It wasn't the most comfortable position with his folded wings pinned beneath, but Ness was content for a short rest this way, sandwiched between red-gold hair on his right and black on his left.

He had intended only a few minutes of snuggling, but he must had drifted off, since he woke with a start at a nearby thump followed by a distinct demon prince Ow.

Shax's voice drifted up from the floor, muffled and disgruntled. "We're going to need a bigger bunk."

Chapter Nine

Shax found it hard to shake the euphoria, and that could be dangerous. But Julian had come to them, and Ness had opened his heart and his arms and taken him in. It was the best of all possible outcomes, even if there wasn't quite room in the bunk for all three of them. Well, not until Ness had taken the inside and turned on his side so he could hold them under his wing to prevent another tumble.

Still. Beside him in the pilot's chair, Ver was counting down to emergence from C-space. He needed his wits—all of them, not just a few pleasure-soaked brain cells—as he took them back into possible danger. Between the pilot and copilot's chairs, Fluffy flexed her claws to hold onto the nubby protrusions of the deck plates for extra hold during decel. Mac had made an ingenuous harness for her that folded into a new floor compartment when not in use, so much better than the jump seat for her shape and size.

Three Arms needed their people, yes, and a demon prince did not break promises. Twist them, bend them, make them into loophole pretzels, but he did not break them. That wasn't the whole of it, though. Federico Duomo had spent years running his slimy eyes over Shax as if he were for sale, had nailed Shax's hand to the table once for the fun of it, and worst of all, had killed his brother, who had been a fairly reliable fence.

Without good buyers, what did a thief of pretties have, after all? Just a pile of pretties that wouldn't buy fuel, supplies, repairs, or even a decent dinner jacket with matching boots.

Getting Three Arms back home would be another small stab at Federico, even if he didn't know it, to go with the loss of his cutter and crew. Shax couldn't help a little grin over that.

Brimstone hit hard decel, and no more time remained for self-indulgence. Shax brought up his boards as soon as he could move safely and checked scans.

"Field is clear so far." Shax frowned. "No enemy ships, but no octo-spacer colony, either."

"Told you it was a stupid fucking idea," Verin muttered as he slowed them further to take them safely into the asteroids. "They ran when the shooting started. Why the hell would they come back?"

"Three Arms indicated—I think—this is a regular location for the colony. They should—" Shax froze when something that did not feel like a hand tugged at his arm. Slowly, not at all sure what he would find, he turned his head. "Oh. Hello there."

Fully suited, Three Arms Circling stood between the chairs, partially standing on Fluffy, who was surprisingly tolerant of being used as a stepstool. Octopod arms waved frantically at the boards, while the one on Shax's arm still tugged on his sleeve.

"I don't know… Did you bring your tablet?"

"Papa, they need comm." Leopold spoke up from the door. "To contact the colony. Or at least try to."

"How did you two get up here so fast?" Shax glanced from one to the other and rubbed a hand over the side of his face. "Never mind. I really don't want to know. Three Arms is welcome to try, but I don't think our comm will work for them."

"They have adapters. And Max has offered to help. For the call signal."

Max popped up over Leopold's head, waving his millipede feet and singing, Thhhrrrreeeee Aaaaaarmmmsss.

"Um. Well. I see." Shax shook his head and edged his way out of his chair. "I don't really see at all, but be my guest."

Beyond perplexed, Shax ceded his chair to Three Arms, who flowed onto the seat with palm-sized apparatuses clutched in three of their arm tips. Leopold also used Fluffy, watching proceedings with benevolent curiosity, to reach the boards, peeping and pointing out the comm modules. Between them, they tried to fumble through connecting the…adapters, Leopold had called them.

Ms. Ivana, ever watchful, intervened. "That one would go better over here, young prince cutie," she crooned as she lit up a section of board. "Then that one needs a triprong. There's one in the drawer there, Captain Tight Buns. Thank you, hon."

Between them, Three Arms set up communications to their satisfaction, then with all the excitement of an opera singer at his debut, Max swarmed up onto the holoplate and began to sing a complex series of descending notes.

Pretty, in an eerie sort of way, but a belated thought struck Shax. "How does Max know the contact codes for the colony?"

"Little mite's been practicing," Corny drawled from the doorway, and if anyone else showed up, the pilot's pod would be crowded, indeed. "He'd sing a note and Three Arms here'd wave up or down and show him longer or shorter till he got it just right. Critter's got a heck of a memory for somebody with a brain the size of a flea's dinner."

Leopold shot him a reproachful glare.

"No offense meant. He's just small. You cain't deny it."

With a shrug, Leopold turned back to the boards, where Max was running through his call signal a fourth time. As he started the fifth, a chime of several notes, some harmonious and some discordant, answered him, and Max fell off the holo plate with a strange squeak that sounded a bit too much like whoaaa.

The image coalescing over the plate gleamed golden, then flashed a series of blues and greens as the colony ship resolved in place of Max. Three Arms waved every available appendage in obvious excitement, rocking back and forth in the copilot's chair while the colony flashed through what might have been a greeting. Quickly, as if afraid home would vanish again, Three Arms began drawing with one arm tip on the little screen they had attached to the comm. Draw-draw-draw. Flash-flash-flash. Draw-draw-draw. Flash-flash.

Finally, the image faded, leaving Three Arms trembling in the chair, drawing things at Leopold.

"The ship is coming," Leopold said as he stroked Fluffy's ears. "Three Arms thinks it will be soon. I don't know how soon."

"Well?" Ver blew a gout of steam into the already smoke-laden air above his head. "What're we doing, Prince On His Last Fucking Marble?"

Shax drummed his fingers on the back of the chair. "We hold here. As long as we can. If it comes to it and we have to run? So be it. But Three Arms' predicament is entirely due to our blundering into their territory. It's our responsibility to try."

"Could've found me a good chaos demon to run with," Verin muttered. "But no. I had to end up working for Captain Lawful Evil."

Despite the grumbling, he slowed the Brimstone and plotted orbit around one of the larger asteroids.

"I want someone on scan at all times. We're on alert from now until we leave here." Shax unhooked Fluffy from her harness so she could get up, which she did, with Leopold still on her back. "Corny, do you want first shift?"

The long, direct look Corny gave him said everything. "I'll stay with Ver for now, Cap, if it's all the same to you."

I'll stay with my love if we're going to die this time, that look had said.

"Of course." Shax patted his shoulder before striding out with Fluffy at his heels. Of course. Into his comm, he said, "Ness, where are you?"

There was a delay before he got an almost answer. "Ummm."

"It's all right, sweetheart. But I need you to get up and to get Julian up." Because I know you're all wrapped up together in my bunk. Lovely picture, that. "I need everyone armed. Just in case."

"Yes, Captain," Ness responded with crisp professionalism.

The ship still had no gun. They were as good as barrel fish for as long as they stayed. Yes, Ver would duck and dodge, and he was good, damn it, but it they came in force, he wouldn't be able to evade forever.

"I'm buying us armaments if we survive this," Shax said to the walls, knowing Ms. Ivana was listening. "Whatever it costs. We will have ordinance."

Ms. Ivana gave a haughty sniff. "Only if you make them pretty."

"You can have glitter-painted guns if you want them, sweetie. Whatever you please, as long as they're deadly."

"Oooh. You're such a good Captain."

Just let us survive and I'll give you rainbow guns and guns striped pink and purple and ones painted with red feathers. Anything if we get through this.

Five minutes couldn't have passed before Julian strode down the corridor to him, menacing in black leather and bristling with weapons, moving with his usual deadly grace, as if he'd never been dying in Ness's arms. "Sightings?"

Shax shook his head. "Nothing yet. I just have a feeling of inevitability here."

"More than a feeling. Fluffy's still trackable. By now they've realized they can't raise anyone on the cutter. They're coming." Julian gave him a look, one that meant I have good advice, but I know you won't take it. "You're holding here?"

"We're holding here."

"Fair. Running gets to the point where it's no fun."

Hoofbeats trip-tropped from the side corridor, Heckle careening around the corner with his arms full. "Captain! Ness said to bring you these."

"Ah, thank you, Mr. Numerous." Shax took his own brace of pistols from Heckle and buckled them on, the one on the left riding at his hip and the right strapped to his thigh. Not worth much in a ship-to-ship battle, but it made him feel better.

Julian put a hand on Heckle's shoulder before he could trot off again. "I want you with me if we need to repel boarders, Heck."

"Me?" Heckle squeaked.

"Who's the best shot on this crew?" Julian poked at Heckle's shoulder.

"Oh. Um. Me." Heckle's complexion darkened to brick-red in an imp blush, and his hand crept to the butt of his personal scarlet handgun at his hip. "But I'm not—"

"Trained?" Julian prompted gently. "Sweetie, I just need you next to me to shoot people as they board—if they board—not engage in espionage. In fact, I need to give everyone a spot for repelling of boarders. You—" Julian pointed at Shax. "You I want in the closest cross corridor in case anyone gets past us."

Shax let out a dry chuckle. "Because I'm not the best shot on this crew."

"Because you're devious and ruthless in a bad spot and won't let anyone slip past you."

"Ah."

Julian hurried off, muttering to himself. Eyes wide, Heckle watched him go before turning to Shax. "Is this it, highness?"

At any other moment, with any other person, Shax would have said something flippant and full of bravado. Looking into those big, trusting eyes, he just couldn't. "I hope not, Heck. I really do hope not. Best-case scenario, the colony ship comes for Three Arms and we run a bit more until Fluffy's, ah, discarded her tracker nanites."

"Okay." Heckle regarded him for a moment longer before he nodded and scampered off.

My rescue imp. My crew. When did this thing happen that they believe in me? Shax squared his shoulders, wishing he still owned a sword he could rattle. Everything would be fine because it had to be. "Because I say so."

"Cap, we've got something comin' through," Corny called out over ship's comm.

"Is it the—"

Verin interrupted him, bellowing, "Brace or get tossed! Duomo registered cutter in-system! Gonna try and hide us!"

Corny again: "They're firing!"

The ship gave a violent jolt, and Shax barely managed to wrap his arms around a corridor handhold before the Brimstone accelerated with purpose and executed a hard-to-starboard turn. Shax cursed his timing. Stuck in an inside corridor during maneuvers, he had no idea what was happening except that they were probably trying to put asteroids between them and the incoming enemy ship. Jaw clenched, feet braced, he had no choice but to ride it out for now. Maddening.

Another sharp change of direction, dorsally. A hard shock. A rumbling grind and whine of mechanized distress. The lights went out. Shax barely dared breathe in the sudden black silence as the circulation fans cut off.

A moment later, the ship hiccupped. The lights and fans returned. Shax drew a shuddering breath and hit ship's comm. "Damage?"

"Fuckers got a lucky shot in," Ver snarled. "Two propulsion engines out."

That's just lovely. Effectively dead in the water. "Are we hidden?"

"Oh, fuck no. They're coming right for us."

"Firing still?"

Verin hesitated. "No."

All right, it looks like they want some of us still breathing, at least. "Prepare to repel boarders. Corny, I'm sorry, but I need you down here," Shax said as calmly as he could over ship's comm, until he realized he had no idea where. The airlock would seem to be the most sensible place, but if he were boarding a ship, he'd make sure he had the equipment to cut a hole in the hull and seal the entrance. Airlocks were often booby-trapped. Another thing he really needed to see to if they got out of this, but the enemy didn't know that.

Switching to wrist comm, Shax contacted the pilot's pod. "Ver, best guess on where they'll try to latch on."

"The bastards are steady toward our port. Could be going for the airlock."

Thank all the sulfur pits that gravity's holding. Back on ship's comm, Shax bellowed, "Repelling party, meet me in outer corridor C. C as in carats."

Bellowing felt good in a bad spot. He understood why Ver did it so often. Calm though, they needed him to be calm. Shax leaned against the wall beside the air lock controls and waited with what he hoped was confident nonchalance as nearly his entire crew thundered toward him.

With everyone assembled, Shax craned around Ness. "Where's Mac?"

"Mac's holding the engine room," Julian answered.

"Very well, Agent Parallax. Post your troops."

Julian swung around to face the crowded corridor. "Heck, packing crates?"

"Right here!" Heckle wove through the larger people pushing a float cart with three crates piled on top.

"Perfect. Ness, if you would? That's our barrier." Julian pointed. "Corny, you're with the captain. Opposite sides of the junction. Leopold, I need you—oh, you're there already."

Shax followed Julian's gaze up and was shocked to find Leopold perched up in the ceiling girders like a tiny pink sniper. No. There was no simile there. Leopold was a tiny pink sniper. He peeped in acknowledgement and waved his hedgehog-sized gun.

"Fluffy, you're with me," Julian went on. "Down behind the barrier, please, miss. Head down until you've become an absolute last resort."

With a little mrrreh, Fluffy leaped the crate barricade and crouched behind it with her spiked tail switching back and forth. Ness lifted Heckle over to take their positions while Shax risked a glance out of the portal. The cutter stood off a short distance and was sending a shuttle. Said shuttle was definitely not aimed at the airlock.

"They plan on cutting through the hull." Shax swallowed against his rising anger. Cutting into his beloved ship. Barbarians. "Everyone grab a canister set from the drawer there in case these goons are incompetent and don't get a good seal."

A hard thump on the hull heralded the shuttle latching on. Shax vaulted the barricade, made certain his crew had their oxygen, and strode to the cross corridor, where he sheltered behind the wall, watching as a laser cutter began to heat a blue-white circle in the Brimstone's poor hull. Growls rose in several throats, and Shax realized one of them was his.

He loved his little ship, damn it. How dare they?

When the cutter completed its glowing ring, the circle of hull fell inward with a clang. No air rushed out into vacuum, so their attackers weren't complete idiots and had managed a good ship-to-ship seal. Smoke wreathed the hole in the breached hull, and for several interminable moments, nothing happened.

It occurred to Shax in that uneasy silence that maybe there was no boarding party, that this was an unmanned shuttle, and it was about to explode. Though remote operation from the cutter would have taken some damnably ingenious robotics. His wild speculations died, though, as a broad-shouldered figure stepped across the seal, firing. Four heads ducked behind the crate barrier, and both Shax and Corny took cover behind their respective corners.

Projectiles pinged against the steel and polyceramics of the corridors, that first goon providing cover fire for the next, who came in on one knee, firing with greater precision. They could fire as they pleased into the interior. Shax and his crew would have to be more careful for fear of damaging the seal and venting the ship's atmosphere.

Julian appeared to be counting, either shots or the rhythm of firing. With a nod to Heckle, they both popped up and fired single shots at their assailants. One shattered through the faceplate of the kneeling goon. The other took the standing one through the heart, neat and quick.

They dropped, but it was far too much to hope those were the only two.

The rest of them, however many, were apparently the smarter goons, since they didn't come rushing through the opening. A whirring came from beyond the seal instead, one that grew ominously louder.

Julian only had time to shout "Drones!" before they swarmed the corridor—basket drones as long as Shax's arm, equipped with both projectile and plasma weapons. He couldn't even count them. It took Julian two shots to find the sweet spot, and he began picking them off by taking out the power cells. Heckle initially aimed for the EM packs underneath, not quite as effective, since the damn things crashed but kept shooting. For Ness, it was a couple of shots more before he figured it out, and up in the rafters, Leopold simply watched Julian and did what he did with great success.

Though Shax suspected his front line was better than any other mismatched sharpshooters in the galaxy, they couldn't hit all of the nasty things. Five got past them.

"Cap?" Corny called from across the corridor.

"I see them. Center mass, Corny. Best we can do."

Pistol in each hand, Shax started shooting as soon as he could without endangering his crew down the corridor. He brought down one before they reached the cross corridor. Corny, pistol in a two-handed grip, managed to cripple two more. Those two crashed and continued shooting until Julian whipped around and took them out, while the rest bore down on Shax and Corny. Now Shax was firing desperately, almost indiscriminately, as many shots hitting the ceiling as the drones. One burst into flames and went down with a screech. Corny shot another through its core, but the last was behind him, taking aim. Shax couldn't hit it without shooting Corny in the head.

"Corny! Get—"

A bone-rattling roar came from behind Shax, and a blur streaked past him, heedless of the firing drones. In one motion, the blur tackled Corny and ripped the drone out of the air, resolving into Verin kneeling on the floor and clawing the basket drone to pieces with his bare hands.

"Ver! I thought you were guarding the controls?" Shax shouted as he turned back to the thinning melee.

"Three Arms has it." Verin bristled when Shax looked at him, aghast. "I gave them a fucking pistol."

"You armed Three Arms?"

"Yeah. They've got it. Shut up." Verin pulled a stunned Corny into his arms. "No troll-shit quality drone's shooting my cowboy, fuck you very much."

"I reckon I'll thank you right and proper later," Corny's voice rose muffled from where Verin had smushed Corny's face into his shoulder. "But we ain't out of this mess yet."

"That's the last," Julian called from the barrier. "Ness, we're going to have to rush the— Fluffy, no!"

Before Julian could finish laying plans, Fluffy had gathered her hindquarters, given a little butt-calibration wriggle, and leaped the barrier to sail through the connector seal into the shuttle. Julian moved as if to follow, but Ness put a hand on his shoulder and shoved him down before taking off after Fluffy himself.

Universal winces and shudders ran through the watching crew as high-pitched screams and other terrible sounds came from inside the shuttle. Thirty seconds after he'd dashed in, Ness staggered out, pale and wide-eyed.

"Fluffy, um… She…" Ness swallowed hard. "Neutralized. Enemy neutralized, Captain."

Quite pleased with herself, Fluffy nudged Ness aside with her head, plopped down atop the crate barricade, and began to clean the blood from her jaws and whiskers.

"That's my girl," Shax crooned, though he didn't grin like he wanted to. Ness looked a bit too disturbed already. "I think we can safely assume now that they don't want us dead."

"Cap, they were shooting at us," Corny said in disbelief.

"Granted. They don't want us all dead. They shot out the engines and went through the trouble of trying to board instead of blowing us to bits. Why?"

The ship's speaker crackled. "Captain Sweetums, I think you're going to find out." Ms. Ivana sounded anxious. Not good. "Something big just came through, and not big in a good way, and they're hailing us."

Shax holstered his pistols and faced the speaker. "When you say something big, could we be more specific, my dear?"

Ms. Ivana hesitated before answering, "It's the Pinochet, Captain."

His stomach sank to his boots. "I see. And it's himself calling?"

"It is, the nasty so-and-so." Ivana sniffed her most disapproving sniff.

Maybe there's a way, still. Maybe he just wants me. Not that I'm all that keen about being the sacrificial lamb, but needs must. "All right. Put him through down here, Ms. Ivana, if you would, please. And let Mac know we're all fine."

"Done and done, tiger."

The comm station beside the airlock blinked to life as Shax made his way through his crew and over the crates, stopping to give Fluffy a congratulatory scritch. He straightened his jacket, ran a hand through his hair—probably hopeless with bits of ash and char—and hit receive. Federico Duomo's self-satisfied, bulldog-jowled face appeared in all its wretched glory above the holo plate.

"Hello, pretty little demon." Federico's smile would make a demon ill. Oh. Right. It did make demons ill. "Have you missed me?"

"As much as I miss broken fingers." Shax made a show of checking his nails. "Are you calling truce to recover the bodies of your boarding party?"

Federico waved a hand in dismissal of his dead minions. "My employees know the risks. No, I thought I might give your crew a sporting chance."

"If this is another pin-the-demon-to-the-table game—"

"Perhaps later. For now, I need your surrender. I know you're a bit sentimental for a demon, so I won't demand the lives of everyone on board. Just you, that luscious angel of yours, and of course, Parallax. I don't have any interest in him myself, pretty as he is. For a colleague. You understand."

"Let me verify here." Shax pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "You let my ship and my crew go free if I walk peacefully into your custody with Ness and Agent Parallax? Is that right?"

"Yes." The smile grew wider. "In restraints, of course."

"And then?"

"Why, then the ISE agent will be handed over to other parties, you and I will have some long delayed fun while you last, and your angel gets to watch."

Is it possible to send grease through a holo image? It feels like it. "You're not really making your case here."

The horrid smile vanished abruptly, which was almost more disturbing. "Your crew get to live. That idiot retainer of yours with the horns. That adorable little imp I've seen footage of, even though he's far more tempting than the rest. Your son. They walk away."

If the bargain had just been for Shax, he would've taken it. The surviving Duomo brother had a grudge that had been simmering for some time. He'd want torture and humiliation, and as long as Shax was alive, he'd have a chance to escape. But Julian and Ness? Julian would be executed without a thought, and Shax had promised that Ness would never suffer captivity again.

"No."

A furrowed line appeared between Federico's brows. "I could be magnanimous. Give you some time to think. We have nothing but time."

I could stall. Maybe give Three Arms Circling's colony ship time to get here. But then I'd be putting them in danger, too. "No. Just no, Federico. In the words of my oldest friend, fuck the hell off."

The horrible smile was back. "Either way, I win. Goodbye, Captain Goldner."

Shax cut the connection just for the petty satisfaction of being the first to hang up. He missed the days of being able to slam the phone receiver down. But now he was at a loss. Should they abandon ship and try to steal the cutter? The shuttle wasn't damaged, and at least the cutter had working engines and a Copernicus drive.

While he mulled, Julian leaped up and dashed off.

Damn it, what now?

"Captain!" Now Ivana sounded beyond anxious. "Multiple ships launching from the Pinochet!"

And that bastard knew it. Damn it, Julian. Shax took off in the direction Julian had taken, his crew calling after him in variations of alarm and annoyance. He was fast, but Julian had a head start. Shax didn't catch up to him until he found him in the cargo bay, unstrapping his float bike from where it was secure to the wall.

"Julian."

"Don't, Shax." Julian kicked the EM fields on so the bike floated beside him and pulled his sleek vacuum suit from a saddlebag. "We don't have time."

"You can't go out there."

Julian took him by the shoulders. "Listen to me. Brimstone is defenseless. I have missiles and several guns on this thing. You need me out there."

"Against an army of cutters and shuttles? You'll be slaughtered!"

"No." Ness's voice came cold and forbidding from the landing. "You will not do this."

The sound of frustration from Julian was as close as Shax had ever seen him to losing his temper. "We have to do something. We're about to be riddled with an overkill of armaments here."

"We'll hijack the cutter." Shax put a hand to Julian's cheek as Ness came to loom over them. "I don't want to abandon my ship, damn it, but at least we can escape."

"Are you insane?" Julian's laugh was sharp and bitter. "They already know anyone coming over in that shuttle won't be theirs. They'll destroy us before we get halfway there."

Ness's wings came around them both, his voice softer as he said, "This, what you're doing, is suicide. What use is it to die out there all alone?"

"No. Listen." For a moment, Julian leaned his head against Ness's chest and breathed deeply. "Listen. I only need to hold them off. Enforcement's on the way. I put a call in when our engines died. They're coming, but I have to buy you time. This is for you." He glanced between them, and Shax's heart gave a painful thump to see the tears standing in Julian's eyes. "For both of you. I've already passed a reasonable lifespan for what I am. Let me do this for you."

"I didn't accept that reasoning before." Ness tightened his wings around them, making a soft, tender cocoon. "And I refuse to now. We need to find a way that doesn't sacrifice you."

"But there isn't—"

"Something big's showing on scans," Ms. Ivana interrupted in a high, frightened voice. "And it isn't coming through Copernicus!"

Shax met Ness's startled gaze, then Julian's. "Pilot's pod. Now."

He ducked under Ness's wing and took off running without waiting for agreement. Two pairs of boots pounded after him, as he'd expected. In the pod, Three Arms was waving all their arms in obvious excitement. A huge glow had appeared between two of the nearest moon-sized asteroids, not the blinding glow of an explosion, but an inexplicable soft, golden light of extraordinary dimensions.

"It's the colony," Julian whispered just as Shax reached the same conclusion. He tried to dash back out of the pod and cried out in irritation when Shax seized him around the waist and Ness took his feet out from under him. "I have to go out there now! We need to protect them!"

The colony solidified, its colors flashing orange and deep indigo as wide streams of light flooded from its tiers. Shax thought at first the lights were signals, but as he watched, they resolved into separate octopus spacers, thousands upon thousands of them charging out of the colony ship.

"I don't think they need us," Shax said softly as he turned Julian to watch.

The cutters and shuttles took precious moments to react, most likely caught off guard by something so completely unfamiliar. The octopus spacers were almost on them when some of the cutters recovered and opened fire. In the path of plasma shells, lights began to wink out.

"No! They're being slaughtered." Julian sagged against Shax, trembling. "It's too late."

"Wait…" Shax squinted at the viewscreen. Something odd, something… He focused on a spacer who had taken on an angry red glow. A shot cut across their path and they winked out…only to reappear a short distance to the right. "They're doing—honestly, I don't know what they're doing. But they're not dying."

Three Arms was gesticulating wildly, holding a stylus in one arm and jumping it from point to point over the boards.

"They're phasing. Holy hells." Julian's gaze whipped back and forth between Three Arms and the tableau out in vacuum. "They're phasing. I didn't think anyone had managed…central command has…well, classified."

The disjointed sentences weren't hard to parse. Octopus spacers had tech that ISE had conceived of, but hadn't managed to produce. There were occasional casualties who were whisked back to the colony ship, but most of the…swarm? Herd? Battalion? Most simply avoided the ordinance fired at them.

They reached the cutter farthest from the Pinochet first and surrounded it, octopus spacers covering every inch of its surface until it vanished under a bright cloud of glowing octopus suits. Shax held his breath, counting silently, though he couldn't say why. When he reached thirty, the crowd holding the cutter suddenly dispersed and underneath them was…nothing. The cutter had vanished.

"Did they phase it away?" Ness asked softly.

Julian just shook his head, obviously just as puzzled.

The scene repeated in rapid succession with every other Duomo cutter and shuttle. Some tried to run back to the Pinochet. They weren't fast enough. Whatever propulsion the octopus suits used, it was more than a match for ship propulsion.

The boards flashed an incoming warning, yet another player entering stage left. Shax shook his head. "System's getting a little crowded."

No question what the ships were when they broke through. Two ISE cruisers left C-space simultaneously, their bright red-and-blue chevrons declaring faster than any ident code, their comms blaring messages for all ships in the area to stand down.

Scans showed that the Pinochet had fired up engines and was turning, probably for an acceleration run to reach C-space.

Not fast enough.

The ever-growing cloud of spacers reached it before it could finish the turn and swarmed it, hundreds upon hundreds of them latching on to every surface. Three Arms reached out and took Shax's hand as if they couldn't stand the suspense. One minute, two, the spacers stayed with the Pinochet longer than any of the others, probably because it was so much larger.

When they finally dispersed, the Pinochet was gone.

Ness let out a long breath. "I don't—"

"Debris field," Julian cut him off with a sharp gesture at scans. "We didn't pick it up so easily with the smaller ships, but this one's hard to miss."

"The fuck just happened out there?" Verin growled from the doorway where the rest of the crew had gathered.

Shax blinked at the screen, then at the scans. "Well. Um. It appears that Three Arms Circling's family and friends have disassembled all of the enemy ships into teeny tiny pieces. Or in some cases, not so tiny." He turned to Three Arms. "I think I should say thank you?"

Three Arms wrapped five appendages around Shax and gave him a brief, somewhat disturbing hug before they flowed off the copilot's chair and maneuvered between crew members to get out into the corridor. Completely nonplussed now, Shax carefully moved Verin, then Corny, then Mac aside in the corridor to follow. He caught up to their guest at the airlock, where Three Arms gesticulated extravagantly at the controls.

"Of course." Shax went down on one knee to be on eye level. "You want to go home." He glanced up at the rest of the crew gathered in the corridor. "Leopold, my dear, does Three Arms have all of their tools?"

"I have the last ones. The ones from the guest-room tank." Leopold brought the bits of unidentifiable metal forward and said to Three Arms, "Don't go without them."

Three Arms took the little cylinder and the knobbed thingamabob from Leopold and tucked them away in one of their suit's many hidden pockets. At the same time, they used two arms to hug Leopold with great care.

Multitasking would never be an issue. Shax cleared his throat. "You're certain that your suit is uncompromised now? And honestly, it makes no sense to ask. You don't understand a thing I'm saying."

He hit the control for the inner door, and Three Arms barely waited until the portal rolled back before flowing inside. They gave a wave to the crew, then faced outward, arms undulating in what might have been anticipation or anxiety.

"Goodbye, Three Arms. Say hello to the folks." With an odd feeling of regret, Shax punched in the sequence for the outer air lock.

Through the nearby view portal, octopus spacers swarmed into view, heading toward the ship. Shax had a moment's panic, but they stopped short of Brimstone to greet Three Arms with a great deal of waving and touching. Three Arms broke away for a moment to return and pet the Brimstone as one would a favorite guinea pig. Then they waved to the crew watching at the portal and disappeared amidst the crowd of identical octopus suits.

"Captain, I think I need a vacation after this," Ivana said with every indication that she was fanning herself. "But you've got a call from ISE waiting."

"Oh, for pit's sakes." Shax turned to his crew. "Do I look positively awful?"

"A little worse for wear, love." Ness straightened his collar with gentle hands.

"Singed. Though on you it's rakish and piratical," Julian offered.

Verin shrugged. "So your hair's not fucking perfect. Take the call, genius."

Rather than going to his quarters or to the pilot's pod, Shax took the call right where he was standing with his amazing, how-were-they-not-shell-shocked crew around him. "This is Shax Goldner, captain of the Brimstone."

"Commander Irene Dunstan, ISE cruiser Indefatigable." A stern face with short-cropped silver hair filled the space above the holo plate. "What in all holy hells just happened here?"

"Ah. Well. Several things? Would you like to meet, and I'll explain the things I'm able to?"

"Too fucking right. Is your airlock operational, Captain?"

"Yes?"

"I'll be on my shuttle in five. Expect me."

"As you like, Commander. Please don't power up any weapons. The, ah, denizens of this area of space don't seem to appreciate it."

The connection cut out. Shax frowned at the holo plate, trying to think if there was a reason he shouldn't let ISE on the ship. Force of habit. Not letting law enforcement board.

"Come on then, highness," Julian said with a hand on his arm. "Let's get your hair brushed and your shirt changed, at least. You don't have to look parade perfect, but I know you'll feel better."

Shax looked down at himself with a sigh. "I need some shinier boots, too."

"So let me see if I have this." Commander Dunstan did not put her head in her hands, though she looked like she wanted to. Instead, she pointed to where Fluffy leaned against Shax. "You pick up a new pet, origin unknown, even though you believe she's a plant, are then shocked when hostile ships track you, barely escape with an injured member of an alien species, maroon an entire, probably dead now, hostile crew on an unincorporated planet, and finally have your asses saved when aforementioned alien species comes to pick up their kid because they took apart the hostile ships by hand."

Shax took a genteel sip of coffee. "Yes. I think that covers it rather well."

Dunstan drummed her fingers on the galley table. She'd forgone the coffee but had devoured two cinnamon rolls while Shax had explained. Perhaps not every detail, but Ness didn't think she wanted a novel.

"You either play the odds better than anyone alive, or you're the damned stupidest luck-blessed captain I ever met."

"A little of both, I expect," Shax said with a self-effacing grin. He'd taken a humble stance with the commander. So far, it seemed to be the best approach.

Dunstan snorted. "I should charge you for the transport, since I'll have to send my people to investigate the possibility of survivors on that planet."

"But you won't, Commander," Julian said in a pointed tone.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I suppose I won't since there are certain codes involved. This is all above my pay grade, if I'm honest. So transport you'll get. This sector is going under quarantine for uncertain interspecies contact, and somehow I have to report the death of Federico Duomo by angry…what did you say they were called?"

"I'd need four arms to try to say the name they call themselves." Shax chuckled. "And I'm sure I'd get it wrong. We've been referring to them as octopus spacers, though that's not accurate, of course."

"Octopus spacers it is for now." The commander rose with a gusty sigh while she gathered her dress gloves and hat. "We'll get you snug into one of the repair bays, but make sure you batten down regardless. We don't have any cushy dampeners on ISE ships for Copernicus maneuvers."

Shax scrambled up and shook her offered hand. "Understood, commander. I'll brief the crew. And thank you."

He stood smiling while Julian led her back to her shuttle, though he slumped against the wall with a scowl once she had gone. "Cushy dampeners? What does she think this is, a pleasure yacht?"

"She was just annoyed, love. It's nice that we're getting a ride." Ness opened his arms, pleased when Shax snuggled into them. "But we get to keep Julian? He's ours now, isn't he?"

Shax's soft laugh didn't have much humor in it. "Julian's his own. Once we're clear of all this mess, he'll go back on the job. He's ours while he's with us, but we can't insist that he stay."

Why not? Ness didn't say that, though. "My love, he won't say it, but he's tired and he's lonely. He's mentioned more than once that he's past the age of expected survival in the field. They need to let him go."

"Julian needs to let go." Shax snuggled closer, holding on tight. "It's all he's ever done. I think he's afraid to stop."

That was, naturally, the moment Julian picked to bounce back into the room with a huge smile. "Orders, captain?" The smile slid sideways. "You were talking about me. I can tell by the awkward."

Shax held out an arm and waited until Julian had joined them in their snuggle. "We were conspiring. But we do need to talk."

"About what?" Julian pushed back far enough to see them both, his eyes suddenly wary.

"Boundaries, my sweet. Boundaries." Shax gave Julian a tender kiss, then stood on his toes to offer one to Ness. "While I am admittedly greedy and like to be included in most things, I have no issues if you two would like time together. Alone time. Just let me know. Julian?"

"Same. That is, I like being included, but I'd have some nerve saying that you and Ness can't be alone together." He held up a hand when Shax sighed. "I don't mind at all."

"Ness?"

He didn't answer right away because it needed to be a true answer, not the answer he thought they wanted. Ness cleared his throat. "I, ah, I'm afraid I do mind. The possessive thing. I don't think I'd do well with the two of you alone. But—" He had to clear his throat a second time out of embarrassment, heat climbing up his face. "If you want to have sex, just the two of you, I'd like very much to watch."

"I think we could manage that." Julian's smile turned wicked as he played with the buttons on Ness's shirt. "In fact, I think we'd both like that."

"Mmmm." Shax leaned in as if his knees were giving out. "Just the thought's almost enough."

Ness brought his wings around to hold them both close. "After we get to Triton for repairs. I'm not comfortable with the thought of someone else watching."

"Yes. Right. ISE ship." Shax sighed. "I wouldn't mind putting on a show for the officers in red and blue, but I know you'd rather not. After. Yes."

He ducked out of their embrace abruptly, reaching for his data pad on the table. "And I need to make a list. Hull repairs. Engine repairs. Need to check with Mac on specifics. Aft gun needs to be replaced most urgently. And I want forward guns. Two of them. Perhaps a port gun if we can find a good spot. I wonder if Heckle should have a rifle. He's awfully good with the pistol, though."

Still holding Julian, Ness found himself laughing softly. "You're forgetting something, love."

"What? No, that's everything."

"No, Ness is right." Julian was chewing on his lip, a grin trying to peek through. "One more thing."

Shax's puzzled frown melted into a positively wicked grin. "Oh, yes. We're going to need a bigger bunk."

He swaggered off, Fluffy following at his heels while Julian shook against Ness with silent laughter. Ness bent to kiss the top of Julian's head and whispered, "And while he's busy, I'll show you my toy box. Give him some of his conspiring back."

Julian's surprised laugh was clear and warm, with no trace of weary bitterness at all.

Dear Reader

Thank you for purchasing Angel Martinez's The Hunt for Red Fluffy. We hope you enjoyed it. Please consider leaving a review where you purchased this ebook and/or on Goodreads. Reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations are vital to independent publishers.

If you enjoyed this story by Angel, then you may also enjoy her story, Safety Protocols for Human Holidays, or you may want to explore J. Scott Coatsworth's, The Autumn Lands.

We love hearing from our readers. You can email us at mischiefcornerbooks@gmail.com. To read excerpts from all our titles, visit our website: http://www.mischiefcornerbooks.com.

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About Angel Martinez

While Angel Martinez is the erotic fiction pen name of a writer of several genres, she writes both kinds of gay romance – Science Fiction and Fantasy. Currently living part time in the hectic sprawl of northern Delaware, (and full time inside the author's head) Angel has one husband, one son, two cats, a changing variety of other furred and scaled companions, a love of all things beautiful and a terrible addiction to the consumption of both knowledge and chocolate.

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Also by Angel Martinez

BRANDYWINE INVESTIGATIONS

Brandywine Investigations: Open for Business (Omnibus)

Brandywine Investigations: Family Matters (Omnibus)

BRIMSTONE

Potato Surprise #1

Hell for the Company #2

Fear of Frogs #3

Shax's War #4

Beside a Black Tarn #5

The Hunt for Red Fluffy #6

The Brimstone Journals: Collection One

The Brimstone Journals: Collection Two

THE ENDANGERED FAE SERIES

Finn

Diego

Semper Fae

No Fae is an Island

ESTO UNIVERSE

Vassily the Beautiful

Prisoner 374215

A Matter of Faces

Gravitational Attraction

LIJUN Trilogy (with Freddy Mackay)

Fireworks & Stolen Kisses

Trysts & Burning Embers

Detonations & Devotion (TBD)

INTERPLANETARY MULTISPECIES PACT (IMP)

A Christmas Cactus for the General

A Message from the Home Office*

*Currently awaiting republication

THE WEB OF ARCANA

The Mage on the Hill

OFFBEAT CRIMES

Lime Gelatin and Other Monsters

Pill Bugs of Time

Skim Blood & Savage Verse

Feral Dust Bunnies

Jackalopes & Woofen-Poofs

All the World's an Undead Stage

SINGLE TITLES

The Color of His Crest

Hearts & Flowers: A Tale of Hay Fever and Bad Decor

Restoration

The Line

Meteor Strike: Serge and Een

AURA UNIVERSE (with Bellora Quinn)

Quinn's Gambit

Flax's Pursuit

Kellen's Awakening

About Mischief Corner Books

Mischief Corner Books is an organization of superheroes… no, it's a platinum-album techno-fusion group… no, hold on a sec here…

Ah yes. Mischief Corner is a small press publisher offering queer romance and fiction for readers, intent on making some mayhem with our books. Diversity and positive representation for all members of the queer community is important to us, and MCB works to make those voices heard because those who travel the off the beaten path are a gift and their stories make the world a more interesting place.

In addition to making mayhem, we live to break molds. MCB. Giving voice to LGBTQ fiction.

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Table of Contents

- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Table of Contents
- Chapter 1
- Chapter 2
- Chapter 3
- Chapter 4
- Chapter 5
- Chapter 6
- Chapter 7
- Chapter 8
- Chapter 9
- Dear Reader
- You May Also Enjoy…
- You May Also Enjoy…
- You May Also Enjoy…
- You May Also Enjoy…
- About Angel Martinez
- Also by Angel Martinez
- About Mischief Corner Books