Fragile Bond (11 page)

His comment earned him the attention of all three. “Good. Now you listen. We’ve invaded their lands. And you,” he pointed at the captain, “threatened their leader with lethal harm. Did you expect zero retaliation?”

Reccin stilled and watched him. With his fangs still bared, he looked far from approachable, but he’d stopped fighting. “Turn off your happy juice, Commander,” he growled, shoving at his superior. “It’s only affecting your human, not me.”

Hamm shoved right back, rough enough to send him staggering backward a step. Reccin concealed his fangs and sank into a crouch, raking furrows in the turf with his claws.

The landing party had edged away from the furrs. About time they offered some respect. He was done giving reassurances.

“Did your pilot execute a deep-penetration infrared of the area before landing?”

Staff Sergeant Makko shook her head. Her gaze slid toward Hamm and Reccin momentarily. “He did a surface scan and found the three of you, Sergeant. That was it. Why?”

“If he had, you would’ve seen something disturbing.” And in all likelihood wouldn’t have landed in the first place. “Directly below us is their headquarters. Which means this area is crawling with tawnies.” Just uttering that word made his throat tighten. His trigger hand twitch. It felt disrespectful, as though reducing them to the simple predatory threat he’d originally assumed they were. Still, it didn’t feel prudent to confuse matters in an already tense situation by throwing new terms at them. “If any one of us twitches the wrong way, we’re all dead. So either execute an about-face and board that shuttle, or start acting like the diplomatic envoys you’re supposed to be.” He aimed that at Cortannas and Andruski, since neither bothered looking ashamed. “Instead of green recruits on a training mission.”

Furrs and humans stared at him, their expressions of shock too similar for comfort.

Even Hamm wore one. Marc could think of no other way to translate the furr’s look. His eyes were wide, mouth open a fraction, lips separated just enough to expose the brutal tips of his large canines. Combined with the adrenaline and lust spiking his blood, it made him furious. And hard. But the trouser-straining erection only fueled his anger even more.

The commander chose that moment to step closer and rumble. Marc flung his hand out to hold him off, what with Cortannas being so jumpy. Not that Marc wasn’t, but his palm brushed against Hamm’s chest and whatever thoughts had jumbled in his head just dissipated. The noise resonated through Marc’s body, traveling from his fingertips, up his arm, and into the base of his neck, like a hand resting lightly on his shoulder in a tentative request for forgiveness.

“Apologies, Sergeant Staille. Tell me how to help.”

He pulled his hand away, fingertips dragging over the soft skin, the faint dusting of hair, with reluctance that he couldn’t shake. It felt strange, and yet it didn’t. He wet his lips and swallowed, trying to recover his ability to form words.

Hamm was too close. Marc didn’t understand how the male’s scent swamped him again, since the breeze hadn’t kicked up. He could feel his higher brain function slipping away as his cock twitched and ached. Marc needed some space. And a great deal of fresh air. He held his hand in the air between them as he sidled away a pace, then two.

“Get translators for them. You want this to work, right?” Marc cleared his throat when Hamm’s eyes narrowed. Did the furr even realize that his claws were sliding in and out like that? Not like a rapid twitch or spasm, but slow and deliberate as though in an act of distraction. “We can work on the cultural and social confusion, but it’s going to take time. Right now? They need to understand your verbal communication. Or the language barrier is going to kill your chance for peace.”

Reccin snuffled, but when Marc glanced past Hamm to look at him, the furr hackled, flexing his hands one last time before sheathing his claws. But he sheathed them, gaze boring steadily into Marc’s.

“Better,” Marc acknowledged with a nod. He considered for a moment that he had only a bare-bones, skim-the-surface comprehension of their social interactions as well. He could be giving mixed signals . . . or worse, making enemies of everyone he encountered. “Commander Orsonna, the translators? We need at least one. For the lieutenant major. He’ll be acting as planetary diplomat for the foreseeable future.”

Hamm glanced at Reccin, who diverted his gaze to the ground. His second snuffed again, twisted his lips to bare a single fang, glancing in Marc’s direction. The commander bristled and seemed to swell in size.

Reccin lowered his chin and ducked a bow. “I’ll bring Sergeant Dehna. And a bio-processor. And I will ensure she behaves,” he added, voice dropping, “where I have failed to.”

Cortannas shifted uncomfortably with every syllable the furrs uttered. Marc didn’t know about Hamm, but he’d be more inclined to relax if the C-C team leader would rest all her fingers on the grip, at least. Her trigger discipline was remarkable, but he really didn’t trust her not to twitch, or flinch, or something equally prone to causing a discharge.

“You need to chill. Sir.” Marc stepped closer to the officer and lowered his voice. “This isn’t totally fubar. But if you can’t maintain some calm, may I suggest you get back on that shuttle.”

She blinked once, and then a few more times. Whatever had crashed in her brain, a light of logic fired in her eyes. She nodded. “I’ll take that under consideration, Sergeant. What sort of population density are we talking about?”

Makko sidled closer, her ears practically pinging like sonar from curiosity.

“Close to a few hundred in this location. From what I can tell, this isn’t so much a community as a military outpost.”

“Lovely.” Andruski edged closer and nodded at Marc. “Interesting conclusion, Sergeant.”

He flashed a smile. “I’m a sniper scout. If I’m not observant, I’m dead, sir.”

“Yes. Then why is it you’re still alive?” His hazel-gray gaze was cool as he indicated Hamm with a meaningful glance. “By all rights, you should be dead.”

“He tracked me to my roost. I’ve had no chance to ask how. I get the impression he took me alive because he wanted answers. Which is why I am currently unarmed.” His shoulders tightened at the reminder of Mat’s absence. He couldn’t tell if he was nauseous from what he’d seen through the scope before he’d squeezed the trigger, or if they were just severe hunger pangs. Either was possible; he couldn’t recall his last meal. Least of his concerns right now, though. A few clenches of his abdominals eased the cramps. Marc glanced at each of them in turn, hoping he conveyed urgency. “This is where you three come in. Chief Reccin will return in a moment with their linguist. You should find her interesting, Captain.”

“Interesting is one way of putting it,” Hamm growled and folded his arms. Instead of attempting to engage in the conversation, he split his attention between listening and watching the clearing’s perimeter.

Marc appreciated the caution, even if he didn’t understand Hamm’s sudden distrust. Hamm spoke freely because only Marc could understand what he said. He had to bite his tongue to keep from smiling. It had him dragging in another long breath just to taste the pheromones still lingering in the air.

“The issue here is that this hasn’t been done before.” Makko made a sharp gesture. “We have a slew of procedures in place, but they’re untested. There’s a general notion of how to verify the requirements for these tawnies to be recognized as sapient. But as far as diplomacy, communication, and understanding go . . .?” She sighed.

“As far as that goes,” Andruski continued, “you’ve managed a grasp of it rather quickly.”

Heat crawled up Marc’s neck. He clenched his hands, fingernails digging into his palms. The lieutenant major hadn’t insinuated anything, just made an observation.

There was no way they could know his diplomatic success involved too many pheromones and a bout of barrel frottage.

“Guess you could say I got lucky.” No idea why. Except that truth was stranger than fiction when it came to his adventures. He glanced at Hamm, who made a show of yawning and licking his lips with a languid swipe of his long tongue.

And then made some sort of rumbling-purr just low enough to vibrate against his skin across the space between them.

As though determined not to let Marc forget where that tongue had been, how that purr felt.

Marc took a slow breath and stared off across the meadow, gaze unfocused as he tried to maintain situational awareness while getting a grip on the southern migration of blood pressure.

The C-C team all turned to stare at the furr commander.

“What was that, just now? It didn’t sound hostile.” Cortannas kept her gaze on Hamm.

“It wasn’t. It didn’t translate though.”

Hamm continued watching him. “Not everything will.”

“I’ve noticed that.” Marc got another lungful of pheromones. Was that the happy juice Reccin referred to? He was, after all, ‘the human’ to these furrs.

“Noticed what?” Cortannas stepped toward Marc, attention still locked on the commander.

“That not every sound they make translates over into words.”

Not just the human, but
Hamm’s human
to be precise. It made him sound like a pet. One whose existence was indulged at the whim of another. His hands flexed involuntarily, a spasm of muscles trying to grip a weapon that wasn’t there. He desperately needed Mat. He could hardly communicate efficiently without his weapon.

“You turning the happy juice off any time soon?”

It got him a bared fang. “Soon as you learn to control yours, I’ll get right on that.”

Marc shook his head. “I’m not a furr, Hamm. I don’t work that way. Don’t understand why that even works, either.”

“Makes two of us.” Hamm glanced at Makko. “Think your biologist could figure out an explanation?”

“Maybe.” He relaxed his fists, chafed stinging palms against his trousers. A glance confirmed that he’d broken skin. In more than one place, a crescent of crimson welled up, vivid against the grit on his skin.

Makko glanced between them, fidgeting and nervous at the attention. “What’s happy juice? And what do you mean, you’re not a furr? Is that what they call themselves?”

He could feel Hamm staring at him. Actually, the expression resembled a frown, with the downward twitch at one corner of his mouth and the groove deepening between his brows as his nostrils flared. What were the odds Hamm hadn’t caught the scent of his blood? He cleared his throat and refocused on Makko. “You’re correct, they call themselves furrs.”

Though he attempted to continue, his throat closed up. He had no idea how to respond to that first question. He needed to think. Without an explanation he didn’t have, anything he said would incite alarm. That wouldn’t help the situation. This was why they’d paired him up with Mat and deployed him out into the middle of nowhere, alone.

His people skills sucked. He had authority issues. He had minimal respect for officers.

But he was damn good at squeezing Mat’s trigger. The precise application of eight pounds of pressure. He tried to think of the last time they’d actually
missed
a target. It hurt too much to think back that far, so he stopped.

Wait. Hamm didn’t understand why his pheromones worked on him. He studied the furr watching the perimeter of the meadow. Saw how he immediately met his gaze. How attuned was he? “Is the happy juice thing a problem?”

“Yes, there is a problem.” Hamm weighed each word with his reluctance, understood that the humans felt outgunned despite outnumbering him. Marc’s question had made the small group uncomfortable, as though the simple utterance of “trouble” would result in bloodshed. Continuing the discussion in this setting didn’t sit well with Hamm. He canted his head and shifted so that he wasn’t shoulders-square to the strange humans.

This entire situation was rife with problems, the foremost being that Marc alone seemed concerned with the furrs’ interests. It was possible he was reading them wrong, that he understood them as little as they understood him despite his interactions with Marc and the translator subroutine.

Still, when the captain grabbed Marc by the arm, he tensed. He was a hairsbreadth away from pouncing, and peace be damned.

“There’s a problem, Sergeant?” The captain’s voice was hard. She radiated tension in every line of her stance; he could see it even with all the pieces of strange pelt blurring her form. She may have put her small death stick away, but she was far from harmless.

Marc rolled his eyes, head tilting back to look skyward. At first, Hamm wondered if the male was tracking another incoming shuttle. One careful sniff was all it took to figure it out. Their languages differed, the nonverbal communication conveyed in myriad signals that made no sense to him. But the pheromones, the body chemistry—or Marc’s, at any rate—he could comprehend. Cues he recognized with ease.

And in this instance, it seemed there was strained patience all around.

“Can you give me a few moments with the commander, Captain? Chief Reccin will return with the linguist before much longer, and I’d like to negotiate for the return of my rifle.”

Marc’s respectful tone resonated wrong, but Captain Cortannas didn’t appear to detect anything strange. “If you feel confident that you’re the best equipped to do so, that’s acceptable. I see no just cause for the furrs to continue holding you prisoner. Do they still perceive that they do?”