Sharing a Mate Read online

  “It’s dark, though.” Sorin put up a hand in warning. “And I hear some strange noises down at the far end. I’ll go first, then Kayla. Bron, you take up the rear.”

  The Beast Kindred gave her a look and Kayla was certain he would make a joke about how he had done that earlier. But somehow Bron restrained himself and just nodded.

  “All right, Brother—lead the way,” he rumbled.

  Sorin did, leading them slowly into the dark tunnel that twisted and turned and seemed to go on and on. As they left the cacophony of the copulation floor with its blaring music behind, Kayla began to hear the strange sounds Sorin had talked about. They grew louder and louder until she began to make out a kind of melody.

  “Hey, that sounds like some kind of classical music,” she remarked, as they walked.

  “It sounds like a cello being played,” Sorin agreed. “It’s very soothing.”

  “I think we’re about due for some soothing after everything that happened in that damn fuck-club,” Bron growled. “Not that I minded pounding those assholes.”

  “Shhh…” Sorin held up a hand for silence and Kayla realized they had finally reached the end of the tunnel. There was yet another velvet curtain hanging in the doorway and a pale pink glow was coming from under its hem.

  “Be careful,” she whispered to the big Blood Kindred. Sorin only nodded and then pushed back the curtain, making certain to keep his body between Kayla and the entrance. The music stopped abruptly.

  “Well, hello esteemed customers!” piped a high, squeaky voice. Kayla couldn’t see the owner of the voice because Sorin was too tall to see over but it didn’t sound very threatening.

  “Are you Y’ax, the dealer of controlled substances?” Sorin asked.

  “I am,” the squeaky voice announced. “Why do you not come into my parlor that we may conduct business which is mutually beneficial to us all?”

  “All right.” They all filed in and Kayla was finally able to see the owner of the voice.

  She had been expecting another one of the Carnalians with pastel skin and brightly colored hair. Instead, Y’ax was a whole other kind of alien. He was about as tall as her but only, she saw, because he was standing on a kind of desk. In reality, he was probably no taller than a meter high—and squat, with rolls of greenish skin hanging off his body. His large bulging eyes were a muddy brown and he had a wide, lipless mouth and two slits for nostrils.

  Altogether Kayla thought he looked like a very ugly cross between a toad and a Shar-Pei.

  “Welcome, honored guests,” he said, ushering them into a large, opulently furnished room which seemed to be decorated primarily in shades of green. He turned to another alien who looked like him but was much smaller and had gray skin, sitting in one corner of the room. “B’now, we have guests! Why have you stopped the music?”

  “Forgive me, Y’ax,” the other alien murmured.

  Kayla looked for some kind of musical instrument but there was none. Instead, B’now pursed his wide, lipless mouth and began to whistle—or that was what it looked like he was doing. But instead of a whistling sound, the beautiful, cello-like music resumed. It was extremely soothing after the pounding techno-type beat of the copulation floor.

  “Lovely.” Y’ax nodded approvingly. “Now, please, do have a seat.” He indicated three chairs which seemed to be made for regular humanoid type people across from the green desk-type structure he was standing on.

  Bron and Sorin sank down into two of the chairs but Kayla just stood there.

  “Leelah?” Sorin turned his head, frowning at her. “Why are you still standing?”

  “Why do you think? I can’t exactly sit with this thing in me,” Kayla muttered, pointing to the tail she was still wearing.

  “Sure you can. Here, Brother—move closer to me.” Bron moved his chair closer to Sorin’s so that their long thighs were touching. “There you go,” he said, indicating both of their broad knees. “Go ahead, small one. One cheek on my knee and one on Sorin’s. That should work.”

  Kayla saw that he was probably right. Sitting in a regular chair would have shoved the elaborate feather-tail deeper into her but perching on their knees would keep the feathers and their harness out of the way.

  “Thanks.” She sank down gratefully. Without speaking, Sorin and Bron each put a hand on her thighs—Sorin on the left and Bron on the right. It was beginning to feel really natural to have them in that position, she realized—it just seemed to be the way they all fit together.

  “Ah, I see you have one of that bawdy club’s notoriously difficult to remove ‘tails’ in.” Y’ax sounded disapproving.

  “Excuse me, what?” Kayla frowned. “What do you mean, ‘difficult to remove’?”

  “No matter, no matter…” He waved one flat, flipper-like hand dismissively. “Now then, as you have braved that den of iniquity out front, I assume you are serious buyers. So what can I get for you? Perhaps some Love-Flower that both of you may fit into your lady’s orifices at once?”

  “That’s not what we’re actually here for,” Sorin said, frowning. “In fact, we are Kindred and we have…our own methods of sharing a mate.”

  “Not that our kinds of Kindred ever share,” Bron put in quickly.

  “No, not that we do.” Sorin shot him an annoyed look. “But that is beside the point.”

  “We need some Lust Blossoms,” Kayla said, cutting to the chase. “Can you help us out? We know they’re a controlled substance but it’s really important that we get some.”

  “Lust Blossoms!” Y’ax shook his head in apparent horror. “Oh no, my dear—you don’t want those! The results are extremely unpredictable. Why, your breasts might swell with nectar one moment and the next your, ahem, your nether regions might feel like they are on fire and only a male with a patient and willing tongue can help you. Or worse, you could develop an insatiable thirst for male seed that is almost impossible to quench without debasing yourself with two or more partners.” He made a face. “Just as they do on that horrendous copulation floor out front.”

  “We know all that,” Sorin said blandly. “Because it’s already happened—not just to us but to our entire ship.”

  “All our females of mating age have been affected,” Bron rumbled. “Every fucking one of them.”

  “What?” Y’ax looked startled. “But how can that be?”

  “We had a kind of…terrorist attack,” Kayla explained. “Someone who hated our people made a substance called Xi-46 from the Lust Blossoms and had it painted on every air vent in the ship. When the vents began to blow…”

  “We were all fucked,” Bron finished for her.

  “Literally and figuratively,” Sorin said.

  “My, my, my!” Y’ax looked most distressed—if an alien toad can look distressed, Kayla thought. He paced back and forth on his desk, shaking his head as the beautiful cello-whistling played on in the background.

  “It’s a mess,” she confided to him. “But the three of us are scientists—although I know we really don’t look it right now.” She nodded at her own exposed breasts and Bron’s and Sorin’s exposed shafts. “But we’re here hoping to get some more of the Lust Blossoms so we can analyze them and try to develop an antidote.”

  “Antidote? But there is no antidote!” Y’ax burst out. “At least, none that I have ever heard of. The Lust Blossom causes a kind of virus which is impossible to eradicate—it stays with the female it infects for life.”

  Kayla felt her stomach drop at his words.

  “Please,” she whispered. “That…that can’t be true.”

  “Ah, I perceive that you are affected by it yourself, my dear.” Y’ax looked at her sympathetically. “My deepest condolences to you. I hope that these two males are willing to service you always in order to control the symptoms and the pain.”

  “We’ll help Kayla as long as she needs us,” Bron growled. “But we don’t accept the idea that there’s no antidote.”

  “Just let us have some of the blossoms ours
elves,” Sorin said. “As Kayla said, we’re scientists. I’m sure we can find something.”

  “Ah, if I could help you, I promise I would.” Y’ax looked so sad that Kayla thought he might cry and the cello-whistling the other alien was doing dipped in tone and tempo as well, becoming sweetly melancholy.

  Her heart sank. “Don’t you have any here?” she asked. “We did a search and it said you had everything.”

  “Oh, I do—I do!” he exclaimed. “Except for Lust Blossoms. Unfortunately, due to the danger posed by the blossoms to the general population, the Carnalian government has cracked down hard on their sales. If I was ever caught with even one blossom, I would be kicked off the planet. And since not that many people come looking for them, it simply isn’t worth my while to stock them.”

  “Where can we find some, then?” Bron growled, sounding frustrated. “You don’t know the fucking mess we had to go through to get to you.”

  “Oh, yes I do.” Y’ax looked disgusted. “I can’t stand that rabble and their noise but they do provide an effective deterrent to weed out buyers who aren’t serious.”

  “It certainly would have weeded us out if we’d known you didn’t have the Lust Blossoms,” Sorin muttered. “Can you tell us where else we can find them?”

  Y’ax shook his head sadly.

  “I’m afraid I cannot. For I do not know of a single other person who still dares to sell them since the crack-down.”

  Kayla felt like her heart had just sunk right down to her shoes.

  “Seriously?” she begged. “No one has them? What are we going to do?”

  “I do not know, my dear.” Y’ax sighed. “I would recommend you make a life with these two fine colleagues of yours so that whenever the virus caused by the blossoms flares up, you have someone to ease your need.”

  The cello-whistling stopped abruptly.

  “What about Mother Pain?” B’now piped up. “I’ve heard it said she has her own patch of Lust Blossoms—grows them herself and the authorities don’t dare to bother her for fear she’ll put the cruxx on them.”

  “Hold your tongue and go back to your music, B’now,” Y’ax snapped. “These seem to be fine people—I will not bring them to their doom by sending them to Mother Pain!”

  “Send us—send us!” Kayla said, sitting up eagerly, which caused the feather-tail to shift distractingly inside her. “We can deal with her, honestly!”

  Y’ax shook his head. “You do not know what you are saying, my dear. Mother Pain is a witch. She always demands some kind of a sacrifice—something you do not wish to give. That is the reason for her name, you know.”

  “We can handle ourselves,” Sorin assured the toad-like alien.

  “Anything she can dish out, we can take,” Bron growled. “Just give us the location.”

  “Ah, me…ah, me…” Y’ax mourned as B’now started whistling doleful music again that almost sounded like a cello crying. “How I wish you would not ask me such things!”

  “We’re asking, though.” Kayla leaned forward again. “Please tell us—please?”

  “Is it a matter of money—of credit?” Sorin asked. “Because we can pay you—”

  “No-no!” Y’ax held up one flat, greenish-gray hand quickly. “Oh no—Y’tang the God of the dark between the stars would bind my soul in eternal torment if I accepted payment for giving you such dangerous knowledge.” He sighed deeply. “No, I will tell you how to find Mother Pain for free. Only I pray you will not curse my name in anguish when you have found her.”

  This all seemed pretty melodramatic to Kayla but she couldn’t help feeling uneasy. Still, they had to get the Lust Blossoms and if visiting this “Mother Pain” was the only way to do it, they really had no choice.

  “We thank you for your kindness,” Sorin said formally.

  “Ah…do not call it kindness.” Y’ax put the back of his flippered-hand to his eyes. “For it is not that.”

  “Enough of this shit—just tell us,” Bron growled, clearly out of patience.

  “Bron!” Kayla and Sorin exclaimed but Y’ax didn’t seem to take offense.

  “B’now will provide you with the coordinates,” he remarked. “She lives several zones away and it is dark there now. I do not recommend…” He paused and shivered. “I do not recommend that you visit her in the dark.”

  All his dire warnings were beginning to give Kayla a serious case of the creeps. It seemed like there was something else the toad-alien had said that she needed to ask about but she couldn’t remember what it was and at that point, she just wanted to get out of there.

  “Thank you so much for helping us,” she said, standing up, hoping to signal they were ready to go. “We really appreciate it. We’ll wait until daylight to contact, uh, Mother Pain.”

  “Please do, for I do not want your deaths upon my head,” Y’ax said mournfully. “B’now—give them the coordinates please. I know our guests would like to leave now and spend their last night free of regret together.”

  Still whistling his sad cello-sound, the other alien came towards them and handed Sorin a small, thin chip about the size of a coin.

  “Her coordinates can be found on there, if you have a universal reader,” Y’ax said.

  Sorin nodded. “We do—aboard our ship.” He and Bron rose as well. “There’s one more thing though—is there another way out of here? We really don’t want to have to cross the copulation floor again.”

  “Oh, of course, of course.” Y’ax nodded. “B’now, show them to the back entrance.” He bowed deeply as they filed out. “And now, farewell. I would wish you good luck but I know it would be in vain.”

  They thanked him again and filed out of a thick, green metal door which the diminutive B’now held open for them, still whistling the whole time.

  “Well that was fucking weird,” Bron growled as soon as the door clanged shut behind them. “How bad can this ‘Mother Pain’ be anyway?”

  “The fact that she has the name ‘Mother Pain’ in the first place should be a clue that she’s not to be taken lightly.” Sorin frowned. “I’ll do some research on my holo-link tonight so we’ll be prepared to meet her.”

  “What do you think he meant by saying she always wants a sacrifice?” Kayla shivered. “It’s pretty damn creepy if you ask me.”

  “I guess we’ll find out.” Sorin sighed. “Come on—it’s a long walk back to where the ship is parked and none of us is exactly dressed to go out in public.”

  Looking at the way all three of them were exposed, Kayla had to agree. But since nobody on Carnal Four really seemed to care if you were flashing them and the only way to get their clothing back was to go back inside The Fallen Angel, she resigned herself to walking bare-breasted back to the ship.

  Bron and Sorin seemed to feel the same way because without a word, the three of them turned and headed back.

  Thirteen

  It wasn’t until Kayla was in the shower and trying to remove the by-now completely bedraggled feather-tail from her ass and pussy that she remembered Y’ax’s off-hand remark.

  “Ah, I see you have one of that bawdy club’s notoriously difficult to remove ‘tails’ in.”

  Damn it—that’s what I should have asked before we left! How could I have forgotten he said that?

  But she’d been so freaked out by Y’ax’s talk about Mother Pain that she’d just wanted to leave. Now she was stuck with a big problem—literally.

  “Difficult to remove” was turning out to be an understatement. Kayla pulled again on the metal handle that connected the two dildos inside her on one side and had the feathers sprouting from it on the other. The results were the same as the other fifteen times she’d tried—it hurt like hell and neither the slim black wand in her ass or the thicker one in her pussy moved so much as a millimeter.

  She’d thought that getting into the shower and maybe using some soap for lube would help the damn things to slip out but now the soap was all gone and they weren’t budging.

  “What am
I going to do?” Kayla moaned to herself under her breath. “I can’t live like this! I have to get these damn things out of me!”

  But how? Looking down at the awful contraption that had been so difficult to put in and was now proving impossible to get out, Kayla had no answers.

  “Kayla?” Suddenly a knocking on the door of the bathroom—or the “fresher” as the Kindred called it—startled her.

  “Uh, just give me a minute,” she called back nervously. “I’m, uh, almost done in here.” She didn’t want to admit her problem to her guys. It had been embarrassing enough getting the damn thing in—she didn’t want to have to ask them to help her take it out too!

  “You can’t get it off, can you?” Sorin asked through the door.

  Okay, apparently the jig was up.

  Kayla shut off the water.

  “Hang on,” she said and wrapped herself in a towel.

  The Kindred technology—which often included modifying existing living organisms to suit their needs—meant that the towel was made of “thirsty” fabric which soaked all the water off her skin immediately. But the limp and water-logged gold and silver feathers of the tail held too much moisture even for the thirsty towel to absorb. They remained damp and draggled, the extra weight pulling painfully against the black shafts inside her.

  Carefully and uncomfortably, Kayla made her way to the door and threw it open. Sorin was standing there, arms crossed over his muscular chest. Bron was right behind him with his hands on his hips. Both of them looked concerned and unhappy.

  “Okay.” Kayla sighed. “What do you know about it?”

  “We know you’ve been in the fresher for over an hour probably yanking on that fucking thing and hurting yourself when you should have asked for help,” Bron growled.

  “And we know that the tail isn’t coming out unless all three of us work together,” Sorin said, frowning. “Come on, Kayla, take off the towel—let us get to you.”

  “What are you going to do?” Kayla asked, taking a step back. “You’re not going to yank it out by force are you? Because right now it feels like my insides might come with it if you tried that.”