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L iam keeps hold of Daniel’s hand until he’s in the car, gets them both settled in the car, then pulls onto the road. Liam puts his hand on Daniel’s leg. Daniel relaxes, legs spreading wider without making a conscious decision.

“Very good, Daniel.”

The comment is a surprise. “I’m not doing anything,” he says uncertainly.

Liam squeezes his leg. “You are, sweetheart. Opening your legs when your Dominant touches you, that’s a good instinctive response. My jacket is in the bag on the back seat. Grab it and use it for a pillow.”

“I can stay awake.”

“You don’t need to. It’s a bit of a drive still and you’re exhausted.”

“Where are we going?”

“I have a cabin. If I’m not on base then I’m there.”

Daniel takes Liam’s jacket, touches it carefully, then lifts it to his nose and breathes it in, biting back the moan he was about to make. Fear slams through him, as if he did screw up and is about to be punished. That’s what he’s used to, after all. It’d be nice if he could just enjoy the freedom of being with a Dominant. Experience it with enthusiasm and be uninhibited.

What will happen once they get there?

“I think we should talk about what’s going to happen,” Liam says, as if he can read Daniel’s mind, which is a strangely erotic thought. What if Liam could read his mind? How would that work? The fantasy is there instantly.

Liam would be aroused, wanting to fuck him, and Daniel would say no, hell, he could even mean no, but that wouldn’t stop his Dominant. He’d know Daniel could take it. If he tried to leave, just ran, Liam would come after him, press him down to the bed, force him?—

“It’s your first time, your first mounting, and it can be overwhelming. Especially with your background. I’m concerned about how much you’ve been denied in the past. You have some strongly learned behaviors. A resistance to submission.”

He waits, wanting Daniel to respond. What is Daniel supposed to say? “That’s true.”

Liam keeps waiting.

“But I don’t want that to get in the way. Stop you, I mean.” That probably sounds wrong. “The experience. The truth is that I’ve had denial, medication, therapy, you name it, all with the intent of making me other than what I am. I’m tired. I’m tired and I’m… curious. With you, anyway. When my father is well, this will end. So just do whatever you want to do to me, and let’s see how that goes. It can’t be any worse than what everyone else has done to me.”

Liam glances over at him and then away. “That’s not a ringing endorsement. And it’s a very passive response. There isn’t a lot of agency or desire in ‘sure, go ahead and do your worst.’”

“No, but—” He takes a breath, unable to articulate what needs to be said.

“Which might normally be a massive red flag, but your designation is prey.”

Daniel looks out the window, trying to keep his breathing even.

“A willingness to surrender to pain, to bad things, is hardwired into your DNA. I assume you’ve told your father how much you don’t want to be a Dominant, right?”

“My father wants to send me to Montana and put me in the ground. If the doctors run out of possibilities to fix me, that’s what will happen. If you think General Burrows is willing to let his son be a submissive whore, meat for any soldier who wants him, you’re an idiot. None of this has anything to do with me. Hell, my whole life hasn’t had anything to do with me. I should have run. Maybe that’s why I’m prey. Maybe, when they put me in that chamber and started fucking around with my DNA, I shouldn’t have been thinking?—”

His voice breaks and he has to stop talking. Jesus fucking Christ. He did not need to say that.

“Very few submissive soldiers want to be submissive. I’d imagine most men go into it thinking, ‘please don’t let me become submissive’ or ‘Dominant, Dominant,’ again and again. In fact, I’ve heard that from a number of submissives over the years. What happened to you and what you became wasn’t a result of you or some weakness inside of you. Do you think that someone who is exposed to carcinogenic chemicals is responsible for what those chemicals do to them?”

“Of course not,” he says when Liam is silent so long it’s clear he’s waiting for an answer.

“Then don’t blame yourself. Trillions of dollars have been spent over the decades to manipulate DNA in this way. It’s messy and imprecise. The military puts down three percent of Dominants every year. That’s the official number. Unofficially, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was closer to ten percent. Accidents, missions gone wrong, other reasons being listed as cause of death; it’s shocking that these experiments are still going on. It’s glorified eugenics.”

“Why don’t people stop it, then?” Daniel asks.

“Because they can’t. Have you heard of Operation Sea-Spray?”

“No.”

“In 1950, the military sprayed bacteria over San Francisco. It looked like fog. They said that they thought the bacteria was harmless, but it wasn’t. There were illnesses, even one death, and health complications, but people accepted it. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is another example of what civilized society allows. So long as there is a group of people that others are willing to let be harmed, the experiments will go on. Now people can say we signed up. We knew what might happen. We got paid for it. We deserve this. And occasionally something they do to us can become a useful gene therapy, and so everyone celebrates that their chances of dying might have gone down because ours have gone up.”

“So I guess you’re not recording this part of our time together,” Daniel says.

Liam laughs. “No, I’m not. I won’t record anything we do, Daniel, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

Daniel looks at the man beside him. Really looks. At his strong hand on the wheel, the cut of his jaw, the perfection of his profile. His soft hair and the shape of his mouth. Desire is there—a longing so sharp it could kill him.

“I don’t want him or anyone to know what we do together. Swear to me you won’t tell anyone, not ever.”

“What if disclosure could help you? If getting what you need makes you healthier, your father might let you live your life.”

“I know him. You’re wrong. If submission makes me better then I’ll be one of those statistics.”

Liam sighs heavily and doesn’t answer right away, thinking it over. Which is what Daniel needs to surrender completely to this man and his own biology. He needs Liam to be on his side, to be honest, a man of his word.

“He will know you were with me. He’ll know we slept together. He’ll know your health has improved. I can leave out as much as possible, but if I’m ordered to be honest, I don’t see how I can keep my promise as you are envisioning it.”

“My father will not want to know. He will bury any reports you write, and he’ll bury you if you try to help me. When our time is over, you say that Daniel Burrows has a confused designation and was unresponsive to treatment, but for reasons of confidentiality you can’t be more specific. It’s a complicated case best dealt with by those above your rank. You do that and we’re—” He pauses to take a breath. “I’m yours.” For as long as he gets the Dominant.

“What if that’s a death sentence? What if that is the worst possible thing I can do for you?”

Daniel snorts. “Let’s not be melodramatic. The worst thing that can happen to me is getting nothing out of this. You heard Dr. Chang. I’m already close to death. My life is already decided. I belong to my father until the day one of us dies. You’re not changing my future, Commander Stone. I hate to burst your bubble, but you are, at best, a pleasant interlude in the shitshow of my life. You want to help me, make it good for me. Give me something to remember when—” He gasps. Once again, he can’t say more. It’s too awful.

“Alright. I swear,” Liam whispers, solemn and regretful enough that Daniel believes him.

That kills the conversation for approximately three miles. Daniel’s never had the chance to have an honest conversation about this with someone before. His brother should have been the one, but he was null, clinging on to that by a thread, as far as Daniel could tell, and he didn’t want to hear anything about submissive desires and inclinations. His brother was his best friend, and now they don’t even speak to each other. What is there to say when they’re both drowning in different ways?

“I wasn’t attracted to men before this,” Daniel confesses. “It didn’t make sense to me that they could do that to a person. How can giving someone enough hormones and drugs turn them gay? Remake someone on such a fundamental level?”

“But it does,” Liam agrees. “I was the same. Had a girlfriend for four years before the program. I was gonna ask her to marry me, but figured I should wait. Just in case. They tell us it doesn’t happen to all designated soldiers, and I know plenty of them still trying to cling to their heterosexuality, but for me it was impossible. I came out of the chamber and the first person to help me was a submissive, a gentle twink of a man who was put there for the sole purpose of providing relief to me if I needed it. He’s still one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen, just because he was the first. As if I’d been blind. I went from having no desire for men to being desperate to bend him over and use him for days. It’s a massive head fuck. I don’t know what I’d have become if I’d been forced to be changed and then pretend I wasn’t.”

“And then tortured for months and months over it,” Daniel says, forcing a smile, as if that will make light of it.

Liam pulls the car over, puts it in park and turns to him. “Whatever you want, for as long as I have you, that’s what we will do. No shame. I won’t tell your father or anyone else, but you deserve to experience pleasure, Daniel.”

“Is it, though?” he makes himself ask. There’s a fucking lump of emotion in his chest, sitting on his heart. Will being bent over for days actually be satisfying?

“Is it pleasure? Submitting and being weak? Getting mounted by a Dominant? Yes. It will be nothing but pleasure and release. Relief and joy.”

“And the rougher it is, the more I’m… taken against my will, the better it will be?” Is “taken” the best word in the entire English language? He imagines saying it—“take me, Daddy”—or even more profound would be Liam saying it—“I need to take you now; be good for me.”

His Dominant has not gone down the same mental tangent.

His smile is sad. “Yes, Daniel. For better or worse, that is true. Mentally, it might be difficult to reconcile what your body wants and needs, at first, but yes.”

Daniel has never wanted anything more in his entire life.

Maybe it will be difficult to reconcile the needs of the flesh with how his mind thinks about it. He’s willing to take the risk, though.