Page 36 of Xel: Broken Bond

I nodded. About eighteen months ago, there had been a huge kerfuffle of some sort involving an interstellar disagreementwith the troublesome species, and so the Alliance Military had begun shooting down any of their ships that attempted to jump through our wormhole.

“The ship we disabled contained eight unbonded dimari. I’ve been scrambling to try and find them all suitable masters. I’m really, really sorry for throwing you in the deep end. But once the ship was docked, I’ve got about seventy-two hours to get all of them settled in stable homes, or they start deteriorating very rapidly. And if I can be brutally honest for a moment, Xel has a couple of weeks at a minimum before there’s going to be any serious effect on his mental health. And that’s even if you manage to do absolutely everything wrong. It’s not fair to dump all this on you, I absolutely agree. But right now, I simply need to buy some time.” His voice wavered as he said it, and it was that, more than the rest of the explanation that made me sit up and take notice. Aiden most certainly did not seem like the type of man prone to fits of emotion.

“Thank you,” I said. The explanation really did help. But that reminded me of something else. “Sorry to keep you, but there is one other thing. The last two nights, Xel’s been having these sudden and drastic drops in his mood late in the evening. To begin with, I thought it was kind of weird that he wasn’t having more of a reaction to the loss of his master. But now he’s started reacting to what I would consider to be normal things in strange ways.”

Aiden nodded, then yawned again. I really should let him get some sleep. But I also needed answers…

“It’s difficult to diagnose what’s going on without being there to see it. But he lost his master three days ago. One way or another, he’s going to be feeling that loss deeply. If not in grief, then in confusion, or fear, or guilt. So treat him the same way you would treat anyone who’s lost a member of their family. Sit with him. Console him. Hug him. If he’ll talk to you about whathe’s feeling, great. But even if he won’t, you can still just be there for him.”

The idea caused a sharp, jagged pain straight through the middle of my chest. I knew all too well what it felt like to lose a member of my family. An image flashed through my mind of my sister, lying in a hospital bed, wrapped in bandages and too sedated on painkillers to even know I was there. The pain Xel could be feeling was a familiar one… but at the same time, I baulked at the idea that he could be feeling that level of loss for my uncle – a man who was as selfish and conceited as anyone I’d ever known.

“Thank you,” I said, suddenly eager to end the call. “It’s good advice. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Best of luck,” Aiden said. “And I promise I’ll call you again once I’ve got things under control at this end.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

XEL

Iwoke in the morning with a raging erection and a cold weight in my chest. It was going to be yet another day of fighting my own body’s natural desires… and oddly enough, something about that made me feel better. It was something that made this place less desirable, less enjoyable, and spending the day frustrated over my simmering arousal would distract me from all the other things going on around here. Things Iliked. Things Ienjoyed. Things that were all so much more wonderful than the stale repetition of the hotel where mymasterhad lived. Myrealmaster. The one I was supposed to be loyal to, instead of relishing the way Mr Beans was kneading my shoulder and purring, and the way Bribie’s head was nestled comfortably against my thigh.

I lasted a grand total of thirty seconds before I gave in and smiled, reaching down to stroke Bribie’s head and turning my face to nuzzle Mr Beans. The cat had curled up beside me shortly after I’d gone to bed, but I must have been asleep when Bribie arrived.

I lifted my head to glance out the window – I liked sleeping with the curtains open, given that there was no one else around – and saw that it was going to be another beautiful day. Sunshine, trees, the fresh smells of the outdoors. And a master who worked beside me and ate his meals with me, and Bo, who always had some funny story to tell about one of her siblings or cousins. All the beauty here made my heart ache. And at the same time, I felt a wave of guilt roiling in my stomach. It was betrayal, pure and simple, to like this so much better than I’d liked my real master. He had been…

I had to pause, as I failed to come up with anything like a sensible description for him. He’d been… what? He hadn’t been affectionate. He hadn’t been generous. He hadn’t been friendly – not with me or the staff, at least. He’d put on a show for the customers, but I’d thought even they could see through it half the time. Stars, how was I supposed to fuel my guilt if I couldn’t think of a single redeemable quality that my master had had?

Beside me, Mr Beans let out a trill and nudged me with his head. “Yes, I’m sorry, are you not getting enough attention?” I asked him. I reached up with my other hand to rub his head, and he resumed purring loudly into my ear.

That made Bribie decide thathewasn’t getting enough attention now, and he wriggled further up the bed, bit by bit, until his head was resting on my chest. That made me laugh. “Yes, you’rebothadorable,” I told them, trying my best to keep them both satisfied. But then Mr Beans stood up and plopped himself down right on my face, and that was as much as I could take. “No, I have to breathe here, you delinquent cat! Off my face!” I picked him up and set him down on the blanket, then wriggled to free myself from Bribie’s weight. “Everybody up! Come on, let’s go and find some breakfast.”

I stumbled out of bed – mostly because Mr Beans was weaving around my feet – and was just reaching for my pantswhen there was a light knock at the door. I looked up, and since I’d left it part way open last night, I had a clear view of my master’s face, peering through the gap.

“I heard you were up – I didn’t want to wake you,” he said, by way of explanation, as he pushed the door further open. “I called Aiden last night and had a chat with him about a couple of…” His gaze, which had started out on my face, had slid slowly downwards over my mostly naked body as he’d been speaking. Once again, I’d gone to bed in nothing but boxer shorts, owing to the warm summer nights. And the thin fabric was doing absolutely nothing to hide my very eager erection. My master stared at it for a moment, before his gaze snapped back up to my face.

“That’s actually…” He made a vague gesture towards me that I couldn’t begin to interpret. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Excuse me? He wanted to talk to me about my erection? Or did he mean my clothes? Or something else that I was just misunderstanding?

He fumbled for his next words for a moment, then blurted out, “You were trained as an erotic companion.” Oh, so hedidwant to talk about my erection. It pulsed in my pants, and I was sure he could see it twitch. I had the fleeting thought that he’d decided he wanted to make use of my skills. He hadn’t seemed at all interested yesterday, but perhaps he’d just needed time to think it through?

“Aiden said I should give you permission to masturbate.”

I blinked at him, not sure I’d understood. “Do you mean… in front of you?” I ventured. If he wanted to watch me, then I was more than happy to put on a show for him.

“No!” he yelped. “No, that’s not… What I mean is… I don’t have any real use for an erotic companion. I think you already understand that.” As much as I wanted to deny it, he was right. Iknew perfectly well that he hadn’t chosen me. “So I’m giving you permission to see to your own sexual needs. You’re allowed to climax without me being there.”

I clamped my mouth shut before I said something inappropriate. If this was Aiden’s recommendation for the best way to look after a dimari, then my level of respect for him was about to take a serious tumble. No, I didn’t expect my master to be jumping me multiple times a day. But most masters, in most species, had a desire for sex at least a couple of times a week. Or once a week, even. To be told to just go and deal with it myself…

“Yes, sir,” I said, keeping my tone as even as possible.

But to my surprise, my master sighed at that. “You don’t like that option, do you?”

It was not my place to make demands of my master based on what Iliked. And in this instance, the fact that my master was not really my master was not enough to allow me to break decades of training. “I wasn’t… You are entitled to… Um… It was not what I was expecting,” I eventually managed to mumble.

“Look, it’s… It’s temporary,” he said, not sounding terribly confident about it. “Just to give us some time to figure things out a bit better. I still have a lot to learn, and Aiden’s going to be tied up for another few days with his emergency, so this is just designed to make sure you’re not too frustrated for the next couple of days.”

Was that true? I found it difficult to believe that it was so terribly complicated to ask me to bend over so he could stick his cock up my ass. Alliance culture was certainly more reserved than the majority of galactic society, but they still had sex, didn’t they?