Dangerous Times

Excerpt

Dangerous Times
Ishmael Winter © 2026
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

Ne lay panting under a hedge with the ragged bite of a blaster wound spilling nir guts into dirt, the razor edges of nir own metals tearing the delicate organic tissues. Ne was going to die, and ne knew it. Ne was too hurt to be worthwhile to repair, even if a friend were to find nem. And what might Mavren’s rebels do to one who had killed their kind? The fluids of a Catalyst soldier were thick on nir claws. Nir blaster, now trodden into the muck of the battlefield and damaged past repair, had claimed still more lives. Ne had been lucky, right up until nir dying opponent caught nem in the gut with a viciously clawed foot. Now, if ne was found, ne was dead. Ne was damaged beyond repair. Nir commanders wouldn’t bother with the transport of a wounded creature, the careful stitching and welds at the hand of a surgeon. Not for mere infantry. The enemy would want revenge for their dead.

I should have left. I should have at least died fighting for something of my choosing. But ne hadn’t had the courage, and the thought gnawed at nem, a mental agony to go with the physical. Ne’d had enough courage to think defiance at nir masters, but little more. Now, that inaction seemed unbearable.

Ne flinched at the sound of feet outside nir hedge. Ne was unarmed, but perhaps ne could claw them. Then die pitifully. Ne hissed softly. Ne wanted no pity, but there was nothing ne could do.

The leaves of nir hiding place were lifted away, and another face peered down at nem, marked in Mavren’s dark pewters, dotted with white. A surgeon.

Ne stared back. Ne did not want to claw a surgeon, who was small and unarmed. It was wrong. Surgeons were to be protected. They were more valuable, worth dozens of Soldiercaste shells each. Even an enemy surgeon froze nem in place. Ne knew the creature was an enemy, here to humiliate or torture nem. But ne could not move; ne had been too completely trained to respect that speckle of white.

“Stay still,” said the surgeon, something ne most certainly did not need to be prompted to do. “I’m going to do something for the pain, after I get your gut back in.”

“Then what?” ne rasped. Ne didn’t understand. What use might a Catalyst surgeon have for nem? Ne shivered, nir armor flaring and settling, because all the things ne could imagine meant pain, fear. Ne remembered the rumors. Not a single creature taken by the Catalysts returned. Ne and nir comrades had speculated why. Medical experiments were most likely, they’d agreed. Why else would they take and keep Soldiercaste?

The surgeon pushed nir shoulders and arms into the space ne’d made in the hedge. Leaves rained down on both of them. “It’s a messy wound. I can’t clean it here, can’t do anything more than stabilize you.”

Ne tried to move, but pain slapped nem back down. “Then what?”

“Not my concern.”

Ne looked up at the surgeon with terror. Ne didn’t want to die here, in the dirt, but a thousand worse possibilities crowded nir mind: degradation, imprisonment, torture. Medical experiments. No one would care what happened to a damaged Soldiercaste.

The surgeon must have sensed nir panic. Ne finished the dressing of the wound and patted nir hand. “It will be up to you,” ne said. “But you won’t be hurt. Hold still.”

The tip of an applicator pressed against one of nir spiracles. A hiss. A few moments, and the pain began to recede.

How nir mind clung to the offer of reassurance! It was foolish; ne didn’t know whether to trust the surgeon. Ne was still trying to decide as the world slid away.

*****

Ne took a name when ne woke. A political clerk, nir paint brown and pewter, going up and down the lines of cots with a book of common names, offered it to nem. It wasn’t glowsheet but paper pressed between layers of plastic. Ne’d never seen real paper before, and here was this little clerk, offering nem the badly bound volume—its pages held together with loops of metal threaded through holes on one side—as if it were disposable, not strange and wonderful and archaic. Ne poked at the names, expecting them to interact, to flash when ne selected them, and saw the claw marks from others who had done the same. Ne curled nir claws into nir palms, embarrassed. The little clerk shook nir head and reached out to pat the nearest of nir hands.

“Touching is acceptable,” the clerk said. “This is meant to be touched.”

Ne looked around shyly. “But I’ll look a fool.”

“Even the nobles touch paper, to keep their place. There is no shame. Go on. Name yourself.”

So ne took the book and found a name—a simple name, a peasant’s name. Nact. Ne liked the way it felt in nir mouth. The clerk entered it in the glowsheet ne carried and added a character. Ne wasn’t the first to have selected that name, the clerk explained, but ne was the first in nir group of rescued Soldiercaste, so that this planet would now serve as nir House name. Nact of Quen. Nact tried that aloud and liked it better still.

“But what will happen to us?” Nact asked again, and the clerk tucked the book of names and the official glowsheet under an elbow and smiled.

“You can remain loyal,” ne said. “To Taen King, who has denied you a name, denied you a House, denied you everything that makes you a person. Then we will imprison you but treat you otherwise as well as our people. Or you can be neutral, and we will give you land to farm, to be your own. Your name will be yours to keep. Or you may join us and fight with us.”

It was no choice. Who would pass up a farm for more fighting? Even if nir inaction might gall nem, it was madness to return to the life of a Soldiercaste, however righteous the cause. But the little clerk was not done. Nact saw the smile in nir eyes, the tightening of metal around gleaming lenses.

“And if you fight with us, you are equal to us, and if you fight well, you may yet earn your way up your ranks. General Grea was a peasant on our king’s lands. Many of nir sub-generals were commoners. Mavren dislikes caste. If you fight well, you might one day stand with them.”

Nact had seen pictures of General Aiomonni, nir former master when Nact fought for King Taen, but only pictures. Aiomonni commanded hundreds of thousands of Soldiercaste, officers, all the Empire’s military; nir power only second to that of Taen King nemself. In the pictures, ne was grand and heavily painted in the colors of nir House, flame orange and night blue, standing alongside Taen King. Nact tried to imagine nemself like that, but in pewters and blacks. Ne looked down at nir arms, the layered plates of metal, nir heavy claws, and imagined them in colors. Nact looked up into the face of the clerk.

“Take all the time you need to think,” said the clerk.

Nact shook nir head. “No,” ne said, and felt nir crest rise from clamped flat against nir head. “No, I don’t need time. When may I give—” and ne hesitated, the words were so odd to nem “—our king, Mavren King, my loyalty?”

*****

The next hour found Nact in one of the surgeons’ tents, being carefully examined.

“I see you already have flight systems installed,” said the surgeon assigned to nem.

Nact nodded carefully, wary of moving too much.

“Good. It’s possible to install them later on, of course—Mavren and Grea got theirs in a few months ago—but it’s difficult. Larval metals adapt better, vascularize better. Who knows, in a few years, all the nobility might be altering their larvae.”

Nact looked at nem in some surprise. “I thought only Soldiercaste…”

“Not anymore,” said the surgeon, absorbed in peering at one of Nact’s old wounds. “Not anymore at all. They’re too useful on the battlefield, you see. Flight can mean the difference between life and death.”

“Well, anyone on the battlefield might have them,” said Nact. “Aiomonni did.” But off the battlefield, on civilians, the pure nobility, it seemed absurd. It was an expensive and painful modification. Nir own metals still ached where they met grafted flight systems. Why would anyone go to such an extent if they had no need of it? They underwent the procedure because flight on the battlefield could save one’s shell. What use would a farmer have for such a thing?

“If it hasn’t escaped your notice, the Loyalist First General is far from stupid. From what I heard, it wasn’t a comfortable surgery, either. But it took.” The surgeon settled Nact’s plate of armor back into place. “There you are, then. Healthy. Shockingly healthy, given what you just came out of. Go find your assigned tent and get settled in. Your oaths are in the morning, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” and the nervousness dried nir mouth again. “Yes. I give my oath in the morning.”

The surgeon thumped nem on the shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. Mavren doesn’t bite. Unless ne’s very hungry indeed.” Ne grinned. “And then it’s usually Grea.”

It was all Nact could do to keep nir mouth from dropping open with shock. The surgeon had just made a dirty joke to nem, a soldier, about their king, as if it didn’t much matter! Ne wanted to ask questions. Grea and the king? But ne didn’t dare.

The surgeon saw ne was appalled and grinned even more broadly. “Welcome to the Catalyst Army,” ne said. “You’ll become accustomed to being scandalized, I assure you. Aether knows Mavren gives us enough fodder for it. Speaking of which, will you be wanting caps?”

Nact stared at nem, confused.

“To prevent conception. I assume you are uninterested in larvae at this point. You’re young for it yet, and I would recommend against it. You don’t have a proper cohort, for one thing.”

Larvae. It was a distant, unlikely prospect. There were things you could do to prevent being seeded, but ne knew they were unreliable. Ne’d seen them fail too often to trust them where nir own body was concerned. But this sounded different. “What are they?”

“Insulation. One will fit inside the terminus of each of your channels, where your partner’s tendrils would socket. It interrupts the transmission of coding, so you won’t conceive. It will also prevent someone loading a poisoned code. They’re extremely reliable. Much more so than anything you’ve likely been doing up to this point.”

Ne wasn’t sure what a poisoned code was, but it didn’t sound good. The prevention of larvae was reason enough. Ne’d seen what happened to those who got larvae when they shouldn’t; the only thing that made nem wonder was that ne was being given a choice. Ne nodded jerkily.

It wasn’t as if the surgeon hadn’t already seen Nact; there had been a thorough examination, and ne knew the surgeon wouldn’t be unprofessional. Opening nir covers again, being peered at again, then the rubbery little objects slotted into place, one side after another, a strange pressure deep in nir chest, was still more discomfiting than ne expected. But with it came a certain relief. Ne had remained celibate so far out of fear. The caps at least decreased that fear.

*****

When Nact was released from the surgeon, ne stepped out of the temporary shelter and looked up at the sky. Yes, this was a cloudy sky, with ragged edges of mist half-covering the moon, but ne’d never had the time to do this before. Not without someone shouting at nem.

“You’re one of the new ones, aren’t you?” said a voice at Nact’s elbow, and ne flinched violently before turning to look at a small, elegant creature patterned in Mavren’s pewters.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Ne frowned. The creature there most certainly did not look Soldiercaste, but ne wasn’t wearing any badge of rank Nact could see. Just the pewter. “I beg your pardon—what…?”

“What am I?” The creature smiled. “Yes, I hear that a lot from the new arrivals. My name is Mife. I’m one of Lord Mavren’s soldiers. I was a clerk.”

“You were a clerk.” Political, financial, military—the difference mattered little. The clerical caste was entirely distinct from Soldiercaste. They were not nobility, of course not, but they did not belong on the battlefield! It was a kinder life, a more comfortable life than war. But Mife’s paint, pewter without the barest hint of brown, declared nem a soldier.

“Yes. Here, let’s find you some dinner.” Mife took Nact by the elbow and guided nem through the camp. A large camp, a busy camp, with creatures talking or working or erecting more temporary shelters. Mife led nem to the cookhouse, obtained the two of them food, then took nem over to a table with several others.

“What is your name?” Mife asked, hesitating on the edge of the bench. The others there looked at them both with interest, and Nact’s eye caught on the different flares of paint on each carapace. There was pewter, of course, but also the blue of military command, brown of a clerk, and even the white of a surgeon.

Nact swallowed hard, startled, unpracticed in names. “Nact,” ne said. “Nact of Quen.”

“This is Nact of Quen,” said Mife to their companions. “Ne is still marveling at my paint, I think.”

They laughed. Nact looked down, feeling nir armor flare with embarrassment.

“We are all taken aback by Mife’s paint,” said one. “Ne applies it so badly.”

“Yeam,” said Mife. “A farmer, to start with. Now an officer. There’s Tes, ne was a household guard. Now ne manages logistics for the Fourteenth Division. There’s Hae. Surgeon, through and through, but we don’t hold it against nem, because ne’s a great fool.”

Hae’s plating fanned out as well. “Just because I’m the youngest,” ne muttered at nir plate. After a moment, ne darted a shy look up at Nact and smiled a little.

“Welcome,” said Tes. Ne gestured to the empty bench next to nem. “Please, by all means, settle yourself.”

Nact did, unsure of what to do with such a variety of people. Ne’d never seen so many castes represented in the same room, let alone the same supper table. Clerical. Peasantry. Medical. And Soldiercaste, though it seemed Mife might simply prefer soldier. Ne could see the appeal. Ne didn’t want to disown nir background, but “Soldiercaste” did have a bitter taste in nir mouth.

Ne looked down at the food. It looked good. The vegetables looked fresh.

“There!” said Yeam, nudging Nact’s elbow. “Look, in the line there. That’s Mavren and Grea.”

Nact’s head snapped up, the breath going out of nem. Ne was going to pledge nir loyalty the next day; ne knew ne would be allowed to greet Mavren for the first time, to see nem, but this was unheard of. This was impossible. A king, getting supper like any common soldier!

It took nem a moment to spot Mavren. Ne was not particularly large, and nir paint made nem difficult to spot. The black and white had been applied carefully and sparingly. At a distance, ne looked much like the soldiers around nem. Grea, with the blue of military command in great flares over nir massy shell, looked far grander than nir king.

Ne stared at them. Ne couldn’t stop watching. A king and a first general, in the same mess that ne ate in. Ne couldn’t process this. It drove the breath from nem. Mavren and Grea were speaking with the cooks. Abruptly, everyone laughed, and one of the cooks flung out a green-spangled arm to thump Mavren on the shoulder. Nact flinched, cowered, nir armor clamping tight—but the cook was not killed. Mavren laughed again, reached to return the gesture, and moved on with nir food.

“It takes getting used to,” said Hae, quietly. “I am not accustomed either.”

Mavren stepped away from the line while Grea lingered. Mavren made nir way through the tables, stopping occasionally to speak to people as ne went. After a moment, Nact realized ne was headed in their direction, and looked about nem in a panic. Ne wanted to greet Mavren, ne did, but the very thought choked nem with terror.

But ne was here already. Nact looked up at nem, tried to scramble upright, unsure if ne should bow. Mife put a hand on Nact’s shoulder, pushing nem so ne sat again.

“New, I see,” said Mavren, smiling.

Out of instinct, Nact looked for a threat in nir face. Nobility was not pleased to see Soldiercaste, not unless there was to be some sort of entertaining discipline. But Mavren’s crest remained up, the lights of nir scanners steady behind nir optical shields, not blanched with aggression. Nir pedipalps remained still. Nact glanced at nir hands, and yes, the rumors were true. The claws there were carefully blunted. Ne’d never thought the nobility might really do such a foolish thing.

“My king,” ne managed at last.

“I am sure I shall see you tomorrow,” said Mavren. “What is your name?”

“Nact,” ne said, very small.

“Nact of Quen.” Mavren smiled. Nir crest flared a little in approval. “Yes, that is a good name. I shall not delay you from your food further, Nact of Quen. Know that you are welcome here.”

“Yes, my king.”

Grea, done with the cooks, ghosted up beside Mavren. “My king,” ne said in a low, pleasant voice. Ne was shorter and broader than Mavren, and nir claws were long and sharp. “With all respect, the strategy shall not wait.”

Mavren chuckled. “Yes, oh wise and stern tutor,” ne said. Ne brushed a hand over Grea’s arm, which made Nact startle at the intimacy implied. “We return to the planning, as you command.”

They turned away, Mavren’s hand still on Grea’s arm, heads tilted toward each other. They murmured as they walked and were soon out of earshot entirely. A pause, then Tes rose. “I suppose I ought to attend to my duties,” ne said. “Those up high make work for us all.”

Mife tapped Nact on the arm.

“Eat,” ne said.

“Do they often do that?” Nact asked, turning back to nir food but still too amazed to be truly hungry.

“Every evening,” said Mife. “And our king has a memory for faces. Ne will know you when ne sees you again.”

Nact shook nir head, not quite believing.

*****

Nact found nir way back to the shelter ne’d been assigned. There, ne found two others from nir division and Surgeon Hae, settling themselves in separate nests. The nests were hardly fancy, just depressions scraped in the ground and lined with rough, mass-produced bedding, much the same as ne’d had when ne served Taen. Where nest structure was involved, it seemed, there was little difference between factions. But the nests were separate. Ne wasn’t sure if ne was honored that the Catalysts had given their soldiers that consideration, or if ne was taken aback by such a change in nir sleeping arrangements. Nact could count on the fingers of one hand the times ne’d slept alone, and all of those had been on the battlefield.

Nir companions looked as unsettled as ne did.

Hae looked cheerful, if anxious. “Hello,” ne said to Nact as ne hesitated in the doorway. “Sorry, you missed my first introduction. They want someone to look after you when you’re settling in. They’ve assigned an officer to each sleeping group to look out for problems. We’ve had a few surprises. Someone was even with larvae and didn’t know what was happening to nem.”

Nact looked at nir companions, then back at Hae. Ne didn’t want to ask. Back to nir companions, expecting to see bowed heads and sadness. Poor fool, to get with larvae. There was only one answer for that.

But nir companions seemed anything but sad. “Ne’s alive,” said one quickly.

“It’s not forbidden,” said the other.

Nact’s gaze went back to Hae, who did look sad. “I had no idea,” Hae said. “Do they really kill you for being seeded without permission?”

Nact nodded. “They do.” You Soldiercaste breed like hounds, and without careful monitoring and control, you will outpace any ability to support you, to find substrate for your larvae. Ne’d heard that lecture far too many times. Far too many of nir compatriots had been incautious.

Hae shook nir head, crest pressed flat. “Barbaric,” ne said.

“It’s permitted here?”

“Of course. It’s everyone’s right to decide what they’ll do with their shells.”

Nact wasn’t sure ne believed nem. Looked at nir companions and settled nemself in the nest.

*****

Ne couldn’t sleep. There was no guard on the door, and Hae was deeply asleep. Snuffling terribly too, which had made Nact grin until the strangeness of the day caught up with nem and ne couldn’t stand the close confines of nir nest anymore. Nact scrambled up out of it and through the door before ne was aware of thinking.

There were still murmurs of activity through the camp, subdued but present. The clouds had gone, leaving a chilly, moonlit night behind them. Two moons here, one in the north and the other in the south, both small and cold. Ne’d fought on hundreds of worlds during nir life. But this one seemed particularly strange and wonderful. Ne could look at the sky for years, ne thought, and settled nemself on the ground before the tent.

Ne sat in the moonlight, its brightness overpowering that of the stars, and breathed and felt better. The frigid air seemed to clean nir spiracles with each gasp. Nact was free, ne realized, and in the next moment it seemed stranger; ne hadn’t even considered nemself a captive before.

“I’m not cut out to do this,” ne heard a voice say, some distance off. Ne looked around for the source and spotted a lighted shelter. People were talking quietly, their voices muffled, but not enough. “I thought I knew what I was getting into, but Intercessors, they’re all a mess. They don’t think they’re a mess, but they are. How could we have ignored this so long?”

“Even if you had Soldiercaste friends, it’s not the same as seeing it yourself,” said another voice, and ne went still. The pity and horror in their voices was directed at nem. At nem and nir companions. Nact hissed, repulsed and outraged. The strange haze of disbelief that had permeated the day broke, and ne was angry. It was familiar, a relief, though ne didn’t know why at first.

Nact thought of the way ne’d been treated here, delicately, kindly, as if ne were some breakable object, and there was the wrongness. Ne wasn’t breakable. Ne wasn’t fragile. Ne profoundly resented being treated as either. Neither were nir companions. They had survived. They had all survived. Those who hadn’t were strong too. They were Soldiercaste.

Nir claws raked the dirt. Ne would not be ashamed by that title. It didn’t mean ne was lesser. It meant ne was powerful. Taen’s people had done all they could to strip nem and nir siblings of their very personhood, yet here they were. Confused, certainly. Still shy, still living by the rules that had assured their survival for so very long, but alive. There was no shame in this. There was no invitation of pity. No, ne would not call nemself a soldier as if ne were the same as any of Mavren’s farmers. Ne had been bred to battle. Ne had been trained like a hound since ne gained control over the limbs of nir host. Ne and nir companions had been shaped to be weapons, with no more thought or feeling than cold metal and wood. But now they had their freedom.

In this army, they could do anything they pleased. Ne turned nir hand over, looking at the dirt on nir claws. Be anything they pleased. Ne thought again of Grea in nir paint, a farmer once. A farmer! For all nir brilliance, ne had not the long years of war Nact had seen. If Nact had learned to survive under the sharp eye of nir handlers, ne could learn to imitate the nobles—the very thing Soldiercaste were supposed to be unable to do. Ne would imitate the nobles, but in no way would ne pretend to be one. Ne would show that there was no functional difference between them and Soldiercaste, save that Soldiercaste were stronger. In that moment, it seemed a very easy thing indeed.

Ne would not be pitiable again.

Ne would show them what Soldiercaste were truly capable of.

The door to the shelter slid open, and another came out. The other shut the door, stretched, sat next to nem. Ne nodded at the distant shelter. “I’ve been hearing them this last half hour,” ne said softly. “Insulting, is it not?”

Nact felt a warmth about nir hearts at that. Ne nodded. You did not pity your comrades. That was as good as saying they were dead.

“Even they don’t understand this,” said nir companion. “They gave us names, and pity, and kindness, but they don’t understand us. I doubt they will, either.”

“But we understand each other.”

“We do.” A hand found nem in the dark, pressed against nir arm in a way ne had seen their handlers do, that ne had seen Mavren and Grea do earlier in the evening, and ne drew in a sharp breath.

After a moment, ne responded. Nact caught the other’s shoulder and leaned forward to bite. Ne was acutely aware of nemself; ne felt powerful and full of something with too many edges to be joy.

They tucked themselves between two shelters, unconcerned about making noise. Soldiercaste learned silence quickly. They arranged themselves sitting chest-to-chest, armored digitigrade legs hooked around each other’s backs, foot-talons flexing. Metal clashed uncomfortably on metal, but Nact shifted with the ease of long practice; even if ne had never been intimate, ne had spent nir life in close proximity with nir fellows. Ne knew how to maneuver so that the elaborations of their armor would not snag and catch, how to shift nir weight so as to lessen the noise of their bodies moving against each other. Ne nuzzled into the weight and heat of nir companion. It felt good to be so close to another creature, just to rest like this. Interest stirred deep in nir chest, the insistent press of tendrils, nir channels flexing and lubricating in preparation to receive the other.

Ne murmured with the bloom of pleasure within nem, wanting no more than to open and drive into the creature holding nem, to be driven into in turn. Without fear of death or punishment, with the heady rush of delight and anger in equal measure, with the understanding of this other creature, ne found nemself excited as ne never had been before. Nact ran nir hands over the broad shoulders and back of nir companion, hooking nir claws between the petals of armor. Found the more sensitive components just underneath and fluttered the very tips of nir claws there as nir companion bit at nir neck. The teeth of nir long-dead host scraped pleasingly, the reinforced and sharpened incisors leaving furrows in nir metals.

Nact didn’t care. Well fed, nir nanites would take care of the insulted metals. No one would notice.

Claws found the apertures of nir tendril housings and nir channels and stroked, insistent, until ne urged the metals aside and the secondary covers irised open. Nact’s tendrils sprang forward immediately, seeking the warmth of another’s body. They gleamed faintly in the moonlight, weaving back and forth, and ne hissed at the chill of the air.

Nir companion opened as well. Nact held nemself back two long breaths, waiting for the other. They both moved, each pulling the other close. A fumbling moment as they sought each other, and Nact hissed a little as nir seeking tendrils ran up against unyielding armor. Nir companion made a small sound of amusement, and ne felt embarrassment boil up within nem.

“It’s too damned dark,” said nir companion, and the tension broke. Nact laughed, amused and abashed all at the same time, trying to stifle it for fear of being heard. Nir claws trembled as ne reached down to guide nemself into nir companion.

Nact gasped as ne slid into nir companion in the same moment the other found nir channels. It was almost too much; ne leaned nir head against the other’s shoulder and clung, quieting nir breath. Ne shook, and the shoulders under nir claws trembled as well. Nir companion was tight and hot around nem, the ripple of nir walls maddening, the surge and flex of the other within nem fizzing nir vision into static. Tension curled high in nir chest. Ne gasped, as nir companion pushed deep inside nem, sparking pleasure through nir shell and driving the breath from nir spiracles.

Ne wanted it to last forever, but it was barely moments before ne felt nir peak approaching, a surge of ecstasy that seemed too great to bear. Ne panted ragged breaths through open mouth and spiracles alike, claws drawing lines in nir companion’s shoulders, shaking with sudden release, sharp pleasure on the cusp of too much. Ne trembled as if nir body was not nir own.

Nir companion’s tendrils shuddered within nem. Ne bit back a whimper. Another moment and nir companion shivered too, letting out a small noise easily lost among the other sounds of the camp.

One long moment, two, as they held each other. Neither spoke. Long habit for Nact, the risks of being overheard too great. Nact felt a hand smooth over nir crest, stroking. Ne moved to reciprocate, startling nemself with nir clumsiness. Ne could still feel the other within nem, the weight and stretch a comfortable intimacy.

When they had regained their grace, they slid from each other and carefully stood. Nact bit nir companion again on the side of the neck and in return received a companionable clasp of nir forearm, a welcome sting of pain from sharpened claws.

They crept back into their shelter. Hae was still asleep, still snuffling. They shared a secret grin and settled themselves back into their nests. Nact shifted again and again under the bedding, sure ne would never sleep with the echoes of that pleasure ghosting through nir shell, but exhaustion claimed nem within a handful of breaths.