Rated M for adult content.
"So you guys had a fight... over your sons?" Said Hobbes.
Lex shook her head miserably "Yes, but I thought we had settled things!"
"And then he took them?"
"When I woke up next morning he was gone." She said, "They were gone."
"He wants to sacrifice your children to some… creatures?!" Hobbes was appalled.
"Not sacrifice," Lex shook her head. "It's a yautja thing. The trial - the 'chiva' - it's a test they have to go through in order to become… I don't know... an adult - a warrior. He's got this idea in his head that, somehow, doing the chiva will make them stronger - "
" - by putting them deliberately in harm's way?" Hobbes finished for her "Lex, he's crazy."
Lex bristled "You don't understand. It doesn't make sense to humans but it makes sense to the yautja mindset. They believe only strength matters, that the only way to survive is to be the strongest warrior you can be!"
"You sound like you're defending him."
"I don't agree with him - but at least I thought I could trust him! I thought he loved me!"
"Are you so sure he knows how?" Hobbes said, with unexpected frankness, "Lex, whatever you two were to each other, he kidnapped your children!"
"It's not like that!" Lex exclaimed hotly.
Hobbes sighed "I have a friend whose ex used to knock the shit out of her every night, and she used to say the same thing about him."
"I'm not afraid of Scar, he'd never hurt me!" Seeing Hobbes's disbelieving expression, Lex drew a deep breath "You have no idea how it feels to live the way we do - when you're both wound so tight, all the time. You try not to think about it, but deep down you know: one mistake and it's all over! At least in the army, you get to go home when your tour of duty's finished!"
"You're right, that sounds... bad."
Lex tried to ignore the ex-soldier's pitying expression, knuckled the corners of her eyes and took a gulp of wine to steady herself. "Look, I didn't come to Earth for a shoulder to cry on." She continued, "I came here because I need to find the boys and I don't have the technology on the Dragonfly to do it."
Hobbes gave her a crooked smile "Well I'm afraid that's not my area. If you need any babies delivered, wounds patched up, drunks thrown out or cold beers poured, I'm your woman. But I'm not a communications expert!"
"I've been trying to contact them via the Dragonfly's communications systems but I can't reach them …" Lex said slowly "I thought that Scar was masking the drive signature of the Chameleon somehow but now I'm wondering if the real problem is they're just too far out of range. I tried searching To'Phet - "
"The monster planet?"
"I scanned from orbit, but they weren't there." Lex looked heavenward for a moment. "If I knew their location, I could take the Dragonfly and intercept them or send them a tight beam communication, but without knowing that…" She shook her head "I need a way to make the signal from the shuttle more powerful."
"OK, so…?"
"That's why I need to get into the Deep Space Communications complex. I have to hope they've got something I can use to contact the Chameleon."
"You know that I'm not in the army any more right? I was medically discharged for making up crazy stories about aliens!"
Lex sighed and shook her head "Hobbes, the only reason I came to see you is because you're probably the only friend I have left alive in the universe!" She gave a hollow chuckle. "And I guess I did come here partly for a shoulder to cry on."
The medic visibly deflated "I didn't say I wouldn't help you…"
"What I've got to do, I can do myself. I don't want you to get into any trouble on my account."
"But Lex, even if you managed to send this message, do you really think you can say anything that's going to get S'Kia to bring back your boys?"
"What would you do if it was your girls?"
"Probably just the same," The ex-soldier conceded, then thought for a moment "Except I wouldn't have a fuckin' clue where to start!"
Lex sat up, pushed back her hair and drained the last dregs from her wine glass,"I need sleep."
Hobbes smiled sympathetically "Gabe and the girls aren't due back for days. You can take Layla's bed."
Lying in the soft normality of the human bedroom, Lex still could not switch off her brain. "Can I convince Scar to listen to me?" She asked the darkness "After he took the boys and disappeared without even telling me?"
Tears pricked under her eyelids but she blinked them away and stared fixedly at the ceiling, "No, I refuse to think like this. I've just got to convince him! Hobbes is wrong… she doesn't understand how he thinks, but I do."
Lex shut her eyes and took a deep breath "Hobbes can't possibly understand, I couldn't tell her everything that happened that night. I know why he left without talking to me. I know him…"
"I know you, Scar!" She was still grasping his wrist, trying to drag him around to face her "You won't throw our boys to those things! I know you would lay down your life to protect our children. You love them!"
"'Love': this is a … a soft meat idea you cling to."
Her jaw tightened, as it always did when he used that yautja phrase she hated, "Why do you have to say it like it's something dirty?"
"Will this 'love' help my sons survive? Will it turn aside the blades of their enemies?"
Suddenly he rose to his feet and turned on her, jaws and talons spread, his face a mask of awful emotion. She stood her ground, knowing she must not back down.
"Did you forget about what happened on Earth? Or on Hirai?"
His eyes flared yellow in the darkness "It was I who killed Khurshad on Hirai, not some nebulous, human concept!"
"We killed him." She said "Together."
"And who was it that broke you out of the human fortress in the desert, hrrrm? Who fought the Queen on that ocean prison?"
"You did!" She said passionately and he checked in surprise. "You did Scar, just like I came to save you from the Bad Bloods on Hirai! Just like I came to find you when the hard meat had you cornered! You are the only one I trust with my life, just like you trust me with yours."
As she drew closer to him she let the fur fall down, baring her shoulders. She felt the cold raise goosebumps on her skin and her nipples stiffen. She saw his gaze flicker down over her exposed flesh and took advantage of his hesitation. Running her hands over the wall of his chest, she traced her fingertips down the web of scar tissue there.
"You always come for me because you need me, the same way I need you." She said softly as she drew closer to him, her breasts brushing against his skin, her lips against his ear.
She felt him tense, "My offspring must learn to be strong."
"We will teach them, when they are ready." She leaned forward, pressing her body against his. Running her hand down his abdomen to his cock, she began to stroke him with feathery touches, feeling him harden, the spines along it lifting like quills under her teasing fingers.
"They must be able to protect themselves," He said doggedly.
"We can protect them until then, I promise." She grazed the skin of his throat with her teeth "We can do this together, S'Kia."
"You are trying to manipulate me," He said "Using copulation to bend me to your will." But his eyes had the same look he always had when he was aroused, catlike pupils huge and focused intensely on her.
"You want me to stop?" Her fingers paused and she made to draw her hand away. He caught her wrist. "Lex, you should know by now that I do not ever want you to stop!"
She laughed and carried on running her hands over him with long languorous touches, raising a deep chittering, clicking noise in his throat. "I am not manipulating you, S'Kia." She murmured "Please just promise me you will not make our boys undergo the trial."
"You are relentless!"
He closed his eyes and drew a deep breath, jaws and talons twitching as he fought with himself and she continued to caress him.
Then, he pushed the grey fur off her shoulders and ran his fingers over her skin, letting his claws graze her flesh, sending shivers up her spine. Putting one hand around her waist and the other between her legs. She shut her eyes for a few moments, letting him stroke her, then pushed him backwards into the pilot seat, straddling him. He seized her greedily by the hips, intending to pull her down onto his hardness at once, but she resisted. Tormenting herself as much as him, both of them breathing raggedly now.
"Give in to me, demon!" He hissed, "I promise you will enjoy it!"
"You know that is not the promise I need from you."
"Yesss!" He snarled in frustration, "Whatever you want!"
"Then promise me!"
"I swearrrrr!" His voice was an animal growl of lust.
Her lips curled upwards in a smile as she sank down onto him at last and he arched his body fiercely upwards. She gasped at the internal pyrotechnics triggered by every spine as he drove himself further into her, as if he could never get deep enough.
"Lexssss," He purred against her throat, "You know I cannot refuse you."
Lying in Hobbes's daughter's bedroom, Lex felt her face grow hot with rage and misery. "He left without telling me because he couldn't face me! He knew I would try to talk him out of it and he didn't trust himself not to give in! Bastard!"
Tears were trying to start up again but she bullied them back. Instead, she watched the thick feathers of snow falling down the windowpane outside. After a while, the almost hypnotic motion of the flakes helped her attain calm and with it came a tiny flicker of hope. Talking to Hobbes had helped her to crystallise everything. Now she felt as if she was seeing things clearly "If he's so worried about talking to me, it means I still have some power to persuade him. I can't believe that's all gone after just half a year!"
She shut her eyes and lay back against the blessed smoothness of the sheets. The loss of Isaac and Selim had left her feeling beaten and hopeless. Now, for the first time in a long time, she was filled with a purpose.
"I will find a way to contact the Chameleon. I'm going to persuade Scar to bring my boys back. And if he won't... " She flushed again, feeling the blood boil under the surface of her skin "If he won't, I'll hunt him down and kill him!"