Deven's Leap of Faith (Triads in Blue Book 10) Read online

  “Ice cream?” Tula looked hopeful. Maybe with guests at the table manners wouldn’t matter.

  “What do we say?”

  Tula sighed. “Yes, ice cream, please.”

  Dasu looked at Win. “We have vanilla, chocolate, caramel …”

  Win just looked blank, as though he didn’t even know what ice-cream was. Dasu made the decision for him. “You look like a chocolate kind of guy. Chocolate it is.”

  Tula agreed. “Chocolate! Please. You always gotta say please,” he confided to Win.

  Deciding that Win was as relaxed as he was going to be, Deven reached out carefully to the little one’s mind, not wanting to scare him, and not sure how much of Win’s pain he could handle. He was surprised to find a block. He couldn’t reach the child at all, and that was a first for him.

  ‘Karo? The little one’s mind is blocked. I can’t reach him.’

  ‘Give him time, Deven.’

  It was more than that, Deven knew it was, but he wasn’t sure what was causing it. Still – time and love? Or had he just become used to reading people’s thoughts, and was getting arrogant about it?

  When they had finished the ice cream, which seemed to be a total but pleasant novelty to Win, Tula got up from the table to plant a messy chocolate ice-cream kiss on Win’s cheek. Win looked at him, and almost smiled.

  Tula helped Win get dressed, with everything on mostly the right way, and then Deven carefully asked him if he would like to go see the nice person in Medical.

  “He’s a very nice blue person. I’ll come with you and hold your hand?”

  To his surprise, Tula wanted to come too. “We bond. Win and me bond.”

  On the verge of telling the little one that he was too young to bond, and anyway neither of them were the blue people from Cerulea who bonded, Deven stopped himself. Who was he to judge? He looked up at Ivan, who shrugged.

  ‘I could go for a walk. I’ll come with you.’

  With Deven holding onto one of Win’s hands and Tula holding onto the other, with Ivan keeping Tula up on the far side, they made their way down the hall to Medical, and everyone they met smiled at them. They must have been an interesting sight. Win finally quit flinching every time he saw a new person, and at the door to Medical Tula stood on tip-toes to whisper in his ear.

  “I take care him,” he explained cheerfully. “I told him, Medical man scared of me.”

  Ivan looked down at him in surprise. “Karo is scared of you?”

  “I throw up all over him. He scared.”

  “Ah. As he should be.”

  Karo was a gentle soul, and examined Win with soft hands. Win balked at the internal exam, but Tula held his hand and whispered in his ear again, and that seemed to make the difference.

  When he was finished Karo looked up. “Who is the child’s guardian?”

  Deven and Tula both raised their hands, then Ivan laughed and added himself to the mix. “Myself, Dasu, Suna, so our triad, Tula and Deven, not necessarily in that order.”

  Karo directed the message privately to Deven and Ivan. ‘The child has been raped, suffered multiple sexual assaults, but will heal. No offense, Deven, but to be part of a large family and with Tula, who he seems to have bonded with, will be best for him.’

  Deven had to fight back jealousy. He had wanted, he realized, to be the father that his hadn’t been, and to take care of this little one, and love him unconditionally, even if maybe he wasn’t really ready for a family beyond Nevi and Eva. He had to be the adult here, though.

  “Win? Are you alright to go and live with Tula and his family for now? Ivan and Dasu and another large blue one …”

  “Who is bearing.”

  “Congratulations! So there’ll be a baby as well. Will you be happy with them?”

  Win reached out to hold onto Tula’s hand, and got as close to him as he could, although he was obviously nervous about going as far as putting an arm around him. Tula had no such inhibitions, and hugged Win, and then gave him a sloppy toddler kiss. Deven could only laugh.

  Ivan laughed, too. “I think that’s a yes.”

  Deven kept a cheerful face until he was out the door, and leaned against the wall wondering why he felt like crying. A large warm body slid into place on either side of him, and mouths nuzzled into his neck.

  ‘Little one?’

  ‘I don’t know. I thought I could be his father, maybe …’

  ‘You’ll be a good parent when the time comes, sweet one. Just not right now. Is this best for him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you want to go to the Academy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you ready to be a parent?’

  Deven sighed. ‘No. How did you get to be so smart?’

  ‘From hanging around with you, beloved. Do you want to go back to our quarters and make wild crazy love?’

  ‘Oh yeah …’

  The three of them made it through their door, barely, and started pulled at each other’s clothes. Tunics came off and then boots and pants, and hands were pulling each other closer. Nevi and Eva weren’t being as careful this time, although Deven knew they’d stop if he needed them to. He didn’t need them to.

  He nursed on one dark blue nipple and then another, writhing as Nevi’s mouth nursed on his throbbing erection and Eva probed into his tight hole.

  ‘Oh, yes, like that …’

  Could it get any better? Nevi laughed, pinning him on his back and offering his own hard length for Deven to suck on. Deven was happy to oblige, sucking and bring one hand up to caress the soft purple sac at the base of Nevi’s cock. So much like his, different only in color, and that hardly mattered.

  The slicked up hole behind that, that was different though. He enjoyed exploring it, making Nevi gasp, and then gasped himself when Eva’s long finger prodded at his own puckered hole.

  It was a tangle of bodies, blue and cream, all trying to get closer to each other and into each other, and to bring each other pleasure. Eva sank down over Deven’s shaft, and Deven bucked up in delight. Nevi maneuvered so that Eva could nurse hungrily on his sweet blue erection while riding Deven, and they all cried out in pleasure.

  Deven climaxed and then rolled out from under Eva so that Eva could drive into Nevi, teasing at Eva’s hole, urging him on. All one, until they were finally spent and lying together in a sweaty happy pile.

  ‘Happiness!’

  ‘Beloved.’

  Chapter 8.

  Deven was woken up from that happy sleep, his face buried in someone’s armpit and someone else’s face in his crotch, by a screaming in his head.

  Win, it was Win screaming, and the child was in a pure mindless panic. Deven went into action without even thinking about it. He rolled over the warm bodies and out of bed, waking both of his lovers up in the process. He grabbed the first tunic he saw, pulled it on and was out the door and running in the direction of the child’s hysterical thoughts.

  He maybe should have picked up a gun as well, but this was the first time he’d received any thoughts at all from the child, and it could be a nightmare? His lovers would be following him and armed, anyway. He followed the thought-trail down the corridors to the small transport bay, and became all too aware that it wasn’t just a nightmare.

  Win was backed into a corner of the bay, trying to protect Tula, who was trying to protect Win, and Ivan, unarmed, was trying to protect both of the children, all from some kind of monster who could have been the reincarnation of the Captain of the Valdez, but was twice the size and not so dead after all. Deven pulled a landing pole off the wall and held it in front of him, edging between the monster and the children.

  The monster sneered, and almost laughed.

  “He’s mine.”

  Deven didn’t even have to think about the answer to that one.

  “He belongs to no-one but himself.”

  The monster did laugh then.

  “He is mine.” The monster advanced, and Deven had time to admire the length of the teet
h and claws before the pole that he was using as defense was swiped out of his hands and clattered across the floor.

  He edged around, trying to keep the humanoid monster focused on him and away from the door. Maybe the monster would think he was dangerous? He tried to remember what karate moves looked like, and hoped the monster knew as little about that as he did.

  ‘Ivan, get the children out of here …’

  The door opened, and Nevi and Eva almost fell through, pushing Ivan and the children through the other way as they entered.

  The beast roared in frustration. “Mine!”

  On the far side of the bay now, and isolated from the others, Deven was wishing that he’d brought a weapon after all.

  Deven hoped the monster wouldn’t fit through the door into the corridors. Bad enough this thing was in the transport bay, it couldn’t be allowed to get loose in the Crusader. Had he brought it here with his request for the transport of ‘all’ beings from that ship? The door opened again and Kaji slid through, followed by a group of armed blue soldiers – and behind them, Win.

  Why would the child come back? Deven tried not to look at Win, or give his presence away to the monster. His imitation of karate wasn’t scaring the thing, so he began throwing everything he could find at the monster, although nothing was doing it any harm.

  The monster looked seriously annoyed, though, and seemed to be getting tired of having paint cans bounced off its head. It advanced on Deven, faster than he would have given it credit for being able to move, and slapped him hard enough to send him flying across the bay. In his pain and confusion Deven thought that he saw the monster actually explode, but that made no sense. Deven’s last thought before he hit the wall was that at least he had known love before he died.

  He woke up in too much pain to be dead. Two familiar warm bodies were curled into him, one on either side, and he recognized the litany of ‘beloved’, ‘beloved’.

  He was in Medical, and it seemed to be crowded.

  “What happened?”

  Everyone seemed to take a deep breath at the same time, and Kaji said ‘Thank the gods!’

  “But what happened?” He would have used mindtalk, but it would take too much energy.

  “We’re not sure, but that was the Captain from the Valdez, in one form or another. Obviously it wasn’t really a human to start with.”

  Deven thought about that, and then asked, “Did I see that right? It exploded? Is it really dead now?”

  “Yes. As far as we can tell, as well as abusing the child’s body that thing had control over Win’s mind, was maybe sucking power from him, and Win finally found the strength to fight back once he had someone he loved who was threatened. That young one has a lot of power.”

  “It came aboard with Win, when I called for transport?”

  “What? Oh, maybe, more likely not. Probably came on by itself, or its essence came on, with anyone. And if you hadn’t brought Win on board he’d be dead right now. We don’t know really where it came from. We know it wanted Win back, obviously. But Tula protected Win, Win protected Tula, Ivan protected both of them, you protected all of them – nice moves, by the way. Seriously? That was karate?” Kaji choked on a laugh before he went on.

  “Nevi and Eva protected you, my group backed them up - everyone protected everybody else. And then when it hit you Win got angry and reduced it to a little pile of sludge on the floor, and we have that sludge contained where it can’t get out again. We still don’t really know who or what it was – the computer is running some analyses. Some kind of shape-shifter, we think. But thank the gods you heard Win, or we could have lost Ivan and the two children. Although we’re not sure who Win really is. Maybe not exactly a human child. But still a much loved one.”

  “And we can reach Win’s mind now,” Karo added, “so he’s free of whatever hold that monster had over him.”

  “Win? Where is Win? And Tula? Are the children alright?”

  “They’re eating ice cream. The toddlers all decided to see how many different kinds of ice cream they could think of, and Suna is humoring them. He is having odd cravings now that he is bearing.”

  “Ah. Well, that would explain why Tula threw up on Karo. I can see more of that happening. Maybe I’m not ready to be a father after all.” Deven managed a shaky laugh.

  “We’ll have our own babies sooner or later, beloved. When the universe decides.”

  “And they’ll be beautiful, with blue skin and red hair, or red skin and blue hair, and we will never even let them know what ice cream is.”

  Kaji laughed, and seemed about to say something, but thought better of it.

  Deven tried to sit up and then realized he couldn’t.

  “What …?”

  “Karo had to sew you back together again, and the monster had really long dirty claws. You have a lot of stitches and patches. It’s going to take a while for you to heal.”

  “For a non-existent beast it did a lot of damage. At least it did it to me and not the children.”

  His two beloved ones leaned over and kissed him, and he caught the faint echo of both of them thinking it should have been them instead of him. To distract them, and because he wanted to know, he asked them who the blue ones who had come through the door with Kaji were.

  “Those were his rookies, learning to work together. They did well.”

  “Not as well as you, beloved ones. Never that good.” He thought about it some more, and then asked, “Isn’t this the part where you’re both supposed to nurse me?”

  Nevi and Eva exchanged a smile over him. “Told you he was a clever one.”

  “I’d have to be clever to be with you, and to be here on this ship. And that monster can go …”

  “Now, now. You have to watch your language if you want to be a parent anytime soon. And we can practice for becoming bearing as soon as you’re up and about.” Nevi smiled happily.

  “Well, as soon as you can nurse on me I’ll be up …” He grinned, and wiggled his eyebrows, then stopped and looked alarmed. “The monster didn’t hurt that part of me, did he?”

  “Oh no, we would have made Karo sew it back on, beloved.”

  They were all still laughing quietly, and only somewhat hysterically, when Deven ran out of energy and fell asleep again, with his beloveds curled around him.

  They were still all sleeping peacefully when the lights were dimmed for the night. The two blue triads were curled up together across the room, and a Med Tech and one of the new rookies were leaning into each other and smiling as they stood watch.

  ‘Love. It isn’t so hard, is it?”

  The Med Tech leaned down and kissed the rookie’s cheek.

  ‘Easiest thing in the universe, beloved. Just one more left to find for our triad … How difficult can it be?’

  The end.

  Thank you for reading!

  The adventures of everyone’s favorite blue aliens continue! Yes, I know, I originally said it was going to be a trilogy, but I lost control. Aliens can be like that.

  Each triad has their HEA wrapped up in their own book, although some characters will continue to pop in and out of other being’s adventures from now on. So far, in order of publication, but mostly readable in any order:

  1. Zack’s Little Darling

  2. Jacob’s Pair of Hearts

  3. Norin’s Wild Thing

  4. Caleb’s Web

  5. Javen’s Dream

  6. Kaji’s Challenge

  7. Atu’s Education

  8. Quin’s Fresh Start

  9. Maru’s Surrender

  10. Deven’s Leap of Faith

  Coming soon:

  The Ambassador’s Reprieve

  Note – these stories contain explicit scenes of sex, in varying degrees of steaminess, between consenting multiple adult males of different species (i.e. triads, aka menages). Note - Quin’s Fresh Start is the only story which involves a pair and not a triad. All characters engaged in sexual acts are over the age of consent in their partic
ular universes. For readers over the age of 18 only; if this content is going to offend you, please don’t buy these books.

  Thank you!

  Alyssa