Firebrand

"Scaredy cats!" Boyd called after them, chuckling at his own joke. "Shit," he added, noticing that Lorza's sleeve was soaked with blood. "Are you alright? Did they get you?"

"It is just a scratch," she protested, but she pulled her hand away to see that her white fur was matted with crimson.

"We need to get you to an infirmary," Boyd said, but Moralez stayed him with a wave of his hand.

"No need, my place is closer, and Kaisha will be back from her shift at the hospital by now. This way."

"What of these Rask?" Lorza asked. "Will you have them arrested and charged for their assault?"

"Leave them," Moralez replied, appraising the four unconscious aliens. "I think corporal punishment has already been administered. Unless...how much of a jolt did you give that one, Boyd?"

"Not enough to risk stopping his heart," the agent replied with a grin, "just enough to put him down for a few minutes. He'll wake up none the worse for wear pretty soon."

"Come on then," Moralez said, stepping over a snoozing Rask as he set off down the tunnel. "Let's get Lorza fixed up."

***

"Are you picking fights again?" Kaisha complained, rising to take Lorza by the arm as Moralez led her into their apartment. Boyd trailed behind them, appraising the other Polar. He might not have seen many of them besides his partner, they were far less common than the other varieties of Borealan, save perhaps for the enigmatic Araxie.

"I didn't pick this one," the Chief replied. "We ran into some Rask on the way back from work, they ambushed us. Sounds like they were pissed off about us bringing Korbaz in earlier today."

"What have I told you about hanging around women like that?" Kaisha grumbled as she used her claws to tear open the fabric of Lorza's already ruined sleeve, droplets of red blood falling to the kitchen tiles below.

"I wasn't!" Moralez protested, quickly realizing that she was teasing him.

"Three claw marks," Kaisha muttered as she appraised the wound, Lorza wincing as she prodded at one of the cuts with a padded finger. "They're not deep enough to reach the muscle, but they sliced fairly deep into the blubber. Come to the bathroom, sibirskiy, and I'll patch you up."

The two Polars left the humans alone, closing the bathroom door behind them.

"Do they...all speak Russian?" Boyd asked.

"They have a colony in Siberia now, so I suppose they must," Moralez replied with a shrug. "You want a drink or something?"

"What do you have on hand?" Boyd asked.

***

"Sit here," Kaisha said, guiding Lorza onto a stainless steel stool inside a glass shower cubicle. It was larger than any that Lorza had ever seen before, even more luxurious than the ones in the suites, the walls lined with angled water jets. A doctor's salary had clearly allowed her fellow Polar to invest in some rare luxuries. Memories of trying to bathe aboard the Zemchug came flooding back, the cramped Russian survey vessel that she had served on before her fateful meeting with Boyd. Polars took great care to keep their soft fur clean and presentable, grooming consumed an enormous amount of their time, and this Kaisha person had spared no expense to make her life on the station a little more convenient.

The Doctor reached up and removed a showerhead from its mount, connected to a flexible hose, turning on the water and letting it flow over her hand as she waited for it to warm. When she was confident that the temperature was right, she began to run it up and down Lorza's arm, cleaning the fur around the wound as diluted blood drained into the grate in the center of the expansive cubicle.

"This Rask got you pretty good," she muttered, switching to their native Polar tongue now that the humans were out of earshot. "It will require a few staples, can you tolerate the pain? It will only be momentary."

"I will endure," Lorza replied, the warm water soothing the dull ache somewhat. "Thank you," she added, peering up at the stranger. Kaisha nodded with a demure smile, her eyes fixed on her work. "Boyd wanted to take me to the infirmary, but the Security Chief insisted that we come here. He must have great confidence in your abilities. It was you who helped him recover from his injuries, was it not?"

"I was his surgeon, and his physical therapist," Kaisha replied. "I'm somewhat surprised that he was willing to talk about that period of his life around you and your partner, he is slow to trust."

"I fear that Boyd loosened his lips through provocation, rather than through earning his friendship," Lorza replied. "He can be somewhat...abrasive at times."

"But you are very much in love," Kaisha added with a chuckle. "Your scent is all over him, and I trust that it isn't a result of merely working in close proximity."

"N-no," Lorza stammered, momentarily flustered. "Though, I would appreciate your discretion. The Chief does not know, and I would prefer to keep it that way. It might be seen as a conflict of interest."

"I sympathize," Kaisha chuckled, "I have been in the same boat. The humans sometimes take their work too seriously," she added as she ran her fingers through Lorza's fur, dislodging a few dried clumps of blood. "Our people understand the ebb and flow of emotion better than they do, we know that sometimes, a desire must simply be indulged before it can be managed."

She set the showerhead back on its brace, and made her way to a cupboard above the sink, rummaging through its contents for a moment. When she returned, she was holding a safety razor in one hand, and a bottle of iodine in the other.

"I'll have to shave the fur around the wound site," she said. "Sorry, I know how bad it looks."

"Perhaps I will wear a fashionable armband," Lorza joked, sucking in a sharp breath through gritted teeth as Kaisha began to shave her bicep. "It is nice to see another furry face," she continued, trying to keep her mind off her injury. "I have been away from the colony for too long, my job has me traveling the Galaxy."

"Is the life of a spy as exciting as it sounds?" Kaisha asked, using the showerhead again to wash away the shaved fur. She exposed a patch of pale skin beneath, the coffee-stain patterning on Lorza's thick coat reflected in its pigmentation, three cuts seeping a slow trickle of blood. The Doctor upended the bottle of iodine, coating the area liberally with the orange-colored fluid, staining the remaining fur around the patch of naked skin a sickly yellow.

"There is more downtime than you might imagine, but yes, it can be rather exhilarating at times."

"The life of a doctor is perhaps not so exciting," Kaisha added, appraising her work before moving over to the cupboard again. "But I find it fulfilling. Xenobiology has been a passion of mine ever since first contact with the aliens, along with alien cultures. The Russians were very accommodating. I won a grant to attend medical school in Novosibirsk, they put a lot of faith in me, as primitive as I was. I must have seemed like a cave dweller to them, but I had some experience in traditional medicine, which served as a jumping-off point for my studies."

"Looks like it paid off," Lorza chuckled. "I wanted to see every planet in the Galaxy, and surveying was my ticket onto an exploration vessel. It was not a glamorous assignment, but it scratched that itch."

"Is that where you met Boyd?" Kaisha asked.

"In a sense," Lorza laughed. "He posed as a refugee as a pretense to get aboard my survey ship, hoping to escape the planet Hades. He had been assigned to spy on a crime syndicate, and his cover had been blown. They shot us down over the ice moon, and we spent the next several days marching across the tundra, just trying to stay alive. When people are thrown into a crisis situation like that, I suppose they just...bond. We went through a lot together, I don't think anyone will ever understand me the way that he does."

"And vice versa," Kaisha added with a smile. "They are curious creatures, aren't they? They're so possessive, passionate, relationships with them are so intensely intimate. Their concept of monogamy takes some getting used to, but I find that it's worth the trade-off."

"Their males are in constant competition," Lorza added with a shake of her head, "I don't imagine that they would do well in a pack environment. And yet, I doubt that they would complain if more females were introduced to the equation..."

"Yes, they tend to favor one gender or the other," Kaisha chuckled as she finished disinfecting the wound. "Still, some of them grow intensely attached to their chosen mate. I find it endearing."

"I've been so long without the company of fellow Polars that the idea of living in a pack is almost the more alien option," Lorza added as the Doctor moved over to the cabinet again.

"But isn't it wonderful that we get to choose?" Kaisha asked, returning with a rather menacing staple gun clutched in her furry hand. "Now, keep still. This is going to be painful."

She positioned it over the first of the three cuts, pinching the parted skin together with her claws, and pulled the trigger. Lorza gritted her teeth as a tremor passed through her body, the sharp sting of a staple digging into her tender flesh slowly fading. The Doctor moved along the cut until it had been closed, the white material of the staples standing out against a fresh flow of blood, then she moved on to the next one.

"There's something to be said for their biology, too," Kaisha added in an attempt to keep her talking. "Their tongues are devoid of barbs, their fingers are clawless. I didn't realize how disadvantaged we are until I took a human partner."

"No chance of pregnancy during mating season either," Lorza added, "I used to get so testy when I had to abstain from lying with the males for weeks at a time..."

Her sultry chuckle was interrupted by a pained gasp as the Doctor pulled the trigger again. After a couple of minutes, Kaisha was done, standing back to appraise her work. The three claw marks had been stapled shut, and she gave them a final wash with iodine, the sting of it making Lorza wince.

"I'd like to bandage the wounds to make sure that there's no infection," Kaisha said, her patient nodding her head in agreement. A quick trip to the cabinet later, and her bicep was tightly bound with antiseptic bandages, covering up the bald patch completely. There was no sign of her injury now, save for a subtle stain in the fabric that might be blood or iodine solution. It was hard to be sure.

"My thanks again," Lorza said, flexing her arm.

"It was my pleasure," Kaisha replied warmly. "You shouldn't need to change the bandages, just remove them in two or three days. The flesh should have knitted enough to close the wounds by then. The staples will dissolve on their own. Now, a warm drink to calm the nerves is in order, if you have no prior engagements?"

Lorza nodded, Kaisha helping her to her feet.

CHAPTER 11: SOLITAIRE

Korbaz paced about her cell, clenching her fists as she glared at the featureless walls. It was an empty box, for all intents and purposes, made from white metal without even a carpet to warm her paws. There were no windows, and only one door that was securely bolted shut, a single slot serving as a means to feed the occupant their processed swill. There was a toilet and a drinking fountain, along with a bed that was little more than a metal frame with a thin mattress laid on top of it.

The tight leather of her pants creaked as she stalked, joining the clicking of her sharp claws on the floor as the only sounds in the room. She was furious, frustrated, and with no outlet to speak of. She had considered savaging her mattress in a fit of anger, but that would leave her with nowhere to sleep, and she had no idea when they would see fit to release her.

How dare these creatures confine her like this, accuse her of atrocities that she had no part in! They flouted her diplomatic rights, denied her the respect that her status afforded her. The Matriarch would hear her complaints, and Korbaz was certain that her condemnation would be harsh indeed.

She finally ceased her restless pacing, the springs in the bed making an intolerable scraping sound as she sat down on them. She crossed her arms and legs as she loosed an irritated snarl, her tail flicking back and forth, her ears flat against her cropped hair. Her people did not imprison one another in this way, they settled their disputes with their claws, and punishments were meted out with little delay. It was impossible to guess what they hoped to accomplish by keeping her here, their alien minds were unfathomable.

She recalled the humiliating fight in the suite, how that oversized kitten of a Polar had forced her into submission, how the UNNI agent had taunted her. She would trade all of her pack's riches back on Borealis for ten minutes alone with that smirking ape. She would peel the meat from his bones, have him begging for her to grant him a moment mercy. Humans had such tender flesh...

Her thoughts wandered to the Chief of Security, and she lay her head in one of her furry hands, exhaling a sigh as an involuntary pang of arousal tickled her loins. Her rank of Vice Admiral gave her a privileged position in the Rask hierarchy, on top of being the Alpha of a pack with high standing in the social order. She always got what she wanted, either given willingly by fawning underlings or taken by force if it was denied to her. The only people that she couldn't strongarm were those of equal rank, and the Matriarch herself, of course.

Something about the Security Chief's defiance and stubbornness made her desire him all the more. It was the forbidden fruit, just out of reach, that tasted the sweetest. She had heard the whispered tales of his people's sexual prowess, their smooth tongues, and their dull fingers. They seemed almost designed to make a Borealan weak at the knees. Yet her Rask pride told her that they were frail creatures, small and fragile, unworthy of her consideration.

The Chief was different, however. He had strength enough to subdue even her, and his skin was a patchwork of scars earned in battle. The very thought of tracing them with her pads made her heart skip, it was a feature that her people found most desirable in a mate.

How she longed to challenge him, to defeat him, and to take him every manner that she pleased until she'd had her fill of him. Only then could she excise him from her thoughts. He had crept into her dreams following their first, somewhat confrontational encounter, taunting her in the depths of sleep where she had no control over her faculties. Korbaz was confident that she would come out on top in such a battle, but that nagging doubt remained, a possibility of defeat that gave the whole affair a dangerous and exciting allure. The humans did not observe the pack structure, and so there was little danger of any true loss of standing, yet the risk made her cheeks flush red all the same. The very idea that a Vice Admiral of the Rask could find herself in a subservient position to an alien was...scandalous. How long had it been since she had felt defeat, since she had been roughly mounted after being taught her place? Not since her youth. She was uncommonly resilient, as her high rank suggested.

There was her defeat at the hands of the Polar, but that was different. They were manipulative creatures, sneaky, and no challenge had been issued. Still, she couldn't help but feel a guilty pang of arousal at the idea of the fat, furry creature taking her there on the kitchen floor, right in front of the humans. It was an intrusive thought that she quickly banished from her mind, turning the focus of her lust back to the Chief.

She parted her thighs, eyeing the corners of the room warily for the cameras that the humans liked to place all over their station. There were none that she could see, her captors had granted her the dignity of a little privacy if nothing else.

Her heart was racing, and the bout with the Polar had left her frustrated. There was no aphrodisiac quite like a good fight, and she had been denied the satisfaction of inflicting even a single injury on her opponent. There was nothing worse than swinging one's claws and having them fail to connect. It was like building to an orgasm and then stopping just short of the climax. If she didn't do something about it, she was going to go crazy, the risk of her jailors walking in on her be damned...

She began to unzip her leather jacket, her heart beating faster as she exposed her toned midriff, running her sharp claws across her stomach as they wandered down to her belt buckle. Her muscles tensed beneath her tanned skin, pulling taut as she left stinging trails, just the right amount of pain to get her going. She fumbled with her buckle for a moment, hastily unfastening her belt, the comforting weight of the weapons that usually filled her pouches and holsters now absent.

She pulled down her zipper, struggling to drag her skin-tight, leather pants down far enough to expose herself. They clung to her already dampening skin, Korbaz shuffling uncomfortably on the creaking cot as she got them about half-way down her muscular thighs, exposing a tuft of sandy-blonde fur on her otherwise smooth mound.

The cold from the metal wall behind her permeated the padding of her leather jacket as she leaned back against it, spreading her legs as much as her tight pants would allow. She was already dripping, her juices staining her inner thighs, her lips swollen and needy. Biting her lower lip, she slowly slipped a finger between them, wetting her fleshy pad with her excitement. She already knew that her fluids were going to soak her fur, she'd stink of sex, but she was beyond the point of caring about that now.

Her eyelids drooped as her damp, slippery pad brushed her engorged clitoris, a jolt of pleasure making her shiver. Being very careful with the sharp claw on her index finger, she began a slow, circular rubbing motion. Even now, Korbaz longed for something filling, something long and girthy that could scratch the maddening itch deep inside her. But there was nothing to be done about it, she couldn't insert a finger, not without filleting herself from the inside.

She couldn't remember the last time that she had been forced to do this alone, there had always been a willing subordinate on hand to provide a cock or a tongue whenever the urge arose. Grumbling her disappointment under her breath, she focused on her sensitive bud, closing her eyes and trying to take her mind off her decidedly unerotic setting.

In her imagination, the Security Chief had come to her suite alone, without his UNNI lackeys in tow. She couldn't recall the details of his uniform, save that it was blue, perhaps a little tighter fitting in her mind's eye than it had been in reality. His prosthetics stood out to her, however. She could recall every minute detail, down to the whirring sound that they made when they moved, to the subtle checker pattern that was visible on the black housing when they caught the light at just the right angle. His dark hair, the scars on his tanned skin, those dark eyes that radiated such self-assurance.

She replayed the interrogation in her head, blanking out the two agents and focusing on the Chief. Moralez, that was his real name, but his title afforded him a status that she found quite alluring. Chief of Security had no equivalent in her society, but it was similar to Captain of the Guard, a position in the Elysian military.

The scene played out in much the same way, with the Chief discovering the alien device in her pocket, and confronting her with the demand that she allow herself to be incarcerated. This time, there was no brutish Polar to fight on his behalf, Korbaz flipping the table and squaring off against the human.