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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 25

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Quaranteam-Northwest: Part 25

Harri wakes up in the hospital.

Again.

Based

on a post by Break The Bar. Listen to the
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at Explicit Novels.



 

Once Kara had come down,

panting as her cheek pressed against my abdomen, she turned and looked up at
me. "That's it, right? No going back now for either of us."

"That's true," I

said. "Not that I'd want to consider an alternative even if there as
one."

Kara sat up and leaned over,

kissing me. "That means nothing can get in between us again," she
said, looking at me with a fervent desire. "Nothing ever should have, but
now I have you and I'm not letting go."

"Ahem," Tanaya

said, sticking up for herself.

"Sorry," Kara said,

turning to her. "I'm just; So maybe I might be dealing with some stuff
too."

"It's fine," Tanaya

said. "Um... fuck, suddenly I'm way hornier than I was before. This
vaccine thing is wild."

"I'm feeling it

too," Kara nodded. "Look, do you want to just finish getting him
hard, and then; well, how do you want to do it?"

Tanaya ran the tip of her

tongue across her thin bottom lip and then reached out and took my cock in
hand. She had slightly rough hands from her years of riding and taking care of
the animals, but her small fingers still felt good as she stroked me twice from
top to bottom. She glanced back to meet my eyes. "Mind if I'm on
top?" she asked. "I think I'd feel better that way, this time and
maybe a couple more."

"Sounds great," I

said and leaned in to kiss her again.

"Tee, do you think

maybe..." Kara started, then bit her lower lip, looking from my cock to my
face and back. "Do you think if you're busy there, I could maybe get some
of his mouth?"

Tanaya already had her mouth

on my cock and I had to assume it was the post-Priming vaccine that had her
simply grunt and give Kara a thumbs up. We shifted a little so I could lay on
my back and as Tanaya continued to suck the top third of my cock and stroke the
bottom two-thirds with her hand, Kara swung her leg over and straddled my
chest. Looking up at her naked body, I groaned and raised my hands to grab her
tits, finding I was right that they were just a bit more than a handful for me.

"Definitely

bigger," I said. "And fantastic."

She snorted softly, her

pelvis humping just slightly with her horniness as I thumbed her puffy areolas
and nipples. "Not as big as Gerty's though," she said. "Were
they fun to take for a spin?"

"All boobs are good

boobs," I said sincerely. "And I can't wait to get my mouth on these
ones, and yours Tanaya."

The other woman mumbled

something around my cock and flashed another thumbs up from around Kara.

"Then here," Kara

said, leaning down and bringing her tits to within reach. "Get a taste,
baby. Because they're all yours."

I got my lips into her

cleavage and, for a long moment, hoped I'd never need to leave that spot again.
There was the unfortunate fact that her skin tasted a little of the chemical
decontamination showers, but otherwise, she was warm against my lips and I
could feel her skin starting to goose pimple a little as I kissed and licked
and nuzzled and loved on her tits. When my lips finally found one of her
nipples and ran my tongue around her areola the way I remembered she liked,
Kara moaned gently, getting a hand behind my head and pulling me tighter to her
bosom.

Being lost in her tits,

however, didn't distract me from when Tanaya's mouth left my cock and she
shifted on the bed, and then I was feeling her grinding her slick twat against
the underside of my cock.

"Fuckin' hell," she

groaned. "Fucking hell."

Kara pulled her tits from my

face so she could look me in the eyes as she grinned. "Is she riding
you?"

I shook my head. "Still

feels great though."

Kara raised an eyebrow and

then sat up more, looking over her shoulder to see Tanaya writhing her hips as
she teased my cock. "Really?" she asked. "I can't believe he's
not already inside you. I know I want that cock in me."

"I'm just,” Tanaya

grunted. "I'm just making sure I'm not gonna fucking be too tight or
something."

"If you're as turned on

and wet as I am, there's no way in hell he wouldn't slip in," Kara
laughed. "But you do you." She turned back to me and shuffled a
little higher on her knees, biting her lip in a little grin as she raised both
eyebrows at me questioningly.

"Get that twat up

here," I said, patting her hips before sliding my arms between her legs
instead of outside. "It's been too damn long."

"Fuck, yes," Kara

moaned softly, shuffling forward a bit more and bringing her twat right over my
face.

I hadn't been a complete

idiot as a teenager, or some asshole. I'd become intimately familiar with this
sight before and it seemed to be one thing that hadn't changed much about Kara.
She had a pretty twat with thin outer labia and a neat little inner pair of
lips along with a slightly prominent clit hood that was a shade darker than the
rest of her warmly tanned skin. Her inner twat was a soft, pastel pink beyond
those lips. Now it looked slick with her natural lubrication and gave off a
slight musk and warmth with how turned on she was.

There wasn't any hesitation

on my part. I slid my arms up to hook around her thighs and pulled her down to
my face, driving my tongue into her and tasting Kara. At almost the same time
Tanaya was shifting and I felt my cock pushing into her, the thinner woman's
twat tight but not uncomfortably so as she drove herself back and down onto me.

I moaned. Kara gasped and

wove the fingers of her hands into my hair. Tanaya groaned and reversed course,
pulling all the way off of me and then right back on, driving my cock deep
before she started to gyrate her hips like she was riding a bucking bronco.

Heaven couldn't be much

better, I decided. The only thing that would turn that cheap motel room into
true heaven would be the rest of my girls cuddled up around us. Even the weird
saran-wrapped pillows and floors could stick around.

"Fuck, Harri," Kara

moaned, her hips working as her body tried to roll towards an orgasm.
"God, fuck, what a stupid fucking girl I was."

"Jesus," Tanaya

groaned. She had me deep in her now and the smooth, circular motions of her
rolling hips was a tantalizing urge I had to meet with my own thrusts up to
meet her.

It wasn't fair, really; I

knew Kara was making a bit of a mistake. From what I understood about the whole
Priming-Imprinting sequence, she wasn't going to be able to reach a climax
without the Imprinting. Getting oral from me definitely felt good based on how
much of her nectar she was dripping onto my tongue, but she wasn't going to
find satisfaction that way.

I was having fun trying to

get her there, though. And God did she look good, looking up
at her as she braced one hand on the wall and her tits wobbled with her
grinding motions. Her head was hanging low, her eyes closed in intense focus as
she absorbed my cunnilingus with soft little groans and gasps. I wondered how
long she would let me keep working on her, building her need without being able
to reach it, and how she'd react.

" Umm-fuck," Tanaya

suddenly moaned and I felt her change her stance, leaning forward a bit and I
saw her hands grab Kara's shoulders from behind for support. "I feel like
I'm fucking a goddamn donkey, Kara. God. You said he was a good
size, not that he was the perfect size." She moaned, low
and long, for almost a minute straight before she sat back down heavily,
driving me deep into her, then rocking forward again. "Fuck. God. Harri,
you better not be pulling the wool over my eyes here cause I'm gonna be really
fucking pissed if you turn out to be an asshole with this cock. I can't handle
another shitty relationship even if I'm addicted to your cock. Fuck.
Ugh! God, I feel like my twat was made for this cock. It's all
fucking yours, Harri."

"Gonna come on his cock,

Tanaya?" Kara gasped, grabbing her friend's hands and pulling them a
little farther over her shoulder so she could kiss one and then the other.
"Gonna become Harri's Indian Cowgirl? Fuck, Harri, that's good.
God, you know how to treat my clit right. Best I've ever had, and still so damn
fucking good. Why can't I fucking come though!?"

"I'm gonna

come, Kara," Tanaya panted. "I can feel it real deep in me. Fuck, it
feels like I'm riding a horse full tilt. It's a vibration in me, rolling
through me."

I could feel myself getting

closer as well. I wanted to give Tanaya what she was craving, I wanted to
finish the job and make her mine. Her pretty, stern little face,
her tight little body. She was mine now. And then I wanted to cram my cock into
Kara and fuck her until we were both puddles on the bed. I wanted to prove that
I was the fucking king and she wouldn't ever think of leaving
me again. I had lionesses around me, and not one was going to go wandering from
the king of the jungle's pride.

My hips were thrusting up,

driving my cock into Tanaya fast as she worked her hips. My orgasm was
building, and my balls felt heavy and tight.

"Hmm," Tanaya

moaned through a clamped-shut jaw. "Make me come, Harri," she
mumbled, her voice suddenly sounding completely normal like she wasn't getting
fucked at all. "Make me come, please. I need you. I need you so bad. I
need; Everything; Ugh!"

I came, my tongue wedged into

Kara's twat as far as it could get while I thrust my cock up into Tanaya and
felt like my soul was gushing out of it and into her. In the midst of the
extreme high I reached all I saw was white, but I had a moment of wonder as I
tried to figure out how the hell I was dumping what felt like a month's worth
of cum into her tight little body when only an hour before I'd felt that same
way as I'd imprinted Gerty.

Where the hell was it all

coming from?

"Yes! Breed me, you

fucking stud," Tanaya cried out, shaking me out of the white noise and
making me blink rapidly as another jet of my cum rocketed out of me and deep
into her. I didn't have time to think though, because Kara was dismounting from
me and Tanaya fell forward onto my chest. I immediately wrapped my arms around
her, crushing her to me as I humped up into her again and again as we both
gasped with each thrust until I was done and her body had stopped shaking.

I felt her hands go loose

from where they had grabbed my shoulders, and her body went limp despite still
being impaled on my cock.

My eyes felt heavy.

"Holy fuck," Kara

said from beside me. "That was amazing. God, now I,” I missed what she
said.

"Imprinting,"

Tanaya mumbled, her voice husky and her cheek pressed against my chest.
"Imprinting."

I was being shaken.

"Harri!?" Kara

sounded urgent.

I wanted to respond but

everything felt heavy.

"Help!"

Kara sounded further away and

she sounded panicked. I fought, snarling in my own head, trying to get to her.
Wherever she was.

But then I wasn't thinking at

all.

I was moving before I was

really awake, my head throbbing with panic and aggression because I'd been
helpless. Something was wrong. I needed to do something.
Someone needed me. My heart was pummeling the inside of my chest and adrenaline
was shooting through me. I opened my eyes and was assaulted by white light and
hands were on me, pushing me back. I struggled, batting them away.

Kara was panicking. Her

voice, calling my name. She needed me. I needed to do something.

"Harri, stop!"

My vision was still swirling

but Kyla swam into focus, and I wasn't sure if it was because I would always
have eyes for her, or if it was because she'd reached in and grabbed me by my
face as she glared in a stern panic over a heavy-duty rebreather mask strapped
over her mouth and nose. I almost couldn't recognize her except for her eyes.

I was holding someone, my arm

around their neck. I was sitting up and had another person by the front of
their shirt.

"Mr. Black, you're in a

hospital," grunted the woman I had by the collar.

I sucked in a massive breath,

blinking as my vision cleared some more, and let go of the Doc and then the
nurse; a male nurse, thank God. He stumbled away coughing, but the Doc just
straightened out her white jacket.

"There he is," Kyla

said, letting go of my face and running her fingers through my hair. Her voice
was muffled by the filtered mask, which looked like the kind of filtered mask
that construction workers wore when dealing with heavy dust or chemicals.

"That wasn't the usual

wake-up," the Doc said clinically. "We'll need to update our
procedures."

"What happened?" I

asked, my heart still beating hard in my chest as I looked around. Kyla was
there, so I wasn't in danger, but then why was my fucking fight/flight reaction
off the Goddamn charts? The last thing I remembered was... "Where's
Kara?"

"Mr. Black, everyone is

unharmed," the Doc said, her tone commanding my attention. Something in me
wanted to ignore her though, to leap out of bed and push past her and go.
"Following your imprinting of Tanaya Airington, you happened to undergo a
process known as 'regeneration'; it is what it sounds like. You've been
unconscious for about twenty hours."

"Is Tanaya

alright?" I asked, my eyes bouncing from the Doc to Kyla. "Where's
Kara?"

"Tanaya is fine, she's

already awake," Kyla said, putting her hands on my chest. I was dressed in
a hospital gown. The room around us looked familiar; we were in the medical
ward of Miriam's skyrise facility in Portland. Where I'd been taken when I was
shot. "Harri, you need to focus. For Kara."

"Your partner is

correct," the Doc said. "Miss Swiftwater is currently under an
immense amount of stress due to the timing of your regeneration. I need you to
listen to me for one minute, and then I'll bring you to her."

I sucked in another deep

breath and nodded. What the fuck was she waiting for?

"Miss Swiftwater has

gone longer than anyone should after the priming until the imprinting. Only one
test subject thus far has gone longer than her by choice, and we are unaware of
anyone else who has gone this long. She requires your semen now,
Harrison, but you need to be cautious. Be careful not to hurt her, her body
likely feels like it's on fire at the moment."

"Okay," I said,

taking another breath. "Alright. Take me to her." The Doc signaled to
the orderly, who grimaced as he went to open the quarantine containment door
for the room. Kyla hovered while I swung my legs over the side of the bed and
stood up.

"No dizziness?" she

asked. "Do you need water?"

"I'm fine," I said,

then adjusted my tone because it was harsher than I meant it to be.
"Sorry. I'm fine, but if Kara is in pain because of this thing then I need
to get this done ASAP."

Kyla nodded, still eyeing me

critically, her brow knotted together in concern. "Okay," she said,
then looked to the Doc. "Let's go."

I really was only in a

hospital gown and I could feel the cool air on my ass as we walked quickly out
of the room and into the medical clinic hallway with all its sci-fi-looking
state-of-the-art observation bays and equipment. I didn't give a flying fuck if
my ass was hanging out the back of the gown, though. Everything in my body was
on edge, the panic in Kara's voice that last moment before I went unconscious
ringing in my ears.

The orderly started to open

the next containment-sealed door and Kyla turned and put a hand on my chest
again as she looked up at me. "Gerty and Tanaya are in there with her. Let
me get them out and then you do your thing, Okay?"

I swallowed, resisting the

urge to growl at the orderly as he took so fucking long to open the
door, and nodded to Kyla. She nodded back firmly.

The door opened, and Kyla

slipped in first as she quickly called for Tanaya and Gerty to follow her. The
Doc went in next, and before I could push past the orderly and into the room
Kyla was coming out, followed by Tanaya and then Gerty. They were all dressed
in sweat suits, I realized, baggy and in Air Force grey. The sweatpants hung a
little low on Tanaya's thin hips, and Gerty's curvy physique wasn't done any
favors as the bagginess hid her charms. Both of the women looked stressed out
and relieved at the same time, and I opened my arms and pulled them both to me
in a crushing hug.

Gerty was saying something,

but the ringing in my ears was back, hanging over the thundering of my blood
pressure in my ears. They felt so fucking good in my arms, and I wanted to tell
them everything would be Okay, and I was there for them, and I still considered
myself lucky as all fuck to have them in my family, for them to be mine.

But they smelled of sweat and

stale sex. It was clinging to them.

The hospital room was leaking

the stink into the hallway.

"I can't talk," I

said, hoping that I wasn't hurting Gerty by not responding to her.

"Go," Gerty urged

me, pulling from my hug. Tanaya followed quickly. I caught her by the arm,
leaning in and planting a quick kiss on her forehead, then pivoting and doing
the same to Gerty. Kyla tried to usher me into the room but I kissed her
forehead as well before entering through the wall of hot smell that was
hovering in the doorway.

There wasn't any other way to

describe it than sweat and stale sex. And as soon as I entered I could see why.

Kara was on the hospital bed,

completely naked. Her body was shimmering, her hair damp and clinging to her
forehead, cheeks and shoulders with sweat. Her wrists and ankles were strapped
with cushioned cuffs to the bed railings and she was tensed and pulling against
the restraints. Her knees were twisting as she practically vibrated, her teeth
clenched like she was going to crack her molars from the tension coiled inside
of her and her pretty face scrunched in a grimace.

"Harri!" she

exhaled, her voice breaking as her eyes snapped wide as soon as I was in the
room. "Thank fuck, I'm fucking dying without your
fucking cock. I need you to fucking fuck me right fucking now.
I can't fucking come but I need to fucking get some fucking relief
god fucking damn!" She thrust her knees apart as best she could,
shifting her butt down the bed to let her legs spread even wider. No shame,
even with the Doc standing next to her bed and Kyla hanging in the doorway
behind me.

"You should,” the Doc

started, but I was already pulling off my hospital gown. "-do so,"
she continued, her eyes hesitating for a moment on my nude body. "And the
sooner you complete the process the better. Try not to be too loud,
please."

I didn't know if it was the

knowledge that Kara needed me, or that it was Kara generally, or just the
adrenaline still beating through my veins, but I was hard by the time I was at
her bed. The Doc disappeared, and as I was climbing onto the bed Kyla followed
me in and hovered near the bed.

"In me, in me, in

me," Kara was grunting, thrusting her hips up towards me. "Please,
God, Harri. In me!"

"I've got the

restraints," Kyla said, starting to work on one of Kara's feet.

I was between her legs,

leaning down over her, and positioned my cock at her entrance. It was inflamed
and literally dripping with her excretions, flowered open like it had already
been fucked so hard it couldn't close up again. Even her interior muscles were
flexing. Her eyes were pleading and bloodshot from being awake and wracked by
the strain that had been put on her.

Then I was inside her,

pinning her to the bed with my cock, piercing into her with one hard, swift
thrust. Kara let out a sobbing moan of relief and need and desperation. Kyla
got the restraint for her foot undone and Kara snapped it up and around,
hooking it over my hip and digging her heel into my ass like she was worried I
was going to pull away.

"Fuck me, Harri,"

she gasped. "I need your cum. I need it, it's the only thing
that will; Fuck, that will stop this. It's like my insides are trying to become
my fucking outsides, Harri. It needs your fucking cum. I need it in me.
I need you to fuck me like a fucking whore and fucking come in
my twat and make it all stop. I need it so I can be yours.
I need it to live. I need you to live. I need you."

I was hammering into her as

she babbled. Kyla got her other foot free and Kara wrapped both legs around my
hips tightly, yanking me down into her after every out thrust.

"I'm here," I

growled. "I'm here, Kara. You're all mine, forever."

"I'm yours," she

sobbed, still somewhere between relief and desperation. "I'm yours, I'm
yours, I'm yours."

This wasn't how I'd wanted it

to be. I wanted to make love to her. Even if it was an imprinting, I wanted our
first time together again to feel like it meant something, a symbol of the new
us. I'd imagined something slow, something emotional. Instead, this was
animalistic. It was pure instinct, pure mechanics. My hips were a piston driving
my cock in and out of her in a forceful beating, and as Kyla got one of Kara's
hands free she wrapped it around my shoulder, trying to pull me ever closer.

"Please, Harri,"

Kara sobbed. "Please. I love you. I want to always love you. I want to be
yours. Please let me be yours."

I kissed her, little more

than our lips mashing together, and I growled, "Mine," into them.

I came, my hips not stopping

as I emptied myself into Kara's sloshy, messy cunt. I fucked her like she
wasn't even human, just a thing. I was a thing, just a fucking
machine of instinct and hormone, mindless in my pursuit of the primal urge
inside me. To fill her. Claim her like property. No one would ever consider
her anything but mine again. Over my dead fucking body.

All of them were mine.

"Imprinting. Imprinting.

Imprinting," Kara was saying in my ear.

"Come on, Harri,"

Kyla said. She was shaking me gently.

I was cradling my body over

Kara's protectively, breathing like a bellows. My right ear had a ringing in
it, different from the thundering pressure that had been in me when I first
woke up. This was the ring after someone had been screaming and howling in my
ear at the top of their lungs. I also had an ache in my shoulder and across my
back, which I would later piece together was because Kara had bit my shoulder
hard enough to leave teeth marks without breaking the skin, and then clawed up
my back as she'd rolled through a trio of massive orgasms in a row as I'd
rutted my cum into her. I'd completely blanked through all of it.

Sitting up slowly, I looked

down at my newest, and oldest, partner. Kara looked like hell. I hadn't noticed
before that her skin looked reddish and inflamed, or that she had fresh bruises
on her arms and legs like she'd been thrashing around, now layered over the scrapes
and bruises she'd gotten from her ordeal with the militia. But even with all
that, and the sweat, and the smell of her confined chemically-induced lust, she
was still a fucking gorgeous sight.

And I was still hard inside

of her.

There was a temptation to

just keep fucking her. She was mine and she would allow it if I
wanted it.

But that wasn’t me. I

grunted, shaking my head and taking a breath. Carefully pulling out of her, I
groaned in my throat as my cock bobbed back up at attention while I backed down
the bed. I was still breathing heavily, though the adrenaline hammering in my
chest seemed to be calming down. Once I was on my feet I grunted again, bracing
a hand on the end of the bed and blinking a couple of times.

"Are you Okay now?"

Kyla asked me.

I looked at her. The outfit

might have been unflattering, and she didn't have any makeup on, but my partner
and the mother-to-be of my future child still looked gorgeous even with that
filter mask on. And she'd been just as at risk of infection as me, and it had
been twenty more hours for the virus to settle into her while I'd been
unconscious. Going through whatever had happened to me.

"I am," I said

lowly, coming around the bed towards her. "But you're not." I closed
the distance and picked her up, reaching around her and lifting her with both
hands on her ass. She didn't fight it, instead wrapping her legs up around my
sides and leaning towards me, pulling my face into the plain grey cloth over
her chest. I backed her up to the wall and she pressed her back to it, bracing
her hands on my shoulders so she was looking me in the eye.

"You need to fuck

me," she said. Not a question, not a demand. Just a fact.

"Over and over," I

said, my hands finding the waistband of her sweatpants and scooping them down
under her ass along with her underwear.

She shoved the mask up over

her face and it clattered to the ground, and then she used her athleticism and
limberness from her years of dance to shift first one and then both legs up
onto my shoulders. This dropped her hips and ass lower until my cock was
nudging against her butt cheek. Her sweatpants didn't even come down past her
knees as she tried to fish a hand under us to get me in position. "Fuck me
healthy, Hatti," she groaned.

I lifted her a little, my

hand back on her ass, and she got me positioned and I thrust into her.

Again, what my brain said I

wanted was love-making. We'd been through a couple of traumatic experiences, we
needed to cool off and find ourselves and feel that special connection between
us. We needed to reset our balance.

We fucked. Her back pressed

to the wall of the hospital room. My hips slapped against her ass. She had her
hands clasped behind my neck, staring intensely into my eyes as we both panted
from the exertion.

"I love you," she

gasped.

"I love you too," I

growled.

"I did my best,"

she said, her eyes softening a little.

"I know," I said,

driving deep into her and practically folding her in half as I pressed as close
as I could to her, our lips meeting in a feverish kiss. "I know you
would."

"Erica is pissed,"

Kyla murmured. I was rotating my hips, stirring my cock in her. "Ivy had
to stop her from driving up here."

"It's fine," I

groaned. "It'll be fine. There was nothing else you could do. You took
care of all of us."

"I tried," she

whispered. "I couldn't stay with all of you at once. I had to let Miriam
take care of you so I could take care of the others. Dani helped until we got
here, and then she had to get back home so she could be with Leo."

"You did the right

thing," I said, kissing her again. "You did the right thing."

She sobbed, the weight of

everything leaking out of her. She carried so much stress, so much baggage, and
it was so easy to forget that she wasn’t just my gorgeous
girlfriend-lover-partner, or my badass Deputy. She had a childhood of exacting
expectations and training, and the demands of a father and nation that had
wanted to use her any way that they could for their own gains. Kyla still
carried the effects of that, and I hadn't realized how much she had been
turning those expectations on herself; to keep me safe, and to keep the family
safe.

"You're safe," I

told her. "You're safe. I've got you now."

We ended up on the cold tile

floor. I didn't give a fuck. Kyla was on top of me, her pants still clinging to
one ankle and her shirt pulled up and over her head, hooked behind her
shoulders and neck, so that she could press her bare chest to mine. She was
riding my cock using just her hips, her chin tucked into the crook of my neck
as I held her tightly with my arms.

"I'm yours," she

sniffed. "Just as much as she is. Right?"

"Oh, Kyla," I said,

my voice cracking. "You're all mine, forever. No one will ever take
you away from me."

She bit my shoulder lightly

and came, still humping her hips at me. A completely non-vaccine related
orgasm, and my favorite kind for my partners to have even if they weren't the
mind-blowing ones that came from my cum hitting their system.

The next one was a

vaccine orgasm, but that was Okay. Her moans echoed through my ears as she
milked my orgasm out of me and my fingers dug into her sides and back as I
continued to hold her tightly.

Kyla's hips stilled, and our

synced breathing started to slow, and we looked into each other's eyes.

I was about to tell her I loved

her again but was interrupted by a knock on the hospital room door. Then an
intercom turned on.

"While I applaud your

diligence in taking care of your vaccine-boosting activities," the Doc
said. "I would like to check up on Miss Swiftwater."

"Fuck," Kyla

chuckled, sitting up and fixing her sweater to get her head back in the proper
hole and let it drop down to cover her torso.

"We just did," I

smirked back at her, then hooked a finger in the collar of the sweater and
pulled her back down into a kiss. "And we will again, and again, because I
love you and I'll never get enough of you."

"Good," she

whispered, already starting to pull off my cock, which had managed to stay
semi-hard and not quite slip out of her. "Because I'll never get enough of
you either."

"Alright, I've only got

fifteen minutes here," Miriam said as she sat down in the chair at the
head of the conference room table. "Today is absolutely fucked in
terms of everything that needs doing."

We were a couple of floors up

from the medical wing, and I was dressed in the same Air Force unbranded grey
sweats that my partners were. Apparently, our clothes had been sent for a
thorough decontamination protocol. Free balling it in the sweatpants felt weird
as I sat in what, in my previous career, would have been a highly professional
location.

"The handoff is

happening?" I asked her with a grimace.

Miriam nodded, then glanced

at the others around the table. "General Prewitt is assuming command of
this facility and the State rollout," she explained. "She's... not
awful, from what I've been able to put together through some calling around. I
just need to wrap up everything I need to accomplish here before
she and her staff take official command. She's given me until 4:55pm, so even
fifteen minutes here is cutting it close."

"We don't need to take

up your time," Gerty said. "If there are more important things you
need to do."

Miriam paused, putting both

her hands flat on the table. Kyla, who was back to wearing the filter mask,
Gerty, Tanaya and the Doc were all sitting around it with us. "Nothing,
realistically, is going to be more important than getting our family sorted
out," Miriam said carefully. Then she turned to the Doc. "Doctor
Sheridan, can you give us a quick update on everyone?"

The Doc cleared her throat

and nodded. "Miss Kara Swiftwater is currently safely settled into her
Imprinting process and her vitals are now within normal ranges. We'll know more
when she wakes up, but I'm not seeing any signs of lasting impacts due to the
inadvertently extended bonding process. Miss Gertrude Swiftwater and Miss
Tanaya Airington have both been cleared of Duo Halo infection following their
successful imprinting process, suggesting that we can expect Miss Kara
Swiftwater to enjoy the same effect; in other words, we're not dealing with a
variant with an odd reaction."

"I'm sorry," Kyla

cut in. "An 'odd variant?'"

The Doc glanced at Miriam,

who hesitated and then nodded for her to explain when she decided it wouldn't
be a problem. "Duo Halo is a virus," the Doc explained. "And, as
viruses spread, they naturally begin to mutate. It occurs for a variety of
reasons, and is the core roadblock to simply abolishing the Common Cold. During
the lifespan of most viruses, their mutations often end up toning down their effects
because they are survival mechanisms; a virus doesn't want to
kill its host, as much as it can 'want' anything at all. It functions with the
same basic core functions of all other life; live, and multiply. If Duo Halo
functioned as a normal virus we would expect mutated strains to generally, over
time, become less deadly but more easily spread. The reverse can also happen
though, where a particular strain becomes stronger. Duo Halo
doesn't follow this pattern; all of its mutations that I am currently aware of
remain as deadly as the original strain that we've been studying but can have
strange side effects, or occasionally cause strange reactions when it interacts
with the Vaccine. None have beaten the vaccine, or come close
as far as I'm aware, but we've been getting reports of some odd
interactions."

"Is that what happened

to Harri, then?" Kyla asked, glancing at me with a worried look across the
table. After our sex, and quickly cleaning ourselves up, we hadn't really had
much of a chance to talk but I knew she was probably bubbling over with things
she needed to ask and share.

"To finish my

report," the Doc said, sidestepping Kyla's question, "Our most recent
blood test confirms that Miss Kyla Bautista is still currently infected, but
after a vaccination uptick event she is no longer contagious and will be fully
cleared within the next day. Earlier, if another event occurs. Of the other
victims rescued from the raid, we've had to organize quarantining for all
twenty-eight of the children as they were universally infected, though in no
personal danger due to the nature of the virus. Several were also
infected with Covid, however, and are being treated separately from the others.
Out of the other forty-nine adult females, seven of the other nine who were
initially identified as most at risk have come through their imprinting process
successfully. The other two underwent regenerations and are expected to wake up
within the next few hours. Fifteen of the other adult females have already been
matched via Oracle, are vaccinated and en route to their new partners; another
ten of them are mothers of some of the children so we are waiting to vaccinate
once the children have had time to acclimatize to their temporary quarantine
care. A dozen of the adult women are currently participating in intensive group
and individual therapy to help them process their recent experience so that
they can safely be matched and imprinted, and three of the women are currently
refusing the vaccine altogether."

"Who?" Gerty asked,

raising her eyebrows in alarm. "Who's refusing?"

Again the Doc glanced at

Miriam, and Miriam fielded that question. "I'll get you the names if
you're willing to talk with them," she said. "They are infected, so
we've had to keep them in enforced quarantine."

"I will," Gerty

said, practically growling as she shook her head. "I'll set them
straight."

There was something about the

way Gerty seemed ready to knock some heads together that flared a coal of heat
in my belly. She was looking so much healthier than in the
motel, even if she wasn't completely back to her previous self, and for all
that the imprinting had been fun, I wanted her properly.

"I'll arrange it,"

the Doc said. "Lastly, of course, we have Mr. Harrison Black. How much do
you remember from when you woke up, Harrison?"

I blew out a soft breath.

"I think I might owe that nurse an apology for trying to get him into a
chokehold. And you, Doc. Sorry for grabbing you."

"Apology accepted,"

the Doc said, waving dismissively. "And Oscar got the rest of the
afternoon off, he'll be fine. The key information is that you have undergone a
Regeneration process. Every time you, or a woman, goes through an imprinting
there is a chance that either of you can be subject to one; obviously, this
means you are more likely to undergo one or more than any individual woman is.
If it hadn't happened now, it would have likely happened during your next few
imprintings. Based on your physical health, I'm sure you've noticed that the
minor abrasions you suffered during your recent... 'excursion' have healed and
that the previous firearm wound in your leg has healed over without a
trace."

"Oh," I nodded

slowly, frowning a little. "I guess so, I hadn't really thought about
it." I'd noticed that the bullet wound in my leg that had been bothering
me for a few weeks now had faded away, but the Doc had told me
that I had 'regenerated' so I'd assumed that was what that meant and brushed it
off. Now, thinking about that consistent ache that I'd been dealing with, I
thought it was weird that I'd barely acknowledged it.

"You'll likely also

notice other similar changes; scars that have disappeared, same with any odd
discolorations that come with age. Old aches gone. If your hair happened to be
thinning, it would likely start to grow back as thick as when you were a
youth."

"Sounds like a miracle

drug," Gerty said with a raised eyebrow. "Does it make you lose
weight, too?"

The Doc raised an eyebrow as

she smirked just a little. "I've red a few reports of the morbidly obese
beginning to lose weight after a regeneration, yes. Our best guess at the
moment is that a regeneration adjusts various hormone producers and internal
organ deficiencies, causing their metabolism to kick start up to a level to
manage their weight. We're still waiting to find out if that will normalize
when the subjects reach a healthy body weight, or if we'll need to find a way
to counteract the effect."

"So what does this all

mean?" I asked. Now I was wondering if I was dealing with 'your tongue is
too big in your mouth' syndrome where I couldn't tell if I was missing
something that had been there, or if I was manifesting
memories of aches that hadn't actually ever been there.

"It means you're likely

more healthy than you have been since you were twenty," Miriam said.
"Not that you weren't a tall, dark and handsome mountain of a man to begin
with."

"The concern is that

you did have a variant reaction," the Doc said. "We
don't have any records of someone going through a Regeneration and coming out
of it... well, for lack of a better term, aggressively. The larger the
regeneration, the more resources the body eats up, so most people come out with
a need for water first, then food. Oftentimes they also have a need to expel
'crud' that the regeneration has been clearing from their system; tar from
their lungs if they were a smoker, for example."

"Never been a

smoker," I said. "Well, except for a little pot in high school."

"It was just an example,

Harri," Miriam said with a little smirk.

The Doc shot Miriam a bemused

look, and I got the sense that she was enjoying the whole 'Watch your boss try
to not flirt with the man she was clearly crushing on' aspect of the meeting. I
felt like I was highly attuned to what Miriam was saying and
the way she said it now that we'd kissed and I knew where we were at. How had I
missed such clear signs that she was attracted to me? "My concern, or
maybe 'interest' would be a better way to put it, is that you came out of your
regeneration not only 'healed,' but physically energized," the Doc
continued, turning back to me. "You didn't require the usual refill on
basic resources such as water or food, and you were clearly in an agitated
state."

"He lost some body

weight," Kyla added. "But I think it was all body fat."

"He got more fit?"

Tanaya asked, the first thing she said in the meeting.

I shrugged. My mind had been

elsewhere, even when I'd noticed the missing bullet wound. I'd been thinking
about Kara, and Kyla, and the girls back home. About the mission, and what we'd
done. What I'd done. How I felt, physically, wasn't on my mind at
all. Now I pulled up the front of my shirt and looked down at my stomach.
Before, I hadn't exactly had visible abs, but if I was feeling complimentary
towards myself I would say I was only a few weeks of heavy workouts and dieting
away from a decent hint of them in good lighting; which had sort of been the
goal with the workouts at the Falls. Now I did have abs, and
while I wasn't shredded like a competition bodybuilder or the fabled 'Brad Pitt
Fight Club' dream body, they were there. Not only that, but my pecs were a lot
more defined than just a couple of days before, and my obliques were tighter,
revealing more muscle on my sides.

"Huh," I said, a

little shocked. Then I looked up and saw that all five women were staring at
me.

The Doc was the first one to

blink and look away, a light color rising to her face. It reminded me that I'd
noticed her take a long glance at my body right before I'd fucked Kara. She was
a little older than me and my family, maybe in her early forties, but
attractive with her pale Irish skin and copper-red hair. She gave me a bit of
'TV medical drama' vibes and I could see her as the will-they/won't-they female
lead. And she didn't have a ring on her finger, so she wasn't married.

I swallowed, struck again by

that fucking weird feeling that had been sneaking up on me
recently. That 'She should be mine' possessive feeling. I knew
almost nothing about the Doc other than her last name was Sheridan and she had
a bit of a wry sense of humor.

"Jesus, we're married to

a goddamn Men's Fitness model," Gerty murmured.

That got a snort and smirk

out of Kyla that I could see in her eyes, and chuckles from the others. I
dropped my shirt, surprised that I wasn't feeling embarrassed at all; their
attention just felt good.

"It seems like the

Regeneration ate up your body fat reserves," the Doc said. "Which
isn't unheard of, but usually it only occurs to this level during a major
regeneration. I'm more interested, and concerned, with the aggression coming
out of the regeneration sleep though. I would have usually set that sort of
reaction down to someone suffering from PTSD symptoms, but as far as your
partners have reported you don't seem to suffer from post-traumatic
stress."

"Well, I may have

been... a little reactive, considering how I'd gone out," I said. I got an
'explain' look from the Doc, so I cleared my throat and continued. "When
I, ah, finished with Tanaya, I felt myself get sluggish but I
didn't go fully out immediately. I was in and out a couple of times I think,
and I could hear Kara panicking. That's what I woke up feeling, and it was like
her panic was ringing in my ears."

"Hm," the Doc said,

frowning a little and grabbing a pen from the little cup in the middle of the
table and starting to scribble a note in the margin of the pages in front of
her.

"That's not really that

surprising, actually," Kyla said through the mask. "Harri has a
tendency to leap to help, and the more dangerous the situation the more
forceful his response." She looked from the Doc to me, her eyes saying
that it was something she liked rather than a criticism.

"Oh, you noticed that

too, huh?" Miriam murmured with a sly smirk, shaking her head at me.

"That could potentially

explain the response," the Doc nodded slowly, scribbling down another
note. "Still, I'd like to take some fresh blood samples and do a broader
spectrum panel, Harrison. So far most of the blood tests we've done with you
have been solely tracking vaccine levels and for the presence of Duo Halo.
Considering the report I red about your third partner's imprinting situation,
I'd like to dig deeper into this."

"What happened with

that?" Gerty asked.

"That's a

story that Vanessa can decide if she wants to tell you herself," I said,
definitely not wanting to open that can of worms quite yet with my two new
partners.

The Doc, Miriam and Kyla all

traded quick and knowing glances.

"Is that everything

medical-related, Doctor Sheridan?" Miriam asked.

"Unless anyone has any

further questions for me right now?" the Doc asked the table, and we all
shook our heads. "Then it is, and I have other patients to take care of.
Harrison, I'll have a nurse come by to take more blood before you leave, and
again before Miss Swiftwater is awake and can be discharged tomorrow. For now,
you should boost Miss Bautista's vaccine level again soon, and if you can
manage it, it wouldn't hurt to do the same with Miss Swiftwater and Miss
Airington as well."

"Got it," I said,

finally feeling a bit of heat in my cheeks again. Just a casual 'have
sex three more times today, doctor's orders' moment.

The Doc gathered her notes

and stood, tossing the pen back into the little cup in the middle of the table
before heading to the door.

"Alright, I've got; five

more minutes," Miriam said, glancing at her watch. She turned to Gerty and
Tanaya. "I'm sorry I haven't had the time to talk with either of you more,
but just to recap for you; I'm Miriam, I've known Harri for several years now
though we weren't in contact for a while. He once punched an Air Force General
in the face on my behalf and got drummed out of the military for it even though
the fucker deserved the hell out of the punch. We reconnected when I got
assigned this facility, and it's a good thing we did because I can't imagine
how much more shit he'd have gotten into if I hadn't been able to help
him."

"Only, like, three feet

more," I said. "Down. In a pit."

She rolled her eyes at me.

"At least." She turned back to the others. "I've asked that
Harri be my partner. Honestly, if we hadn't reconnected, I likely would have
been reaching out to him for this anyway; he's the best man I've ever met, and
it's tough to meet people when you've got all of that in your mind." She
gestured at me with a tilt of her head, and all three of the others glanced at
me with little smiles. "So I just want to say that I'm sorry I couldn't do
more for you and your people before the last in a line of disasters hit,"
Miriam continued. "And that we're going to be sharing him, so I hope we
can find a way to get along."

Gerty and Tanaya glanced at

each other, and then back to Miriam. "You seem like you've got your head
on straight," Gerty said. "And Kyla filled us in a bit, and she
almost bit Kara's head off when she didn't look happy about the news you'd be
partnering with Harri as well. You're fine in my books."

"Mine too," Tanaya

said, glancing at me briefly. "Though I'll be honest, it seems like half
of the people Harri's partnered with have a lot of history with him."

"Just... well, three out

of what will be eight," I said.

"So not quite half,"

Kyla chuckled from behind her mask. "Don't worry, Tanaya. Harri has a
massive heart. I've never felt less than Erica."

"I'll make sure to

prioritize trying to bury the hatchet with Kara," Miriam said sincerely,
then let out a breath. "Okay, I've got less than two minutes. Here's the
business; I've managed to 'acquire' another trio of RVs that are being
delivered down to Black County. One will be for our family, and the other will
be for the LaCosta family. The last will be serving as the anchor of my mobile
command until we get a proper building erected. They won't be quite as nice as
what you already have, but it's more living space until the houses are built.
I've also set up shipments of more equipment through the quartermasters. Most
of it is to equip the tiny garrison that I'll be working with,
but some of it will be for you as the chief security officer of the County.
Timeline-wise you four will have rooms made available to you for tonight, and
I'll assign someone to work with you, Gertrude, so you can talk to those other
women. Tomorrow you four and Kara will be able to head back to the construction
site, and Laura and I will likely follow that evening."

"Wait, who's

Laura?" Gerty asked. "And you can call me Gerty, by the way."

"Laura's my right-hand

woman," Miriam said. "Captain Bloomberg, I should say."

"She's joining us as

well?" Tanaya asked, and I thought she was doing the mental math of how
many people she'd gotten into this weird relationship with.

"No, but she'll be

joining Leo LaCosta's team, who lives on-site as well," Miriam said.

"Leo is Erica's

brother," I said, then realized I might need to clarify more. "He was
my roommate,”

"Do the backstory stuff

later, I really need to go," Miriam said, standing up. "Sorry, but I
do. I'll come by later to check in on things, but I'll likely be fucking
slammed with shit through the evening with all the handover stuff even after
I'm not officially in command anymore. I'll get someone to bring you up to your
rooms, and to find your clothes or new clothes."

"Miriam," I said,

standing up. She stopped heading for the door, turned to me, and let me pull
her into my arms as she hugged me back. "Thank you for all of your help.
Today, yesterday, and before that."

"Had to keep you alive,

you big fuck," she murmured, squeezing me.

I shifted a little, and she

looked up at me, and I leaned in to kiss her. It was firm, no tongue, but
passionate all the same. Just restrained passion. When we separated she
straightened her uniform and I snapped to attention, sans salute, and she
smirked and rolled her eyes. "Harri, you're a fuckhead but somehow I love
you all the s; Ignore that I said that. I didn't say that." She headed for
the door and if it had been locked I was sure she would have gone through it
like the Kool-Aid man.

Kyla snorted hard.

"She's probably shitting bricks right now. No way she planned on dropping
the L-bomb like that."

I sighed, going back to the

table and sitting in the seat that Miriam had vacated at the head of the table
so I could look at all three of them equally. "And she didn't even give me
a chance to say it back," I grimaced.

"Do you?" Tanaya

asked, and at my raised eyebrow she said, "Love her, I mean. You're
engaged to... Erica, right?"

I nodded, but Kyla answered

before me. "He's in love with me, Erica, Ivy and Vanessa.
And Kara," she said. "But like I said, he has a big heart. He loves
pretty easily. He loves Leo, his best friend. He loves Dani, Leo's partner. And
he's lovable, too. I'll give you girls the rundown on the Valkyrie
Falls ladies."

"Kyla," I groaned.

"Shush, they need to be

caught up on what's going on," my girlfriend said. "Anyways, there's
no expectation that you need to try and fall in love with him.
Erica has this whole speech planned out for you, so act appropriately when she
gives it, but the fact of it is that you're gonna get loved on by Harri unless
you decide to act like a bitch. If it happens, we'll be happy for you. If it
doesn't, you will still be a part of our family."

"Sounds good to

me," Gerty said, giving me a considering look. "And the fantastic sex
doesn't hurt I bet."

"No, it doesn't,"

Kyla grinned.

"I do love Miriam,"

I finally answered Tanaya. "I'm not in love with her yet,
per se, but she's a kindred spirit and I've cared for her for a long time. But
even if I'm 'in love' with every single person I'm partnered with except one,
I'll still try my fucking hardest to love that one so they
never feel less-than."

"Okay," Tanaya

nodded.

"So, what now?"

Gerty asked. "Because for some reason I think Miriam might forget to send
someone to get us after that."

"We figure out how to

get our phones back," I said. "So that we can call home and make sure
everyone is Okay there."

"That and find out about

those rooms," Kyla said, giving me a look. Then she turned to Gerty and
Tanaya. "Are either of you bisexual, or shy? We've developed something of
a group understanding; Erica, Ivy and Vanessa are all bisexual and willing to
be sexual with each other, and in front of each other, often. I'm very much
straight and prefer privacy except under special circumstances."

"I've... dabbled,"

Gerty said.

"Mostly straight,"

Tanaya mumbled, blushing a little. Her imprinting had been a threesome, but she
and Kara hadn't really interacted sexually.

"Good, think about what

sort of boundaries you want to set for yourselves," Kyla nodded. And then
she grunted softly and turned back to me, and I could see that smirk in her
eyes again even if her pretty lips were covered by the filter mask. "And,
by the way, I told you so."

I opened my mouth, then

snapped it shut and sighed as I nodded. "You did, dear. You told me
so."

The knock on the door was

soft but insistent. I groaned a little but sat up, immediately awake. Kyla's
arm slipped down from my chest to my stomach before she woke up with a little
grunt of her own.

We'd been stashed in a tiny

barracks room, barely big enough for a cot, a stub of a desk and a squat
dresser; exactly what I'd been expecting. Really, I was surprised there wasn't
a mirrored set so they could cram two soldiers into the space one would occupy
healthily. I'd ended up hooking up with Kyla once we had the privacy of our
rooms, and unlike the previous sex, we made the most of being able to touch and
feel each other, slowly making love. There was a lot left unsaid between us
still about what I'd done, and what we'd put on our consciences, but for now,
that could wait.

Then, once Kyla was fully

'updated' or whatever they were calling it in the medical facility, I'd sat
down with Gerty and Tanaya in the small common room area while Kyla had a nap;
I hadn't been surprised to learn that she'd stayed up all twenty hours that I'd
been out. I would have probably done the same if I could. The common room had
been empty at that time of day, and I'd gotten to sit in between them on a
couch as we tried to share things in little shotgun blasts of information. Some
of it had been about their lives before the pandemic. Some of it had been what
they'd been put through in the last few days.

Tanaya wasn't fully

comfortable yet, though she held my hand and traced her fingers across the back
of it most of the time as we talked. The few flashes of her eyes when she
looked up to meet mine had helped me know that she was Okay. Gerty, on the
other hand, had been happy to snuggle up to me on my other side, pulling my arm
around her shoulder.

A soldier had interrupted us

a little while on, and Gerty had been escorted away to go find out which of the
rescued Tribe women were refusing the vaccine and why. That left me with
Tanaya, and after a silent pause, she'd climbed into my lap and started kissing
me. We'd ended up in their room, an exact duplicate of the one I was sharing
with Kyla, and we'd explored each other a little. There was a feverish energy
to it, not like the imprinting but still eager and needy. We both needed
to feel each other. I'd found out that the skinny woman liked
my fingers clawing into her back, and my breath on her neck.

Kyla ended up interrupting

the peaceful quiet after we'd finished. I'd been massaging Tanaya's feet as she
tried not to laugh and pull away because she was ticklish. It was funny hearing
the woman with such a stern, husky voice try to suppress little giggles. Kyla
had gotten our phones back though, and we made calls home to reinforce that I
was Okay; they'd already been told by Kyla, and then Dani, about what had been
going on with me but they were reassured. Then Erica had asked after Julia, and
I felt like utter shit because I hadn't gotten any information about anyone on
my team, and Kyla didn't have any more answers than I did.

Gerty had come back from her

'diplomacy mission,' partially successful with one and hopeful the last two
holdouts would come to their senses if they started to show symptoms. She'd
also checked in on the kids and had sighed heavily when thinking of how many of
them were orphans now. Then she'd decided that she needed a pick-me-up, and I'd
ended up right back in her and Tanaya's room as we had a fast, fun quickie that
didn't even make it to the bed as she bent over the tiny desk and she slammed
her ass back at me as we fucked standing up. That's when I found out Gerty
liked a tongue teasing her ear, and being told she was a 'good girl' who
deserved every dirty thing that was happening to her.

I'd spent the rest of the

evening with all three of them, including dinner, as we waited to hear from
Miriam but were left in the dark. Finally, we called it a night, and I had a
feeling all three of them wanted to be in bed with me but I ended up with Kyla
purely out of the fact that the single beds wouldn't fit more
than two people.

"Who the fuck?"

Kyla grumbled.

"I don't know," I

said, slipping out of the bed and pulling up the sweatpants from the floor,
hoping they were mine and not the smaller ones Kyla had been wearing. I stood
up and they reached from my waist to my ankles, so I'd guessed right. Kyla had
gotten out of bed as well and had pulled one of the sweaters over her head, but
stayed back near the bed as I went to the door. The light that came in the
crack made me pull my face away for a moment as I winced, and then I opened the
door some more and stuck my head out.

"Got a minute to chat,

kid?" Agent Grierson asked. The old bastard was dressed in a suit that
looked like he might have been wearing it for three days straight, and
exhaustion had settled on his face like it was trying to build a permanent home
along the rings under his eyes.

"Grierson," I

grunted softly. "Yeah." I looked back into the room. "It's
Grierson, you can go back to bed." I knew, and I knew Kyla knew that I
knew, that she wouldn't go back to bed. I stepped out of the room and let the
door close behind me, barefoot and without a shirt. "You alright?" I
asked, looking him up and down.

"Long week," he

said. "But then, you've had one of those too. I just haven't had a chance
to put it behind me yet." He cleared his throat and then shook his head,
sighing. "You kicked a hornet's nest, Harrison."

"Okay," I said.

"In what way, and who's the queen?"

He smirked a little.

"Good question, and usually the right one. Let me rephrase; a hornet nest
has been good and kicked, and the nest feels like it was your boot that did it
even if someone else may have been wearing it at the time."

"What the fuck

does that mean?" I groaned, scratching at my beard. It
was getting a little shaggy again and needed a trim.

"It means that you need

to keep your head on a swivel," Grierson said. "Especially now that
there's been a leadership shuffle."

"Is this about this

General taking over from Miriam, or is this about Venroy Quinn?" I didn't
give the man the honor of his rank.

"Well, at least you've

been paying attention to your surroundings," Grierson said. "Both,
though mostly General Quinn. The man seems to have become aware that Colonel
Abarbanel was in charge down here, and sent out some feelers and
discovered your connection to everything. He's flagged your
clearance status and has already put in a call to Prewitt about you. Your
clearance is technically coming from me, so he can't do shit about
that, but if he gets Prewitt on-side then you and Abarbanel will have
problems."

I let out a little grunt and

sucked in a breath before looking at the ceiling and letting it out slowly.
"I guess it's not an option to go find him, take him to a boat and drop
him somewhere in the Pacific?"

"I doubt he'd let you

within a hundred yards of him," Grierson said. "He really does hate
your guts."

"Then I guess it's too

much to hope that someone has gotten the fact that he was
charged with multiple accusations of sexual coercion and assault into his
Oracle profile, even if he was never prosecuted," I said.

"Son, if I could do

that, I would," Grierson said. "I can be damn fucking magical at
times, but even I have my limits. He's already got three partners, and the only
reason he hasn't got more is because he's not exactly an easy person to match
with, apparently."

"Fuck," I sighed.

"I guess that means I can't drop him somewhere in the ocean." I
sighed again, a bit closer to a growl, and shook my head. "You can't just
be here to tell me this, though."

"I'm here to pick up

Captain Luckey," Grierson said. "And I take my silver linings where I
can get them. How did she do on your little outing yesterday?"

"Why do I feel like you

already got her report about me?" I countered.

"Because I have, smart

ass. I still want to know what you think of her."

"Maggie's capable. She

didn't flinch as far as I know, and did her part. If you want more detail than
that you should probably talk to Dylan, he was working with her more than I was
during the operation."

Grierson chuckled and shook

his head. "Dylan might spontaneously combust if he found out I was in the
same building as him. We've crossed paths before when he was with the
Agency." I knew he meant the CIA; Dylan had been open about the fact that
he'd worked for them for a bit after his military career. What I wasn't
entirely sure of is if Grierson was also technically in the CIA or not.

"From what I know so

far, Dylan having a bad impression of you has more to say about you than it
does of him," I said.

"We've all got skeletons

in our closet, son," Grierson grimaced.

I shrugged a little. "So

what happens now, then? She goes back to training or recruitment or
whatever?"

"No, now I have a frank

conversation with her directly," Grierson said. "It starts with 'how
would you like to save the world on a monthly basis' and ends with 'by the way,
the pay is kind of shit but the travel perks are pretty nice.'"

I snorted and smirked.

"Government work."

"Government work indeed,"

he chuckled. "Alright, Harrison. I've got three more stops to make on this
little national tour before I can rest my weary bones for a day or so. Just
keep in mind that you owe me a few favors at this point."

"I'm pretty sure it's

just two," I said. "But who's keeping count between friends?"

"Who are you?"

Miriam asked sternly; she'd just rounded the corner down the otherwise deserted
hallway, her stare firmly locked onto Grierson in an intense concern as she
stalked towards us.

"Ah, Colonel Abarbanel,"

Grierson said, turning on his heel and putting on a magnanimous grin.
"Nice to finally meet you. I'll let Harri give you the details, suffice it
to say I'm a... concerned friendly citizen and your future neighbor."

"Yeah, no, that's not

how that works," Miriam said as she came right up to us. She held out her
hand demandingly. "Security pass."

"Actually,

Colonel, that's not how this works. You technically can't
demand that of me in this facility anymore," Grierson said. The look on
Miriam's face could have turned him to stone. Grierson looked back at me with a
sly smile. "Harrison, you'll hear from me sometime. Try not to get shot in
the next few days, I don't need a wet towel thrown over my days off." He
raised his voice a little. "Miss Bautista."

The door to the little

bedroom opened behind me and Kyla leaned out, still only dressed in my sweater
so it came partway down her thighs. "Agent Grierson," she said,
glancing between the older man and Miriam.

That seemed to dampen

Miriam's quickly growing fury.

"Leave it to the foreign

asset to ruin my fun," Grierson chuckled and sighed. That distracted
Miriam long enough for him to shake my hand as he looked me in the eye, and
then the old fucker winked and headed off down the hallway with his hands in
his pockets and I swear he started whistling.

"What the fuck

does that mean?" Miriam asked, staring intently at Kyla.

I sighed. "Maybe we

should sit down and talk."

"Maybe we should,"

Miriam said, turning her ire in my direction.

"I'll put on some

pants," Kyla sighed, shutting the door.

"Foreign asset?"

Miriam hissed. "I'm a Colonel in the US Air Force. She's been on my base
for almost two months and she's a foreign asset!?"

I blew out a long breath.

This was going to take a while.

"Fancy meeting you

here," Julia said as she slipped into the seat across from me and Kyla at
the cafeteria table. Our ability to eat in public was helped by the fact that
Kyla had gotten another blood test that morning, confirming she was cleared of
Duo Halo. Still, breakfast, it seemed, trumped security clearance and we'd been
allowed to join the various doctors, nurses, scientists and soldiers that were
filtering in and out of what felt a lot like a mid-level hotel 'restaurant.'
The food itself wasn't bad, though it wasn't a nice brunch either, and I'd
noticed that there were some civilians mixed in with the folks in uniform; all
women, and some of whom were eating and openly touchy with their obvious male
partners.

I really hoped the military

was giving teams larger than two some bigger accommodations than we'd gotten.

"Morning," I said.

"Good to see you."

"Good morning,"

Kyla smiled at the other woman.

Julia looked refreshed. She

was dressed in the same grey sweatshirt and pants as us and didn't have any
makeup on, but she'd clearly showered and was feeling good. Considering I'd
only really seen her after she'd been flying her helicopter for a few hours and
geared up for a paramilitary mission, it was good to see her relaxed.

"Any idea when you guys

are heading out?" she asked. "I'll need a ride back if there's
room."

"We're waiting on Kara

to wake up, and to get any tests done that need to happen," Kyla said.

"And she'll probably

want to talk to her people before she leaves," I added. "God, she's
going to be heartbroken once it all settles in."

Julia frowned in

commiseration, nodding slowly. "I can't imagine."

"What's next for

you?" Kyla asked. "Actually, are you imprinted now?"

"Nope," Julia shook

her head. "When we got here they gave me the option, but when I tested
clear for the virus they didn't pressure it."

"How the hell did you

manage not to get infected?" I asked.

Julia shrugged. "I guess

I didn't inhale while we were blowing chunks of people all over the walls of
that shithole? Seriously, though, I have no idea. For a second the doctor who
was testing me thought I might be naturally immune and got all excited because
that would be a big deal, but nope. They did some blood tests and I'm not
immune, just lucky."

"Well, I'm glad you came

out untouched," I said. "What's next?"

"I figure out my life,

and if I want to trust their Oracle thing or not," she shrugged.
"Before I got the call from Colonel Abarbanel I'd been stuck on my ass for
a few months now; when I got out of the Air Force a couple of years ago I
started flying for a helicopter tour company and doing the occasional traffic
watch when news stations wanted to do the 'eye in the sky' bit instead of using
traffic cams. The National Guard tried recruiting me a couple of times and I
told them to fuck off, now I'm starting to think the military is the only way
I'm going to have a good reason to burn some fuel ever again. I guess that
depends on what I end up deciding about the vaccine, and who and where my
eventual partner is."

I almost stepped on Kyla's

foot, knowing what she was thinking, but we both managed to control ourselves.
There was that other part of me though, as she talked about not having a
partner, that rose up like a lion from his slumber on the savannah. That little
urge in my head that said it was supposed to be me.

"So you're coming back

to the site with us," Kyla said. "And then back home?"

"Unless you guys have

room for a guest for a few days," Julia said. "It would be nice to
spend some time with Erica, maybe get her to do a bit of work for me since
she's got some free time."

"We can figure something

out," I said before I really thought about it. "Home is going to be a
little, uh, chaotic for a few days though. Lots of changes."

"That's right,"

Julia smirked a little. "You had four partners before, and now you've
added three including your ex-high school sweetheart, and the Colonel is
planning to hook up with you too; nice job on that, by the way. Miriam is
fuckin' hot."

I grinned a little and shook

my head. "Not why I said yes," I said. "We have a platonic history."

"I mean, I assumed as

much," Julia shrugged, gesturing with her fork as she speared another
breakfast sausage.

"How are the rest of the

team?" I asked, pivoting the conversation away from my love life.
"Miriam could only give me basics."

"Dylan and Jed both

imprinted one of the rescued hostages," Julia said. "The 'needs to be
done now' crowd. Jed says he's going to go through the Oracle for anything
more, but he's hoping he can relocate back to Pennsylvania to try and give an
out for Amish women who want a safe place to land. I think he's got someone in
mind from back before he left. Dylan imprinted Jeanine yesterday, so he's up to
two already, and once she's awake I'm sure Jeanine will be vetting every new
member carefully; that or taking in any lost puppy they find. And Mags got
whisked away in the night, I guess, but she wasn't given the option of doing
Oracle with the rest of us since she's active in whatever secret shit she's
active in. Hell, maybe she was already partnered and didn't tell us."

"She's with someone

good, I think," I said.

"And getting to do what

she wanted," Kyla nodded. Our conversation with Miriam the night before
had covered both Grierson and Kyla's secrets, and we'd come to the conclusion
that Grierson seemed on the up-and-up, at least concerning everything with us.

"So, my turn for a

question," Julia said. "The whole 'regeneration' thing that knocked
you on your ass for a bit. Real shit, or bullshit?"

I shrugged, but Kyla jumped

in. "Real, absolutely," she said. "Look, he used to have some
pitted scarring on his side here and now it's gone." She had me raise my
arm so she could lift the side of my sweater and show the smooth, unblemished
skin on my side.

"Grenade," I said,

trying not to sound like I was bragging. "I was on the far fringe of the
blast area so it wasn't a big deal."

Julia nodded, pursing her

lips as she eyed my side, and then she smirked at Kyla. "Don't stop there,
keep raising the curtains. I want the whole show."

Kyla chuckled and started to

try and lift my shirt up more, but I lowered my arm and caught her hands with
mine. "Maybe not in the middle of breakfast?" I suggested.

"Oh, he wants to give

you a private show," Kyla grinned at Julia.

"Not what I

meant," I said.

"Hey, you want to give

me a Champagne Room experience, I'm down for it," Julia laughed, and I
snorted and had to chuckle as well while Kyla bit the tip of her tongue and her
nose scrunched as she playfully tickled my side.

Our conversation, and meal,

were cut short by a soldier approaching our table. "Harrison Black?"
he asked.

"That's me," I

nodded.

"I've been asked to

relay that Miss Swiftwater is waking up," he said.

I glanced at the others and

Kyla and I both stood.

"Go," Julia waved

us off. "See the damsel in distress we rescued. Just don't forget me when
you leave, I need that ride."

"We won't," I

promised, and we started following the soldier.

"She wants that ride,"

Kyla said quietly, a teasing grin on her lips as we left the cafeteria.

I sighed. "You've been

talking with Erica, haven't you?"

"No comment," she

said. "But just remember,”

"Yeah, I know," I

said, taking her hand in mine and squeezing it. "You told me so."

"I did," Kyla

grinned.

Based on a post by Break

The Bar for Literotica

If you have enjoyed the

series so far, definitely make sure to check out Corrupting Power’s main series
and other spinoffs.

 

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