Polaris Skies

Chapter 19

NSFW: Spice

Yeller and Nat slipped back to the living room where the group was between sleep and dawn waking. Hana had been moved to a curled-up position in the armchair. Sun Hee was apologizing for trying to ditch her.

Deck sat up to attention when the two came into the room. "So, what have you been able to do?" he asked. Sun Hee jabbed him in the ribs, throwing him a censored glare. "Oh, well...um, that is, we don't need to know everything," Deck amended, unable to meet either of the men's eyes.

"It's cool, Deck. We got Tereza switched over to me. I'm hosting not two, but three of these mutts up here now." Nat pointed to his head.

"Seriously? You took Cashia too?" Deck asked.

Nat shook his head. "No, Cashia's still with Yeller. I've got Sven and Tereza in here and most of Sylvi. The communicative part of her is in Hana, but the rest is in me." He sat down on the armrest next to Hana.

"So, how do I get the rest of Sylvi?" Hana winced. She refused to reach for the female entity, afraid to lapse into a new set of convulsions.

"Was transferring Tereza really that easy?" Benj had the record player disassembled, cables and gears spread out in neat little rows. "I mean, physical contact is making her ill, right?" he prodded, then dropped a small spring into the shag carpet as he realized what he asked. "Oh frack."

"Um." Nat rubbed his arm.

Yeller stepped in, having come to a stop behind Hana's chair. "You know how Nat cut his hand, and Hana cleaned it up? She got a portion of Sylvi through blood contact. It's a simple cross of genetic material where these wolf genes or whatever you want to call them can willingly cross between their receptive hosts as we suspected earlier," Yeller, careful to frame his answer, watched Nat out of the corner of his eye.

"So, you mean...? Nope, not even going to ask that. Okay, different question: so, we were right in making you leave Hana alone?" Deck stood up and walked into the kitchen. The bang of cabinet doors let the rest of the group know he was hunting food.

"You were," Nat answered back, monotone. He was shutting down. Dark hands grabbed and pinched around his heart. His emotions slophed into the abyss to leave him hollow and cold.

"For now, we're going to take Hana to see the rest of the house and claim one of the rooms so we can all talk this out in private and get a better idea of what needs to happen next to help preserve Sylvi." Yeller took the lead.

"Sven? Have you found a safe way?" Dietrich interrupted the three from leaving.

Nat cringed as Sven took over, overwhelmed with being thrown back into the tight-fitting space that was his over-occupied brain. "We believe we have found a solution. I was too eager and too careless, commander, in choosing my mate's host. I should have waited for a more ideal candidate." Sven bowed.

"Beware then, Sven, that you cannot keep both Tereza and Sylvi along with yourself in this host for much longer. The toll that you place on him is almost too great. He could become a danger and a liability." Heinrich stepped into the conversation.

"I understand, Heinrich, on a most intimate level. We will take the necessary precautions. That is why my host, Cashia, and this feathered woman are going to have a nice long conversation as to how to remedy this situation. I did say that I had an idea as to how to fix it." Sven smiled sweetly, showing as many teeth as possible.

"Be gone with you then. We'll wait here." Dietrich waved them away.

"Hana, would you mind coming with us?" Sven offered a hand to the woman in the armchair. She tentatively laid hers in it.