Content warnings for bondage, violence (implied and on-screen).

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"I used to think you were full of shit."

I feel her breath before I see her; a wisp escaping her lips and rolling down her chest, across her soft leather jacket and the lattice of metal studs across its surface, all the way down the jeans that conceal energy-dissipating armor panels in their weaves, finally reaching down along her carbon-fiber toed boots. Each part of her loadout is familiar by now; those innocuous studs hide an electro-repulsive field that's stopped more than one bullet from piercing her heart. It even stopped mine once.

I bring my consciousness back slightly, and let it bask in her shadow, thrown out across the stain-resistant plastic tiling as she leans against the door frame, twirling her signature pistol in feigned impatience. There's no threat to the gesture now as stagnant air hangs over the dingy hotel furniture, unperturbed by her presence.

"You told me as much. Repeatedly. How did you find me this time?" As tempted as I am to turn, I keep staring out the window at the softly drizzling rain outside, falling in rhythmic patterns on the street ten stories below. I'd never make the landing.

"You've learned a lot, princess, but not as much as you think."

"It was the knife, wasn't it?" Yesterday, a reformist caught me in the alley, thinking I was some easy mark. He's probably still there in the gutter, his own knife protruding from his chest.

"Yep. Once it identified your biosignature, the alert went out. From there, it was easy enough to find you; you couldn't have left the city until today's transport went out, not unless you got yourself a ship since our last—" L'vere pauses, considering her next word carefully, rolling it around on her tongue before finishing her thought. "Encounter." The word feels warm on my ears.

"Next time I stab someone who’s trying to kill me, I'll make sure to use my own blade. Thanks for the tip, love." Still, I don't turn. Let her keep staring at my back. I'd prepared my best lacework for the occasion, and there was no sense wasting it by facing her now.

I feel a slight pressure as she steps forward into the room. The tile under her boot had long been dented and scratched almost beyond recognition, but its shift with her weight still registers in my telesense. I don't need to turn to know that she kept most of her weight on her back leg, poised on the balls of her feet, ready to reverse course should someone try to sneak up on us. It was rare that she ever let her heels come fully into a neutral stance, perhaps why she'd lived so long in such a dangerous career.

"Always happy to offer a lesson to sheltered and spoiled royalty such as yourself." The muscles on one side of her face tighten almost imperceptibly. Even as much as her words were precisely tailored to get a rise out of me, I melt a bit in spite of myself. She knew the power of that that little smirk, and she wasn't afraid to use it on an unarmed civilian like me.

"You damn well know how hard I worked for this, you saw the confirmation hearing, and I wouldn't call anything about that election 'sheltered.' Even a bounty hunter could stand to show a little respect."

"I stand corrected, Your Highness." L'vere drops in a slight curtsy, no easy task in street-casual tactical gear, and lets the door swing its creaky arc behind her. I refrain from citing line and verse the referendum that abolished that antiquated title in favor of "Our Loving Equal." She probably has that entire bit of code memorized anyway, I've corrected her enough times.

The door swings shut behind her, and we’re finally alone. I let a sigh free from my lungs. Her smirk deepens the tiniest fraction. I still don't turn, though; it'd only been three weeks since she caught me last, she can wait another minute.

"Shall we dispense with the patter, then, dear hunter? I presume you're here to collect the 180 thousand merits?"

"Perish the thought, revered Serena!" Her formal dialect-gamma was rough — awkward at best. Diplomatic language was far from L'vere's forte, but I appreciate the effort nonetheless.

"On what account, then, do you find me, if not for the bounty?" I ask, shifting my weight onto my right hip.

"Oh, princess, I am absolutely here for my bounty." At that, she lunges, crossing the room faster than anyone could register. At least, anyone without my augmented telesenses. As she closes the gap, I drop to one leg, swinging the other out in a wide sweep, dropping her to the ground.

L'vere laughs as she absorbs the fall and lets her momentum carry her into a forward roll. Before I can react, she's back up again, and has me grabbed in an armlock. Her breath is closer now, caressing my cheek as I shove off the wall with as much force as I can muster.

Now. Now, I turn to face my assailant, pin her arms to the floor, her legs under my legs. I make the foolish mistake of pausing to appreciate her flawless bronze skin, the deep gentleness of her green eyes, the effortless confidence of her swept silver hair, and the smell of rosewater wafting from her. She'd prepared as well.

As scarcely as I note the thought, she's reversed the roll, and I'm on my back in a dull thud, looking up into those selfsame eyes. Agility and perception are my only advantages, and now I'm deprived of both, helplessly affixed to the floor like a stuck butterfly.

She brings her lips almost to mine, letting me sense them and feel them at the same time. My eyes close, almost involuntarily, drowning in the scent.

"Well played, princess, you almost had me this time." Suddenly, the pressure on my limbs is gone, and she's towering above me, offering her hand.

"Almost." My hand disappears in hers, its subtle strength enveloping my own. With a tug, she pulls me back to my feet, none the worse for the wear. My dress, formal/tactical to her street-casual/tactical, has slipped in a few places, but its titanium fibers hold fast in their weaves.

"How long do we have?" I ask.

"The fake biotrace should give us a couple hours before any other hunters come looking, maybe even three."

"Risky, no? If they find you here..."

"I know, no need to remind me. I could lose my license, and then I'd be as wanted as you are."

"We could run away together, at least." I lean into her, let her wrap her arms around me. She frowns, though, her brow furrowing and deepening.

"It won't be that easy, not with two of us to hide."

"You're right, of course. But a girl can dream."

"Yes, and a woman can share this moment with me. Here and now." Her embrace is, now as ever, as deep a gravity well as I’ve ever felt. I sink further, endless, no bottom beneath me as I fall even farther into her arms.

"Let me be both, then," I say.

She offers her own warmth, a silent response, and pulls me closer. I lose track of time, forget to mark the danger, but I still feel the rain outside. I still feel strangers arguing two rooms over, the gunshot a block away, the limp body hitting the ground and quickly cooling. I want to be here, where my body is, irrevocably lost in lust and love, but each new telesensation pulls me back to the stark reality of displaced royalty on the run from a military coup. Even though they pose no danger now, I am acutely aware of each gun and blade hidden in her bodice, boots, and belt; an awareness trained on survival does not easily yield, even to trust.

Some part of her feels me pull out of that pleasant, contented depth, moving her hands down to the small of my back and drawing me even closer. The warmth is a dull heat, now, rising along my spine until my head lulls over in anticipation. Her fingers, practiced at escaping bonds, set to work undoing the bottom knot on my armored corset. L'vere moves deliberately and gently, but quickly; now she's on the next knot, letting her fingers trace along my exposed skin on their way up.

The rain nags me back as she plants a kiss on my neck. Passion fights against the cold outside, struggling for my attentions; for the barest of moments, passion wins, and I don't even notice that I've fallen back onto the rough sheets draped lazily across the bed until the next swell of rain ruins the moment.

"What's wrong?" L'vere stops all at once and scoots back, giving me distance. I realize that I screamed, not aware of my own body as I telesense another gunshot. This wasn't a murder at all, but an execution. That's what would happen to me — to us — if we were caught here. It's not a hypothetical, I saw what the reformists did to my appointed sister. The sight of it still fills my eyes and blurs my vision with tears.

L'vere wipes my eyes, and I see her again. She doesn't know, can't know, what I felt; she hasn't undergone the augmentation procedure used to grant the royal family the telesensory data we need to protect ourselves from would-be assassins. Not that it helped my sister, new as she was to the flood of stimuli. L'vere doesn't know, and yet here she is, cradling me as I sob nonetheless.

"You know, princess, you could have hidden out on a paradise planet like Fillinitimia again, instead of a wartorn bordertown slum." A joke or a wry observation, carefully calibrated to dispel the tension and bring my memories back to six months ago when she caught me on the crystal-sand beach, looking out on the golden ocean.

"No vacancy," I reply, suppressing the tears for a moment. I must be a mess, corset half-undone, skirts wrinkled and out-of-place, my hair fallen ignobly from its strict bun.

"You'll just have to book ahead next time, then. I hear Aratina is absolutely lovely this time of year." I hear myself laugh, in spite of it all. I can't feel whether the executioner outside wears the red reformer sash or conceals a white-and-gold loyalist insignia, but I feel their violence all the same. Yet, there's safety here, with L'vere reaching up again and holding my face so gingerly.

A pause; I cry again, and she leans back slightly, looking at me.

"It's your sensory array, isn't it?" she asks. I nod. "It won't let you be here, will it?" I shake my head. She frowns again and caresses my face with the back of her hand.

Outside the hotel, in the opposite direction from the execution, a shuttlecar swerves to avoid a collision. Someone shakes their fist at the wayward driver, and menacingly palms their sidearm. Inside this room, L'vere keeps me safe in her arms, but all I can think about, all I can focus on, is how tense the city around us is. It's not quite a warzone, not yet, but she's right to call it one for how close everything is to erupting. This was only supposed to be a short layover, but then the transport was delayed, and now.

Now, I'm here with her.

"It's not fair," I complain. I shouldn't, it's not like me. Being royalty is dangerous at the best of times, but it's a job I accepted.

"No, it's not. But I might have something that can help. Do you trust me?" I don't recall ever seeing her nervous before, but that's all I can read in her face. What could possibly disturb her, of all people? She studies me as though waiting for it all to go wrong.

"Yes." It takes me a moment, too long of one, but I say it nonetheless.

L'vere lets go of my hand and face, then reaches into a pouch hanging from her belt. Slowly, unsure of herself, she draws out a gray metal band. The inside is adorned with electrodes, each softly glowing. Realization dawns on me, slowly at first, then in a rush of dread. I know what this is.

"No, no!" I hear myself practically yelling, but it feels far away. I've started to retreat into myself, my body a distant prison. Not her, not L'vere. "Get that away from me!"

She sets the band — the collar — down as far from me as she can.

"I know, Serena. I shouldn't have brought it, but you were so sad last time. This was all I could think of. I won't push, though."

"You thought I wanted this?" I've never been angry at her. When she hunted me, it was all business, but now I feel something different making its way through my chest. Burning; not warm, but an incinerating rage. I swallow it.

"It's the only way I know of to turn off the sensory array." I wince at that; 'turn off' is hardly the truth of it. After the coup, the first and only time I've ever been caught, that other hunter, he clapped a collar like that around my neck. Instantly, the world drained of its texture, became tiny, and collapsed.

L'vere tentatively reaches an empty hand forward. "You're sweating really hard, I'm so sorry. I never should have brought it."

My anger subsides a faint degree. As terrible as it is, she's right. My augmentation was designed to keep me safe, not happy, not present in an intimate moment. We may not even have a whole two hours left together, and even my anger cannot fully obscure how much adoring need is written in those deep, deep green eyes of hers.

"I won't push," she repeated, "and please don't push yourself, either. This was a mistake, and I'm sorry. I just... let's enjoy what time we have before you slip through my grasp yet again." Her playfulness feels more forced this time. She's trying to be strong, she's always trying to be strong for me. It wasn't her family that was unceremoniously executed in back alleys.

"No, you're right. I... last time, I really wanted to be present, to be with you, to feel you. But you're right, this accursed telesensory array won't let me." I started to stammer, but pressed on anyway. "I want to try. I want to be here with you, not distracted by murders and crashes and military police and robberies. I trust you, L'vere."

"Are you sure? It's alright if you don't, I understand. I should have said something first, I'm so sorry." She leans away from me, studying my reaction again.

"No, it's alright, I would have been as angry if you just described it. Yes, I'm sure."

"It's a weapon, and it will always be a weapon." L'vere picks up the collar and turns it over in her hands, considering it from every angle before continuing. "I know how much it can hurt you. I haven’t even found a way to disable its anti-tamper mechanisms yet. Serena, I want nothing more than for you to be in control of this. If I put this on you, and there is anything you don't like, even a little bit, tell me and I'll take it off immediately."

"I will, thank you."

"Just to make it easier, just say 'counsel' if you want to stop, and it stops right there. No questions. Does that work for you?"

"Yes." I swallow hard. All I can think about is being led down the hallway by that other collar, his collar, to my holding cell. Feeling nothing but the cold, damp air in that dingy prison. I’ve never felt so alone and so helpless in my life. And yet, outside the hotel, the executioner walks away triumphantly, leaving their victim behind. I can't be here, not with her, if I keep sensing that body discarded in a ditch.

“Yes,” I say again, more sure of myself this time.

"Last thing before I do this, OK? Once this is on, do you want to, how far do you want to go?”

A princess survives, before all else. I have a duty to my people, the people who chose me, even if they have abandoned me now. I must survive at all costs to be true to that duty. Is it a betrayal that I feel my defenses melt away and every part of my body succumbing to burning desire? I want this, I want her so badly I’m willing to risk everything: my duty, my freedom, my very life.

“I want you, L’vere. Every part of you, and every part of me. I want to fuck you, here, now, and to be there for every moment of it.” The word fuck doesn’t have any equivalent in dialect-gamma, not being essential to diplomatic negotiations. How long has it been since I’ve let myself use dialect-delta in all its wonderful vulgarity instead?

“If you ever change your mind, just say it and...”

"...it stops, thank you. Yes, I'm nervous, I'm scared beyond belief, but I want this. I want you so much, L'vere. You've been chasing me for two years now, but I've never been able to feel you before without getting lost in telesense. I want this. I need this."

L'vere reaches her hands forward, holding the open collar out like a sinister claw. It hums slightly, exuding a dull heat that only knows how to singe. I jerk my head back.

"Are you alright? Do you want to stop?"

"I'm fine, it's... a reflex. Please." This time, I lean forward to meet her, hold my hair out of the way, and rest my neck against the electrodes. Even before she clasps the infernal device shut, the world starts shrinking, closing in around me. The lights dim, I feel neither cold nor warm, just floating as though in some void.

I hear a disturbing clack, and the collar snaps into place around me. I open my eyes, unaware that I'd even closed them, and there she is, looking pleadingly at me; not even feigning at strength now, but just worried. The bed beneath my half-bare back feels complex and scratchy. I hadn't realized how uncomfortable and disgusting it was, but now that awareness builds all around me, and my head starts to sink into the feeling, into the raw panic.

"Are you alright, Serena?" L'vere is still so far away. Outside the prison, maybe, where he led me two years ago. No, that's not where I am. I'm here, on this gross little hotel bed in a room that charges per minute.

"Yes, I think." I finger at the collar, only to get a disciplinary shock as a reward for my efforts; it is, as she warned, still a weapon. I whimper in pain, back in my cell again.

"Take it slowly. What do you notice?" It takes an effort, but I shake the memory, crawl out from under its weight, and observe. She's blushing! I can see how flush she is now, with nothing else to distract me. The most dire parts of my mind imagine her clipping a chain to the collar and leaving me here, like he did, but she doesn't; she reaches out and touches my hand. It feels warm and tender, and for the first time, I can make out its contours.

I slowly turn her hand over, and start tracing lines with my finger. Every nerve seems to dance and delight, exploring her skin like this. L'vere lets her eyes fold shut, ever so slightly. She sways as I run my finger up her arm and back down to her palm.

"Your skin, it's so warm!" It was warm before, but not like this. Before, it was the kind of warm you might find in a textfile about thermodynamics, but this? She was something else altogether, warm in the way that lights a room, pierces a dark night, and chases away nightmares.

She takes my hand in hers, reciprocating my gesture, tracing out the lines in my palm with one of her synthetic steel-silk nails. I almost leap at the electric feeling, aware of the sensation at a primal level, each nerve lighting up and racing out along my fingers. L’vere moves her nail along my wrist, dragging the point of her nails gently up my arm. Awareness builds and my eyes close again as I feel each individual hair give way to her caress.

L'vere practically beams at me, almost giggling. Was she glowing before? Wordlessly, she brings my hand to her face, and cradles it in hers for a moment. I rest my fingers on her ears, learning the continually shifting boundary between my body and hers. She leans into my touch, lets me explore; her other hand silently finds its way behind my back and undoes the remaining lacework one knot at a time. Pressure releases and I breathe deeper than before. I realize only from her slight gasp how tightly I must have clenched her ear as I feel my corset drop to the bed. The satin lining of my bodice is so new and wonderful on my chest, gentle and soft friction as she progresses upwards, freeing me of my lace entirely.

I breathe, relishing every mote of air in my lungs as my combat formals drape uselessly around me. The tactician in my mind is easy to ignore now; its pleading cry that I am at a severe disadvantage, disrobed of my telesenses and armor alike is at most a faint echo. My hunter-lover takes both of my hands in hers, and guides them down her face, to her neck. Choke her, escape, save yourself, yells my tactician brain. The significance of L’vere’s own vulnerability in this moment is unmistakable. The tactician voice drowns away under her softly rolling waves, and I let her move my hands down, down, down past the lapel of her jacket, down past the nape of her tank top, down against her breasts. She leans back, helpless in her own pleasure as I run my fingers along each curve, teasing and ever so slightly twisting.

A moment, then another, as she lingers in my touch. Then, suddenly, she thrusts my hands around the small of her back and presses forward, smothering me and compressing my chest under her weight. I don’t even notice the shift before her lips meld with mine, moist and so so warm. I surrender, entirely hers, as she brings my hands around and pins them to the bed. A butterfly no longer, I die a subtle silent death of ego, dissolving into sensation and metamorphosising in her total embrace. There is nothing to save me from as she slides her mouth down my neck, biting playfully as she goes. It all blurs together now, my tactician brain’s analysis of her body yielding entirely to the sheer passion with which she consumes me whole. Have I been gathering the sheets into fists this whole time, or is that something new that I do as I feel her breath on my thighs?

“Take me.” Two simple words are all I can muster. I don’t know or care which dialect, not now.

With those words, a floodgate releases, and she pins me down anew and I stop counting all the new sensations that had been hidden from me and I stop counting my breaths or hers and I stop counting the seconds left in our two hours together and I stop. I hear the soft pop of L’vere detaching her steel-silk nails, and then, the rush of being filled with her. Those same hands that have wielded knives and guns at me are nestling themselves between my folds, moving in circles now. Lightning dances across me, and I notice I’ve been squeezing my legs together so hard it crushes her.

I didn’t realize I screamed until a heartbeat later, when I notice the sweat pouring from me, tides of pleasure crashing down all around me, and her still inside me, moving slowly and deliberately, drawing out every gesture as she curls one finger and then another upwards, traversing and traveling the whole length of me, pulling every groan from my chest. She looks at me, taking in every inch of my face, neck, shoulders, chest, belly, groin, thighs, calves, and feet with absolute joy. I don’t remember her being naked as well, but here she is, sweat dripping from her breasts and mixing with mine. And still. Working. In circles.

I scream again, and nothing else exists in the world but me and her weight on top of me.

I stop counting.

I surface, and gasping for air, I find my own hands deep inside her, warm. She is at once soft and crushing. With a twitch of my finger, I make L'vere groan and shudder. I need not wonder if she still counts every distinct sensation, or like me has succumbed to the continuous flow of pleasure throughout her body. Her face is answer enough, contorted as though in pain or its twin shifted to a major key. The sheer force with which she grips the bed to either side of my head and forces her breast into my open and desperate mouth answers volumes more.

She is an avatar of our own earlier passions, amplified into something divine and shining. L'vere moves forward, and I offer my words of prayer directly into the deepest reaches of her. My tongue traces — no, dances — across her labia. Her eyes roll back further and further; can she peer into her own soul, and see it burn as brightly as I can?

With one shuddering earthquake, she crests yet again and collapses in a sweaty mess, her face as flush as a rose from the royal gardens. Would we ever be able to walk openly there, hand-in-hand through the rows and species preserved in the garden for so many generations of people to enjoy? Looking at her, my own sweat is as the wakening dew. By all rights, I should be preserved there to better serve the public of which I am numbered. We're not so different, those roses and I, save for the years-long coup that separates me from my equals.

But there's more. My own elevated heartbeat, the litany of new pleasures that L'vere has brought out of me, they teach me that I can want something more than mere survival.

Far away in my mind, I realize that I can hear the soft trill of a muffled alarm. Without the aid of my telesense array, I look around and try to trace the sound — there, under L'vere's hastily discarded jacket.

She breathes softly, spent from the continuous stream of orgasms; almost asleep, temporarily and uncharacteristically defenseless. But then again, so am I. The collar, despite having done its job so wonderfully well, does not relinquish its hold over me and my array.

"Wake up, something's wrong." I try to rouse her gently, but quickly break into shaking her. We cannot be found together, especially not like this.

She comes to with a start, hearing the trill as well.

"Shit." Dialect-delta again, and again appropriate. "That's the outer proximity alarm. Someone new must have come into the building."

"We don't have much time, then, do we?"

"No, we don't. Let me get that thing off you stat." She grabs a key from her jacket pocket and presses it to my neck. The collar pops open and falls to my feet. The sudden rush of sensations coming back sends me to the ground, head spinning. I pick out what fixed points I can: walls, doors, floors, metasteel girders. Bit by bit, I expand my sensations out to points of motion, floating around my awareness like so much dust. Outside, traffic moves as steadily as ever, and people mill about on the sidewalks or try to keep themselves warm next to burning barrels. Downstairs, someone is in a heated exchange with the concierge bot, and another someone is clearing the second floor in a practiced tactical pattern.

I draw myself up to my full height again, and start reassembling my clothes.

"Second floor, making their way up," I say.

"Not long, but that's long enough. Get dressed, I have a plan." She slips into her jeans, tank, and repulser jacket before offering her hands to help with my armor corset.

"Oh?"

"The last in my bag of tricks," she says teasingly. "Microaltitude landing gear, same tech as my jacket but princess-sized. Should be able to safely jump out from here."

"Wouldn't that be suspicious? I don't normally have access to that kind of equipment."

"Beat me up. If anyone asks, I'll say you stole it. A bruised reputation is worth it for a few more moments with you." She pulls me into a tight embrace, then palms me a small cube adorned only with a yellow ripcord.

"Just make it look good," she says. "You came so close to getting me, no one will have difficulty believing you knocked me out."

"Are you sure, L'vere?"

"I'm sure."

"Then thank you. I'll miss you."

"Then I'd better catch you quicker this time. Now hurry up and lay me out."

The assailant had moved up to the sixth floor now, their tactical form unbroken. Now or never. I rush at L'vere, diving for her legs and grabbing them between my arms. Just as easily, I bring myself up, inverting her. I finish the throw with a resounding thud. She puts some resistance, her finely honed instincts refusing to let me take her down so easily, but she stops well short of landing any blows back on me.

"Nice one," she says with a strained breath.

From there, I proceed with a headlock, elbow to the back, and to capture her leg between mine. Every technique I have learned and practice into rote is geared to work best against superior adversaries, using their own skills and momentum against them. To use them against someone so willingly unguarded felt wrong, but the other hunter breaking into the eighth floor made a compelling argument for me to keep going.

"I'm sorry," I say as I throw L'vere to the floor once more, sensing something sickeningly like a rib breaking. "I'm so sorry, my love."

She's still conscious, and very much so alive, but thoroughly incapacitated. I run at the window, folding my arms in front of my face defensively, and crash through. The ground rushes up towards me at an alarming rate, stealing my breath and nerves alike. Focusing, I pull the ripcord and a mild electric shock passes through my body. My feet touch solid pavement, and I brush myself off. Most of the dress survived the broken glass just fine; the combat formals did their job. Onlookers begin to gather and gawk at the small crater the microaltitude repulser left with my landing — not good.

I run down the emptiest street I can sense, making my way turn by turn down to the spaceport. Well before I arrive, I sense the unmistakable movement of cargo loaders, packing a transport full of anonymous goods bound for some other corner of the universe. The embargo must have lifted, my chance to sneak into a container and leave for parts unknown.

Until next time, L'vere. I'll be waiting until next time. Come and find me.