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Hunger gnawed in his belly as the scent package dropped from the trap door above.
Jango ripped through the protective barrier to get at the insides. It was a brown robe, basic and functional, an everyday cloak with no hint to its origin. The scent on it was thick - a piece worn often, for long periods. He sniffed every inch of it but detected only one person. A lick in the armpit, where the scent was thickest, indicated salt in the sweat. Human or near-human, then.
Easier prey than he’d gotten in weeks.
Jango snarled and stormed to the front of his cage. The meals after he captured easy prey were small. Ration bars or protein cubes meant to tide him over. The more difficult prey to take down - like those two Trandoshans - earned Jango feasts with real meat he could sink his teeth into.
Never enough to fill his stomach, but enough to keep him strong. Alive.
Enough for him to provide entertainment for the spy drones that buzzed outside, who would follow him as he hunted. The audience they filmed for, Jango could only imagine. No being had dared approach him to explain what happened or even gloat at his capture. He had escaped slavery on the spice transport only to be recaptured, waking up in this cage. The collar around his neck, constantly buzzing with the capability of shocking him into unconsciousness, was his only guide for what he was supposed to do.
The door creaked open and Jango marched out. To stay would mean being electrocuted.
Forest stretched in front of him, while a seamless wall stretched out on either side of his cage. The wall was the height of four of him, without so much as a crack for him to get a foothold. To approach the wall, to investigate it, was to be electrocuted.
Jango’s arena was in front of him. Somewhere among the trees, there was prey with the scent from that robe. He was to find them, kill them, and then return to his cage where his reward of food would be waiting.
To deviate meant being electrocuted.
His cage closed behind him, not allowing him re-entry until his hunt was successfully concluded. The drones buzzed closer, getting their images of him as he stalked out into the woods. He was naked - the scraps of his tunic falling apart after his first few hunts, with nothing to replace them but the scent-filled piles of those he had been tasked with hunting and executing. Clothes weren’t worth it. Let them witness the scars of his body, how his muscles filled or wilted based on his food intake. How his nails hardened and sharpened into claws. How his neck thickened, how his skin pulled at his spine, attempting to form ridges his body didn’t have the energy to make.
The spice trade had tried to erase him from himself, one more slave in an endless chain of slaves. This capture, forcing him to hunt and kill, had him spiraling deeper into the core of who he was:
Jango Fett. Mandalorian. Descendent of the Taung. Child of the galaxy’s conquerors.
He had enough of that ancient blood running through his veins that it came to his aid. He adapted; his senses enhanced. He was the ultimate hunter, calling back to a time when the Mandalorian Taung forced cities, planets, and systems to their knees.
Let them witness what that meant. All he wore was the collar of his captors, the only thing that leashed him to this place.
One day he would escape and kill everyone involved with his prison.
But today, Jango hunted.
Jango had not expected the challenge.
He purred in approval as he tracked the scent. It was easy enough to identify an initial trail - there were obvious routes through the trees, taken by many prey before. Streams or rock piles meant to disrupt the tracking of scent, but Jango’s senses were not so obviously fooled. But for a near-human to take to the trees was a surprise. Harder to gauge direction, leaping from branch to branch, especially when the distance between jumps was farther than Jango thought possible.
This prey was strong, as well as smart.
It had been too long since he enjoyed a hunt, with the scent growing more pleasing the longer he spent tracking it down. He shunted his hunger from his mind - he couldn’t expect a good meal for a near-human anyway - so the capture would be its own reward.
The cluster of spy drones that followed him, emitting a low hum that disturbed his hearing, annoyed him. He swiped at one that darted too close, sending it crashing into a tree. Damaged, it couldn’t keep up and he soon lost it as he continued down the trail.
Then he came across another drone, its camera crushed. One that would’ve been following his prey, supposedly gaining footage of the prey’s fear as it built and built as they were hunted.
Jango smiled and picked up the pace.
Two more broken spy drones and then a natural small ravine covered by foliage. A trap for Jango. It was such a good effort, it would’ve been easy to walk into. His prey’s scent was all over the leaves, and he paused a moment to take it in, where it was more concentrated. Fresh. Delicious.
It was almost cruel how the warbled buzzing of a single drone gave away his prey’s position.
Jango whirled around and there was his prey behind him, high in a tree, no fear or panic on their face. Blue-gray eyes, male-presenting, near-human. A tan tunic that would’ve made hiding in a green forest even more difficult. Crouched on a branch, head tilted in curiosity.
“Hello there,” they said calmly.
Jango snarled and leapt for them.
His prey pushed a hand out and an invisible force knocked into him, knocking Jango away. Back into the pit, springing the trap his prey had set.
Jango snarled, nails digging into the dirt, stopping his fall. It was not a deep ravine, but it would’ve been a painful fall with a rock-studded bottom. He clawed his way up.
His prey hadn’t run. They’d come down from their tree and stood there, sturdy branch in hand, holding their ground.
“They tried to scare me with tales of you, but I know who you were. Who you are. Do you remember? You are Jango Fett. You have those in Mandalore who haven’t given up hope, who search for you -”
Joy and adrenaline crashed together and Jango lunged. He was kept at bay; his prey was experienced with a weapon. Every time Jango got passed their guard, he was sent flying back by that invisible force.
“Please remember who you are, Jango Fett. Come back from whatever they’ve done to you. Jango, please stop this,” his prey begged. “I don’t want to kill you.”
Jango’s prey was powerful, but there was sweat dripping down their face. Each push took energy, and it had been a longer hunt than usual already. And this one wouldn’t have been captured easily to be forced into the arena, Jango was sure. He could outlast his prey. He would be victorious.
He fought, and fought, and fought. He knew who he was, he was Jango Fett, and he was the fight.
“We don’t have to do this, Jango. We can escape from here together.”
Together rang in his head. He had been alone for so long.
Blood pounding, Jango paused. Let his prey catch their breath. Intelligence, power, and a delicious, heady scent. Jango’s body rumbled with a different kind of hunger.
A different type of fight.
Naked, the twitch of his cock was obvious. His prey’s gaze darted down to it and then away.
“Oh dear.”
The collar around Jango’s neck sparked in warning and he growled.
“Oh dear,” they repeated with a sigh and a quick glance at the remaining cameras. They settled back into a defensive position, resolved. “If we must, then.”
Jango grinned sharply and lunged. He focused on ripping his prey’s clothes, nails rendering tears or yanking the tunic off his shoulders entirely. His prey cursed at him, face red, but only put up a show of a fight.
They let themselves be taken to the ground in a tackle, dropping their staff as they scrambled for Jango’s collar.
But Jango hadn’t touched anyone like this, skin to skin, in too long. His mate’s tunic was gone, their bare chest rubbing against his. Jango snarled with violent want, blood pounding hot and south. Mate, his body told him. Pretty mate, make them his. Such a long hunt, such a challenging capture. One last reward before Jango was shut up along back in a dark cage.
He ripped his mate’s leggings open, startling them into a yelp. Their hands went from Jango’s neck to his shoulders, grabbing and pushing.
“Could you please focus, Jango?” his mate hissed desperately. “Your collar, I need to -”
They cried out as Jango’s hand found wet warmth between their legs. A cunt just behind their cock and balls. He slid two fingers inside his mate and gasped at the liquid heat, at the way his mate whimpered beneath him.
“Jango,” his mate said, voice thick. “You shouldn’t do this. You’re compromised.”
Jango’s collar sparked again.
He didn’t care. He slid his fingers out and licked them clean, tasting his mate. His mate stared, wide eyed and reddened face. Jango smirked as he guided his half-hard cock into that tight space. Tight, deliciously tight, Jango’s thrusts punched sharply into his mate, out of control. The wet squelch of each thrust was music to his ears. Louder than the annoying hum of the spy drones that still circled. His mate shook, quiet swears dripping from their mouth as their nails dug into Jango’s shoulders. He liked it even better when that changed to a desperate plea of his name.
“Mate,” he growled into their ear, for his mate’s hearing alone, with a voice that hadn’t spoken in years. The word hurt to say, but he’d said the only thing that mattered. The rest was up to his body.
His mate tensed beneath him, but a shift of hips, a change of angle, and his mate melted with a moan.
And Jango wasn’t even fully hard yet, with the electrical pain of the collar still buzzing through him.
Snarling in triumph, Jango fucked his smart little mate stupid. His, his mate was his, and the nails that dug into Jango’s back so deep they blooded him claimed him in return. Delicious wet heat wrapped around him, his mate’s legs spreading open for him, his mate’s noises echoing as Jango took them apart. This was the true conquering he had needed, a worthy mate that could slake his thirst.
His mate jerked, that delicious cunt clenching tight, Jango’s name on their lips.
Jango kept thrusting, snarling as the electricity sparked higher. The pain made him twitch, but there was nothing that would keep him from his mate.
His mate wrapped around him, clutching him close, even as they gasped for air.
Jango wanted to come, was desperate for it, but the pain was a wall he could only beat against.
“I have you, I have you,” his mate promised breathlessly.
With a quiet click, the collar fell free. His mate, those clever hands doing more than Jango realized, tossed the collar away.
The pain was gone. He was free, free of the collar, of control. Free to kill those who had captured him.
Free to fuck his mate with full abandon.
His mate gasped beneath him as his cock fully hardened, thickened. On the next thrust Jango made sure his mate felt the ridges that could finally fill in and expand on the side of his cock. The ridges down his spine were felt with his mate’s beautiful, clever hands.
He shifted his hips, making his mate whimper.
“We don’t have to -” his mate started to say.
Jango fucked the rest of that sentence out of his mate’s mouth.
His mate came again by the time Jango was finished, their hand on their cock as Jango pumped himself inside them. Then, hunger still spiking, he licked his mate clean, teasing out another, weaker orgasm from his mate.
A camera zoomed in too close, and Jango destroyed it with a punch.
“Sith-damned hells, that was all recorded, wasn’t it? Quin can never find out about this.”
“Senior Padawan Kenobi, you are late to your check-in.”
Jango’s mate, Obi-Wan, dressed in a loose shirt and pants scavenged from the compound, bowed low to the holo-projection of several beings arranged in a semicircle.
Jango kept himself out of frame and snarled at the subservience.
“I apologize, Masters. I was unfortunately delayed -”
Obi-Wan continued to spin a tale, voice an even calm as they spoke of a kidnapping, the hunt - masterfully dancing around the sex and mate part of it - and now Jango’s presence.
Or ‘a fellow captive’s’ presence.
His mate was protecting Jango’s identity, even after Jango had not listened to his mate and killed everyone at the compound with his bare hands. His armor was missing, and he wished he could kill them all again a second time. At least they had found Obi-Wan’s lightsaber.
Because his mate was a Jedi-in-training. It was a bitter truth to swallow, one that he would rather not think of. His mate was a powerful warrior. Intelligent. Beautiful. Yielded so sweetly under Jango’s touch, because once hadn’t been enough now that Jango was free to feel desire again.
And he’d needed to fuck the anxiety out of his mate before this stupid check-in comm call.
“I request permission to see him to a more familiar environment so he can remember who he is. I suspect we will have to remain outside Republic space -”
When the report finished and the call was over, Obi-Wan collapsed to the ground with his hands over his face.
“Of course they won’t let me finish this alone. Of course my Master has to join us,” he moaned. “How am I going to explain this to him? What if he recognizes you? He won’t want to return you to Mandalore where you might spark uprisings against the Duchess. Sith-hells, why do I want to return you to Mandalore if that might happen? There were so many people who were looking for you, that talked about you, but what if you don’t even know who you are? But isn’t that the best place for you, to make you remember?”
Obi-Wan stared at Jango as if waiting for answers.
His pretty mate, so strong and put together in the middle of the crisis but needing someone – needing Jango – to cling to in the aftermath.
Jango smirked.
“Mate,” he said, the word falling more easily from his mouth. He hadn’t said anything else yet. Gave no indication that he knew who he was. He wasn’t sure how he wanted to play this, and he was a trained warrior and bounty hunter. He knew how to wait for the right moment to strike.
Obi-Wan groaned. “Qui-Gon is going to disown me.”
Jango frowned, thoughtful.