by Marie Harte
Tarn disregarded Furon’s excitement and concentrated, so as not to overly harm Pyrgo while still making him most uncomfortable. The Ebrellion began to sweat and his muscles cramped. His heart stuttered, trying to overcome the blockage of energy putting him on the verge of passing out.
“Can’t…breathe…” Pyrgo whispered around another groan of pain. Blood trickled from his nose.
“Fascinating.” Furon stared with a wide grin. “You are indeed correct, Slave Six. This is much better than an enon pulse. The pulse renders them unconscious. But this keeps them awake and aware of the pain. Enlightening.”
Tarn didn’t wait for Furon to tell him to stop, since it appeared the slave master would rather Pyrgo died than order Tarn to relent. He released his mental hold over Pyrgo’s shei and quickly repaired the small damage he’d done.
“Pretend it still pains you. Moan, dammit.”
Pyrgo shuddered and groaned. He slumped to the ground once Tarn stepped away.
“Impressive. Very good, Slave Six. How hard would it be to teach that?”
“It would take a good bit of time, Master Furon. The reason I did so well at my old post was due to years of practice. In my family, it’s considered an innate skill to sense the vulnerability in another and exploit it.”
Furon stared at him, his light blue eyes piercing. “Perhaps this is what makes you such a strong fighter.”
“I believe so.” Tarn nodded.
“Hmm. I tell you what. Continue to give us no trouble and win your bouts. In a few more days you’ll meet the beast in the ring. Once you’ve gone a few rounds with him, I’ll see about elevating your status and let you start training me. In the meantime—”
* * * *
Tarn opened his eyes and trembled. Zachem could hear his erratic heartbeat. It took Tarn a few moments of opening and closing his mouth before he spoke. When he tried to sit up, Zachem shoved a hand to his chest and held him down.
He blinked up at Zachem looking confused.
“Nice work back there, slave master,” Zachem said with a sneer. After suffering an initial enon pulse, he normally pretended to pass out to save him more pain at Furon’s hands. What he’d heard from Tarn enraged him. He pushed off of Tarn with a grunt and stood back.
“How do you like your new collar?”
“Collar?” Tarn coughed and reached a shaky hand to his throat. “Shit.” He dragged his hand from the collar to Zachem’s soft pallet. “Where am I? What happened?”
“What happened?” Zachem scowled at the slave— slaver—he’d thought to take to his bed. “I’ll tell you what happened. That asshole shocked me with an enon pulse. But not to be outdone, you showed off by torturing the only decent guard in The Pit. They dragged Pyrgo’s ass back to the guard quarters while Furon turned an enon pulse your way. I think you scared him.” Hell, you scared me. “Whatever you did to Pyrgo freaked Furon the hell out.
He tagged you with that collar and shoved you in here with me. I’m supposed to keep an eye on you.” Zachem smiled, the emotion one of satisfaction, not pleasure. “I look forward to keeping you in line.”
When Tarn slowly at up, Zachem ignored the alien sense to protect that smothered him.
He slammed his fist into Tarn’s jaw and watched the man topple back onto his bed, unconscious.
Terrific. As if a learning of Tarn’s past wasn’t bad enough, now he had to share quarters with the man. The slave master. Disgust filled him, that Zachem had even considered sharing something of himself with an oppressor. Worse, Tarn’s damned green eyes, cloudy with pain or sharp with battlelust, still pulled at some part of him.
“Shit. You’re no better than my Handler. So why can’t I just kill you and get it over with?”
Tarn didn’t answer, not that Zachem had expected him to. He slept on the cold ground that night, unable to share his pallet with Tarn, and unable to throw the injured male to the ground.
The next day, the guards woke him by delivering two meals and two fresh loincloths.
“One for you and one for him.” The guard nodded to Tarn with a healthy dose of fear.
Zachem could smell it on him. “He still out of it? Try to rouse him. Pyrgo wants a word.” Left alone with the ‘slave master’ again, Zachem cursed the man under his breath and moved to his side.
“Wake up.” He kicked the pallet. Tarn didn’t move. “I said wake up,” he growled louder.
When Tarn still didn’t move, he reached down and touched his chest, hoping to feel a heartbeat. The minute his palm touched such warm, firm flesh, arousal flared from out of nowhere.
Zachem pulled his hand back as if burnt.
Tarn stirred. His lids fluttered and he slowly woke. His hand crept to his collar again, and Zachem felt a moment of compassion. He remembered how he’d felt after being collared.
Like a true beast, at the heel of another once more. No matter how much Tarn might deserve it, enslaving another was wrong. Period.
“Hell.” Tarn closed his eyes and dragged his hand back to his chest. “This makes everything harder.”
To Zachem’s surprise, Tarn opened his eyes and sat up with a grin on his face. “But harder is always better, don’t you think, Beast?”
Chapter Four
Zachem didn’t know what to think. Tarn rolled off the bed and came to his feet without a flinch. He stretched, showcasing that impressive upper body that had done Argon the Arrogant some major damage. Before he’d learned who Tarn really was, Zachem had even felt a measure of pride in his victories.
“How the hell can you condone slavery, especially now that it’s closing around your own neck?” he asked.
Tarn ignored him and sat down at the small table holding their food. He began to eat.
With quick and efficient bites, he devoured everything on his tray. Then he stretched again and grimaced.
“I don’t suppose you have a lav around here, do you?” Zachem nodded to the closed door across from the entrance to his cell.
Tarn grinned with pleasure. “Perfect.” He left through the door and closed it behind him.
Puzzled, tense and still angry, Zachem ate his meal and waited for Tarn to leave the lav.
He felt sticky and dirty, and from more than the grit and sweat gathered during the fight.
The enon pulse always rattled his faculties. The torture reminded him too much of his first years in existence—the myriad tests and experiments his Creator used to perfect Zachem into his obedient slave, and then there was his Handler. Another prick with a need to control.
Zachem had been made to serve. For nearly three decades he’d done so without reservation, finding contentment with the man who’d bought his servitude. Topping Master Caegon had been good, not great, but he’d obeyed his master. The battles he’d fought on behalf of the Dorvian Empire had enabled him to channel his rages. But as all wars do, the Dorvian Conquest ended. Master Caegon died soon after, and per the terms of his master’s agreement, Zachem was returned to the lab, where he’d spent the next five years being treated no better than a rabid threll.
The sex no longer satisfied, nor did his growing need to annihilate his enemies abate.
Even now, more than a year after his escape from the laboratory, Zachem could never quite sate his hungers. Serving Master Caegon had given him an outlet he hadn’t known he’d needed. Subservient yet strong in mind and body, Zachem had been allowed to be himself.
Time fighting for the Dorvians had done him much good, and Caegon had been kind, though decidedly not gentle.
Alarmed at the hungers growing in him once more, Zachem tried to push them down.
He had no wish to rut with a former slave master… Or did he? Perhaps some time spent with the beast would teach Tarn what true slavery was like. No chance to say no. No thought but to obey another.
Pleased at the notion of teaching Tarn a much needed lesson, Zachem ignored his dangerous enthusiasm, as well as the sudden tinge of red coating everything around him. He desired Tarn. A basic chemical
reaction between beings with procreational urges. Except Zachem wouldn’t fuck Tarn to sow his seed, but to relieve the ache building out of control between his legs.
Dropping the loincloth from his body, he decided to join Tarn in the lav. Time to play, slave master. But the rules are mine.
He entered the lav and stared at the shower. The Pit relied on real water, not the shitty solar rays so many in the System used. Zachem had been raised by scientists who always tried to improve the natural environment around them. Solar showers. Food preparators.
New and improved humans.
But Master Caegon had been a big believer in nature. Water, doing work with one’s own hands, and enjoying life’s little pleasures had become part of Zachem’s new self, one that hadn’t faded after his return to the lab and his subsequent escape from it.
He appreciated the steady rain over Tarn’s sculpted back and watched as rivulets of water caressed his tanned flesh. Unlike Zachem, Tarn’s body looked consistently warm and one colour. His own skin rippled with blushing pinks and sparkling gold broadcasting his desire. Without even looking at his telling erection, Tarn would know how much Zachem desired him if he knew how to read Zachem’s patterns.
Letting his gaze travel over broad shoulders, a muscular back and firm ass, Zachem caught the scent of desire and froze. The subtle scent came not from him, but from Tarn.
“Well? You going to stare at me all day or join me in here?” The world turned dark red in a heartbeat, and arousal overwhelmed him.
Tarn turned around and stared in shock. “Stars, your eyes—”
“Need to fuck, right now,” he rasped, centred on Tarn’s sizable erection.
“Shit. You’re making me itchy.” Tarn groaned. “And so damned hard I can’t think.”
“Turn around,” Zachem growled, aching with the need to claim this male. The desire was all consuming, and like nothing he’d ever felt before. He could do nothing more than bury himself in Tarn, except Tarn didn’t seem willing to accept him.
Tarn shook his head and crossed his arms. It soothed Zachem’s ego that Tarn’s hands trembled before he curled them into fists. Tarn’s nails blackened and grew into what looked like sharp claws. What the hell? Much as he wanted to know more, Zachem’s lust threatened to rage out of control. He forced himself to stand still and not pounce on the male.
“Fight after. Now turn around.” He held his cock, trying to soothe the throbbing need to thrust into warmth. Fury began to edge out the carnal need filling him from head to toe. Why did the male hesitate?
“No.” Tarn’s firmness, as well as his lack of fear, worked through the haze of aggression clouding Zachem’s mind.
“What?”
“Come here. Right the fuck now,” Tarn snapped. He seemed as if he grew larger as Zachem watched. The eyes that had once been a vibrant green now opened wider to reveal a slitted pupil encased in a green-gold iris that expanded to fill his entire socket.
A wave of energy pulsed between them, one that brought Zachem to his knees before Tarn yanked him to his feet and shoved him back against the wall.
“No, no, czeva. You need to be standing for this,” Tarn rasped. He knelt and stroked Zachem with a gentleness he found disarming.
He had trouble breathing around the familiar needs pressing him, the need to serve and obey, which he hadn’t felt since Master Caegon. “What—”
“Silence,” Tarn growled in a strange voice, sounding as if a dozen pitches echoed within that one tone.
Zachem stared down at Tarn’s head, wanting to touch, yet not sure if he should. That he didn’t simply take what he wanted stunned him, as did the realisation that the red in his vision had receded.
And then Tarn shocked him again by nuzzling his cock and balls and licking him from the base of his shaft to the crown.
He groaned and closed his eyes in utter bliss.
When Tarn engulfed him with his hot, wet mouth, Zachem nearly passed out. The sensation was incredible. A blast of heat shot through his balls and saturated every part of his body. Utter joy filled him as Tarn began to suck him off with an expertise even the best pleasurers couldn’t equal.
Tarn wasn’t unaffected either. He moaned and stroked Zachem’s legs, his balls, and ass with a desperation Zachem could literally feel. A sharp prick of pain took him aback, and then Tarn was licking the pain away, stroking his shaft with that skilled tongue that felt like fingers of seduction.
Too soon, Zachem’s orgasm rushed through him. “Fuck. Yes, yes,” he yelled as he jetted into Tarn’s mouth. Tarn continued to milk him, sucking harder and swallowing with greedy gulps. He manipulated Zachem’s balls with a subtle twist and shocked another, harder orgasm out of him.
Zachem couldn’t think, could only feel as waves of ecstasy took him into a peace he’d never before felt. Not the relief of an intense climax, but something much more. He watched as Tarn stood, those brilliant eyes unblinking as they stared into his own.
“My turn,” Tarn growled as he gripped himself and began stroking. Without taking his gaze from Zachem, he reached his pinnacle in a matter of seconds and came all over Zachem’s stomach. Their scents mingled, their seed as well. Tarn’s cum continued to splatter on Zachem’s belly, his cock and thighs as the man finally reached his end.
They stood and stared at one another, panting, fulfilled, and strangely connected.
Zachem wanted to say something, but his brain refused to function. Instead, he put his hand to stomach and felt the mess there.
“Rub it in,” Tarn commanded in a low voice. “Smooth is all over you. That’s it.” Tarn placed his hand over Zachem’s, and together they rubbed the seed all over Zachem’s front.
“You smell like me. Good.” Tarn smiled, and a hint of sharp teeth broke Zachem out of his daze.
He tried to step closer for a look and halted when Tarn pushed him back.
“Don’t move.” Tarn took a deep breath and smiled again. Nothing unusual about his mouth or eyes now. “You’re exceptional, Zachem. You taste like perfection. I’m afraid I’ll become addicted before you know it.” He skimmed Zachem’s lips with a finger still covered in his seed. “Taste me.”
Zachem opened his mouth and took Tarn’s finger inside. To his shock, the taste of Tarn made him want more, right now. His cock took on a life of its own and rose again.
“There we go,” Tarn murmured and took Zachem’s sac in warm hands. “You’re full.
You need to release more, so that the hungers don’t overwhelm you.” Zachem groaned but didn’t stop himself from thrusting through Tarn’s slick palms.
Then he felt Tarn’s arousal brushing his belly. He reached down and fisted his hand around Tarn.
“Yes. Make me come again. More. Need to cover you in me,” Tarn insisted in a guttural voice.
Zachem couldn’t believe how soon he neared climax yet again, but when he tried to move away, to at least slow down, Tarn wouldn’t let him.
“No. Come hard. I want to feel it over me.”
He groaned, unable to resist the compulsion to obey. Again he spurted, and his seed covered Tarn’s hands and stomach, just as Tarn unloaded all over him. Zachem knew his releases were anything but normal. Jets of cum were often too much for his sexual partners to take in one swallow. But Tarn was just as unusual, because he left Zachem with as much a mess all over him.
After several moment of silence passed, Tarn released him. Zachem sensed in him a reluctance to do so, though he couldn’t have said why he knew what Tarn felt. Though a Creation, Zachem had enhanced physical senses, not psychic senses.
“I suppose we’d better clean off,” Tarn said with a sigh.
“Yeah.”
They stood there staring at one another. Unmoving.
Tarn grinned. “After you, handsome.”
To Zachem’s astonishment, he felt his cheeks heat. His body shimmered with a blush, and Tarn laughed.
“Damn, you’re fine.” He slapped his ass. “Now into the water. Go on. I’ll wait a
nd watch.”
Zachem opened his mouth to retort when Tarn fingered his collar. Slave master. The same man who tortured Pyrgo just commanded me with ease. Fuck. Turning his back, Zachem quickly lathered and rinsed off evidence of their union. He couldn’t believe he’d allowed a slaver to take what he’d sworn to never give again. His obedience.
The gift seemed like an obscenity. And for the first time in a long time, Zachem felt ashamed of his heritage. He turned and tried to mask his disquiet, but he didn’t succeed because Tarn asked, “What’s wrong?”
Tarn didn’t smile, and the concern in his eyes made it all worse.
“Nothing.” Zachem strode from the room wet, annoyed, and on the verge of breaking something. Namely, Tarn’s very handsome head.
Tarn stayed in the lav long enough for Zachem to grow into a simmering rage.
Then Pyrgo barged into the cell and looked around. “Beast.”
“What the fuck do you want?” He glared at Pyrgo, secretly relieved the male looked fit and hearty. Of all the guards in The Pit, Pyrgo had been the only one to make him feel like a man. He treated all the slaves like humans and not as ‘beasts’, the way the others regarded them. Then again, he was new. Perhaps in time Pyrgo would grow to abuse those under his power.
Pyrgo’s eyes widened as he stared over Zachem’s shoulder. Zachem didn’t have to look to know Tarn stood behind him. He could feel the male, like a living pulse inside him now.
“Destroy—ah, Slave Six. Come with me.” Pyrgo raised his brows at Zachem and looked again at Tarn, as if some unspoken communication passed between the two.
Interesting.
Zachem turned…and scowled at Tarn. The bastard stood stark naked in front of another male. No matter that most slaves weren’t granted clothing, or that Tarn hadn’t had anything to change into in the lav. Annoyance darkened the patterns on Zachem’s skin as he reached the table, grabbed the loincloth, and threw it at his new cell mate.