Deceived

by Evangeline Anderson

  Blood, Dark realized, working to keep his face from showing the horror he felt. That’s dried blood! Goddess above, what did that bastard to do her?

  Anna’s thighs were tightly closed but he sensed through his gift that her pain was coming from between her legs. Gently, he put a hand on either knee and tried to part them.

  “Please…” Anna looked near tears. “I don’t want you to see.”

  “But I need to, baby.” Dark felt sick with rage inside—at Gorn for hurting her and at himself for allowing it—but he tried to keep his voice soft and even. “I need to see how he hurt you before I can help you,” he told her.

  She bit her lip again.

  “I would never let a real guy see it,” she whispered at last. “Because it’s disgusting and humiliating and awful. If you were real, it would make you sick. It might make you sick anyway.”

  “No, it won’t because I’m a Replicant,” Dark reminded her gently. “Please, Anna—I only want to help you.”

  “I don’t think you can,” she whispered, but she allowed him to part her legs at last, though she closed her eyes, as though she couldn’t bear to see the expression on his face when he looked.

  Dark’s eyes flicked over her inner thighs, uncertain at first of what he was seeing. He took in the studded leather harness cinched tight around her thighs and the thick, dull gray, metal disk between her legs. Then he became aware that the disk was part of something else—something that had been jammed into the soft, tender spot between her thighs where it most certainly didn’t belong.

  Leaning closer, he suddenly recognized what he was seeing and his mind flashed back to his first day at Gorn’s domicile. He remembered the rack in the corner of the Trollox’s bed chamber with its array of leather harnesses and the odd, phallic-shaped objects. Gorn’s words came back to him then—words he hadn’t understood at the time and so had dismissed from his mind.

  “Don’t worry about those, pretty boy—they ain’t for you,” he’d said, when he saw Dark looking at the rack and its contents. “Sometimes breeders need stretching, that’s all. ‘Specially when they gotta get bred by my mighty meat.”

  Dark felt sick. How could he have forgotten those words? How had he not put two and two together and realized what was happening to Anna—right under his very nose? No wonder she’d been so skeptical when he’d asked her to call for him if she needed help. She’d needed it this whole time and he hadn’t seen—had missed all the signs! Now her words of the night before made sense.

  “You’re too late—he’s already hurt me,” she had cried when Dark had tried to calm her down and had sworn to her he wouldn’t let the Trollox breed her. No wonder she had no confidence in him—Dark was beginning to lose confidence in himself. How could he have missed this?

  The way you missed it was by being a blind fool, whispered a little voice in his head. It’s time to open your eyes, Dark, and see what your female needs. And right now she doesn’t need your guilt or self-loathing. She needs to be cared for and healed. So fucking get to it.

  The voice was right and Dark knew it. Carefully, he began to unbuckle the cruelly tight leather harness from around her thighs.

  “No, wait…” Incredibly, Anna tried to stop him.

  “We can’t wait, baby,” he murmured to her, brushing her hands gently aside. “We need to get this fucking thing out of you. It’s tearing you apart!”

  “You can’t.” Anna began to cry weakly. “I have to leave it in. He says I have to be ready for when he comes back because that’s when he’s going to…going to breed me.” Her voice broke on the last word and she looked so miserable and trapped that Dark felt as though his heart was being squeezed by a cruel fist.

  “Baby, please—you’re hurt,” he murmured. “Let me help you. You can’t go on like this—you can’t.”

  At last her small hand fell away and she let him finish unbuckling the harness. Then came the hardest part. Slowly and as gently as he could, Dark began to remove the large, metal phallus.

  Anna cried out in pain and then stuffed a fist in her mouth—Dark thought to keep from screaming—before he had even drawn it out an inch.

  “Do you want me to do it fast instead?” he asked, looking up at her. “Would that be easier, baby?”

  She gave him a short, stiff nod, her eyes wide with pain.

  “Fast then,” Dark told her. “Here—hold on to me.”

  He took her free hand and placed it firmly on his side. With direct skin-to-skin contact, he was able to channel her pain into himself. Then, taking a deep breath, he pulled.

  He felt the ripping, tearing agony inside himself as the awful thing at last came free. It was the biggest one, he saw as it finally pulled out. The phallus as big around as his bicep that he’d seen on the rack in Gorn’s room that first day. It was heavy in his hand and covered in raised carvings and ridges, as though whoever had made it wanted to inflict maximum damage.

  And it certainly had. Though he was taking as much of her pain as he could, Dark could see why Anna had been in such agony. Her tender flesh was bruised and torn and her sacred entrance had been wounded by the disgusting thing.

  Goddess, Dark thought, feeling sick. This was a part of her that should be worshipped tenderly, brought lovingly to pleasure—not hurt and abused. What the fuck was wrong with Gorn—with any male—who would hurt a female so?

  “Anna,” he murmured, looking up at her. “I want you to keep touching me—keep holding on to me—we’re going to get you in a bath and get you all cleaned up and comfortable, okay, baby?”

  She looked at him uncertainly.

  “Are you making the pain go away? It doesn’t hurt nearly as much as it did before you touched me.”

  “I’m helping it as much as I can,” Dark told her. He could still feel the burning agony between his own thighs, though he had different equipment than she did. “Just keep holding onto me, baby. We’ll get you healed up, I promise.”

  He lifted her carefully into his arms and this time Anna didn’t protest. She leaned her head against his chest and closed her eyes, looking, Dark thought, like a tired, much-abused child. His heart squeezed like a fist and he cuddled her closer. Goddess, poor little female! He’d thought his own ordeal in the punishment box had been awful but it was clear she’d gone through much, much worse.

  He only prayed that he could heal her—both in body and spirit—so that she wouldn’t be scarred by the horrific events of the night before forever.

  Please, Goddess, he prayed. Let me help her. Let me heal her. And as her pain flowed through him, he welcomed it, wanting only to give her hope and make her better.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Anna drifted in and out of consciousness as the big Replicant carried her down the hallway to a bathroom that had a large, oval tub. He ran a warm—but not hot—bath and lowered her into it, making sure all the time that she was still touching him in some way.

  She didn’t know why, but the skin-to-skin contact with him seemed to make the pain less—much less. Grateful for the respite from the constant agony, she made sure to keep her hand on his arm as he bathed her gently, washing away the dried blood and making her feel almost normal again.

  Somewhere deep inside, she acknowledged how embarrassing this would be if he was a real guy. Talk about seeing a girl at her worst! She must look awful down there, she thought—not to mention she was letting him see her naked, which she was extremely reluctant to do because of her numerous body issues. Plus-sized girls had no business prancing around in their birthday suits—or so she’d been taught to believe.

  Even back on Earth she would have been considered too big to be attractive. And after living for years at the Aka’ja mining station where even the tallest women were barely four feet high, she felt like an ugly giant.

  But Dark didn’t make her feel ugly, even though he was so extremely handsome and muscular himself. He made her feel beautiful…cherished…cared for in a way she never had before. His big hands were so gentle—al
most reverent—when they washed her delicate flesh. Anna felt nothing but loved and cared for, so much so that she almost wished he was real.

  But no, she reminded herself—a real man would never act like this. He would never treat her so sweetly or be so gentle and kind. Dark only acted this way because he was programmed to. And she ought to be grateful he was, or she would still be lying beside the bed, too weak and in too much pain to get up.

  She thought of the cruel metal spreader, abandoned on the bedroom floor.

  Shouldn’t have taken it out—should have just tried to get used to it, like you did all the others, whispered a grim little voice in her head. What are you going to do when Gorn comes back and wants to breed you? What will you say when he finds you took it out?

  She didn’t know but she couldn’t bear the thought of putting the horrible spreader back in, no matter how angry her captor would be.

  I won’t think of it now, she told herself as Dark got her out of the tub and patted her dry tenderly. I won’t let it bother me right here in the present. That’s a future problem and I’m not in the future yet. I like it better in the present—I’m going to stay here as long as I can.

  “Come on, baby,” Dark said, lifting her into his arms again.

  Anna sighed and leaned her head against his broad chest. She didn’t even mind that she was completely naked with only a towel around her shoulders. She felt too relaxed to care.

  “Where are we going?” she asked dreamily.

  “Back to the bedroom,” he answered simply. “I need to heal you.”

  * * * * *

  Dark carried her easily, his vitality almost completely returned now. Later he would make them both a big meal and they would eat together to regain their strength. But first he had to heal her, had to repair the damage the metal phallus had done inside her. Otherwise, the moment they lost skin-to-skin contact, the burning pain would return to her and he didn’t want that—didn’t want what she’d endured to leave any scars, either physical or emotional.

  He laid her gently on the bed and Anna relaxed against the pillows. The warm bath he’d given her seemed to have calmed her down and she looked at him with soft, trusting eyes as he lay down beside her and stroked her cheek.

  “Anna, baby,” he murmured. “It’s time for me to heal you now. Can you let me do that?”

  “Heal me?” she looked at him dreamily. “Heal me how? You already took the pain away.”

  “The pain is only gone because we’re touching,” Dark told her. “If you stop touching me, it’s going to come back unless I heal you. Okay?”

  “Okay—but how?” she asked again.

  Dark frowned. “Remember how I healed your finger when you cut it in the kitchen?

  “Well…yes. You licked it—sucked it.”

  “Exactly.” Dark nodded firmly.

  Her eyes went wide as a look of comprehension came over her lovely face.

  “Wait…you’re not talking about, uh, licking me down there, are you?” She looked down between her legs, where she was still incredibly tender.

  “I promise it won’t hurt as long as you’re still touching me,” Dark said quickly. “I would never hurt you—never treat you roughly, you know that, Anna.”

  “It’s not that…” She bit her lip uncertainly and her knees pressed together, almost involuntarily. “It’s just…I must be a mess down there right now. You don’t want to put your mouth on me when I’m all cut and bruised and…”

  “That’s exactly why I do want to put my mouth on you,” Dark told her. “Look…” He tried to think of how to put it—how to convince her. “When you were little and you got a cut or a scrape, did anyone ever kiss it better for you?”

  “Well…sure.” She nodded. “My real dad—the one who died before my mom met Brex. He would always kiss my skinned knees before he put a Band-Aid on.”

  “Well think of it that way—I’m just kissing you better,” Dark told her. “It doesn’t have to be sexual or sensual—it’s purely about healing, I promise you.”

  “But I’m so ugly down there right now,” she protested.

  Dark shook his head firmly.

  “You’re beautiful, baby. Always beautiful to me,” he murmured. Reaching up, he cupped her cheek in one hand. “Please, let me do this for you—let me heal you.”

  “Well…” Anna was still hesitating but he could tell that she wanted to let him do this—wanted to give herself permission to be this intimate with him and let him take away her pain.

  “Please, Anna,” he murmured again and, leaning down, placed a hot, gentle kiss on the top of her right knee. “Please let me heal you. You can guide me every step of the way if you want. And I promise to be slow and gentle.”

  Her eyes softened. “Well…all right. But maybe…maybe just on the outside, okay?”

  It was a start and Dark would take any opening he could. Once he was easing her pain and hopefully bringing her pleasure, he could convince her to go further, to let him heal more.

  “All right,” he said, nodding. “Come on—let’s get you comfortable.”

  He arranged her at the edge of the bed, propped up with plenty of pillows so she could watch him heal her. Then he put one of the spare pillows beside the bed and knelt on it. The floor could be hard on a male’s knees and he wanted to be completely comfortable because he planned to be here for a long time.

  “Dark?” Anna looked uncertain again as he knelt in front of her and put his hands on her knees. She had them together right now but he needed her to part them so he could get to her.

  “Mmm-hmm?” He looked up at her. “Are you ready, baby?”

  “I…I guess so.” She still hadn’t opened her legs yet.

  “Then you need to open for me,” Dark told her gently. “Otherwise I can’t lick you and heal you.”

  “Are you sure…really sure you want to do this?” she asked him. “I mean, I don’t know many guys who really enjoy this, uh, kind of thing.”

  “Remember that I’m supposed to be a Blood Kindred,” Dark reminded her. “And the Kindred love tasting their females. They need to do it—it’s a biological imperative.”

  “Really? I never knew that.” Her eyes widened.

  “You would have if you’d spent more time on the Mother Ship instead of moving immediately to that mining colony,” Dark assured her. “But for now, pleased believe me when I say that it’s an honor and a privilege to lick your soft little pussy. And yes, I most certainly want to do it.”

  Anna nodded, but she was still hesitating. “I can understand that under normal circumstances. But like I said, I’m all messed up down there right now.”

  “You’re a little bruised and hurt, that’s all,” Dark assured her. “And I’m going to heal you—going to kiss it all better, baby. But you have to open up and let me in so I can.”

  His gentle, coaxing words seemed to finally convince her. With a small sigh, she allowed him to part her knees and opened her thighs to him.

  Dark tried to keep his face clear of emotion as he looked at the damage that had been done to her sacred entrance and inner thighs. Gods, he would kill that fucking Gorn. But this was no place for hatred or anger, even directed against her attacker. Right now he had to generate healing, loving energy as he spread the essence his fangs were already making for her over her most delicate areas.

  Of course, the easiest way to heal her quickly would have been to bite her inner thigh and inject his essence internally. But that would cause an instant orgasm and Dark worried that the contractions of pleasure would bring her wounded pussy even more pain. So he preferred to take things slowly and use his tongue.

  Besides, what he had told her was true—Kindred did love tasting their females. Though his main intent was to heal her, he would be lying if he didn’t acknowledge that he wanted to pleasure her and taste her sweet juices too.

  He leaned close to her, propping her legs over his broad, bare shoulders, and simply breathed on her pussy to start with—letting her get
used to his close proximity to such a delicate area.

  “Oh!” Anna jumped a little but didn’t try to pull away. “What…what are you doing?” she asked, her voice low and breathless.

  “Letting you get used to me being here,” Dark told her. “You need to get comfortable with my mouth on your pussy because I’m going to be here a while. So watch me, baby—watch me heal you.”

  Leaning forward again, he began to drop soft, feather-light kisses over the swollen outer lips of her pussy.

  Anna sighed softly and he felt her relaxing.

  “It feels better when you touch me,” she admitted. “Is that because you’re somehow taking my pain away?”

  Dark nodded and reached for one of her hands.

  “Here, put your hands on me while I do this,” he instructed thickly. Gods, her feminine scent was delicious, even though he had barely started. “Let me feel you touching me while I heal you, baby.”

  Obligingly, she ran her soft fingers through his thick, black hair. Dark shivered with pleasure at her touch. He loved to feel connected to a female when he tasted her and he had never wanted so badly to be connected with anyone as he did with Anna.

  “That’s right, baby,” he murmured and took a long, slow lick over the outer lips of her pussy. “That’s good, let me feel your hands on me while I taste you…while I heal you.”

  “Oh, Dark…it…it does feel better when you taste me,” she admitted in a low voice as he licked her again, running his tongue over the puffy outer lips of her sex. “But, well…” She bit her lip. “It hurts so much inside too. Maybe…maybe you should lick me there?”

  Dark was more than happy to accede to her request. He’d been trying to think of a way to get her to let him in further and he was glad she’d come around to it herself, without having to be coaxed.

  “Of course, baby,” he murmured, looking up at her. “Would you like to spread your sweet pussy open for me or should I do it?”

  “You do it,” she decided. “But I’m really hurt in there so please, be careful.”

  “I’ll never be anything else with you, Anna.” He looked at her seriously. “I swear it.”