by Maia Tanith
He stalks up and down the cage, bristling just like an angry cat. The only thing he lacks is a tail to wave menacingly in the air. “The Games have a dual purpose: to rid the galaxy of the worst of the worst, and to provide entertainment to the masses. Criminals across the galaxy who have been sentenced to die are given the choice to come fight in the Games, with a one in four chance of survival, or go quietly to a painless execution.” He halts for a moment and stares at me. “You can imagine the type of person who decides to fight.”
“A person like you?” I suggest, cattily. I wonder what he has done that is so bad that he is on Death Row for it, and I swallow nervously.
On second thoughts, I don’t think I want to know.
He extends his claws and lazily swipes in my direction. One razor-sharp tip neatly severs a curl of my hair. He lets it fall to the ground without a word. “Exactly.” His voice is a silken menace. “A person like me. So watch what you say. You wouldn’t want to make me angry, would you?”
He means to frighten me, and it works. I’m terrified. But I’m still determined to live, if I can. I back another foot away and keep talking. “You have to fight against three others? But what about me? I’m not a criminal. I was abducted. Where do I come in?”
He glares at me. “You’re the entertainment.”
Chapter Two
Taark
She doesn’t know when to shut up, this kitten. I don’t want to be the one to tell her what is coming. This is not out of cowardice, but empathy. It is sweet to hang on to hope. Let her have her hope as long as she may. Reality will catch up with her soon enough.
Poor, helpless, innocent, doomed kit. Our beloved Emperor must want very badly for me to die to pair me with one such as her. I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t die of fright in the first few minutes.
I spit in the corner at the thought that the Emperor, may his ballocks shrivel and drop off like rotten fruit, has bested me, and the kit flinches.
She is back huddled in her corner, hugging her knees to her chest as if to prevent the bogeyman getting to her. She’s too late. The bogeyman already has her. She may not believe it quite yet, but her life was forfeit the instant she was carried aboard the slaver. It was forfeit again when Graab and his lot bought her. And it was forfeit a third time when she was tossed in here with me, like so much garbage.
I can’t save her. Even if she really was my mate and not some random victim paired with me for the entertainment of the crowd, I still couldn’t save her.
I don’t know why I’m even thinking about the possibility of saving her. She is nothing to me.
Just as I am nothing to her.
Hannah
Taark can sit cross-legged on the ground for hours. I can’t.
I get up from the pallet and start pacing. Ten paces to the door. Ten paces back again.
Every so often I shake the bars on the door, hoping that one of them will miraculously come loose. Or that I will suddenly see a possible way of escaping. Or that Faye and Delia will miraculously appear with the keys in their hands and set me free.
Nothing comes loose. I don’t have any brainwaves. Faye and Delia don’t appear. I hate to think where they are now. Stuffed in some hellhole like me and waiting to die, probably.
Or worse.
I keep away from his corner.
I am the entertainment.
My imagination is running away with me.
I hear the metallic screech of the door at the end of the corridor opening. Heavy footsteps stomp up to the door, accompanied by a loud, rumbling rattle. A claw-man with a marked limp opens a flap in the door and shoves in a bowl of food and another of water.
“Hey,” I call.
He ignores me as if I hadn’t even spoken, and limps on to the next cell, pushing his trolley stacked high with similar bowls.
“Hey,” I call, louder this time. “Don’t be so rude. I’m talking to you.”
I may as well be talking to the wall for all the response I get.
In a sudden temper, I smack my hand on the door, but it doesn’t move. Not even a rattle.
Clearly that guard isn’t going to be any help.
I pick up the bowl of food. A meagre amount covers the bottom. It looks barely enough for one, let alone for two. Gingerly I poke one finger in it and bring it to my mouth. It’s not particularly pleasant, but it’s edible.
If I am to survive for long enough to escape, I need to keep my strength up. I take a mouthful, chew it and force myself to swallow. It’s rubbery and bland but has a bitter aftertaste. I wash it down with a mouthful of water. Again, that bitter after taste. If this is what all food tastes like on this plant, I’ll soon be as skinny as a supermodel. All bones and bad temper.
I take another small mouthful and force it down. What I wouldn’t give for a big gooey chocolate shake right about now. Along with a steaming hot slice of pizza, dripping with cheese. Or a burrito as thick as my arm, stuffed with prawns and spicy sauce. And then some homemade bread fresh from the oven and slathered with apricot jam.
I feel eyes on the back of my head and when I turn, I see Taark staring at me, his eyes as green as a cat’s.
No, he’s not staring at me. He’s staring at the bowl of food in my hand, and his eyes are glittering with hunger.
I choke on my mouthful, feeling shamefully selfish. He’s been here for longer than I have. I don’t know when they last fed him. Judging by the look in his eyes, it was a long time ago. After a momentary wrestle with my conscience, I hold the bowl out to him. “I’ve had enough.”
I’ve only eaten a small portion, but even that is weighing heavily on my stomach as he eagerly reaches for the bowl. He may be a bad-tempered claw-man, but he’s still a sentient being. I cannot preserve myself at his expense. That would make me no better than the rest of them.
He stares at the food in the bowl, and then lifts his eyes to meet mine. “You’ve eaten all you want?”
I nod decisively. Now that I have given the food away, I feel a sudden pang of hunger. I firmly squelch it away.
He hesitates a moment longer and then stuffs his mouth full of food.
The rest of the bowlful is gone almost before I can blink. He scrapes the sides clean with one finger and then sucks on it. I have never seen anyone eat so avidly. I almost feel some sympathy for him.
Then he catches me staring at him and growls, and my sympathy disappears.
I pick up the bowl of water and take a hefty swig. The water will fool my stomach into thinking it is being fed for a while.
When I am done, I pass the water bowl to him, and he drinks deeply.
When lifts his head again, he stares at the empty water bowl, a look of puzzlement quickly morphing into anger. He growls and tosses the bowl violently into the corner.
I begin to shake. “Was it poisoned?” I can think of no other reason for his sudden fit of rage.
“Not poison.” His words are curt, and his voice is vibrating with fury.
“Then what?”
He glares at me with hatred in his eyes and flexes his claws. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
Taark
They have dosed the water with erotalia. The bastards dosed the water. In my thirst, I didn’t notice it until I had drunk deeply.
She drank plenty of water, too, though she barely touched the food, leaving most of it for me. I was too damn hungry to demur.
They have probably dosed the food, too, counting on my hunger to not notice the slight bitterness until I had eaten it all.
Erotalia. The strongest aphrodisiac known in the universe, known by its bitter aftertaste. The tiniest crumb reawakens the desire of even the most jaded of appetites.
I suspect I am about to find out up close and personal what happens when you are fed more than a crumb.
So much for my loyalty to Marfin. So much for my disinterest in the kit they have thrown into my cell with me, and my determination not to mate with her. In minutes, I will be in the throes of insatiable and utterly irres
istible sexual desire. I simply will not be able to stop myself.
And neither will she.
The erotalia starts to work within minutes. Heat prickles over my skin as if tiny insects were skittering across my body. All my senses are alive. Alert. On the hunt.
I look over at the kit. She wraps her arms around herself, but there is no hiding the impact it is having on her. Her chest is flushed red and her nipples have hardened into tight little buds. She rubs her thighs together, trying to scratch the itch that is building in her.
There is a drop of moisture beading in the nest of curls at the juncture of her thighs. I watch, transfixed, as it slowly spreads until all her curls are damp with her desire.
She glances at me, her eyes dark with arousal. “This is what they put in the water?” Her voice is a breathy pant. It slides over my skin like the smoothest silk. I want to bathe in her voice, to let it wash over me like a river of sweet cream. I want to drown in it.
Her voice strums along my senses. My cock engorges with blood and begins to rise, and my ballocks tighten against my body.
I can fight this desire. I can. I must. “Yes. In the water. Probably in the food, too.” My words come out as a growl.
“Can’t you stop it?” Her voice is a wail of need and every syllable moves over me like a caress.
I hiss my displeasure. “I don’t like it any more than you do.” I want desperately to fuck her, and I despise myself for wanting to fuck her so badly. “They are messing with us. For their amusement.”
They want me to make her my mate, to arouse my protective instincts so that I fight for her in the arena. This is not about love, or even sex. This is about entertainment for our captors.
I can smell her arousal and the musky scent of her is driving me wild. Without consciously willing it, I am moving closer to her, until I can feel the heat from her body burning me like wildfire, and the soft scent of her breath on my chest.
When my hand touches her shoulder, a current of desire flows between us. There are no clothes to get in between us, nothing to lessen the impact of skin against skin. The pull of her softness, of her body, is so strong that I cannot take my hand away. I can only move it across the smooth planes of her back, over the rounded swell of her buttocks.
I am under a spell that I cannot fight. I move closer until my cock is pushing insistently against the hollow of her back. Touching her is glorious, but not enough. Never enough. I want to be inside her. I need to be inside her.
She arches her back, sending her buttocks thrusting against me.
My conscience stabs me, hard enough to make a dent on my lust-addled mind. “I cannot. You are still a kit. Not fully grown.”
“I’m twenty-five,” she spits, grinding hard against me. “Old enough to vote. To drink. Old enough to get married. I sure as hell am old enough to fuck.”
Hannah
I can feel him against me, hot and hard and ready to claim me.
I am ready to be claimed. More than ready. I may not like him much, and I don’t trust him an inch, but God, do I want to fuck him.
That is some good shit they’ve put in the water, to make me desperate to jump someone as grumpy as Taark. Someone who isn’t even completely human.
Adrenaline pumps through me, making my breath short. I don’t care that he’s a claw-man. I don’t care that one growl from him is enough to have me skittering over to the far corner of the cell in fear. I want this so badly. I want him with a force I cannot control.
I want to take everything he can give me. Just this once. He is so sure we are both going to die soon, so why shouldn’t we both take what we want? There’ll be no making love once we are dead.
I don’t even care that we are playing into our captors’ hands. They clearly want us to be together or they wouldn’t have dosed our food. There is no doubt some nefarious reason, but right now I don’t even care why they did. I just want Taark inside me, on top of me, around me, and every which way that I can have him.
His cock is hard against my back and I squirm against him, rubbing the thickened head against me. I stand on my tiptoes and reach around to touch him, shoving him down so that his cock pushes between my thighs. I ride him like that, my juices moistening him so that he slips smoothly across the juncture of my thighs, teasing my slit and making it weep with desire.
The sweet friction drives me wild and I push against him, riding him hard. It’s been too long since anyone touched me like this. Far too long.
He reaches around me to cup my breasts.
“Yes, I whisper. “Touch me.”
“Where do you want me to touch you.” His voice is harsh and raw.
“Wherever you want. Everywhere.”
The tension is building in my body and I am moments away from an orgasm. When he reaches down my body to touch my clit, I cannot hold back any longer. I writhe against him, still riding his hard cock and my body explodes in a rush of pleasure.
A rush that goes on and on.
When it finally ebbs away, I am left shaking with the aftermath of satisfied lust.
He is still hard between my legs.
Just moments before, I was as sexually satisfied as I ever have been in my life, but the touch of him sets my blood rising in my veins again. I can’t summon a shred of embarrassment at my behavior. I still burn for him. My orgasm didn’t quench the fire, but it has set off a craving in my blood that nothing will satisfy but his body.
I want him inside me. All of him.
Reluctantly, I slide off his cock and turn to face him. I feel bereft without him between my thighs.
“Feeling better?” he asks. His pupils are so dilated that all I can see is black. A muscle in his jaw twitches. He is controlling himself with a visible effort.
“Not enough.” I lay my hands on his chest and run them over his impressive six-pack. With a body like this, he’d have a million Instagram followers in a heartbeat. Young girls, frustrated housewives, bodybuilders looking for inspiration, and every gay guy on the planet. He’d be the one influencer to rule them all. “I need more.”
My hands wander lower until they find their target. I fist him in one hand, barely able to close my fingers around him. How will he fit inside me? My pussy quivers with excitement, throbbing with the desire to find out just how snug the fit will be.
His body is taut with lust, and he hisses as I pump his cock. I am rough with need, but he likes it hard. I feel him grow under my hands.
His hands cup my buttocks and draw me closer to him. His breath is warm on my neck and his sharp teeth graze lightly against my neck, making my body tremble. “I can give you more,” he growls. “If you really want it. If this is you speaking and not just the drug you are full of.”
Damn the drug. I don’t know what is my desire and what is chemically-induced lust, but right now, I don’t care. I will own it all. “I know what I want.”
He looks at me for a moment, and then makes a decision. “On your knees,” he orders.
Yes. I shiver with delight as I hurry to obey before he changes his mind. He cannot back out now.
None too gently, he spreads me apart and slides a finger inside me. My body locks hard on it, squeezing it further inside me until it is buried deep. I clench on to it as he withdraws, and then pull him back in again. It’s good, but it’s not enough. it will never be enough.
“One last chance to change your mind,” he whispers hoarsely in my ear.
I arch my back and push up my buttocks in invitation. That is the only answer I have to give him.
He presses against me, the blunt head of his cock pushing into me.
I gasp as he pushes inside me, stretching me more than is quite comfortable. I am past caring about comfort, though, as I push against him, urging him in deeper.
He leans over me, and his thick stubble grazes the defenseless side of my neck. “Are you ready to be fucked?” he demands. “To be taken the way I want to take you? Hard and fast?”
I nod.
“Ans
wer me,” he demands. “I want to hear it from your lips.”
“Yes,” I whisper.
At my whispered consent, he pulls out and slams back into me, burying himself to the hilt. Again and again.
His lovemaking is raw. Elemental.
Animal.
Again and again he brings me to the brink, before he pulls back again, refusing to let me come until he allows it, depriving my body of the release it craves.
He doesn’t make love to me as much as he fucks me into submission, until I am whimpering on the floor, without the strength to hold myself up any longer, as he holds me in place and pounds into me. My whole existence is reduced to a bundle of nerve endings that are reaching desperately for the release that he continues to deny them.
He drives me harder until my body cannot withstand the onslaught and I come, screaming out with mindless pleasure as my orgasm slams into me with the force of a huge tsunami breaking against the shore. I gasp desperately for air, drowning in sensation. The world recedes until I can see nothing, feel nothing but pleasure.
I feel his body shudder above mine, and he thrusts into me one last time before giving a growl that makes every hair on my body stand on end. His semen floods into me, hot and wet.
The last thought that crosses my mind before oblivion claims me is that if he fights as hard as he fucks, then we are in with a chance to survive.
Taark
I am wrung out more completely than I ever have been in my life. Naturally I have tried erotalia before. Every cub does when he is trying to claw his way up to his place in the world and find where he belongs. It gives an untried cub the confidence that he can satisfy his chosen mate.
Never before has it had such an impact on me though. I feel shattered, exhausted, nothing in me left to give.
The damned organizers of these cursed games got one thing right. The kit they gave me as my mate is a good match in one way. She and I are sexually compatible.
Sexually explosive, rather.
Marfin and I had not shared such an elemental connection. We were friends first, and lovers second. I still mourn her loss and grieve over my part in it.