So enraged he could pound holes through the steel walls, Dev stomped through the corridors to Sveti’s room.
People seeing the huge incensed warlord stalking down the hall, horns growing, long black braids flapping behind him, small cloud-bursts of flames abrading the floor around his legs, quickly got out of his way.
He didn’t acknowledge Keldon, just shoved the door open and stomped in. Sveti was heading towards the kitchen; she spun around in surprise at the door slamming inside the wall.
Seeing Dev obviously infuriated, his body vibrating with rage, face a mask of brutal ferocity, she turned and started to run towards her bedroom.
He reached her quickly and snatched her arm jerking her to a halt.
Breathless with fright, she cried, “Sire, what is it? What’s going on?” She tried to wrestle from his grasp but it was in vain. A rampaging elephant couldn’t have gotten out of his grip.
Shoving the door that was closing aside, he marched her out of her suite, past the guard with his mouth hanging open, and down the spider-legged halls to his chambers so fast she couldn’t get a word out, and he wasn’t talking.
If he hadn’t such a tight grip on her arm she would have stumbled half a dozen times he strode so quickly.
Throwing his door open, Dev dragged her inside. He pulled her to the big couch in the center of the room and released her.
As he stood towering over Sveti, he transformed. The flickering of a blurry wave enveloped him, his body changed, a monster was emerging. His horns continued to swell, the claws unsheathed from his fingertips.
His fangs descended, he hissed at her, “You refuse me, but you whore with others?” He pushed her until she fell, her butt landing on the couch.
Snarling with harrowing malevolence, jabbing his thumb at his hard chest he ground viciously at her, “You will damn well whore with me!”
Sveti squirmed away from him, her eyes darting around the room looking for an escape, or a weapon, not that it would do her any good. “I- I don’t understand, Sire, what are you saying? I have never-”
“Shut up!” he roared at her and roughly pushed her down on her back.
“Wait! Sire-”
“Done waiting,” he growled and flipped her over on her stomach. A huge hand pressed her shoulder down holding her from moving then he sliced a claw in her blouse and ripped it almost clear down her back.
“Stop!” she screamed, on her stomach Sveti had no way to defend herself.
Through his raging blinding white eyes, Dev saw the scrape his claw made down her back, it didn’t break the skin but it left an ugly red trail. He followed it to the curve of her tiny waist.
So small, so feminine, her hair swirled in a flaming cloud around her shoulders and over the cushion. Her slender shoulders shook with terrified gasps as she struggled.
Blood rushed through his head, Dev barely heard her cries as his body enlarged further in his wrath. He lifted her again and turned her over on her back, and slit the claw through the top of her pants tearing them open.
Shoving a knee between her leg and the couch, he kept one foot on the floor and was pushing her pants down when his atavistic gaze lit on her chest.
Sveti screamed, pounded her fists at him and kicked with hysterical frenzy, but it was like a bunny fighting a starving tiger.
Through her panicked tears she saw his fierce face, his eyes wild electric white, sparking lightning; she could no longer see the man inside the savage beast, even the pointed ears grew bigger, sharper.
Grabbing both sides of her blouse he tore it apart, his predatory eyes radiated on her breasts molding full and soft over a pale peach silk bra.
“Sire, please,” her voice shook with her distress, she pushed at him, hit him, but a marauding ravenous animal, he was not to be stopped.
The beast’s hands closed over her breasts, he gripped them so hard she cried out. That drew his attention to her face, her lips. He lowered his head, capturing her mouth caught open in a cry, he kissed her with unleashed violence unheeding of her pleas and sobs for him to stop.
He was a raging demon, his fangs curved glinting in the light, his horns still grew, clenching her full breasts with his big hard fingers, he crushed them in his steel grasp.
She pulled from his raiding mouth and looked down, his erection strained at his pants, huge, thick, iron hard. So big, so violent, he would severely injure her, if she survived his brutal assault.
Sveti shook so hard she thought her teeth would break. She renewed her struggles but they were futile.
He sought her mouth again; she tossed her head to avoid the onslaught of his besieging lips, her curls swept over her face.
Free of his assaulting mouth, but still held trapped, she pushed her hair out of her face, her chest billowing with fear burst with fast and shallow breaths.
Roughly groping her breasts, snarls tangled in his throat, growls roiled in his heavy chest, the beast released her pained breasts to rip her pants open further, and then shoved them and her panties down to her thighs. Inhuman growls rumbled deeper, his stark white beast’s eyes glowed at her exposed sex.
Sveti watched the creature in horror as he lowered his hand to her feminine folds, and drew the curve of one claw down over her woman’s slit, a shudder of terror surged through her.
Keeping his monstrous eyes on her bared sex, and a hand on her shoulder holding her immobile, he jerked his belt open with prehistoric grunts, snatched open the button on his pants then unzipped them. Pushing her thighs apart he shifted his leg between hers moving his hips to hold her legs open.
He couldn’t get her legs spread far enough apart for him to fit; he impatiently tore one side of her jeans and panties. She could only see the visceral beast in him as he moved his hand from her shoulder and grasped her face.
Forcing her head to turn to the side, his devouring gaze latched onto her alabaster neck. His eyes white fire, sharp glistening fangs descended to her flesh.
Sveti cried, “Please, Sire, don’t take me like this!”
“Master,” Brahms said calmly from several feet away.
“Go away,” Dev growled a harsh snarl, digging his fangs into her neck, he opened his pants.
Brahms spoke in a language Sveti didn’t understand. “Devilos, you will make her yours, forever, if you bite her while mating with her.”
Growling savagely against her neck, “So what, go away,” he dug his fangs deeper into her tender flesh, the long black braids covered her shoulder like sable ropes. He shoved his hand in his pants fisting his erection to tug it out.
“You can’t make her yours permanently without her acquiescence or the elemental aura will taint your relationship forever.”
Brahms looked down at Sveti struggling, most of her body hidden by Dev’s big body, he said drily, “And she doesn’t appear to be acquiescing to you raping her.”
Dev snarled, “I don’t fucking care,” but he halted. He looked at her thrashing under him. He was so psychotic with the need to take her; he hadn’t felt any of her punches.
Tears streamed out of her crystal eyes, his gaze fell to her heaving breasts, red marks bruised on them from his violent handling of her, then he looked to the pricks on her neck.
His head dropped, the claws and fangs receded, his body morphed almost back to normal. His beast’s face changed as the savage animal in him shifted back to his normal hard face and body.
Still holding her head, he turned it to face him, and like the tide drawn to the moon he kissed her. Gently at first, but then his mouth moved ravenously over hers, the kiss heated him right back up.
“Sire,” Brahms warned.
His sigh heavy, Dev pulled from her lips, she turned her head away from him, he saw the tear tracks on her cheeks. He drew his hands down over her breasts then pulled the torn pieces of her blouse together and slowly climbed off her.
Standing up, he reached behind his neck, grasped his shirt, pulled it over his head and laid it over her, said quietly to Brahms, “Take
her back to her quarters.” Without looking at her again, he left the room.
It was as if all the raging, heaving black air in the room fizzled and snapped out when he was gone. Sveti struggled to sit up.
Brahms sat down beside her on the couch and helped her into Dev’s shirt.
Wiping at streaming tears, Sveti cried, “I- I don’t understand him, Mr. Brahms, I don’t understand.” She wasn’t afraid of the majordomo although she’d only met him once before. He had managed to stop Dev’s attack.
“I know, honey.” The older man gently smoothed her hair back. She fixed her pants the best she could.
Brahms got up and held his hand out to her. She took it and stood up on shaky legs.
His spine a rigid rod, shoulders like iron planks, the silver-haired majordomo walked Sveti back to her quarters.
Every time they passed a male that ogled her and started to move towards her, Brahms’ head rose a few feet, he bared his fangs with a silent hiss of warning and they backed off.
He transformed back to normal without her ever seeing his mutation.
Chapter Fifteen
A few days later, Sveti opened her door to Bowie and smiled back at his friendly grin. “Hi Bowie, what are you doing here?” Then her brows dropped. “I’m not in trouble for something again that I don’t know about am I?”
Shaking his head with a short laugh, he said, “Nay, not to worry. I’m here to take you shopping.”
“Shopping? What kind of shopping?”
He laughed. “The kind girls like. Clothes, shoes, purses, whatever. Come on, let’s go.”
She stepped back from him with a shake of her head. “No. I’m not doing anything that is going to make that beast attack me again.”
Bowie knew about Dev’s assault on her. He had joined Dev in the bar later and got trashed with him. Dev told him the whole sordid story.
Bowie was surprised his hard-hearted friend expressed guilt and shame over his actions, and his worry that if Brahms hadn’t stopped him he would have not only brutally raped Sveti, but would have done some serious harm to her in his beastly ferocious frenzy.
In his transformed phase he had been dangerously out of control, taken over by his animal side in primitive lusted fury.
When he had calmed down he had finally realized what Bowie had known earlier, that Sveti was always under guard, she could no way have been with anyone. But he’d been so blindly outraged that she was with other men, he’d lost his mind with jealousy and unrequited lust.
He still burned over her rejecting him on the shore, and feelings of jealousy were so foreign to him they had blindsided him.
Sexual tension gripped his brain and his balls, but he hadn’t the interest in relieving himself with another female. The thought of being with anyone other than Sveti made his stomach pitch sickly.
Bowie smiled sadly at her. Dev was, as she said, part beast, part man, a warrior born and bred to kill, and to rut like an animal. He had never been with a woman like Sveti before, soft, feminine, sweet, ladylike, innocent, he didn’t know how to handle her and it tied his balls and his brain into knots.
“It’s okay, honey, he’s the one who sent me here.”
The flaming brows arched dubious. “Why?”
With a slight chuckle he said, “It’s going to be a while before another ship is available for us to travel as far away as your brother, uh, that is, Dev said you would need clothes and stuff. So come on, we’re going shopping on his dime.”
She crossed her arms with a frown. “You are not saying that he is buying me clothes? Bowie, I don’t want anything from him. You tell him-”
His head wagging back and forth he said, “Nay, you have to know by now there is no denying Captain Dravidian when he orders something. If you don’t come with me, then he will come and take you himself. You do not want to be literally dragged through the station and the shops by a furious Devilos Dravidian. Trust me.”
Sveti regarded him guardedly. Seeing his implacable expression, she let out a sigh and acquiesced, “All right. Let’s get this over with.”
He was right, she had only a few borrowed items to wear, and no funds of her own to purchase more. The captain was holding her prisoner, it was his fault she had no clothes, so he might as well cough up for them.
Grinning large at her, Bowie opened the door, swept his hand out. “After you, sweetness,” and he closed the door after he followed her out.
He took her to shop after shop. Sveti had to argue with him the entire time. Bowie wanted her to wear scandalously sexy clothes and she told him adamantly she was not dressing as a hooker. The clothes she chose were going to be sent to her suite.
They had a leisurely lunch, then Bowie brought her to a large rec room where groups of people were playing cards and other games.
Seeing all the different kinds of people gathered there, she asked, “Why are we here?”
“I have work to do and I know you have been bored out of your mind, so I thought you might like to hang here for a while and play cards or some games.”
Sveti glanced around the busy room with interest. It was filled with tables and almost every chair was full. Conversation buzzed, some people were table hopping, visiting.
“Yes, that would be great, Bowie I have been bored.” She caught a flash of red near the door and saw Keldon. Her smile drooped. “I am still under guard?”
His lips pulled in, Bowie said, “Aye, sorry. With that warrant on you from your brother, anybody can, and will, take you there to collect on it. Dev is doing it because he wants you to get there, uh, safely. He’s also worried you will try to make a run for it again and without realizing, because, his words not mine, you are so green, naïve, you could hook up with someone, or something, dangerous to get away.”
“Huh,” she snorted, “more dangerous than him? Is there such a creature?”
A crooked grin kinked across his handsome face. “Aye, well, he’s not normally dangerous to innocent people. You just incite his brain and blood so much that you make him psychotic.”
Her lip curled in doubt. An ashen hue took the rosiness out of her cheeks. She spoke with misery in her eyes and voice, “Bowie, you know Krystian is either going to wed me himself, or he is going to sell me to- to any kind of creature that has a prince title.”
At his commiserating look, she flattened her palms on her stomach. “I’ve seen pictures of the…males that have responded to my brother’s flyer. Bowie, half of them don’t look human at all, some are like- like reptiles, and a- a thing with legs like a giant tarantula, you know what is out there.”
The skin pinched around her mouth and eyes in remembered horror. “I could end up with something like those bear-dogs that tortured me.” She confessed bleakly, “I still wake up screaming from nightmares of my captivity with them.”
The rest of the color drained from her face. “So I am to be mated with a vicious alien creature that might even butcher me after, uh, sex, as some of the species do when uh, intermingling with a different species, or I am to commit incest with Krystian. Bowie,” she put her hand on his arm.
“Krystian will insist on an heir. Our, my child, will be…damaged with our familial, our incestual blood. Ryen wanted a relationship with me but Krystian would have killed him if he had touched me.”
He regarded her sadly. “Uh, yeah, I know, Sveti.”
She pressed her hands together in prayer. “Bowie, can’t you help me? Can’t you help me escape from here? I won’t tell anyone you did it, I promise, please-”
Bowie’s heart clenched at the beautiful woman’s dire fear. “Nay, I cannot, Sveti. You must trust Dev, he won’t let you be harmed. I swear, he-”
“Yeah,” she snorted, “he won’t let anyone harm me. Anyone else, that is. Sure. That’s why his majordomo had to stop him from violently raping me.”
“I’m sorry, Sveti, his beast got the better of him. But he is more aware of it now and can control it,” maybe. “Besides, believe me, nothing can stop Dev, no
t even Brahms if he didn’t let him. You bring out something in Dev that he is unfamiliar with and it continues to take him by surprise. His beast comes out in battle, but not normally with sex.”
“Yeah, great,” Sveti choked a laugh, “I bring out the devil in him.”
“Uh, aye, kind of.” More than you know. “Anyway, Dev will help you. You need to trust him.”
“I did. At least he made it clear before…you know, at the river, that he would not be wanting involvement. Believe me, Bowie; it was crazy for me too. He had me so…”
She thought about it. “I can’t explain it, enraptured I guess it was. I mean, I’m supposed to wait until I am sold to a prince, or Krystian takes me himself, but, I…I don’t know what came over me to- to, I almost let him have his way with me. The captain had cast…like a spell I think, over me that day.”
Her voice saddened, eyes dimmed, she said in resignation, “But, I must do as Krystian deigns, he needs a prince for me or he will harm my family, my parents and brother. He is a prince of course, but the procedure for him to gain more power won’t work with us because our blood is too much the same. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”
She turned her back to him. Her voice small, sad, she said, “Thanks, Bowie, for taking me shopping,” she walked from him to find a table to join.
Bowie watched her impotently for a moment, then with a nod to Keldon, he left to go to work.
Hours later, after Bowie finished the last of the research graphing, he grabbed a quick dinner in his room then went to see Dev.
When Dev answered his knock, his long hair was loose and damp from his shower, although he had just shaved; his harshly angled jaw was always shadowed. A towel hung around his huge block of bare shoulders, the white of the cloth bright against the tanned skin and dark hair on his chest.
He had pulled on pants to answer the door, they were unbuttoned, his feet were bare. “Bow, what’s up?” he stepped aside to let Bowie enter.
Bowie held his palms up as if to ward off Dev. “Just listen to me, let me speak before you rip my head off.”
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