by Seth Eden
And she was watching him. Thinking about the way he'd touched her. In her memory it now was gentle, his hand on her arm, not his hand around her bound wrists as he drove her in front of him.
Now in memory she understood he'd taken her to keep her safe. That was it, wasn't it? not that he wanted her for himself like she was something to be traded, he'd done good and now he got his own little toy?
In her mind's eye –
But he was moving and the pulse between her legs jacked higher, she could feel herself getting wetter and she experimented, thinking again of what they'd done since they came to Earth and knowing yes, there were pheromones at work but no more than a couple beers might cause in her thinking process, her decision making process.
Nothing that would stop her from saying no.
If saying no was what she wanted to do.
He was on his feet. He was moving toward her. He was giving her time to say no. He was so huge but he reached out so slowly.
"May I touch your hair?"
She thought she'd die if he didn't. He stepped behind her and she felt a momentary surge of panic before he took her braid gently in his hands and she understood again he could kill her in a heartbeat so why worry about what he was doing? If he was going to, he was going to. The very inevitability of it was enough to calm her.
The very thought that he seemed unlikely to.
She relaxed as his hands began unweaving the braid, separating out the plaits and then gentling his fingers through it, combing it softly, gently, slowly, as her shoulders sank and the fight or flight calmed, her heartrate accelerating for different reasons.
"Your name is Cassi?"
It was hard to make herself speak but not for reasons of fear or hatred. She felt lulled by the pleasure of being touched so gently.
"Yes." Before he could tell her, if he'd planned to, she asked. "What's your name?" And expected to be given either his rank, or a flat denial.
"Danton Trask."
Surprised, she told the truth. "I like it."
There wasn't anything he could say to that so he didn't. He just continued playing with her hair, stroking it now, letting his fingers twine through it.
Until he stilled, then moved his hands to her shoulders.
Her breath was coming more shallow now. She reached her hands up without quite meaning to do it and ran them over his where they rested on her shoulders as if he were asking permission again to touch her.
Gently she slid his hands down her body, over her shoulders, down her collarbones, to her breasts.
She heard him sigh.
She let her own breath out as well.
His hands were huge, dwarfing her breasts, making her want to laugh and cry at the same time. Jayce had always said he didn't need more than a handful.
Danton Trask wasn't getting quite that.
But the way he touched her, rolling her hard nipples under his palms, he seemed happy enough with what she had and Cassi was catching her breath, little shocks and quakes racing through her at his touch.
"Am I hurting you?"
"No." She breathed it. "That feels. So. Good."
His laugh was low and warm. "Then I'll keep doing it."
Was this really supposed to be about her pleasure? But there'd been no distinct plan. It could be about anything. A sudden queasy feeling at the thought that the resistance might be listening in, and then she forgot about the mike, about telling them where they were or having them know what she was doing. She forgot about everything but Danton's hands on her breasts and his fingers tweaking and then rolling her nipples. About the warmth of his flesh when he finally slid his hands under her shirt, still standing behind her, the sensation incredible when he leaned in closer and his erection suddenly pressed against the back of her neck.
He was so tall. So broad. So muscular. She should have guessed that what he'd have between his legs would be truly awesome.
She sucked in her breath, suddenly both afraid and wanting it more than she could possibly admit.
She wriggled back against him and felt him stiffen in surprise and then press against her.
It all speeded up then. He lifted her from the chair, sweeping her into his arms from where she'd sat sideways on the very end of the bed. He held her as he sank back, as if she weighed nothing, and brought her down so she lay on his chest, facing into him, her eyes on his.
Slowly he moved toward her, closing his eyes at the last minute even though she hadn't closed hers. His mouth covered hers and she panicked, the blood still on her tongue, but when he touched her, it was gentle, his tongue filling her mouth, and she knew when he tasted the blood, knew for him it was another part of the experience because he became harder still under her until she couldn't stand waiting.
Even as she kissed him back she slid her hands down between them, letting his enormous hard cock fill her hands through his pants. The move felt daring, as if he might kill her for it, as if he might be more sensitive than a human male or she might violate some taboo and he'd snap her in half and leave her bleeding.
Until someone came to tidy up dinner.
Even those thoughts weren't enough to stop her. He hadn't hurt her. She didn't think he would. All she wanted was to touch him.
"I don't want to hurt you."
As if he'd been reading her mind but she thought instead he was judging his size to hers even as she scrabbled to get his pants off.
"I don't care," she said, and that wasn't true, so she tried again. "I'll risk it. I want you."
He stood, then, already naked to the waist, and kicked off the boots he still wore, then tore off the pants as if they offended him by being between them.
He wore nothing under them, just clean skin and a fringe of dark hair, not at all what she'd expect given how hirsute the males were, and then the cock got all her attention.
His glorious, enormous, ragingly hard cock. Eight inches, she thought, at least, and maybe thick around as her wrist. She almost panicked at the thought and promised herself she wouldn't measure, wouldn't freak out, wouldn't do anything but offer herself to the lover she'd chosen.
She lay back on the bed and pulled the tank over her head. Bare, her breasts caught the unforgiving over head light. His eyes riveted on them and he stepped forward, not asking this time, cupping them lightly in hands that could so easily end her life and instead touched her as if he were afraid of breaking her.
He bent his head and lapped at them, bit them, and Cassi had an instant to panic when the needle sharp bite came, but it was over before she could say anything, before she could scream or try to run, and he was suckling on it, sucking her breast hard and playing with the other, his head on her chest, his hands on her breast. In her hair. Between her legs.
He finished drinking and lay her back on the bed, tenting her knees as he drew his fingers along her slick hot folds, touching her, breathing her in, before he slid two fingers up inside her and Cassi found herself coming harder than she could ever remember from that touch alone. She writhed on the bed, feeling the pulsing expand and grow more intense with every touch until she wanted to cry out, tell him it's too much and beg him to stop.
She didn't and the last mind shattering orgasm ripped through her just before he knelt on the bed, between her legs, pushing her back and up the bed and laying down so the tip of his cock rested just inside her.
His eyes locked on hers. "Are you sure?"
And Cassi nodded.
His flesh was cold. That was one of the things she noticed. When she ran her hands over his chest, it wasn't just the muscle or the slick, silk feel of his skin, the zero body fat, the lush muscle.
It wasn't just where they were, because the room was warm enough. It wasn't taking his clothes off. His skin was cold to the touch. Enough that at first touch she'd pulled back, surprised.
Now as he thrust inside her, his erection thick and hard and filling her up, she realized why he was so cold and with a start, wondered if she was dreaming or if she'd hallucinated t
o get herself here.
She was fucking the Vampyren. This wasn't what she'd come here to do. He wasn't who she'd been looking for.
But everything felt right. Except the cold. The chill, blue cold of his flesh. She mouthed the word Vampire to herself and resolved not to worry about it.
Seconds later he looked down into her eyes, his own eyes asking a question she didn't want to answer. But every time he thrust his hips she found new heights, her nerves singing, the sweet friction building until she wanted to cry out, wanted to sink her teeth into his flesh –
And realized that's what he needed to do to her.
She read the question there. Knew that without it, he would never come. He'd only be able to satiate her. to leave her limp with pleasure and himself tense and aching.
She nodded her submission before she could think the better of it.
This time he didn't ask if she were sure. One quick needle bite and the pain screamed into pleasure. Cassi let her head fall back and she screamed, her heels beating out a rhythm on the bed as his fangs dug into her throat, not tearing, not ripping, not leaving her a bloody mass of hamburger like so many of his brothers did.
It was clean, neat, nearly surgical, as if he had simply cut her with a small, small blade.
Her pleasure increased a hundred times over. Her clit throbbed, hard and pleasured with the friction of his pumping erection moving in and out, so huge he rubbed on every part of her, so long he seated himself to the hilt with every thrust.
She cried out sharply and he moaned into the sound, his mouth coming down over hers, still spicy and metallic with her blood. It should have gagged her but she ignored it, feeling his tongue in her mouth again, the pleasure of him inside her, the warmth blooming in his skin until he tipped his head back and roared, jetting into her, filling her with hot seed.
She had warmed him. The thought echoed in her mind as her own orgasm took her, leaving her a throbbing, aching, delirious mess of joy.
Then the world and everything in it began to fade and Cassi opted to go with it, just for a little while.
She closed her eyes and let the world fade to black.
16
DANTON
He didn't want to leave her there.
L an came to get him a scant half hour after they had pulled apart and fallen asleep in each other's arms the way humans and Vampyren did not.
"T here's been another attack," Lan said, standing at the door to Danton's room and waiting for Danton to move aside and grant him access. When that didn't happen, he looked past and Danton knew he saw a woman in his bed, but he couldn't possibly see who.
"Where? Did we lose anyone?" He was ready to go back in the room and dress, but he wanted Lan to go. He wasn't ready for the truth of him and Cassi to reach anyone's ears.
L an didn't back off and he didn't step away. Instead he said, "I thought the commander gave you the captive. What have you done with her?" Before the color bloomed in his face as he understood and then as he saw Danton didn't intend to move.
"Her? That's what you did? You went on wanting her after that day. What did you do to find her?"
His voice dripped contempt, as if there was no reason any of them should risk anything for a human female.
Danton stepped in front of the open door, blocking his best friend's view. "Tell me about the attack." His voice was calm and steady.
Lan had never been one to take misdirection. Physically shoving Danton aside, he stuck his head in the door and whistled low in his throat.
"I don't know what you did, but command must be pretty proud of you. I can't imagine for anything else they'd give up a prize like her."
Danton shook his head. He wanted the conversation over with. At the same time he needed to know what that meant.
He made his voice harsh. "She's a stupid human girl. She was doing something foolish when we saw her and gave chase. No one is even going to ask for her back. It isn't a prize."
Everything he could think to do except to mark her his, a brand, a scent, his pheromone. But females could go crazy from that. It was just that, for the first time, he didn't even want his best friend and brother in arms to know about his woman.
F or the first time ever he didn't want to share what he had with his best friend.
T he next words unraveled his hope of keeping her to himself.
"Y ou've been called up. They want you to lead one of the units against the women."
He shook himself, coming back to attention. "Why me?"
L an shrugged. "We're to lead it together. They believe you can learn something from the woman."
A s if all human women knew the same things.
He wasn't the only one called up, which made more sense. A handful of Vampyren had been brought up to deal with the threat of the women.
He thought they might want to bring in more but even with the slaughter at the theater the Vampyren command refused to take the women seriously. They were human, they were female.
T hey couldn't be that much of a threat.
"We've put together games for tomorrow night," the commander told the five of them. "Well publicized. Another huge theater." He shook his head at the excesses of humans. "We're hoping it will draw them out. Our teams will be able to take them into custody and question them."
A t what cost? Danton wondered. Daily there were fewer of them in this city. They still held the human population down. Easily, in fact. But their numbers were dwindling.
Humans folded easily, it seemed, but they didn't stay down.
L an had told him command must be proud of him, the fact that he'd been given the woman. Maybe, but by that same token he wondered if now he'd done something to warrant punishment..
Because the plan sounded like it was going to lead to a bloodbath. Set up an event the teams of armed women were likely to try and hit. Pack in the Vampyren, watching the games. Every single one of them armed.
What could possibly go wrong?
But questioning command wasn't done. He tried to let the passion and pride fill him again, the way it had after the rally, but all he felt was doubt and concern.
A nd a longing to go back to where she waited.
He had not liked leaving her alone with Lan.
17
CASSI
"Y ou're his woman now?"
C assi took a shallow breath. There was so little room in the quarters assigned to Danton and even that was apparently some kind of reward for service. Wherever she move to, it was either too close to the new Vampyren she'd been left alone with, or it was on the bed, which was just too uncomfortable.
Whatever pheromones there were, they weren't working here.
"I 'm my own woman." It sounded stupid and childish but she wasn't a prize that Danton could just pass off to his bother in arms. That despite the centuries women had been treated as war prizes.
T he newcomer was every bit as beautiful as any of the invaders. He was a little shorter than Danton, she thought, and just as heavily muscled.
A nd he hadn't tried to touch her, she realized, letting the tiniest bit of her guard down. She thought he might be injured, the way he moved, favoring one side. It wasn't easy to spot but her martial arts training had exposed her to an entire school full of people who refused to admit when something had hurt them or some body part continued to hurt.
T hat didn't mean she was safe from him, or that in any way she wanted him there. She wasn't stupid enough to reach out with any kind of comfort, not just because it almost undoubtedly would be mistaken for something else. But because even human males snapped when a weakness they were hiding was exposed.
They'd just have to coexist until Danton came back.
She didn't even know if he would.
18
DANTON
T he theater was packed. The fights, if they'd been real and not imaginary, sounded like they would have been good ones. Danton found he had the stomach for them this evening, maybe because of the slaughter at the last one.
I t was weird being at an event without Lan. They usually went together, bloodlust and violence soaring at the same time. They hunted and fought well together.
But the Vampyren around him were more than enough to raise his fighting spirit. They were teammates, males he'd protect if something happened, who would in turn protect him.
T hey carried laser rifles. They carried human hand guns. They carried wicked knives with serrated blades.
A nd they waited and watched for the women.
T he attack came midway into the third match. By then the men who didn't know what the evening was about were sated or drunk, depending on their constitutions and how thoroughly they'd imbibed the blood of the first humans to fall in the games.
T he military men drank none of it, holding out, theoretically, for the more intense games with the stronger, more virile men whose matches would end the evening's entertainment.
One minute it was pandemonium in the theater, even the ones meant to be watching getting into the entertainment. They were on their feet, screaming, roaring for the kill as a Vampyren circled and blooded his opponent, easily dodging the human's blows and using a sharp edged cudgel to break bones and blood the man. The theater started to smell of metal and salt, the smell of blood permeating the air.
F rom the back of the theater, there came sounds that didn't fit. Not music, canned tonight because there wasn't time to arrange for a band, and it wasn't vendors. It was out of place.
T hey'd slipped up. Despite the numerous attacks in metro areas across the country, tonight one of the women had moved too fast, not waiting for the others around the ring.
I n an instant the soldiers were up, sealing the entrances and exits, shouting orders to each other, every other one of them seeming to ask the same question Danton had: What if the other women weren't inside yet? They didn't hit the same way each time, they didn't even hit the games each time. What if they were outside, waiting for a signal?