His skin was sinfully soft and his hair…there was nothing in Shadow as bright as his silky hair. Lowering his mouth to the man’s ear, Axoev whispered, “You have excited me with your need for the ancient rite of the hunt.”
The man went still, making Axoev think he was consenting, so Axoev rocked his hips, rubbing his rapidly hardening cock along the split of his slave’s tight little bottom. A sudden, shockingly powerful urge to plant his prick deep and find release compelled Axoev to wish he had something with him to ease his way. Although, it would not be quite normal practice to claim the man without knowing his name or assuring himself of his consent. Just because he was given in payment did not strip the man of all his rights.
“I fear your running has aroused me so that I almost…” The man now struggled against Axoev, his fear more clear by action than any spoken words could ever convey. After a moment, Axoev realized his faunsha was afraid of him and not the creatures in the cave. Moreover, there was no consent between them.
“You are impossibly brave.” Axoev’s statement got the man to stop fighting his fearsome embrace. Axoev released his mouth, but rather than let go of him, he turned him, so they were face-to-face. And now the man’s fear was perfectly plain. His eyes, his unusual alien eyes that were darker blue than the sky and edged with white rather than black, were wide with fear, and his lower lip trembled.
“Let me go.”
“I will not hurt you.”
“Yes you will.” He struggled again, but he was so thin and small that he was no match for Axoev. “You’re going to give me to the leader, and he’ll fuck me until I die.”
The words were different from what Axoev and his people used, but the ideas came through perfectly clear. With all that he’d said, all of it wrong, Axoev wasn’t certain where to start. He decided he would begin with the simplest things and work his way up from there.
“Where did Wetoo find you?”
“He stole me from another. Who also stole me from another.”
The slave didn’t seem proud of the fact he was so highly prized by so many. “Who do you belong to?”
“Me.” Tears filled his eyes and tumbled down pale cheeks. “I belong to me.”
Axoev was used to taking what he wanted and being given what he needed, but this young man was clearly not of this world. “Where do you come from?”
“Earth.”
“What is your name?”
“Darin.”
The translator put his name into terms that matched the Clan Shadow way of naming. “In my world you would be called He who Dares.” Axoev’s entire name was He who cuts like an Axe. Since the names were far too long, they also had shortened versions.
Darin didn’t lift his head but looked up with a curious expression on his face. “Are you making fun of me?”
“No. You are daring in that you entered the cave of tearhusks.” Axoev pointed and Darin followed his finger.
“So?”
“They can kill a man if they sting him enough.”
When a wave of shock seemed to wash down Darin’s body, Axoev become even more convinced he had no idea of the dangers lurking for him on this world. Straight away, Axoev knew the right thing to do was to take Darin back to his world. But Axoev needed a faunsha to put off the women of his clan. Perhaps, they could help each other.
“I can help you get back to your world.”
“You can?” Darin looked up with so much hope swimming in his gaze it made him a hundred times more beautiful when he was already deeply stunning. Just as quickly as the appeal rose, it vanished when his brows lowered and he frowned. “What do you want?”
How Axoev wished he could say nothing, but that would be a lie. He needed time with this man to put the scheming women off. Not that Axoev didn’t like them. He did. They were valued members of the clan. But Axoev wasn’t ready for all of that. He liked to hunt and to fight and to do what he wanted to do without worrying about women and children.
“I’m not going to let you stick your dick in me, so you can just get over it.” Darin crossed his arms over his chest, clearly trying to look defiant, but he ended up looking like a pouting child. He was far too small to look stout by puffing up his chest. “Even if you are smaller than that other guy, I’m not some kind of blow-up doll you can just pass around, and—”
Axoev placed a finger gently to Darin’s mouth to stop him from talking. When Axoev turned his head carefully, he realized sounds had stopped in the direction of where the sun would soon set. Sieg was gaining on them. Not like it took a mighty hunter to find two loudly talking men in the forest, but still, for Sieg, it was quite an accomplishment. More likely than not, he’d been following something else that had led him to them.
“If you will do as I ask, I will refrain from inserting my cock into you.” Axoev immediately wanted to take that offer back because he actually wanted to penetrate Darin, but he had forgone his needs so far. Another season wouldn’t kill him. “But you must put on a show that you are welcoming of my attention. Can you do that?” Axoev hoped that Sieg would stick to his usual behavior and talk incessantly of what he’d seen. If he did, he could set the stage for Axoev to delay settling down for at least another season if not two.
Under his shushing finger, Darin frowned.
Axoev wished he would not do that with his face, as it took him from beauty to ugly in the blink of an eye.
“I swear, I will honor your right to own yourself if you will honor my right to thwart unwelcomed lusts.”
This caused Darin’s eyes to widen.
Tentatively, Axoev removed his finger.
“Are you telling me that you are being lusted after by one of those big guys?” Darin pointed in the direction of Sieg, making Axoev realize he, too, had an innate understanding of how to track men through the forest. “Yeah, I can hear him.” Darin leaned closer. “He doesn’t walk so much as he stomps around.”
Axoev wanted to laugh, but refrained. “Do you agree that we shall help one another?”
“I thought you were the leader?”
“I am.”
“But you’re like a foot shorter than everyone.”
This time, Axoev tossed back his head and laughed. He couldn’t help himself. What Darin said was the same thing he’d heard all his life. “I am too short to lead, too short to be strong, too short to be many things, yet I have managed to do everything I have set my mind to.”
“Except keep the horny males at bay,” Darin pointed out triumphantly.
Once the word was translated, Axoev said, “It’s not their attentions I am looking to thwart.”
“No?”
“No. Men sometimes satisfy another if they choose, but everyone fears me in that way.”
“Why?”
“Because they worry if they don’t please me I will not choose them for certain honors.”
“Like what?”
“You are highly inquisitive.” Axoev found he liked that about Darin. Asking lots of questions showed curiosity and intelligence. However, now was not the time. “My men want to be seen a certain way. Besides, it’s not their attentions I wish to thwart but those of the women.”
“Women?”
“As the leader, I am expected to have many women and give them many children.”
“But you don’t want to?”
“No. At least not now.” Axoev didn’t have to look over his shoulder to know that Sieg was very close. “If you wish to be found by Sieg and become his faunsha, then I will go.” Barely was he a step away before Darin was at his side, willingly taking his hand.
“What do I have to do to be your pretend sex slave?”
“We must convince Sieg that—” When the man in question emerged from the forest, there was no time for Axoev to explain. He scooped Darin up, parted his legs around his hips, and pressed him against the nearest tree.
Exhaling a gasp of surprise, Darin looked to be on the verge of struggling or complaining, so Axoev did the only thing he could think
of. He kissed him. Hard and possessive, he pinned Darin against the tree, kissing him as he ground his cock into the fork made by Darin’s spread legs. What Axoev wasn’t prepared for was a streak of possessive arousal to pulse through him. In the same shocking wave came a need to protect Darin’s much less tough form.
Cupping Darin’s soft-skinned buttocks into his hands, Axoev pulled him away from the tree and now lifted and lowered him against the need in his trousers. Each pass tightened his cock. To his deep satisfaction, he realized Darin was hard, too. Darin’s cock was nudging against Axoev’s belly each time he lifted him.
“Oh, God, I’m going to—I’m going to—” Darin clung to Axoev’s shoulders as he released against Axoev’s belly. The shock of his peaking pleasure pushed Axoev’s need to rise.
Holding Darin balanced with one arm, Axoev pushed down his own trousers and then rubbed his aching cock against Darin’s wonderfully smooth flesh. It only took a few passes for Axoev to find release. When he did, he pulled Darin tight, and pretended he was buried inside him. The fantasy probably wasn’t nearly as good as the reality, but it gave Axoev a powerful climax that marked his faunsha with the product of his release.
“So you win.” Sieg did not look disappointed in the least.
“So I did.” Axoev looked down at Darin and saw something he wasn’t expecting to see. Darin looked stunned. “Did I hurt you?” If he had, he feared their tentative deal would be off, he would be shamed before one of his men, and at the next fire he would have to place his blanket on the ground and allow the women to choose him.
Chapter 3
Darin could have said that Axoev had hurt him, but it would be a lie. For the first time in his life, he’d had an orgasm with someone else. Perhaps that had not been Axoev’s intention when he started vigorously rubbing up on Darin, but that had been the result. And what a result. Darin came so hard and long he was pretty sure he’d almost blinded himself. All his fear and anxiety seemed to bundle up and shoot from his body. When he’d felt Axoev fumbling with his pants, he was afraid the moment for penetration had come, but instead, Axoev only ground his bare prick against Darin’s bare skin. It was frantic and sexy, and Axoev had come so hard he’d growled like a beast.
Mutual satisfaction had been had, so there was no way Darin was going to make it ugly when it was anything but. “I’m not hurt.”
“Good.” Axoev smiled, revealing that, like Sieg, his teeth were white but not perfectly straight. Still, he had a devastating smile. Handsome and sneaky all at once. “I felt out of control with need.”
“Me, too.” Darin peered into eyes that were totally unlike his own and discovered that he wasn’t afraid anymore. Axoev wasn’t an uncouth barbarian with no sense of others’ needs. If anything, he was a conscientious leader who was only trying to do his best for both his people and himself. “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Not hurting me.”
“I would never hurt you.” Axoev kissed him very gently then set him down on his feet.
Darin stood there feeling overwhelmed. He thought for sure he was going to be given to a grunting Neanderthal who would force him to do all kinds of degrading things. Instead, he got to go to someone he instantly liked.
“With that mark on him, all will know he’s been claimed by you.”
Darin had no idea what Sieg was talking about until he looked down. There was a black mark across his belly. Baffled, he reached down to touch it but stopped when he realized what it was.
“Your cum is black?” Darin found that strange but not repulsive, much like their eyes being reversed.
“Yours is white.” Axoev was clearly more adventurous than Darin. Way more so because he not only touched Darin’s spurt across his belly, but tasted it as well. “And very salty.”
Unable to control himself, Darin blushed. It was such a shockingly intimate thing for Axoev to do. Tentatively, he reached down and touched the spurt Axoev had made. It had that same odd slipperiness just like human ejaculate, but the color was simply fascinating. After touching it, he lifted his finger to his mouth and tasted it before he could think too much about what he was doing.
“It’s almost sweet.” When Darin dared to meet Axoev’s gaze, he found the leader of the clan was attentively watching his mouth. Again, Darin blushed. He’d never had anyone look at him quite like that.
Sieg turned, running back toward the camp, bellowing about how the leader had a new faunsha. Axoev grinned, placed his forehead against Darin’s, and said, “I believe I will regret the deal I made with you.”
“What do you mean?” Darin realized Axoev could go back on his word and there wouldn’t be anything Darin could do about it. It wasn’t like they had a signed contract. Out here, a man’s word was the only thing that bound him.
“Watching you taste of me made me think of placing my cock in your mouth.” Axoev reached up and stroked one of his massive and very callused fingers over Darin’s lips. “Not by force, but with you willing. Eager. Hungry.”
Darin wasn’t certain what to do, so he stood there like a simpleton while Axoev kissed him seductively. All his life he’d wanted to know what it would be like to be chased after by a powerful man. Here he was, getting his wish, and he was utterly terrified. He felt tossed around by a strange push-pull between wanting to become Axoev’s wanton slave and keeping his chastity so he could be with one of his own kind.
“Forgive me. I know you must be cold. Allow me to carry you.”
Dreading that he would be tossed over his shoulder, Darin was touched and then a little embarrassed when Axoev scooped him up into his arms. He was so strong that his embrace was a little like being hugged by a refrigerator. Well, except for the warmth. Axoev seemed to be pumping out heat like a furnace.
“I find I am now looking forward to the next fire.”
What he’d said blended so seamlessly with Darin’s thoughts he wondered if Axoev didn’t have some kind of mental link to him. Then he realized he was being silly. “What’s that?”
“Once a spin, those of the Clan Shadow gather in the clearing. We build a big fire and talk of what has been done, what needs to be done, and I hear grievances.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad.” Darin was beginning to enjoy being carried in Axoev’s arms. He strode through the forest barefoot and didn’t seem to even be breathing hard. Clearly, he was in much better shape than Darin. Fewer video games and more outside time were probably what he needed to get healthier. When he got back to Earth, Darin was going to change things. No more slumping around all day claiming he was working. He was actually going to get up, go out, and do things. “Your fire sounds like a town meeting.”
“It’s not horrible.” Axoev’s forehead wrinkled up, indicating there was something about it that bothered him. “Well, you will see since the time has come round again.”
“Tonight?”
“Tomorrow night.”
They used different words for noting the passage of time, but their translators converted so that they could understand one another. From what Axoev said, his planet counted the time by the spinning of the twin moons. Basically, he was talking about twenty-five days. Close enough for Darin to think in terms of months. From what Axoev had said, his clan got together once a month for what sounded like a big family meeting.
“I think it sounds like fun.”
“For some. For me it is all work.” Axoev seemed to be debating whether he should say more. Ultimately, he must have trusted Darin enough to share. “And then there is the issue with women wishing to fight for the privilege of sitting on my blanket.”
“The women fight over you?” Darin couldn’t help but picture something like a Jerry Springer show with name calling, hair pulling, and chair bashing.
“It is the custom.”
“So having me stops that?”
“Yes.” Axoev looked relieved, and Darin realized rather disappointingly that pretending to be something he wasn’t might be more work than he thought.
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“What do I have to do, exactly?”
“I will tell you, but first, I will take you to my home, get you cleaned up, and dressed.” Axoev strode out of the forest and right toward the tree Darin had almost been pulled up. The box was still there, as were two other dangling ropes.
Darin looked up but couldn’t see Axoev’s house. “How will I get up there?”
Axoev considered Darin’s arm. “You are not strong enough to pull yourself up.”
“Am too!” Darin realized it was an automatic defense mechanism that made him sound twelve.
“I see we have more than lust in common.”
Darin was baffled.
“Like me, you don’t like hearing that you cannot do something.” Axoev looked at Darin with far more indulgence than Darin would have expected.
“I guess I get defensive.”
“As I once did.” Axoev looked to the bark of the tree then pointed to Darin’s feet. “Are the soles of your feet soft?”
Darin lifted one foot to examine the bottom and almost winced because it was so soft. When Axoev reached over and stroked his finger along the sole, Darin giggled, dropping his hold on his ankle.
“And ticklish, too. Well.” Axoev grinned. “I see keeping you in line will not be difficult.”
“It’s not like I’m going to defy you at every turn.” Then again, Darin didn’t really know much about Axoev’s world. So far it seemed pretty simple, almost idyllic. “How did you learn to climb up?”
“Practice.” Axoev took one of the ropes in hand and showed Darin how to wrap his fists around it so that he could climb up while having a good grip.
When Darin grasped the rope, he realized that it was slightly sticky. It didn’t seem to leave a residue but rather gave him an excellent grip. He realized rather suddenly it wasn’t really rope in the classical sense but something the tree made.
“It’s alive.” Darin abruptly let go.
“Yes. The tree uses these to drink from the air.”
Enslaved by a Barbarian [Sold! 6] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic ManLove) Page 3