She tried to focus on Zvarin through her blurring eyes. Was he going to keep her as a prisoner or set her free? She didn’t understand his intentions. All that she knew was that it was in within his power to do whatever he chose with her. If he chose to rape her at this very moment, she would be powerless to fight back. The force field was too effective. Her shoulders blazed afresh with pain.
Zvarin suddenly sneered at her. “The pitiful men on Earth may not realize what a rare gem you are, but I am literally a hundred times the men they are; I value you for who you are. You will be mine.” With that vehement declaration, Zvarin lowered his face to attack her lips with a brutal kiss.
Para felt as though her stomach had imploded. Her first instinct was to scream, but the sound was muffled by being unable to open her mouth, and having another face forcing itself against hers. She felt Zvarin’s tongue diving between her lips and felt his teeth rake against her bottom lips. Every deva atom, every deva molecule, every deva organelle, every deva cell and tissue of her body throbbed in protest and resistance, yearning and yearning to be given a fair chance to fight. Her body begged to do what she had been born to do and fight. Instead, all that she could do was lie stock-still, imprisoned in the green mist, as tears slipped from her eyes. She stopped struggling and trying to make vocalizations, since it was having no effect.
Zvarin raised his hungry face from hers. “Kiss me back,” he demanded, piercing her with the violet flames.
She felt that her head was suddenly freed from the bind. Nothing below her neck was mobile. Her first thought went to her banshee attack, but she dreaded what Zvarin would do if she disobeyed him. Would he snap his fingers and snap her neck along with it? She didn’t hesitate for long as she opened her lips to grant him access to her mouth. She felt her body invaded by the alien taste of the man who had already invaded her mind without her consent. She thought of how she could unleash a single ear-piercing scream and send a point-blank blast directly from her throat and into his skull. But would it be fast enough? Would it be enough to kill him?
She thought of her mother and grandmother. She owed it to them, to Rose and Amelia to not gamble with her life. Even if she didn’t owe it to herself. But I do owe it to myself, Para thought as more tears began to cascade down her cheeks. I can’t just go all kamikaze on Zvarin right now, because my best friend is attached to me, and I'm responsible for her life too. I can’t let anything happen to Pax or Amara.
Zvarin very suddenly pulled away from her, feeling her tears. He rubbed his hand over her face, soaking it in the saltwater before clenching his fist in disgust. “These, too, are universal in what they communicate!” he roared. “Do you know how many women would die for the privilege to kiss the supreme ruler of the Seven Galaxies?”
“No,” Para answered in a menacingly calm voice, “but I have some idea of how many would die if they didn’t.”
Zvarin’s energy levels suddenly began to increase, and an inky black aura surrounded him. Para wondered if he was going to unleash some kind of finishing move on her while she was frozen to the ground. “I will have you as my wife, Princess Para. You can count on that.” Zvarin sneered at her and she noticed that he didn’t look quite as handsome as she had previously thought. “I always get what I want,” he declared.
“I imagine you do,” she answered in the same terrifyingly calm tone. The most she could manage while frozen from the head down was to be disrespectful and insolent. It was something. Even that small something was wonderful, for it began to kindle an exuberant anger in her chest. Her wrath was awakening, and she tried to contain it and wait for the right moment to allow it to explode.
“But you will come to me willingly. Do you hear me, Para? I won’t stoop to force myself on you. I will have you willingly. When everyone you love turns their back on you for the horrible things that you’ve done to them, and for all the lies you’ve told—no one else will want you for who you are except me! I will be the only one great enough to understand you. I will be the only one low enough to love you.”
Para’s eyes widened at these words. They struck a chord within her, stinging and reverberating with more agony than actually dying could have yielded.
“That’s right, little one,” Zvarin said with a maniacal laugh. He leaned forward so that his face was very close to hers once more. “I’m setting you free. You may go home to your precious family and precious Earth, but remember that you belong to me. Remember what the outcome will be. In two years or so, when I come for you, you will beg me to take you away. You will happily fall into my arms, and offer yourself to me.”
“You’re delusional,” Para spat through clenched teeth.
He laughed again, and the sound chilled her insides, prickling her broken bones with skewers of ice. “You will change your mind before long.” Zvarin smashed his lips against hers for another vicious kiss. He pulled away just as violently, crudely running a thumb over her mouth with a vulgar grin.
“What if I changed it now?” she suddenly said, regretting the words as she spoke them. “What if I chose to be with you now? Would you refrain from traveling to Earth? Would you leave my home planet alone?”
“I am a conqueror. I have nothing else to do but venture out and conquer all the habitable lands I can find.”
“So there’s no bargaining with you.”
“No.”
“I see,” she said. She stared up at her enemy in quiet rage. “Fine. You can try to take Earth, but my fathers will stop you.”
“Young, foolish girl. You know that no man is my equal.”
She closed her lips tightly. Checkmate. He’s going to come for us, and we’re not going to be able to do anything to stop him. He’s won, and he knows it. Suja was successful—this is going to hurt Sakra more than anything else in history.
“If you’re worried about how that pretty boy of yours will feel about all this—Thorn, I believe his name was? Don’t be worried. I will kill him.”
There it was. Something broke inside of her. Her prana levels skyrocketed, consuming her body with ethereal energy. She still couldn’t break the force field, but her anger was pumping through her veins in physical form and making her tremble.
“If you do that,” she said in a soft and achingly sweet voice, “I promise that I will kill myself. If you hurt or murder anyone I love, or any of my family members, I will destroy myself and you won’t have me. So think about your plan of attack very carefully, Lord Zvarin. I’d hate to think of how many thousands of women you would have to glue together to make one as powerful as I am.”
He seemed to consider her threat very seriously for a moment.
“I am not joking, Zvarin. I do not fear death. I think the afterlife will be quite comfortable, from what Sakra has told me. So, go on and do what you feel like doing. I don’t care.”
“I see,” he answered. “You know of some things which I do not. Perhaps I will alter my plan to achieve domination. I will consider compromising to your desires.”
“Oh, I certainly hope you will. Don’t be foolish, Lord Zvarin,” she said in a lilting melodious tone, as smooth as honey. It was the voice Suja had often used when threatening her, and it was her turn to give him chills of dread. “You know that no woman is my equal.”
Zvarin stared at her for several seconds before nodding. “This may be true, Para. You are one, only one, amongst billions of beings. I understand your conditions, and as I said before, I am quite reasonable.”
Para allowed a touch of relief to enter her eyes. Had she guaranteed the safety of her friends, and family, and planet? A massive victory, with just her words?
“But I do not take kindly to being bargained with like a common seller of wares in the market. I will have what I want, and I will have it in the way I want.”
The relief disappeared and the tension was immediately reinstated. Zvarin was advancing on her again, and Para felt that she had not achieved any victory whatsoever. Zvarin positioned his body over hers again and leaned close to
her. He pressed his lips against her ear, speaking softly against the tender skin.
“There is a man on a nearby planet. A guru of sorts,” he hissed. “This man has been trying to convince me to merge with him for quite some time. He has the most interesting of skills. Would you like to know what it is, Para?”
She swallowed her saliva. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, but was fairly sure she was going to learn anyway.
“He has the ability to make another person forget certain things. A true psychic singularity. The only reason I hadn’t already joined with him is because he has rather dull, limp hair. I prefer for my hair to continue being lustrous and voluminous, but I suppose he won’t make such a huge impact.”
“What’s your point?” she asked impatiently
“My point is this, Princess,” Zvarin seethed, gripping her face and forcefully yanking her chin so that she faced him squarely. She winced as she felt the bone of her jaw being fractured under his fingers. His grip was so effortlessly severe that she could hardly keep from screaming. “When I reach your quaint little fleapit, I could use that skill on you and make you forget all about your dear old friends and family. Then I could murder them right before your eyes, one by one, starting with that little pretty boyfriend of yours, and you wouldn’t even care because you wouldn’t remember who he was! Then I would finish with those fathers of yours which are supposedly so strong, but we’ll see about that, won’t we?”
Para's blood had begun to boil with his words, and tears of wrath had begun to gather in her eyes again. “If you touch them!” she screamed, with a wraithlike sound that came from the bottom of her chest. It was painful to move her crushed jaw, but she didn’t care. She was beyond feeling pain. “If you dare harm them, there will be hell to pay! You fucking bastard!”
“No, Para, dear. You won’t even care a smidgeon. In fact, I could probably ask you to do it for me. Wouldn’t that be entertaining? Yes, watching you kill your own flesh and blood! Watching you slaughter the King of Devas! The pretty boy with the blonde hair, and his good friend Ash.”
Para might have liked to think she was responsible for what happened next, but she was hardly in control of her faculties. The eerie scream which erupted from her throat was one of such pain and fury that it took on the form of destructive energy. A red beam of light shot out of her mouth like a missile from a cannon, aimed directly at Zvarin at point blank range.
Zvarin quickly moved his head to the side to dodge the beam, but not before it grazed the side of his head, burning off a chunk of his hair and scalp. “My hair!” he shouted, moving a hand to his scalp in surprise. “You brazen wench!”
The red prana projectile had continued past him to carve a hole into the roof of his conservatory. Para followed it up by spitting on him in disgust.
“That’s what I can do with only my mouth, Zvarin!” she shouted. “Test me if you dare! Free me from this force field, and let’s have a fair fight. Fight me like a man, and I’ll show you what I can do with the rest of my body!”
Zvarin snarled, his eyes and face taking on the look of an angry wild animal. Blood dripped down the side of his head, and he grabbed Para by the throat. He flung her across the room, until she collided with a wall, making a small crater in the stone. He followed an instant later, and resumed his death grip on her throat with one of his hands.
Para knew that she was in danger. If he crushed her neck the way he had already crushed her shoulders and jaw—but he wouldn’t, right? He wanted her to be his wife. Would that be enough to keep her alive? Did he even know how much he had harmed her with his touch, or was he not used to his strength yet?
“Sweet Para,” Zvarin said in a husky tone, increasing the pressure on her neck. “I would very much like to see what you can do with the rest of your body.”
Para was horrified when she saw what was on Zvarin’s face. She was so horrified that she forgot that she was being choked half to death. She couldn’t believe what was happening when his free hand reached for her skirt and began to pull it up around her hips.
“N—no,” she said, her voice muffled by being choked. “P—please! Stop!”
It had never been more inconvenient to be immobilized. Para closed her eyes and tried to wish it away, she tried to do anything to stop what was about to happen. She felt Zvarin’s hands slide to the inside of her thighs, and she didn’t know whether she should mentally pray or curse. Her thoughts jumbled in some combination of both. When his hands pushed aside her underwear, she heard a pathetic whimpering sound and was disgusted to realize that it was coming from her own partially-strangled throat.
I can’t wait to wet my dick in this tight piece of alien twat.
Her eyes snapped wide open. The telepathy had chosen this moment to start working again. Being able to read minds had never made her want to projectile vomit quite so strongly. Bile rose in her throat as she felt his large coarse fingers try to navigate their way into her flesh. How she hated those large hands of his. Everywhere they touched her body they seemed to want to destroy her.
Her entrance was closed and dry. She was in the mood for war, not sex. She gritted her teeth as she felt his felt his vulgar fingering rake her most sensitive area. Pain exploded throughout her, but it was more the psychological aspect of the defilement which shook Para to her core.
Since she had first used the coalescence technique, she had felt so invincible. Zvarin was probably the only man in existence who was powerful enough to molest her. It was an unfortunate coincidence that he would also try to exercise that ability.
Power. As he maliciously shoved his fingers inside of her, it clicked in her mind. It wasn’t sexual at all, she suddenly understood. Even this was about power! He was doing this leisurely; he was enjoying her pain and discomfort. He was enjoying the deliberate torture! She scowled as he leered at her and briefly paused in his assault to unfasten the heavy metal belt around his waist.
“Do it!” Para suddenly snarled.
He looked at her in confusion, displeased to see that she was no longer whimpering in fear.
“Do it, Zvarin!” she challenged again, the force of her voice rumbling against his hand on her neck. “Crush every fucking bone in my body. Rape me! Do what you can to make yourself feel like a man. It doesn’t matter! You will never break me!”
Zvarin removed his hand from her neck in shock at her outburst.
“Do you h—hear me you filthy coward?” Para spat hoarsely, through tears. “I don’t care if there are a thou—thousand piece of shit fools in your body. Not one of them has any honor. Do what you want! I can’t be broken. I am a goddess—do you understand? I’m the granddaughter of the Fire Deva—a proud warrior and a noble princess fused into one indestructible being. You can break me in half, but you will never break my spirit!”
Zvarin moved a few inches away from her in astonishment at the reaction and her skirt fell down around her ankles. The green-haired king took a step back, and Para suddenly swung forward, launching her fist directly into his jaw.
Bone connected against bone with a sickening crack, and the new Holy Fjuyen ring on her index finger ripped through his flesh. A broken jaw for a broken jaw, she hoped, but she knew it was unrealistic. Her punch had not been as powerful as it could have been if her shoulders had not been crushed. She was using her prana to move her arms, for her muscles had been rendered worthless. She would have needed to be at her maximum level of output, probably at least Golden Form, in order to actually leave a scratch on Zvarin.
Suddenly, it occurred to her that she had been able to move her arms again. The force field had disappeared for a second. In his moment of surprise he had loosened his grip on her. She wouldn’t miss another window for escape.
Her fingers had never been jammed into her stomach with more speed and accuracy.
Chapter 24: The Safest Place
Para returned to Earth, finding herself on the destroyed stairs not far away from Vincent and Raymond; they were the most conspicuous energy sign
als on the planet. Everything was still blurry through her tearful and dizzied vision. She quickly turned away from her fathers and collapsed into a seated position on the stairs. She drew several deep, shuddering breaths, and pulled her legs up to her chest. She hugged her calves tightly as she rested her head on her knees, trying to forget the sensation of Zvarin’s hands all over her body.
She had never felt so small.
I’m home, she told herself. I’m home. That ordeal is over. And I came out of it with knowledge of the enemy. I need to look on the bright side of things. So many positive aspects. Many, many positive aspects. Through her daze of pain and humiliation, Para heard voices speaking to her. They were familiar voices; some were kind and some were gruff, but she could not seem to understand what any of them were saying. She only knew that none of them were Zvarin’s voice, and this was massively comforting.
The devas had all changed out of their tuxedos and into their battle garb. Vincent wore traditional armor while the others all wore fireproof aramid vests. The women had also changed out of their evening clothes and into more comfortable garments. It was early in the wee hours of the morning, and everyone was tired, but kept awake by their concern about the identity and purpose of the strange girl from the future.
Only Para looked out of place, still wearing her tattered ball gown. Her hair had completely fallen out of its stylish updo and fanned out across her back and around her shoulders in loose curls. She was still barefoot. She hugged her knees tightly, oblivious to the world around her except for the fact that she was on Earth and in the Kalgren compound; one of the places she loved most in the entire universe. What more did she need to know?
“Medea, are you okay?” Raymond asked with concern. Having a daughter made him sensitive to the signs of female distress. Curling up into a ball was never a good one.
“Girl, quit your blubbering. I know you’re scared of me, but I promised Thorn not to attack you for five minutes,” Vincent said haughtily, his arms crossed across his chest. “You and I need to discuss certain vital matters.”
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 93