The Breaking

by Imogen Keeper

  He held on to her with a hard hand on her hips.

  She dropped her head back to the covers, exhausted, and would have flopped all the way forward if he hadn’t held her in place, if she weren’t still impaled on his cock.

  He sank his teeth into the skin of her shoulder, holding her in place for the erratic thrusts of his own climax. His cock swelled deep inside her body, his arms drew her against him almost painfully tight, and the first searing-hot blasts of his serum flooded her insides.

  It was too much. The serum on top of all of it. Her eyes rolled back, her fingers curled into hard claws, all her muscles shuddering. Hips moving wildly against his. He shoved in so far she nearly screamed, his thrusts growing frantic as the serum tore out of him, filling her ass with blinding wet heat.

  It was like being exorcised, or tortured, or exalted all at the same time. Maybe. Tortured with pleasure. He found one of her breasts, strumming her nipple, soothing her back from the dark depths of the last orgasm.

  It was only when it was over that she realized she’d gotten ahold of his forearm somehow during their contortions and sunk her teeth into it. A pair of half-moons flanked the red mark she’d sucked to the surface.

  “You marked me,” he whispered, stroking a finger over her shoulder, where she became vaguely aware of a dull ache. “I marked you, too.”

  He started to withdraw, and she moaned out a complaint, not ready for him to leave her yet, not when she’d only just gotten used to his presence there.

  He settled in, twisting them so she lay on her side, and his hips pressed tightly against hers, his cock still lodged deep in her ass. “That was amazing.”

  She spoke with her face pressed against the exam table. “I thought I died for a minute. And I didn’t even mind.”

  “I wouldn’t let you die.”

  She smiled, eyes shut, warm and replete.

  “Did that hurt?”

  If there was one thing she knew about Ajax, it was that he would never hurt her, or let her be hurt. “No. Well, maybe a little, but in a good way.” She yawned. “Ajax?”

  He nodded against her neck, humming sleepily.

  “Swear we will never break the Bond. Not for anything.”

  “Never.”

  She exhaled with relief. Finally, it was all out there. The final thing she’d needed to tell him forever but hadn’t been able to work up the courage to say.

  This was right. It was how Bonds were supposed to be. Warm. Safe. Right.

  And unbroken.

  Thank you for reading! For more by Imogen Keeper check out The Bonding.

  Turn the page for a glimpse of Torum’s tale, The Taming.

  Author’s Note

  Thank you so much for reading The Breaking! It means the world to have my work out there. If you feel moved to leave a review, I would be so grateful. It helps spread the word.

  Continue on to read the first chapter of Torum and Klymeni’s turbulent love story, The Taming, scheduled for release in the Fall of 2017.

  And if you’d like a free copy of Seeking: Tall, Dark and Dreamy, in which an Argenti comes to Earth and meets an unlucky-in-love florist named Phoebe, please sign up for my newsletter. I won’t share your information with anyone, and I only use it to send out information about new releases.

  I’d like to thank my incredible editor, Monika Holabird, who doesn’t miss a thing… not one little, tiny, insignificant thing.

  I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to find me on Facebook, Twitter, or on www.imogenkeeper.com.

  Thank you!

  Immy

  Also by Imogen Keeper

  The Bonding (Tribe Warrior Series, Book #1)

  Valentine's Day Anthology: Hearts and Handcuffs

  THE TAMING

  Klym poked her head around the corner of the galley to peer down the main passageway of the spaceship. There wasn’t much to see at the front. Steel surfaces, low lights, and the great big chairs of the cockpit. And, of course, the man to whom her father had sold her. Spiro. The back of his golden head shone under the lights as he stared through the viewscreen into the darkness of space.

  Their prisoner, Torum, was isolated in the back of the ship. They’d kept him there for days, ever since they left his ship behind on an abandoned planet. Shackled in the darkness on a cot outside the engine room.

  He was her only hope of escaping her unwanted Bonding.

  Sneakiness and stealth didn’t come naturally to her. Well, strictly speaking, that wasn’t entirely true. Walking quietly on slippered feet came naturally. A lady must always move as elegantly and gracefully as possible. Which did mean quiet, and after all, quiet was similar to sneaky and stealthy—but not really the same thing. The intent was different.

  Her skillset fell more along the lines of dancing, singing, and conversing. She was not accustomed to lying, hiding, and plotting.

  But people could change when they needed to. And she needed to.

  Her feet made scarcely a sound as she slipped down the passageway.

  Another glance over her shoulder told her that Spiro hadn’t moved. She kept the little paring knife she’d pilfered from the galley hidden in the folds of her dress, just in case he did turn.

  Her dress whispered over the metal floor as she rounded the wall, passing out of Spiro’s line of sight. He was unlikely to come looking for her.

  He’d learned to avoid her. The only thing she’d said to him in their brief acquaintance was, “I will not Bond with you. I belong to another man. Please take me to him.”

  After the tenth little recitation, Spiro exhaled a long stream of air through flared nostrils, his mouth a grim line, the very picture of frustration, and inclined his head in a sharp bow. She’d gotten the distinct impression that he was thinking curse words, even if he was too polite to voice them. After that, he’d stayed out of her way.

  Once, he had muttered to her in passing, scarcely meeting her eyes, “Klymeni, I’ll wait as long as you need to grow comfortable with our Bonding.”

  The thick-headed clod had steadfastly refused to see that she would never accept him. This was all his fault, really. Or rather, their fathers’ fault. It was Spiro’s father who had bought her from her father. A political trade. So it was their fault. All of it. But he could have just let her go. He’d left her with no choice.

  “Then you’ll wait forever. I belong to Agam—”

  He’d held up his hand. “I know. I know. No need to repeat it.”

  And that was pretty much it. Not a word between them since the day after they’d left Argentus. Days of silence and brooding. If he’d only see reason and return her to her fiancé, her home, and the life she’d been promised, she wouldn’t be forced to take this drastic step.

  Spiro may not have spoken to her, but Torum certainly had.

  Every time she saw him, he had something to say. Whispers of promises. Murmurs of hope. Taunts of freedom.

  She shivered, as she always did, at the very idea of him. A bounty hunter. A Vestige bounty hunter. An alien from the most hated, feared, reviled enemy her people had ever known. And he looked it.

  Wild. Untamed. Feral.

  One last turn down the passageway, and there he was. As still and hard as if he’d been carved of marble. Like the statues of the ancients in the museums back home, a relic from a time when men were even harder and life more brutal.

  She bit her lip.

  Inky black hair cascaded down to his shoulders, and an impressive set of shoulders they were. Twice as wide as her own, and thickly bound with hard, bulging muscles that rose and fell as he breathed, clad only in black military trousers and a thin white shirt that stuck to him like a second skin. A black tribal tattoo snaked up his neck.

  His head was tilted down toward his lap. Asleep? Do Vestigi even sleep?

  There were rumors back home. Of dark deeds, inhuman and evil. Ghost stories whispered in the depths of night that sent shivers down her spine and kept her awake until daybreak.

  She shifted on he
r feet. She should come back later. Maybe just leave the knife on the cot at his side and hope Spiro didn’t see it. What could Torum do with it, though? His hands were shackled behind his back.

  “Come closer.” His voice was low and raspy. More of a rumble, really, that vibrated and stimulated, like a feather stroked along the spine.

  She caught herself leaning forward, holding her breath, straining to catch his words.

  “I can smell you,” he murmured.

  Her shoulders stiffened. She had impeccable hygiene. “You cannot.”

  “Can too.”

  “I do not smell.” She never smelled. She took great pains never to smell, amply applied lotions, tonics, and powders. If she smelled at all, it was like flowers.

  “Do too.” Finally, that face angled up, sharp jaw, hard cheekbones, slanting black brows, and an evil, leering smile. His nose was still shadowed from a recent break. He looked… terrifying.

  She took a long, slow breath. He’s just a man. Like any other. He couldn’t hurt her. He wouldn’t. No one hurt women. There were too few of them left in the universe.

  “You smell like flowers,” he said, that voice stroking up her spine, making even her breath tremble.

  Ah, just so. She offered up a polite smile. “Thank you.”

  “And pussy.”

  She gasped. The knife slipped an inch in her hand. Never, not once in her life, had anyone spoken so coarsely to her. She shouldn’t even know the word. It was only from a dirty story one of the girls had sneaked into the academy. She patted her hair into place in the coiled bun at the nape of her neck and pushed her chin out.

  Time to reevaluate her approach. Clearly, he was no ordinary man. He was nothing like her dear, sweet Agammo. Even Spiro, as much as she didn’t want him, was far more gallant than this coarse brute. Still, the prisoner was cuffed. She held the power in this situation. She put her most prim look in place. “I’ve never heard that word before. I’ll assume you meant something polite and complimentary. In which case I thank you.”

  His head angled up slightly, and those eyes burned like a physical caress, dark as bottomless pools, glittering with wicked intent, and strangely amused. “I wasn’t being polite. But complimentary? Absolutely.”

  She tried to mask the distasteful frown, but it crept across her face of its own accord. Her nose wrinkled.

  He laughed, low and deep. “You know what it means.”

  “I didn’t come here to be crass.”

  His brows flicked upward. Full, dangerous lips curved. “Then why did you come?”

  She pulled the knife from the folds of her dress. “To help you escape. If you give me your word to take me with you.”

  His lips curved wider, and white teeth flashed in a predatory grin. “Now I’m listening, amiera.”

  * * * * *

  He certainly didn’t waste any time.

  Klym tucked the knife into his boot, listened to his whispered commands, and left him in peace.

  A few hours later, Spiro escorted him to the bathroom at gunpoint, then let him eat and drink, again, at gunpoint. Always at gunpoint.

  As Torum finished his dinner, Klym moved close, offering to wash the dishes, just a shade closer than necessary. Exactly as he’d bid. And for a split second, her body blocked Spiro’s view.

  It had happened so fast her teeth crashed together and her vision swam. He pulled her against the big, rock-solid mass of his chest. His hand fisted her hair like a vise, and poor Spiro didn’t stand a chance. He was too noble. He’d never have hurt her.

  “I will kill her,” Torum purred, and she believed him. Her insides shuddered. “Don’t doubt it for a second.” Rough fingers slipped along her neck, pressing over a vein until her vision darkened and her knees buckled. “Don’t fuck with me.”

  Shivers of pure dread slicked her spine at the hateful growl in his voice.

  Spiro angled his eyes, shifting, moving in closer, looking for an opening.

  The knife hissed as it flew through the air to lodge firmly in Spiro’s throat. She barely even felt Torum’s body move. A scream had died in her throat.

  And Spiro dropped to his knees.

  Less than half an hour later, Klym stared down at her hands as the escape pod pushed off from the main body of Spiro’s ship. Her fingers vibrated, trembling with the onslaught of realization.

  The air exiting her lungs shuddered violently with each breath. What had she just done? What had she been thinking? She hadn’t been thinking about anything at all, except escaping and finding her way back to her fiancé. Her real fiancé.

  Her face was frozen. Contorted, mouth agape in a hideous mask of shock. She pulled it back into a semblance of decorum, but within seconds, her idiot mouth dropped again.

  She’d never, not once in her entire, dignified life, done anything even remotely foolhardy or brash, and certainly not cruel. Never heartless. Until now.

  The blood.

  The blood had been everywhere. And the man she was supposed to bond with, Spiro—not her real fiancé—Spiro was the wrong man, the one she didn’t want, the one she refused to have—clutched his hands to his bleeding neck, sputtering. And the look he’d given as he dropped to his knees. A whole lifetime had burned in the true-blue depths of his eyes. Surprise. Accusation. Confusion. Disappointment. Concern. For her.

  She hadn’t thrown the knife that landed in his neck. But she might as well have.

  She closed her eyes, squeezing her hands into fists, forcing her face to relax from its grotesque mask. She would never get the look in his eyes out of her head.

  Spiro would be okay. He had to be okay. She hadn’t meant for him to get hurt. It was an accident. Surely that mattered, didn’t it? She hadn’t meant to cause any harm. Surely the Fates would consider that as they held the tenuous string of his life. Wouldn’t they?

  She’d just wanted to get away. That’s all. She wasn’t supposed to marry Spiro. She was supposed to marry Agammo. She’d known her whole life that she would marry Agammo. She would be his lady. And have his children. And everything would be perfect.

  “Quit sniffling. It’s annoying.” The deep, gravelly voice of the man who had thrown the knife interrupted her thoughts. The great, big, mean, violent beast of a man who had hurt Spiro. This was his fault.

  None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for him.

  She opened her eyes but refused to look at him, focusing instead on the viewscreen. But there was nothing to look at but emptiness. A black void, punctuated by stars too distant to offer much of interest. It didn’t help to be reminded that the universe was enormous. And she was small. And home and Agammo and all their dreams were very, very far away.

  “I am not sniffling,” she snapped. Was she? Maybe. She wiped at her cheeks. They were wet.

  “Good. Then you won’t do it again.” Torum shifted in her peripheral vision, lounging back in his seat as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  She breathed through pinched nostrils, and finally, losing the battle with her will, she pivoted in her seat to glare at him. “You don’t have to be rude.”

  He laughed. The dark pools of his eyes glinted evilly, and his unfashionably long black hair shimmered under the multi-colored lights on the dash, the harsh planes of his face almost glowing.

  “You didn’t have to hurt him, either,” she said, trying to tamp down the bursts of panic. She was lost in space with a monster.

  “Wrong, amiera, I did have to hurt him. He’d have killed me and moved on fast.” He leaned back farther in his seat, as easy and unconcerned as if they were sitting down to a cup of tea, and propped a big, black-booted foot on his knee.

  “You could at least have the dignity to look upset.”

  “Why would I be upset?” He glanced at her, raising a dark brow. His eyes glittered, and his lips curved. “I’m happy. Fucking jubilant. He had my hands cuffed behind my back for days. You have any clue what that feels like?” He rolled his thickly muscled shoulders as if testing his new mobi
lity. “Now I’m free.”

  She shook her head at him. “Spiro wasn’t a bad man. He didn’t deserve to be hurt like that.” It was true. Spiro had been kind to her. He’d done nothing wrong. But he wasn’t Agammo.

  “Spiro wasn’t a bad man,” he said slowly, almost musingly. “That’s true. But it wasn’t personal. And he did deserve to get hurt like that. It was him or me. With no pretty, imaginary rules. Just two men. Different goals. And a few knives between us. What did you think would happen when you turned on him?”

  “I didn’t turn on him. I just wanted to get away from him.”

  “Then you ought to be celebrating. You’re away from him. We’re on our way to my ship. And then I’m going home.”

  She shook her head. He was barbaric. Uncivilized.

  His words sank in. She couldn’t go to his home. He was from Vesta—the enemy planet. The very thought of it froze her blood. “No. No, no, no. We are not going to your home.”

  He scoffed. Actually scoffed at her. “Come again?”

  “I can’t go to your home. I need to get to my home.”

  He jabbed a long, hard finger at her. “You can go wherever you want.” The finger turned around to poke his own chest. “But I’m going home.” His eyes raked down her body, and he traced his tongue along his teeth idly. “Without you.”

  He said “you” as if she were a truly vile thing indeed. Beneath contempt. What reason could he possibly have to hate her? She’d saved him. It was true. He’d never have escaped without her help. She deserved his respect and gratitude for what she had done.

  A sob of panic rose in her throat, and she swallowed it, sinking her nails into her palms. “I saved you back there. You’d still be there with your hands tied behind your back. You owe me.”

  He smirked and turned away, the sinuous shapes of the tattoo twisting as his neck moved.