Targeted

by Evangeline Anderson

  “What is it?” she asked again, since he was silent. This time she used the mind-link that they had developed when they bonded. It allowed for greater intimacy and honesty—it was nearly impossible to lie through the link.

  “I have something to ask you. No, something to tell you,” he answered in the same way, looking into her eyes. “But I don’t know where to start.”

  “You said it had to do with our bond—start there,” Trin suggested.

  “All right…” He sank down on the couch beside her. “But what I have to say…you might not want to hear.”

  Her heart began to beat fast but she tried to keep a calm look on her face.

  “Whatever it is, I can handle it. We can handle it together.”

  He stroked her cheek and looked intently into her eyes for a moment, as though making sure she meant it. Then he nodded and began to speak aloud.

  “You know that Havoc males don’t usually rear their own young until the age of six cycles,” he began and Trin’s heart gave another lurch.

  “You said if I got pregnant you’d stay with me,” she reminded him, trying not to feel panicky. “That you’d help raise the child.”

  “And so I will. But it’s not if you get pregnant, baby—it’s when,” he said softly, squeezing her hands. “We know it’s going to happen eventually.” Which was true. According to a foretelling, Trin was supposed to carry a son who would be the father of a new race of Kindred, one that included both Havoc and human blood in the genetic mix. Since she herself was half human—her mother had chosen sperm from Earth to make her—it worked out perfectly. Or it would sometime in the future, anyway.

  “All right, yes, we know that,” she said steadily. “But what are you trying to tell me?”

  Thrace sighed and ran a hand through his thick blue-black hair.

  “Well, there’s a reason that Havoc males donate their seed and have their sons born from artificial wombs.”

  “Because most of them refuse to bond with females, right?” Trin asked. Oh Goddess, was he regretting bonding with her now?

  “Of course I’m not, baby.” He squeezed her hands again and she realized her worry must have come through their link clearly. “Just give me a minute to try and get this out—I swear nothing I’m telling you has anything to do with me leaving you.”

  “All right.” Trin squeezed back, feeling better. Since the awful time she’d spent at the temple on her home planet she needed a little more reassurance and comfort than she had in the past—which Thrace was more than happy to give. “Go on,” she said. “If it’s not their aversion to bonding then what is it? Why are all Havoc born from artificial wombs?”

  “Because not many females can survive carrying a Havoc fetus to term,” he said in a low voice. “They are incredibly strong, almost from the moment of conception, and very difficult for any female to carry. It’s a long and painful process and by the fourth quadmester, the female is often black and blue, bruised from the inside out by the baby’s kicking.”

  Trin looked at him uncertainly.

  “That… doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “It’s not just that,” Thrace said grimly. “The birth itself is often filled with complications. Many females died during it. Also the infant mortality rate is very high—almost fifty percent.”

  “Fifty percent?” Trin couldn’t believe it. “Only half the babies survive? Really?”

  He nodded. “Some think it’s because of the Havoc genetic make-up. Our creator—who as you know was a Kindred himself—wanted to be certain we wouldn’t want to stay with a woman long enough to impregnate her.” He put his big hand on Trin’s flat belly. “But of course I want to stay with you and have a baby. You know that.”

  “I want that too—but how can we?” Trin asked. “It really sounds like the odds are against us.”

  “They don’t have to be. There is a way we can bring them back in our favor.” He looked at her earnestly. “It’s called a Deep Bonding and it’s something only Havoc are capable of—not even the Kindred have the ability.”

  “A Deep Bonding?” Trin frowned. “What is it? How does it work?”

  “If we do it, I’ll be able to give you some of my strength—not for everyday use—you won’t become stronger than all the other females on the ship,” he said quickly, correctly interpreting her uncertain look. “It’s more like a reserve of energy you can call on. It will help you withstand a pregnancy with my child much better.”

  “That sounds really good…but I can feel that there’s something about it you think will bother me.” Trin frowned, trying to read the emotions she could faintly sense coming through their link. “What is it?”

  Thrace sighed. “It will bind us even more tightly together, so much so that I won’t be able to survive without you. Our lives will be linked—you will be able to survive my death but I won’t live through yours. If you die, I’ll die as well.”

  “Oh, Thrace…” Trin was already shaking her head. “I don’t like that! What if something happens? An accident or some awful illness? I’ve already stolen a big chunk of your life when we bonded in the regular way.”

  “Not true.” He shook his head firmly. “You only took a little. Essentially, you lengthened your own lifespan to match mine. Listen, Trin…” He looked into her eyes intently. “Please don’t let the life-link part of it put you off. I love you and I honestly don’t want to live without you. If you died in childbirth, I wouldn’t want to go on.”

  “Well…” Trin tried to think objectively about it. On the one hand, they would be taking a big risk doing this. She was basically gambling that nothing bad would ever happen to her—that she would live a long life with no complications. And she was betting the highest stakes there were—the life of the man she loved and couldn’t live without.

  Thrace clearly heard what she was thinking.

  “We all gamble when we let ourselves fall in love, baby,” he murmured. “That’s not a big deal.”

  “It is to me,” Trin protested. She narrowed her eyes and looked at him. “But that’s not the only reason you’re worried I won’t like this idea—this ‘Deep Bonding’—is it?”

  The big Havoc sighed and rose off the couch, suddenly. He began to pace restlessly in front of her, his hand behind his back. There was still something clutched tight in his big fist but Trin couldn’t see what it was.

  “No,” he said at last. “There is…another reason. It has to do with the way the Deep Bonding is achieved.”

  “How is it done?” Trin looked at him, mystified.

  “Do you remember the dream you shared with me? The one I had after breathing the nightmare fumes at Lady Tam-Tam’s estate?”

  “Of course I do!” Trin shivered. “It was awful.” The dream she’d had was of Thrace’s old master trying to force him to give his loyalty and submit willingly to his sexual advances. Thrace had never budged, refusing to say the words of submission or to give himself willingly. It hadn’t mattered though—his master had taken him anyway in a manner brutal enough to turn Trin’s stomach. She still ached for Thrace when she thought of it—ached for the pain and horror he’d been through.

  “There was a reason my old master was trying to get me to say the words—to submit willingly while he…” Thrace swallowed hard and his broad shoulders were stiff. “While he took me. He knew, you see, about the Havoc’s ability to make a life-link with the Deep Bond. He knew if he could achieve that with me, he would double his own lifespan and gain the perfect bodyguard at the same time. Because in order to live myself, I would have had to keep him alive too, no matter what.”

  “You would have been tied to him forever—how awful!” Trin’s eyes widened.

  “Which is why I never gave in,” Thrace said grimly. “I knew I couldn’t kill him if I did and I wanted vengeance for my Sire…as well as for myself.”

  “He deserved everything he got,” Trin assured him. She knew what had happened of course—how Thrace had finally gotten free and ripped ou
t his master’s throat with his teeth. But after everything he’d been through at the sadistic man’s hands, it was perfectly understandable.

  Then the deeper implications of what Thrace was saying began to sink in.

  “Wait a minute…” She held up a hand. “So you’re saying the only way to achieve this Deep Bond is for…”

  “For me to submit to you again…Mistress.” Thrace sank down beside her on the couch and finally opened his hand, showing what he had been clutching so tightly this entire time. Trin bit her lip when she saw the black leather collar studded with pale silvery-blue Lathian Sapphires which almost exactly matched Thrace’s eyes.

  If she was honest with herself, she had to admit she sort of missed their Mistress-slave dynamic a little bit. Not because she wanted Thrace groveling at her feet—she didn’t. But because she felt so cared for and protected when he was in his watchful “slave” mode. Also, the big Havoc had a way of switching from submissive slave to gentle dominant just when she needed it most. One moment he was calling her “Mistress” and begging to pay obeisance to her nipples and pussy and the next she was “baby” and he was cradling her close and looking deep into her eyes while he thrust hard and long inside her.

  But during their time apart, before the re-bonding, as she thought of it, Thrace had taken off the slave collar and had not put it on again. Trin hadn’t mentioned it. She was certain if he wanted to wear it, he would. And now, here he was, holding it out to her. But exactly what would be involved in putting it on him again?

  “Submit to me how exactly?” she asked, looking up at him. “Do I just have to put the collar on you while you say the words again?”

  Slowly, he shook his head.

  “I’m afraid there’s more to it than that. I have to submit to you sexually as well. The emotional heights reached during penetration are the only ones strong enough to achieve a Deep Bonding.”

  “So…what do you want me to do?” For some reason, Trin’s heart was in her throat. Surely he didn’t mean he wanted her to…to…She couldn’t even finish the thought.

  Thrace rose again for a moment and left the room. When he came back and sat beside her again, he was holding a familiar, light-blue velvet bag. Mutely, he handed it to her.

  With trembling hands, Trin opened it and pulled out the heart’s-blood phallus she had been given on Yonnie Six. She stared at the familiar shape, emotions she couldn’t name swirling within her. One end was smooth and gold with fine markings drawn in red and white on its shiny surface. The other end, however, was all business. It was thicker than Trin’s wrist and deep scarlet, made of some shiny material as dark as blood. She knew that the dark end was supposed to fit inside her while she penetrated her slave with the slim, golden end.

  My slave…Thrace…But I can’t do that! Can’t hurt him like that again!

  “No!” Trin was on her feet and pushing the phallus away from her before she knew what she was doing. “No!” she said again, looking at Thrace. “I won’t do that to you—I won’t.”

  “You have to, Mistress—it’s the only way to form the Deep Bond.” He looked up at her patiently.

  “I don’t want to hurt you!” Trin said, her hands curling into fists at her sides. “Not like that! Remember what happened last time?”

  They had tried this once before on Yonnie Six due to the fact that Lady Tam-tam, their sadistic hostess, had been trying to blackmail them. She had ordered that one of them must penetrate the other while she watched from the spy network in her large mansion. Since Trin’s religious beliefs had conflicted so completely with this—letting a male penetrate her would have been a slap in the face of the goddess she served—Thrace had volunteered to let her penetrate him instead.

  But the stress of it had been too much. It had brought back the horrors of his past and though he had been willing to allow it, Trin had sensed such submission was painful and abhorrent to him. She had stopped before actually doing the deed when Thrace had admitted his painful past. The tale had been too awful for Trin to take in—she had run from him, blindly and they hadn’t discussed it again until after they came together on the Mother Ship.

  And now he wanted her to do it to him again—to follow through this time. But she couldn’t do that—she couldn’t.

  The look on his face when he told me the dream was no dream—that everything I saw in that nightmare really happened to him…

  She shook her head again. “I can’t Thrace—please don’t ask me to do that to you! Please!”

  “But I do have to ask you. It will be different this time. Listen…” Thrace took her hands and drew her back down on the couch. “I think I know what bothered me last time,” he told her softly. “It was the position. You were trying to take me from behind which was…” He took a deep breath. “Which was the way my old master always took me. I think if we’re face-to-face so I can look into your lovely, dark eyes and know it’s you taking me, not him, well…” He smiled at her. “I should be fine…Mistress.”

  “Please, Thrace, don’t make me do this to you—don’t ask me to penetrate you like that,” she whispered.

  He cupped her face in his big hands and looked at her seriously.

  “But you allow me to penetrate you. And that was once an idea that was disgusting and unthinkable to you.”

  “That’s different,” Trin protested. “No one had ever…abused me before. I didn’t have any bad memories to get over.”

  “I do have some bad memories in my past,” he admitted. “But now I’d like to make some new ones—with you.”

  “But—”

  Before she could start to protest again he placed a finger over her lips.

  “We have the link now,” he growled softly, referring to the mental bond they shared. “You’ll know right away if things turn bad—I won’t be able to help letting you know. And if it gets too intense we’ll stop—I swear it.”

  Trin looked at him wide-eyed, trying to make up her mind. She could tell that he really did want to do this—his sincerity came through their mind-link clearly.

  “As clearly as my distress would come through if what I’m asking you to do didn’t work,” he murmured through the link, his mental voice every bit as low and growly as his speaking voice. “I want the Deep Bonding with you—want to know you’re safe when you carry my son in your womb.” He stroked her cheek with his knuckles, looking intently into her eyes. “Please, Trin—I love you or I wouldn’t ask this of you. I want you to be protected.”

  Trin wasn’t sure what it was that tipped her decision—maybe it was the look in his silvery-blue eyes or the soft pleading in his tone. But somehow she found herself nodding.

  “All right,” she said at last. “We…we can try. But if things go badly—if they even start to go bad—we’ll stop. Immediately.”

  Thrace nodded gravely. “You have my word, baby. Or should I say…Mistress?” He knelt in front of her and held out the collar again. “Would you put it on me?” His deep voice was slightly hoarse. “I’ve missed wearing it—missed having a visual reminder that I belong to you.”

  “You’ll always belong to me…the same way I’ll always belong to you,” Trin murmured. Leaning forward, she fastened the black leather band with its silvery-blue stones around his strong neck. Her hands trembled only a little. “Now what?” she murmured, sitting back. “How do you want me to, uh, get you ready for this?”

  “By letting me get you ready.” He stood gracefully and picked her up off the couch as though she weighed no more than a pillow.

  “Thrace!” Trin protested, half laughing. His strength always amazed her. “Too bad I won’t be getting some of this for everyday use,” she remarked, stroking one bulging bicep as he carried her into the bedroom. “I could use it to lift furniture if I lose something under the couch.”

  Thrace flashed her a grin. “You’ll have it when you need it—after I plant my seed in your sweet little belly, Mistress.”

  Trin shivered with illicit pleasure at the idea of him m
aking her pregnant. She knew anyone else on her home planet would find the idea of impregnation by a male unspeakably wrong. And until recently, she had felt that way herself. Though she had changed her mind completely, the act of letting him penetrate her and come deep in her pussy still felt forbidden…and very, very hot.

  “Thrace,” she murmured as he deposited her gently on their large bed. “When we do this, do I have to uh, penetrate you until you, you know, come? Or can we switch it up, halfway through?”

  “I simply have to submit to you completely while you stroke within me,” he murmured. “After that, if you’d like I can penetrate you.”

  “Yes…” She felt another shiver of desire at the idea. “Yes, I’d like that a lot.”

  “Then let’s get started, Mistress.” He was already taking off her clothes. She had on a simple garment called a “sundress” which had short sleeves and a skirt that went just to her knees, leaving her arms and legs mostly bare. It was a far cry from the clothes she’d been used to wearing—her black jumpsuit and boots—but Trin liked it all the same. It was comfortable and the pale cream color contrasted nicely with her light brown skin.

  “Gods, you look beautiful in this little nothing of a garment,” Thrace murmured through their link as he peeled the top of the sundress down, revealing her breasts. Trin hadn’t bothered to wear anything under it as she had only planned to stay home reading that day.

  “I’m glad you like it,” she sent back breathlessly.

  “I like you best in your naked skin,” he growled, his eyes flashing as he peeled the dress completely away and let it drop to the floor beside the bed. “Mmm—no panties either. Why, Mistress, what were you doing while you were reading that book of yours earlier? Were you touching yourself when you got to the good parts?”