“Look into your heart. No, wait. You can’t. And why not? Because your heart is gone, as is my own. She took our hearts, Rhynn, as surely as if she herself wielded the knife that slit Zara’s throat in the end. She’s a filthy Earther and the only reason we’ve kept her alive is for her to identify her ship. We’ll drag her with us until we track them down, all across the Universe if we must. Then we’ll get rid of her. Sell her as a slave. Or leave her on some desolate planet to fend for herself until she dies.”
Rhynn was shaking his head from side to side, not even listening.
“We need to stop, Rhom. I need to stop. I dream of that night, over and over. And when I wake, consumed with grief, I vow to make her pay for what the other Earthers did. I go to her, force her to her knees. She fights me and I welcome it. Welcome the anger I feel, because it makes me forget the pain.”
“But once I’m near her and I inhale her scent, I’m bewitched. The gyron start to flow and the fever comes over me. Gods forgive me, I forget Zara. Forget my anger and my grief. All I want is to claim her. To take her in every way, until she’s screaming my name in ecstasy.” He stopped, met his brother’s eyes. “And then, when she finally yields to me…”
“No!” Rhom shouted. “Don’t say it.”
Rhynn’s body sagged, would have fallen if not for Rhom’s hands on his shoulders. “So it is true. You’ve felt it as well, seen those images flash through your mind.”
“No.” Rhom couldn’t meet his eyes. “No no no. They’re not real. They can’t be. She’s implanted them somehow.”
Rhynn gave him a sad smile. “I want to hate her too, Brother. I want someone I can vent my wrath on, here and now. I’ve been hoping you haven’t felt what I’ve felt. Hoping it was some trick, just as you said. I didn’t dare speak of it. But when she yields to me, for a few brief seconds our souls link. Our minds meld. I can feel the Bond stirring to life.”
“I don’t.” Rhom’s voice was cold. Harsh. “And if I don’t, then you can’t.”
“Admit it, Brother. It’s why we’ve never taken her together, as we always did in the past with our women. Never fucked her pussy when one of us is alone with her. It would be too much. Too close.” He choked back a sob. “By all the Gods, I don’t want to feel the Bond with another woman. It seems wrong, as though I’m being unfaithful to Zara. But my body betrays me.”
Overcome, Rhynn gave up speaking. He sent his thoughts directly to his brother’s mind.
We can’t go on like this. Both of us trying every day to deny the wild hunger she awakens in us. Sneaking away alone, forcing her to relieve it under cover of night. Feeling so guilty in the morning we pretend it never happened. She’s a sentient being, Rhom. From a primitive world, yes, but she has emotions. I’ve felt them. And you have too.
Rhom opened, allowed his brother’s essence to flow into him. He closed his eyes and was back there, one with Rhynn in the dark storage room they’d turned into a makeshift prison.
With the Earther draped over his lap. Spanking her firm, rounded ass while she ground herself against his swollen cock. His balls ached from the long days and sleepless nights he’d spent denying the fever she stirred in him.
He cursed his own weakness, even as he forced her to her knees. Told himself it was an act of aggression, of revenge. Nothing more. But he’d smelled her arousal, felt the dampness from her slit rubbing on his naked thighs as he reddened her ass. His cock responded, throbbing with need, wanting to bury itself in her sweet wet heat.
Instead he grabbed her hair, shoved his manhood down her throat. And was lost. Oh Sacred Ones, was it wicked of him to find pleasure in her lips wrapping around his shaft?
Her hot tongue swirled across the head as she yielded to his mastery. Welcomed him in. For an instant, he crossed the Void, joined with her. Experienced the savage thrill coursing through her body the moment she submitted to him completely.
Shaken, he wrenched himself away from the connection. Used her selfishly. Shot his cum down her throat, then cast her aside.
Rhynn’s wave of guilt and shame hit Rhom, stronger than his own had been. Overwhelmed, he slammed their link shut. But he couldn’t deny the truth. Though it was only for a second or two, his brother had Bonded with the Earther. This was no lesser creature. She didn’t just feel hunger and pain. She experienced joy, sorrow, love and ecstasy, as capable of deep emotion as they were.
Through the Bond, Rhynn had peered into her soul. She couldn’t lie to them now. He’d sense any deception.
Rhom headed for the door. They could settle this. Put an end to their guilt, even if it meant admitting they’d been wrong and begging her forgiveness. “Come with me. Right now. You’ll know if she speaks the truth. Let her tell you to your face what she told me.”
Rhynn sighed. “She already has, Brother. It’s the same thing she’s been telling us both since the day we took her captive. We were so blinded by anger and pain we refused to listen. It took Bonding with her to make me question what we’ve done.”
Cass
She heard footsteps again, two sets this time. The door opened and they stood there, silently staring in at her as they always did at first. But they’d never come like this before. Together.
Something was different about them. She sensed it. The pheromones of arousal were there, wafting around both of them. But dimmed. Not mellow, like after they climaxed. She’d taken them to completion with her hands and her mouth often enough to know. This was something else, as though they’d put up an invisible wall.
Rhynn stepped forward. “You speak Tharan.” His voice was flat. Expressionless. The undercurrent of anger it always had was gone.
It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t respond.
“Why did you pretend you couldn’t understand us when we found you?”
Four months earlier
Rhom
In the moonlight, he couldn’t tell the copper-colored soil from the blood on his hands. Her blood, and now his own.
Jagged rocks tore open his battered fingers, and still he dug. He welcomed the pain. Physical pain he understood. He could treat it; he could heal it. The gaping wound in his soul had no cure.
“Ayiieeee!”
Beside him, Rhynn stopped digging and lifted his face to the moons. His anguished cry echoed on the windswept plain, becoming a thousand cries, as though the Sacred Ones had breached the wall between this world and their own to join him in his grieving.
No prayers to the Sacred Ones would bring her back. Their Mate, their beloved Zara. They’d arrived too late to save her. And in self-imposed penance, they dug her grave with their bare hands.
He’d bear the guilt until he drew his last breath. As would Rhynn. She’d called to them, over and over. Their Bond with her let them hear it. Screaming their names at first, then moaning. Finally, only in her thoughts. “I love you Rhom. I love you Rhynn.”
But they’d roamed much farther than they planned that day, following the trail of twin norendaal stags. By nightfall, they were congratulating each other on bringing down the biggest game in this mooncycle’s hunt. They’d been talking about hosting a feast for the village when her first horrible scream tore through their heads.
It wasn’t only the screams. The Bond let them see it all through her eyes, feel everything those monsters did to her. Five of them. Five filthy sky pirates invading their home. Zara grabbed the sword and shield over the fireplace and faced them down. Those primitive weapons were her only defense. When he and his brother began talking about having children, she’d insisted they lock away all the others.
“You might as well get used to it ahead of time,” she declared. “It’s too dangerous to have them lying around. Children always want to play with what their daddies have.”
The pulsar and the redshift light taser that could have saved her life were safely stored away in a locked trunk under their bed. The only keys banged against their chests on matching gold chains as they raced through the forest toward her, side by side. They�
�d been fools not to see to it she had a key too.
For the first time in his life, Rhom cursed the Bond. He didn’t have the option of closing his eyes or looking away. The attack played out in his head as it was happening. The pirates stormed into their house and stopped dead at the sight of a bronze-skinned six-foot-tall female holding a metal shield and a broadsword. They stared at each other in disbelief. Their leader, the one with a stringy gray braid hanging halfway down his back, let out a raucous laugh and sauntered toward her, waving a hand at the sword.
“And what do you plan to do with that?” Turning to the others, he grinned, inviting them to share the joke. His body jerked and he followed their stunned gazes down to the floor, where his hand lay, fingers still twitching. His face drained of all color as he stared in disbelief at the bloody stump at the end of his arm, then let out a high-pitched scream.
Zara twirled the broadsword. “Any more questions?”
With a fierce stab of pride, Rhom watched her fight them. Watched her twirl and slash, slicing open one man’s thigh, nicking the rib of another. Watched as they surrounded her. Overpowered her.
The man with the missing hand huddled in a corner, rocking back and forth, his bloody arm wrapped in a shirt of Rhynn’s she’d been mending. “Make the bitch pay,” he muttered.
They wrestled her to the floor, tore off her clothes. She shrieked and raked their faces with her nails. Flailed out at them, arms and legs flying. The one whose hand she’d taken off got up, drew back his foot, and gave her a vicious kick.
Though it nearly broke his heart to do it, Rhom joined with Rhynn to send her a desperate plea. “Don’t fight them, my love. Let them do what they will. Just stay alive. We’re coming, I swear.”
She’d heard it. They knew, because she curled onto her side, wrapping her arms around her body. The leader kicked her again before sinking to the floor and prying her knees apart. He pulled out his limp prick with his remaining hand and tried to ram it into her.
Rhom forced himself to open fully to the Bond. To watch every move, memorize every line of the pirate’s face, every mark on his body. Until he’d be able to pick him out of a crowd if all he saw was a glimpse of one ear and a jaw line. This man was dead. He just didn’t know it yet.
Zara screamed and closed her eyes.
Oh Sacred Ones! This was worse. He couldn’t see any more. Only her thoughts and feelings came through now, flooding his brain, pouring into his body. Pain, revulsion… and frantic fear. But not for herself. Knowing the Bond was open, she murmured words of comfort to them, mixed with desperate prayers for their safety. Finally, only his name and Rhynn’s, over and over.
Rhom ran full out, draining every cell of all the energy it possessed. His heart thudded against his ribs and his only fear was that it would explode before he got to her. When he thought he couldn’t take another step, Rhynn kept him going by sheer will.
Though he tried, shock and loss of blood left the pirate unable to perform. Enraged, he drew a dagger from its sheath at his waist. Held it to her throat.
Rhom knew. The moment it happened, he knew. He didn’t even have to look at his brother. He heard her sweet voice so clearly. “I love you Rhom. I love you Rhynn. I will always love you.” Then it dimmed, fading away slowly like the echoes of Rhynn’s mournful cry. He stumbled into his brother’s arms and they fell to their knees, keening.
They hadn’t spoken a word since. There was no need. Like all male creatures on Tharon, they’d been born identical twins. Other twins on other worlds might sometimes share thoughts, even feelings. On their planet, the link went deeper. What Rhynn heard, saw, felt the touch of, even tasted, Rhom did as well. Rhynn’s joy was his joy. Rhynn’s pain, his pain. Sharing not only the same genetic makeup, but what his people called their essence.
They loved her as one, with no jealousy. No argument. Each receiving pleasure when Zara pleasured the other. How could they not? Knowing the wild thrill of claiming her tight, wet pussy and feeling the heat of her tongue swirling around the head of a throbbing cock at the same time. There could be only one woman for them, because when one gave his heart, the heart of his twin opened as well.
It’s deep enough. Rhynn’s voice was gentle in his head.
Startled, Rhom stared down into the hole they’d clawed. He’d been digging mindlessly, not realizing his brother had stopped long ago. He met Rhynn’s eyes. “How can we put her in there… and then walk away?” The words sounded even more harsh, spoken aloud.
Rhynn flinched, as though he’d been struck.
“It may not ease your pain, Brother, but I know the Mate we love will not lie here in the ground. The Sacred Ones sent her to us with no promise it would last for our lifetimes. We made the choice freely to love and cherish her. She taught us her people do not believe in grieving when this life is over. They would rejoice today, knowing her Soul lives on in another world, safe and at peace in the arms of her ancestors. We brought only her body here, to honor the ways of her tribe. To leave her bones on this windswept plain, the closest place we have to the world from which she came. A place where she found beauty and majesty, though we see only desolation.”
Rhom took in his surroundings, his expression as bleak as the dry, lifeless plain around them.
“Zara.” He made the word a blessing, a prayer. A farewell. Crumpling into a fetal position on the ground, he buried his face in his hands, giving way at last to the tears he’d refused to shed.
Rhynn
He laid a hand on Rhom’s back, then rose, stiffened his shoulders and headed for the outcropping of rocks where they’d left her body. He and his twin might look the same, sound the same, share the same essence. But the Gods in their wisdom had given each of them different strengths. When Rhom faltered as they raced home, he’d been able to call on a will he never knew he possessed. Keep them both going beyond the point where either one alone would have died of exhaustion.
Now, when he feared Rhom’s pain might make his brother crawl into the grave and lie there with Zara, waiting for his own death, he needed to summon up strength enough for both of them again.
They’d wrapped Zara in her favorite cloak, the one made from the soft white coat of a mountain orax. Their Mate had taken in the motherless creature when she found it wandering alone on one of her solitary trips into the wilderness. So tiny she carried it home and raised it as a pet. She mourned when it died and they’d had it sheared and its fur woven into a cloak as a remembrance for her. Now it would keep her warm forever.
He knelt, scooping her into his arms, and realized what he’d told Rhom was true. Their Zara was gone. Her body felt lighter. He’d swept her up and carried her off to their bed this way often enough to know the difference.
It made no sense that her soul could have weight and mass. Yet their woman had taken the spark of life given to her by the Sacred Ones and ignited it into a blaze of fiery passion and boundless joy big enough to encompass all three of them. A soul powerful enough to do that must be measurable somehow. Why not by the feel of his beloved in his arms?
He hadn’t truly believed the words he spoke to Rhom. Not until this moment. Now, even in the midst of grief and loss, he felt a measure of comfort. Their beloved Mate would not lie here all alone for eternity. She was already far away. He and Rhom would go through the motions of life without her. Eat, sleep, perform their duties. But they’d never be truly alive again. She’d taken their hearts with her.
Cass
The pirates had beaten her severely but she still refused to enter the code that would override her lock on the ship’s controls and allow them to land on any planet they chose.
She knew once the Luna touched down, they’d form a raiding party. She couldn’t forget the havoc they’d wreaked on Daan 57. When they returned to the ship after that raid, the monsters bragged about the Daanan males they slaughtered as they tried to defend their homes. The females they raped.
Locked in her quarters, enraged at her helpless, she tried to block out t
he screams of the ones they’d dragged back to her ship. The pirates had crammed them into the hold along with her crew members, planning to use them as entertainment on the voyage, then sell them as slaves on another world.
Cass cursed her own stupidity. None of them would be in this situation if she hadn’t answered that distress call. Fellow Earthers, hailing her ship when it came within range. Sending the message their vessel had broken down and drifted outside the perimeter of designated navigational routes. They said they were a group of missionaries, bound for Proxima Minor when their ship sustained major damage in an asteroid shower. She explained her cruiser carried only spare equipment for its own specialized needs and offered to send for a professional repair crew. Their reply? May not last till then. Dangerously low on supplies. Marooned here for weeks. Fifty-three souls aboard, including women and children. Can you spare any food? Bless you.
Children. That’s what got her to break protocol and dock with a vessel not identified on her roster.The pirates dragged two of their smallest female prisoners out front in the docking bay so they were the first beings she saw when she opened the doors of the Luna, then used them as shields and stormed her ship.
Turned out there were no children. No asteroid shower either. Only a crew of ruthless sky pirates with a ship crippled by the last alien race they attacked, and a cargo of female captives they’d been collecting all over the galaxy. They loaded all of them onto the Luna and locked them up under guard, along with everyone on board. Capturing the seven women who made up her all-female crew was a bonus they hadn’t expected. Apparently human females brought in a high price in the slave markets.
She’d been thrown in with the others, at first. Though they hated to admit it, her captors soon discovered they needed her expertise on the bridge. Her vessel, the Luna, was a Class IV Nebula Cruiser, part of a new fleet outfitted with technology far beyond their capabilities. After their leader dragged her to the bridge and threatened to harm the hostages unless she cooperated, she agreed to teach them how to use the auto-navigation system. The pirates found a nearby solar system with several occupied planets and headed toward it. The first chance she got, she secretly set a new course and locked the controls. Better to doom everyone on board to die in the empty expanse she’d condemned them to at the edge of the known Universe than to let them destroy another world.
Their Captive Mate: A Sci-Fi Alien Dark Romance: Tharan Warrior Menage Book 1 Page 2