by Raven Dark
“The tower guards are going to shoot us full or arrows. We won’t get near the gate!” I hated how hysterical I sounded.
“They’re called bolts, and yes we will. Steel, shut her up.”
‘With pleasure.” Steel slipped his hand over my mouth firmly. He did it so suddenly, I cried out, but he muffled the sound. I tried to bite him again, but he gave me the kind of stinging swat on the thigh that made me whimper and freeze.
“None of that now,” he rasped in my ear, his voice laced with malicious desire. Using his knees to push my legs apart, he gripped my wrists.
“Wait—” I started as soon as he released my mouth.
“Shh. Shut it.” He put both of my hands over my mouth, gripping them both in one of his. Then he hooked his feet around mine, keeping me spread and slid his free hand between my legs. His fingers toyed with my sex, finding the wetness there.
Humiliation scalded me, especially when his fingers turned slick, revealing his effect on me. I groaned helplessly into my own palm.
The hardening bulge pushing at my sex distinctly grew harder, as if the sound I made aroused him.
“Keep fussing, and I’ll find a less pleasant way to shut you up.” Desire roughened his voice. He inhaled deeply, taking in the apple scent of my thick curls. “I’ll give you this, Pretty Boy, you have great taste. She smells so good.”
He slicked his fingers with my juices, then put them in his mouth with a rough hum. “Tastes good too.”
“Right? I can’t wait to sample her.”
The words from both of them jolted me. What was going on here? I’d thought Pretty Boy had stolen me for himself, but then why was I sitting on Steel’s lap?
Steel must have felt my confusion, because he smiled against my ear as he continued to touch me. “We share everything, don’t we, Pretty Boy?”
Combined with his fingers stroking my sex, his words had my traitorous body squirming into him.
Taking his hand from between my legs, he slid his calloused palm over my leg. “Such soft skin. I’ve only seen a rose once. You feel like that, like the softest rose petals.” I huffed against the combination of my hands and one of his still covering my mouth. He ran his fingertips up my thigh, digging in just enough that the sting made me jolt and whimper.
“You hear those sweet sounds, Pretty Boy? Can’t wait to hear the noises she makes with both of us fucking her.”
“Hold that thought, Steel.” The carriage jerked hard to the right, causing Steel to brace himself with the carriage door. The movement jolted me back against him so that I saw one the J’nai speeders pull up next to us. The guard there fired a bolt a Pretty Boy’s head, but with the way he swerved, the bolt missed.
We drew close to the gate, and the guards on the ground started racing to surround us. One of them pointed his crossbow at the windshield.
“Stop or we’ll fire, pirate!”
Pretty Boy threw the carriage forward at full speed, forcing the guard to leap aside before he could shoot. He raced up to a group of Damien’s men speeding for the gate, keeping so close none of the guards in the tower could risk shooting at him without risking hitting the J’nai instead.
“Close the gates!” guards shouted. “Close the fucking gates!”
The gate started to close with a thunderous clatter of metal and a rattle of bars.
“Shit.” Pretty Boy floored it, sending us hurtling toward the slowly closing gap between the gate doors. “Shhhit, shit, shit.”
He zoomed under the high flying speeders at the last second, then through the opening between the gate doors.
The gate clanged shut, and an explosion went off behind us. I didn’t need to see to know the speeders tailing us had slammed into the gate or the Wall and went up in flames.
Pretty Boy let out a long, loud yodel of victory and shot out into the open desert that surrounded the border of Hell’s Burning.
It hit me then, I’d been kidnapped by something so much more dangerous than road pirates. There was no doubt in my mind these two men were part of the Dark Legion. Stories of that crew said they were more savage, its men more lawless than any other gang of road warriors in the world. They were thieves and cutthroats who thumbed their noses at the law, living by their own code, and riling civilized, refined Families like Damien’s just for kicks.
We tore across the desert, headed who knew where. I had to get away from them before we entered their territory, or all hope of freedom would be lost.
In all the commotion, Steel had forgotten to cover my mouth again.
“Steel, let me go,” I said. “You still have a chance to get away.” When he didn’t release me, I twisted and tried to go for the door.
“Steel,” Pretty Boy warned.
Steel let out a frustrated growl. Before I could react, he threw his arm around my shoulders. Then his other hand pushed the back of my head forward while the arm under my chin pressed against my throat. My air cut off. Dizziness swam in.
“Night night, little rose petal.”
His gruff, possessive voice was the last thing I heard before the world disappeared into blackness.
“What kind of trouble did you two get into this time?”
I woke to the sound of a new voice, a deep, quiet one that immediately sounded far more earnest than my two kidnappers. Slightly distant and echoing, the voice was delightful, and immediately made me want to relax into it.
Blackness filled my vision when I tried to open my eyes, my lashes brushing against whatever cloth was over them. I shifted to take the cloth away, but my hands were bound behind me. I was also laying on my back across a soft surface. Naked.
“Who says we got into any trouble, Hawk?” Pretty Boy’s amused voice spoke up.
“Steel? What did he make you do this time?” The one called Hawk again.
“We had a little more fun than planned is all,” Steel rumbled. “Come and look.”
Footsteps sounded, and when that soothing voice spoke again, it sounded closer. “Well, I don’t suppose it can be worse than the carriage I saw outside. Did…oh, Wings of the Maker.” I sat up and could hear the surprise that indicated he’d seen me. “It’s a girl.” Feet shifted. “You stole a girl.”
“The depths of your wisdom never cease to amaze me, Hawk,” Pretty Boy muttered.
Someone let out a patient sigh. Then fingers gently removed the blindfold from over my eyes. A rugged, tanned face filled my vision, a man squatting in front of me. I blinked up at his hazel eyes and had to marvel at their almost yellow tint.
“She has violet eyes.” He inspected them as if he’d never seen eyes like mine before. Perhaps he hadn’t. My nakedness seemed to have no effect on him.
“Pretty wild, right?” Steel said.
Hawk straightened, giving me a good view of the muscles that rippled inside his tight-fitting cut and under his long-sleeved black shirt. I’d never seen hair as black as his, almost blue-black, parted at the side so that thick bangs fell over his forehead. The darkness of his hair only drew attention to the brightness of his eyes. On the left breast of his cut, on a patch shaped in what looked like a hawk, the stenciled letters “C.O.G.” stood out in black.
Did the letters stand for Captain of the Guard? Damien had a Captain of the Guard who watched over the compound and manned his security within the J’nai as well, and I’d heard that road warrior crews had one.
He turned and looked at my kidnappers standing by the entrance across the room.
Noticing the roughly hewn stone at the entrance, and the lack of a door there, made me take a quick glance at my surroundings. The large room, which was the size of Damien’s throne room, looked like the inside of a cave. Brown stone walls looked at me from all sides. Here and there, the walls sparkled with jewels of every color and size. What was this place? Thick, expensive rugs were strewn about the floor, and a large table made of a dark wood I’d never seen before was laden with plates of food and golden goblets that held what looked like red wine.
H
awk leaned against the side of a table and crossed his arms looking bored. “You won’t think it’s so great when Sheriff sees her. You know how he feels about outsiders unless he’s approved them.”
The words spilled out of me before I thought them through. “Mister…Hawk, sir? No, your…Sheriff doesn’t have to see me.”
He turned his head and looked down at me where I sat on what I now realized was a comfortable sofa. His thin, but well-shaped mouth turned down at the edges. I couldn’t read his expression, but I thought I saw disapproval in his eyes. Of a slave who dared speak to him?
I swallowed under that piercing, sharp stare and pressed on. At least he was listening. “If you take me to the nearest city or town and leave me there, I’ll make my own way. No one even needs to know I was ever here, and my two…rescuers…never need be in trouble with your superior.”
Years of training imprinted upon me to never make a man sound as if he’d done wrong. That training kicked in now, and it wasn’t even a total lie. They had liberated me from Damien whether or not they intended it.
A slight upturn touched the sides of Hawk’s mouth. Amusement? I wasn’t sure. “I can see why you two took her.” As he spoke, he took a six-inch blade from his belt and turned it in his long, tanned fingers. “Is she for me, or am I going to kill her?”
The blood flooded from my face. In that soothing, almost hypnotic voice, the words were so out of place, I stared at him, dumbstruck.
He turned to the other two, who were both smirking. His position gave me a perfect view of the Dark Legion symbol I’d heard so much about, a skull with a dark reaper’s hood with the kind of crossbones people associated with sea-faring pirates.
“Both of you, stay here. I’ll send for Sheriff.” He went toward the entrance, but stopped when a man stalked in.
“What’s going on here?” His gaze immediately zeroed in on Steel and Pretty Boy. “Why the hell is there a J’nai carriage in front of my clubhouse?”
As soon as I heard the new arrival’s voice, the command in it alone made every muscle in me tighten in response. Everything about its strong resonance exuded leadership, the kind of authority I was trained to obey.
Steel coughed and Pretty Boy shrugged.
“Hawk?”
Hawk moved aside, giving the newcomer a full view of me, sitting on the sofa, hands still bound. “It seems our resident clowns took it upon themselves to do a little more than gate crash Damien’s auction party, Sheriff.”
His—the one they called Sheriff’s—eyes widened. His gaze took in the fullness of my breasts and my long legs before lifting to my face, devouring my pale violet hair, and finally my amethyst eyes.
The instant heat in his eyes was like a caress, strangely making my nipples bunch in response. With his almost-shaved dark hair and longer-angled features, he looked nothing like my master, yet this man reminded me of Damien. Even so, there was an aggression, a danger to him Damien never possessed. While part of me wished I could cover myself, part of me felt a powerful need to leave myself open for his appraisal.
“You two never cease to amaze me,” he said, but there was a steely edge to his tone that made the words threatening.
“Glad you approve,” Pretty Boy grinned.
A vein pulsed in Sheriff’s neck. He drew one long breath, his tanned chest puffing inside his leather cut. He wasn’t a huge man like Steel, but more naturally athletic with pleasantly muscled arms sleeved in an assortment of tattoos. With the charcoal shadow of a beard on his strong jaw, the look only added to his savagery. Rings in the shapes of skulls or embedded with black and red stones glittered on his long fingers before his fists clenched. He looked at each of his men.
“Do either of you have any idea what you’ve done?” he rasped.
“Oh, come on, Sheriff,” Pretty Boy said. “I saw her on that auction stage, and I just couldn’t leave without her. Look at her. She’s perfect. Besides, since when do you have an issue with us taking a slave from your mortal enemy?”
Sheriff shook his head but not before glancing at me for a moment too long. A mask dropped over his face before I could read it.
“I don’t give a shit if you steal new pussy. We could use new meat. But she’s a fucking Violet, one that you took from the head of the J’nai.”
“You didn’t see the warlord that pansy-ass was going to sell her to. He wouldn’t have appreciated her.” Steel chuckled at his own joke but cut off sharply when Sheriff shot a look at him.
Oh, sweet Maker. If these two hadn’t kidnapped me, I’d have been on my way to Talak Barabas’ mountain home right now. Would that have been any better than what lay ahead of me here?
“What if Damien’s people find the Grotto?” Sheriff eyed both of them. “I won’t lose everything we’ve built over a woman.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Sheriff,” Pretty Boy said. “If they come for us, we’ll be ready.”
“Your impulsiveness is going to get you killed one day,” he snapped at Pretty Boy. “She’s worth more than every slave in all of Zone 4. I’m all for pissing Damien off, but you crossed a line by taking her. If Damien manages to figure out where we are, he’ll bring the whole of the J’nai down on our heads.”
“He won’t find us, Sheriff,” Steel said. “No one has ever found the Grotto in a hundred years, they won’t now.”
He rounded on Steel and got in his face. “Steel, why do you always let Pretty Boy pull you into his hare-brained schemes?”
“Damien won’t find us,” he repeated.
“You better hope you’re right.” He shot each of them an angry look. “Because if you’re wrong, your actions today have just started the first war with the J’nai in two-hundred years!” He stalked for the entrance. “I swear, you two will drive me to an early death.”
“Sheriff, what do you want me to do with her?” Hawk lifted his shoulders when his superior stopped and fired a look at him. “Say the word and I’ll return her. I’d be in and out of The Compound before he knows I was there.”
Panic shot through me, especially when Sheriff looked me over with a cool, midnight-blue stare that gave me nothing. Nothing except that he didn’t want me there. I was sure he was going to tell Hawk to do it, to return me before the whole of the J’nai Family could hunt them down.
“No.” His voice was clipped. “Pretty Boy, take her to your room. You and Steel…” He scowled at each of them. “If she causes any trouble I’m holding you two responsible.” He shook his head. “Congratulations. You two ass-clowns just acquired a new roommate.”
Before anyone could respond, Sheriff stalked out of the room.
Chapter 3
Heartless
As soon as Sheriff left, Hawk went to the entrance of the room, then turned to Steel and Pretty Boy.
“See that she learns the rules. I’ll be keeping an eye on you.” Somehow, he managed to say this without threat, but with a matter-of-factness that sounded almost odd in that soothing tone. Then he looked at me and shook his head. “A true Violet. Unbelievable.”
He walked out, leaving me with my two kidnappers.
Once he was gone, I wasn’t sure if I felt safer or more under threat than before. That remark about killing me left no doubt in my mind; he could bring his own quiet, sinister brand of brutality into my life.
What would these men do with me now?
My head spun as the reality of my situation sank in. I’d seen the symbol on Hawk’s cut; these men really were the Dark Legion. Memories of the stories people told of the carnage they’d wrought on so many cities tore at my thoughts. Stories of them sweeping in on their bikes, dragging people from their homes, pillaging everything of value, slaughtering the men, and stealing the women for sale. Of them leaving nothing behind but bloodshed and scorched homes, city-folk left with nothing.
New fear took a stab at me, so intense it was almost numbing. Would they take me to some dungeon now, where I’d be chained to a wall, released only for their pleasure as people often said they d
id?
I put my head down, letting the falls of my long curls spill forward, hiding any emotion they might have seen on my face.
“I thought they’d never leave,” Pretty Boy said. “Now we can have some fun.” He crossed the room, took my elbow, and pulled me to my feet.
Taken by surprise at his roughness, I looked into my new master’s face before I’d thought about it. He had such stunning blue eyes, like the smoothest summer sky, and I expected him to be far gentler when I looked at them. But their playfulness hid the danger that burned beneath the surface.
Pretty Boy pulled me close and inhaled the apple scent of my hair the way Steel had done earlier.
“Mmm. You’re right, she does smell good.” He ran the tips of his fingers over the curve of my shoulder, sending an unwilling tingle across the skin. “I’ll bet it costs a fortune to make the prize of Damien’s stock look this good, doesn’t it?”
Unsure if he wanted an answer to that, I kept silent. Taking it as an affirmation, Pretty Boy made an amused sound. He walked me to the door with a look back at his partner in crime.
“Come on, Steel. It’d be a shame to enjoy this one alone.” I could hear his smile.
Steel followed.
While Pretty Boy marched me down the hall, his grip on my bound wrists, his partner kept pace.
“Let’s take her through the main clubhouse, P.B. She might as well see what she’s in for now.”
Pretty Boy snorted. “No coddling, huh, big guy?” We’d been headed down one tunnel, but he veered off into another. In the distance down the path he chose, raucous male voices laughed and jeered, and glasses clinked.
What was happening sank in, and trepidation crawled quietly under my skin. No one had made any attempt to cover me, and now I was to be paraded through who knew how many men, naked as the day I was born.