“Yes?” Where had that questioning intonation come from? “Yes.”
“You think I should be done with you?”
Wary, she raised her gaze from his legs and upward, only to stall when she saw his cock was out and erect. And covered in blood. Oh no. No. She tried to crawl backward but he caught her hair.
“Going the wrong way. Look what belting you has done. Open your mouth and keep it that way while I fuck it. Shooting things has given me an appetite for throat fucking you.”
Blood coiled luxuriantly over his cock and a droplet squeezed from the tip then stretched down to drip to the floor. She could smell blood on the hand in her hair.
Resigned, grimacing, she opened her mouth. He fucked it slowly then vigorously before coming inside. The gush at the back of her throat had her gagging then retching.
“Watch your tongue in future. Nod if you understand.”
Though still choking, while spitting out blood and cum and drool, she nodded. That her defenses were no longer working appalled her and fascinated her all in one mind-bludgeoning moment. If they worked, he couldn’t get a hard-on. If they worked, he couldn’t...wouldn’t fuck her.
Of course now he’d wasted it in her mouth, and she didn’t know what to think of that, because it’d both revolted her and turned her on.
The possibility of that inside her, of his cock covered in blood fucking her, even though she might hate it and protest, she wanted to put her hand to herself and masturbate.
He flicked the leash. “Come.”
Chapter 18
The Undercity the Scavs called it. Within a day, he hated it.
The only lighting was from the blue lightsticks and flashlight devices the Scavs brought with them. All were powered by waik crystals that apparently did not recharge well in the dark beneath a trillion tons of shattered and collapsed skyscrapers. He had nightmares about it going completely dark. Finding your way out by feel would be impossible – they’d had to worm through many passages of half-collapsed corridors.
After careful consultation with the primary scouts, JI had bashed his way through a few obstructions. His ragged gait – abnormal since the rocket attack – had turned into a dragging limp. If he’d repaired himself, the repair was failing, or he’d hurt himself again. His head often cracked into the ceilings and knocked pieces loose. Scavs threw him curses. If he buried himself, Sawyer was sure few of them would volunteer to dig him out.
There were some larger open spaces. They went through parking areas and warehouses – vast places occupied by the rusting heaps of long-abandoned vehicles and piles of rotted and rusted goods. Some vehicles were barely rusted. A few had occupants who’d killed themselves perhaps rather than face whatever disaster had been their current day problem. These were skeletons with skin and flesh turned to dried, paper-thin crap. Archaeologists would have fun with these. Had it been The Invasion of the Mekkers day? Or was it the Last Day of the War after that invasion, when the tide turned and the grounder armies lay stricken by superior weaponry – defeated, smoking and burning piles of refuse.
Or was it the day the swathes began their relentless consumption of the surface of this planet? Maybe they just got too many parking fines and decided to end it?
Whichever it was, they were dead.
Watching a column of Scavs fan out to traverse a new open area, not knowing what was ahead, even though they had mapped this path before... Scary. Cracks opened that fell into the foundations. Places had collapsed into rubble and slabs of whatever was used to construct this city. There were beams and struts, stalagmites composed mostly of flocks of some aerial animal that swooped past croaking when awakened. Not bats but their feet and ears glowed in the blueness of the lightsticks.
This was grim, dark, and gloomy as hell. He’d rather trek to the top of the toppled towers and skydive down than this. In the limited lighting, the ceilings seemed forever about to cave in.
He spent the days training Ari. Every stop gave him time to consider her next steps. To his surprise, she took to the commands as if born to it, as if she were a natural submissive just waiting to be taken.
Maybe she was.
The switch from viciously resisting to this was a little too abrupt.
But she learned the signals and words for kneeling, assuming positions, how to address him and how to behave so very well. She looked up at him with adoring, wide eyes, or tear-filled adoring eyes, even when he fucked her until she was gasping and limp. Perhaps it was the orgasms. A few of the Scav women, warriors and the unattached, had propositioned him. He’d taken notes but so far said no. Ari occupied him well enough.
Her one persistent rebellion was when he trained her ass to accept more of his fingers. Satisfaction was watching her plead for him not to squeeze that second finger into her asshole, plus the tip of the third, then making her come anyway. Taken to the brink of a climax, she’d grind her mound at his hand or strain toward his mouth. Tying her down or ordering her not to move while his fingers occupied her asshole and he licked her...the begging added to the fun.
To think she’d been his owner by proxy not long ago. He started to wonder if he should find out more about her past. That might trigger a new and nastier rebellion. He’d ask her when he was surer of her behavior.
Because trust was not something he’d yet bestowed on her, he kept her cuffed at night when he slept, and he leashed her to something heavy. It might make sleep difficult for her. For him, it made sleep more peaceful. He was sure he’d regret waking with a knife in his throat.
One day to go before they hit the next clearing, Dayne told him. One more sleep, one more walk.
There were still things Ari did that bothered him, such as this night, whatever night was down here in the everdark Undercity, when he cracked open an eyelid to find her beside him whispering to some creature he couldn’t see.
A distant lightstick illumined her, and some other thing, as silhouettes against the blue.
Something nipped him then ran across his shoulder, leaping off as he sat up and roared. “What the fuck?”
He grabbed for the knife he’d hung from a crisscross metal framework protruding from the floor to the right, and slid the knife from the sheath. The long gun would likely shoot someone else. A sea of people sat up all across this low space. They shouted questions.
“What is it?”
“Is there danger?”
“Not sure!” he yelled back.
The creature, or creatures, had scattered into the dark, though for a second he’d thought he’d seen a moving carpet of them, fleeing.
Ari winced as he took her cuffed wrist; her neck leash scraped on the stone floor when he towed her closer.
“What was that, girl?”
“Nothing.” Her mouth twisted wryly. “It was nothing! He sees things in the dark.”
His thumb slid in moisture on her wrist and he brought his hand to his nose. “You mock me? Is that blood?”
“I must have cut myself on something earlier, Sawyer.”
More lights flared and the scene became well-lit. There did seem to be nothing foreign but he knew his eyes had told the truth. Whereas her...
The lies were strong today...tonight.
“I’ll find out.” Angled up on his elbow, Sawyer took a last survey of the area. Nothing. The Scavs were muttering, laughing, settling into their bedding, though a few had set out to patrol the perimeter. “When we wake I’ll punish you, before breakfast, for lying. And you will go hungry until I hear more about this.”
He unfastened her cuffs and refastened them at her back – less comfortable but he’d sleep better.
“I need the truth. If not, you’ll be sleeping tied up like this.”
When she said nothing it only made him wonder more.
Her eyes stayed on him even after the lights had dimmed to almost nothing. He reached out and closed them. “Should I blindfold you?”
“No, Sawyer. I will sleep.”
Her quiet and obedient phase had drifted away. Why, wa
s the question.
JI had lapsed into silence this last day. He was propped against the wall far to the right and his orange lights were on and dim but still he said nothing. The silence worried him. She’d said he might have only weeks left. No one had told Zarr.
He needed to prepare. Either get seen as an integral part of this warband ASAP, cure JI, or leave. Through narrowed eyes he regarded their current sleeping place.
Leaving was not an option.
Chapter 19
The swarm of jaggs had been gone before the lights came on. She’d never heard of one being underground and that perhaps was why no one figured out what Sawyer had seen. He’d not been impressed by her insistence he’d seen nothing more than her humming to herself. She wore the marks of yet another belting, though he’d stopped after only ten.
She could take more. They both knew that.
He’d stopped because, she thought, he’d realized how much it turned her on. If he’d hit harder, he could’ve bypassed that reaction.
He hadn’t.
It’d been dark, and the Scavs were packing up and getting ready to move on. He’d found a clear area where he could swing the belt.
Then he’d stopped.
Sawyer had stood beside her, breathing loudly enough that she heard every inhalation and exhalation. Peeking back past her arm had let her see the deforming lump of an erection in his pants. He hadn’t fucked her and she was dying for it.
He hadn’t because...he thought it a worse punishment to let her suffer arousal and not be satisfied? That didn’t seem him. Neither did not hitting her harder.
The day had started badly, except that she’d possibly bonded with a jagg. The theory was that blood sealed a bond. She’d fed one or two of them blood.
Possibilities – she was setting up possibilities. Their carnivorous phase should be next.
Past a right angle kink in the passage ahead, clearing two was revealed. She stared upward despite the jingle of the leash as Sawyer encouraged her to move past the doorway out. Knowing they’d almost reached the exit, he’d clipped it to her collar, as if he thought she might sprint to freedom.
If only.
“Sky again. Thank the gods,” she whispered.
“Yes. I agree. Fucking sky.” He stretched and muscles or joints in his back popped. “You okay?”
The question stunned her. He’d never asked... “Yes. I am.”
“Good.”
What was happening? Had the darkness driven him crazy, like it seemed to have done to poor JI?
As they walked further into the clearing she sneaked more glances at the sky. This clearing was smaller, hemmed in by straighter buildings that’d toppled less and sat like artificial cliffs over the slot of a sky and the small amount of open land at the bottom. Dirt and rocks cascaded through the thin openings between them.
“Half a football field,” Sawyer muttered.
“Foot ball?” She kinked an eyebrow.
“From my world.” He shook his head. “How is your ass?”
“Sore.” What else would it be?
“Good. JI is going to need you.” He nodded toward where the mech kneeled at the base of the straightest building. The dark eyeholes of a thousand, thousand shattered windows climbed above JI. If those were intact buildings, mostly, what might hide inside them?
“This place could be dangerous,” she murmured.
“My thoughts also.” He hefted his weapon. New color grew there. Black thorns curling? And were those spots of blood dotting the thorns? The days of sleeping with it and meditating had accelerated the weapon’s changes. “Come. Let’s go to JI.”
Blood and sharp things. How typical of this man’s gun to adopt that pattern.
People were gathered near JI, talking loudly and gesticulating at the sky.
When she ascended the mound to where they stood, it took a moment to understand what they’d found.
Mechlings, ten or fifteen of them, lay scattered but partly heaped. The scratches and dents on their armored outsides spoke of some great trauma. They should be as difficult to crack as JI, or close to it. She too looked up. They’d fallen in. It had to be the explanation.
JI seemed oblivious. With his great head in his hands, he made a plethora of noises – mutters, squeals, droning.
“Can you help him?” The frown on Sawyer’s face deepened.
Empathy or self-interest? The deal he’d made with Zarr would be at risk.
“If he dies, both of us might be in trouble. You need to do what you can.”
His thoughts paralleled hers, and he was right. If Sawyer didn’t own her, someone else here would. A pity, but if she helped JI, she would also be helping Sawyer.
The mechlings might be a gift from the stars if any of them worked. Her method that JI had rejected could still work. He surely wasn’t attached to these like the ones he wore on his back?
She meandered among the mechlings, kneeled to touch a few and moved on. Dead, dead, dead.
Then one was barely alive, then another. Two among them all – maybe the last to fall since they were on the top – what brain they had was barely alive. Every other mechling had nothing inside she could detect. Whatever JI had as a brain was at least partly organic, she’d guessed, like people brains. Else her physician’s ability would have failed.
“What are you looking for?” Sawyer reached in and unclipped her leash.
“Live ones. I think I can get JI to connect to them.” She screwed up her mouth. The ugly side of this... “It might make him worse if they’re too far gone. I just don’t know enough. We should ask Largo to help too.”
“Largo?” Zarr had walked up to stand next to Sawyer. His blue facial tattoos writhed with the movements of his jaw and mouth, as he surveyed the little scene of death. “You need him, why?”
There seemed no point in dithering so she said it. “To heal JI.”
“Yesss.” Zarr stared at the mech. “Useless thing. What did you deliver me again, Sawyer? Don’t answer that. I will send Largo. We leave tomorrow morning for the waik crystals. The yeger says they are a day away in the next part of the Undercity. You will come.” He pointed at Sawyer. “And she can stay and fix this mech. If he is not fixed and war ready when we return... Pffft!” He threw up his hands then stalked off.
“Not sure what pfft means, girl, but it ain’t likely to be good.”
“No. It would not be.” Which meant she’d try her best for JI, but she had to figure out a way to escape. What better time than with Sawyer away and only her and JI here...maybe Largo too?”
“There could be animals about.” Sawyer nodded. “I’ll find a man or woman warrior to stay guard you.” He smiled down at her. “Just in case you get ideas too.”
“Ideas?” Oh she had plenty of those. Such as how she might be able to scale the one fairly tilted building – the one behind them. It was only fifty tiers up. A long way, and she’d have less than a day to do it. Nighttime might be suicidal, if there were predators up there. She had to get out and be gone before the Scavs returned or somehow keep climbing without being seen. They’d assume she’d escaped into the Undercity, surely.
A tap on her head made her jerk around. Sawyer was on one knee behind her. “I don’t like how quiet you got. Here’s Largo. Get to work.”
“Yes, Sawyer.” Step one, see what he could do. She pointed at the two live mechlings. “Those. Tell me if you can feel them, their life.”
“Mechlings?” He toggled his eyebrows up then down but kneeled next to her and laid both hands on one then thought for a while. “I feel nothing.”
No? “This one?”
Again he tried. “No. Nothing there. You can feel mechlings?”
Admitting this might get her seen as an oddity, but what did that matter when all she was to most of them was Sawyer’s slave and toy for fucking.
“Yes.”
“Interesting. Well, miss.” He inclined his head toward her. “Good luck with this. You have a unique ability. I will tell Zarr.
”
“Wait.” She caught his arm, then let go, flustered...not sure if it was permitted. “Please, don’t tell him that. Not yet.” Zarr must suspect something of what she could do, but he didn’t appear to truly understand.
“Soon though. I will. When we return tomorrow. I’ll leave you undisturbed until then.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course.” Largo walked away.
Why had she said that? Because Zarr seemed unbalanced? It’d been instinctive. He might do something she didn’t want to happen. Exactly what, she wasn’t sure.
“It’s late, almost dusk, and it’s raining.” Sawyer twirled the end of the leash, as he looked to JI. “Do what you can, Ari. In the morning, we’ll be leaving. You’ll have a day of quiet to get this done. Does that suit?”
She swallowed. Unprecedented was how she’d describe his words. As if he respected her. She was his only way to fix JI.
“Yes, it suits, Sawyer.”
He nodded. “Good. I’ll be chaining and locking you to something far too big to move, tomorrow. So don’t get ideas.”
Ah. There went the respect. He needed her though and being left mostly alone would be her best-ever opportunity. If only she didn’t want to help JI. Both, both were possible. She’d push herself. Surely it wouldn’t take long to see if this could be done?
Though spits of moisture had been dotting her arms, she hadn’t registered them as rain. Above, the visible piece of sky was darkening rapidly, and clouds were whisking across.
Soon it’d be time to test her idea.
With a mechling under one arm, and Sawyer carrying the other for her, she approached JI. Where he’d sat himself was beneath an overhang, a large slab projected from the building.
Bent over as he was, with his head low, she could see the mechlings on his back. Bluish mist rose from them tickling the air with a fine array of tendrils.
“I don’t know what that is,” she whispered.
“I haven’t seen it myself.” Sawyer placed the mechling on the ground among the grass. “I think they’re recharging him and themselves. I was told they do it on the top hull of the swathe landships.”
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