by Alison Aimes
He froze, his thumb arresting in midswipe—as if he’d been caught doing something wrong.
The heated look in his eyes disappeared. Replaced by familiar ice.
“No.” His hand dropped away. “I survive by dreaming of revenge. By putting aside all mercy. By thinking only of my men and the promise I made them to escape. By letting nothing get in the way of their survival.”
His withdrawal stung like a lash.
“If you were smart,” he took a step back, “you’d do the same and shut down those overactive emotions. Keeping alive a helpless Council breeder is going to be hard enough without you undercutting my plan.”
“I’m not helpless.” She stood taller. Breathed through the foolish crush of pain and self-contempt. No wonder he thought her weak. She was letting the heat win. “I know more than you can ever imagine about getting out of here.”
“Hasn’t your kind already overpromised enough?” He took another step back, the bind connecting them going taut. Stretched to the breaking point. Like her.
“Hasn’t yours learned anything from all the useless imprisonments and deaths? You can’t fight him head-on.”
“Enough time wasted. We need to move. My men will be waiting for us.”
His men? Soon there’d be more of them. And, Janus knows what would happen to her then. He might be too repulsed by who she was to give his lust free reign, but the others might not be so discerning.
The horrific image of being passed from one to the next while her captor looked on with indifference slammed through her.
No. She couldn’t survive something like that.
But time was running out. If she didn’t take the pill now, she’d have no choice. Like always.
The instant he turned, she acted.
Shoving her bound hands into the closure at her thigh, she grabbed for her pills.
Only to come up empty-handed.
11
“Don’t even think it.” Alerted by the sharp tug at his waist, Valdus swiveled around and wrenched his captive’s hands from her pocket. Certain he’d find a hidden weapon. One she intended to plant in his back.
The sharp sting of betrayal was as unreasonable as it was idiotic. He’d promised to kill her husband, after all. And use her as bait to do it.
Only there was nothing in her hands.
“No.” Her low wail echoed off the walls—and reverberated through his bones.
“What’s wrong?” Muscles tensing, his stare traveled the length of her.
Had he missed a skynke? Those orange lizard-like bastards were small, but fast, the sting of their tail barbs excruciating. But they usually left a trail of slime.
His captive moaned again, her eyes sinking shut, and all practical considerations imploded. She was in pain. He recognized the sound. Lived with it every rotation. He’d just never expected to hear it from someone like her.
He fought the urge to throw back his head and howl.
She’d only been his captive for a short time, but she was already messing with his head.
He told himself to maintain his distance, to think of her as nothing more than expendable bait, but he hadn’t expected how the fear in her eyes would grab him by the throat and refuse to let go.
“I don’t see an injury.” He scanned her once more, casting aside the idea of a skynke bite, batting down the strange, unfamiliar tightening in his chest. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“Just…just let me think.” She slipped to her knees, her hair falling in front of her face as her body curled in on itself. The tie between them stretched taut.
With a curse, he crouched over her, his hand running along her curved spine, calling himself every twisted epithet as his mind registered the softness beneath. “Where does it hurt?” Her skin was too warm to the touch.
“Everywhere.” Another low moan.
It wasn’t easy to be a man down here, but for a female—smaller, weaker, more in demand. It had to be terrifying. And, Dragath hell, seeing this place through her eyes was firing his protectiveness. When he could least afford to feel it.
Seizing her chin, he tilted her head upward.
Her silky hair was plastered to her temple. Her gorgeous eyes glazed, her pupils shrunk to tiny dots. This was no trick.
The band around his chest tightened further. “Tell me where you’re hurt or I’ll strip you bare and examine every inch myself.”
His cock twitched. The one-track bastard loved the idea.
A throaty whimper was her only answer.
Determined, he reached for her uniform closure.
Trembling fingers grasped his. “Wait.”
He could have batted her upheld, trembling hand aside easily. Instead, he drew on every bit of patience he hadn’t realized he possessed. “Tell me.”
She shook her head, her eyelids fluttering shut, as if she could hide herself from him so easily. “Just…just let me think… There has to be another way.”
His frustration surged, hot and fast. His hands closing around her forearms to lift her off her knees, her too-flushed face a hair’s breadth from his own. “Tell me what is happening to you or I’ll track down the soldier who you came here with and torture him until he tells me what I need to know. Then, I’ll give him to the same kind of bastards who used Death.”
“No,” she recoiled.
“Yes.” His grip tightened, locking her to him, letting her see the truth of his words. “I warned you. No hesitation. No mercy. Now, tell me what’s wrong?”
Her shoulders slumped, defeat turning her emerald gaze glassy.
It should have made him feel triumphant. Instead, his stomach churned.
But, bastard that he was, it didn’t make him retract his words.
“I need…” she sucked down a breath and his patience frayed a little more, “I need you to fuck me.”
He reared back, the tsunami of lust crashing so fast and hard it almost sent him to his knees.
Fuck me.
Off-balance without his hold, her palms slammed to the ground, leaving her on hands and knees. Ripe and ready for exactly what she’d requested.
Fuck me.
Of all the things he had expected his enemy captive to utter, he’d never in a million moons expected that.
Fuck me.
Had she discerned his weakness for her so easily? Anger raged through his veins.
Threading his hand through her hair, he jerked her head up, forcing her to meet his stare head-on. “If you think pussy will somehow soften me or change my mind, you’re wrong.”
She jerked in his hold, the pain in her eyes clearing as a fury as strong as his own surged to the fore. “Believe me, I have no illusions on that front.” She sucked down a breath, her nails digging into his skin as she tried to loosen his grip. “You demanded I tell you what I need. I did.”
Even now her defiance provoked and intrigued him, her backbone stronger than he’d ever imagined. “What are you playing at, female?”
“No game.” Her gaze shifted away from his. “Truth.” Another long pause. “My husband’s legacy.”
He fought to hold on to his usual cool logic. To find the numbness that had kept him and his men alive for so long. “No more riddles. Explain.”
She swallowed hard. “He…he didn’t appreciate my resistance. So, he put something inside me. An experimental technology. To make me a more compliant bride and breeder.”
He locked his knees to stay in his crouch. “That sick fucking bastard.”
The pieces of the puzzle—her fear, the rumors of her running away, her reaction to what had happened to the prisoner Death—slid into place and he dropped to his ass, his legs no longer holding him up.
Hollisworth, her own husband, had experimented on her.
He’d heard the rumors. Secret labs. Non-Council disappearances. Instruments that would one rotation be used to control the entire population. He knew to the disgust of his black heart, too, that some of what they mined here was used to make exactly that kind of
nonsanctioned bullshit. The same weapons of control and torture injected into their blood as trackers.
But he’d never seen it have the effect it was having on her.
Nor had he thought Hollisworth would do something like that to his own kind, let alone one of the females he’d chosen as his bride. It was almost unfathomable.
More proof that the worst monsters weren’t down here, but back on New Earth, masquerading as the planet’s saviors.
“What did he do exactly?” He fought to keep his voice steady. "How does it work?”
She shook her head, her lips pressed tight.
He tightened his hold. Now was not the time for reticence. He needed intel and he needed it fast. “Tell me. You know what happens if you don’t.”
“Sperm,” she whispered. “The…the nanobyte are on a cycle. Every twelve hours, they…” she let out a low moan and his cock twitched anew, knowing damn well this time what that sound meant. “They heat up, trigging my estrogen cycle, stoking it to unnatural levels, making me…making me want it.”
He’d borne witness to so many horrors man had inflicted on man. But even he had never imagined anything like this.
“Is there a way around it?”
“I…I had a pill, but it’s gone.” The quiver in her voice stabbed at him. “Lost somewhere down here, likely the transport unit.”
Which meant it had already been incinerated.
“And without the pills?” He had to ask, though by now he had a pretty dracken good idea.
“If the receptors in my womb don’t register the presence of sperm within the allotted time, the main system in my pituitary gland begins to self-destruct. The need turns to pain, then agony, seizures, convulsions…” her voice dropped, “and ultimately, death.”
He fought down a flare of unholy rage, his skin so tight he thought it might rip right off. He’d always known Hollisworth was a monster, but this?
I know something about nanotechnology and trackers.
He hadn’t believed her before. Now he did.
It took everything in him to steady his voice. “No one is dying.”
Their eyes locked.
“Pregnancy?” He forced himself to ask. No way could he bring a child into this.
She shivered, the half-lidded look in her eyes impossible to decipher. “No. The continual heat cycle makes it impossible. My womb inhospitable.”
He fought to keep his expression hidden. Christ. The bastard had turned her into his own little fuck toy and taken away the one piece of dignified purpose that had been allotted to her kind. And all that talk about needing more breeders to promote his genes and save the planet? Like all the rest of his rhetoric, utter bullshit.
“If you really plan to use me as bait, you’ll have to do it.” The same gut-clenching quiver was back in her voice. “It’s the only way to keep me alive. You have no choice. I have no choice. Hollisworth took that from us both.”
He’d known for a long time that he wasn’t a good man anymore.
But until the reality of her words hit, he hadn’t realized how low he’d sunk. Or how little he’d care that he had.
Taking her should have been about duty, at best. At worst, saving the life of someone in need. But the dirty dishonorable truth?
What thundered loudest through his veins was raw, white-hot lust.
It ripped through every bullshit pretense of disgust and indifference and exposed the truth: he wanted her. Always had.
She might be Council. His sworn enemy’s chosen bride. And nothing he could ever have for himself, but that didn’t seem to matter now.
For this brief moment in time, there was no need to fight it or pretend otherwise. She was his to take. Decision made.
Palms wrapping around her delicate forearms, he lifted her easily to her feet, the silver blade in his hand flashing as it slashed downward, severing the tether binding her arms together. “Strip.”
Surprise flared in her gaze, followed by fear, as his acceptance registered, her skin paling as her breath shortened to staccato pants.
But she pulled herself together fast. That chin tilting up as trembling fingers slid downward, unfastening the closure of her uniform.
Tense silence swirled between them.
She was braver than he’d ever imagined.
A strip of creamy skin appeared. She slipped her arms from the top.
Even a mine collapse beneath his feet would have gone unnoticed.
She might be Council, but she was magnificent.
Bred to entice. Formed to leave a man hard with lust.
Full round breasts tipped with perfect small pink nipples spilled out, bouncing upward with each one of her ragged breaths.
The urge to bury himself in their sweetness was almost more than he could take.
She tugged the uniform lower, exposing the perfection of her small waist, the white creamy softness of her belly, the tantalizing jut of her hips, and then…the shadowed small tuft of silky hair at the V of her legs as she pushed her uniform to mid-thigh and then off altogether. Leaving it crumpled on the red clay ground, every exquisite, mouthwatering inch of her bared before him.
His dick strained against the rough fabric of his covering.
She was softness and beauty and light, a thousand subtle colors and tantalizing hollows and curves. The total opposite of the Dragath stone and crimson darkness that painted the walls and his soul.
He forced himself to remember the plan. To keep his cool. Lust was one thing. Keeping her alive essential. But anything else…anything else was impossible.
They were both just doing what they needed to do to stay alive.
He needed to keep that at the forefront of his mind at all times.
Then, without warning, she turned, bending over and grabbing her ankles.
Presenting him with a perfect view the most gorgeous pussy and tight rosebud he’d ever seen.
Exploding his best intentions.
A wave of throat-gripping lust tinted everything red.
But the thought that came next—that this was Hollisworth’s doing, that he’d taught her to fuck like that—brought everything back into crystal clear focus.
“Stand up. Turn around.” His voice was sharper than intended.
She bolted upright, her gaze dark with uncertainty. “Did…did I do something wrong? The Supreme Councilman always…”
On a growl, he reached for her. Only to have her flinch, her wide-eyed gaze locking on his hands.
He froze. He’d never been more aware of every scar, every bit of dirt and grime and blood. It had soaked into his skin, become a part of who he was, and would never wipe off, no matter how hard he scrubbed.
He dropped his hands to his sides. Tempered his voice. “I…I want something different.”
“What…whatever you require.” But her stare had gone vapid and blank, locking on the corner behind his shoulder. As if she’d taken the best parts of herself and escaped to anywhere but here.
“Ava.”
At the sound of her preferred name, her gaze lurched to his—just as he’d hoped it would.
“That man doesn’t deserve the title of your husband. He’s not even worth the title of shit on your shoe.”
Her breathing hitched.
He stepped closer. “You’ll look at me. Keep your eyes on me.”
Wariness flared. “That’s not what Hollis—”
“That’s what I require.”
“What else do you require? Pain? Humiliation?” A small sob undercut her bravado. “Tell me what to expect.”
“No pain. No humiliation.” His voice was a near growl. He couldn’t give her gentleness. He’d lost that part of himself long ago. Nor could he promise her a rosy future. Hell, he didn’t even know if either of them would make it through the next few intervals. But that didn’t mean he was without options.
“That bastard might have stolen your choice and mine,” he said, “but there is one thing even he can't take.”
Confusion clo
uded her gaze. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m going to fuck you, Ava, but my way. I’m going to show you what it is to want.”
12
Her captor’s words shivered through her.
Want? All she wanted was for this to be over quickly.
He was so much bigger than Hollisworth. Without an ounce of softness or mercy. He was going to rip her apart. Hurt her worse than she’d ever been hurt.
She wanted to be strong. To remember she was now Ava Davies, a competent scientist. A person of worth and intellect.
But humiliating arousal, pain, and the sharp tang of fear battered at her ability to stand tall. The best pieces of herself slipping away until they were nothing but a fuzzy memory and all that was left was the breeder she’d once been, a body driven by the primal instinct to spread and submit.
Would she even be well enough after this encounter to contemplate escape? Often after Hollisworth, she’d been bruised for several rotations.
One challenge at a time, she reminded herself.
She could survive anything if it meant escaping before Hollisworth got hold of her.
Another lick of fire seared her core and she stumbled to stay upright. “It’s growing stronger.”
Lips flattening, her captor tugged at the leather strap around his torso, his weapons clattering to the ground as the harness fell away. Leaving his torso bare, only lengths of smooth, slick chiseled skin and thick muscle. Even without the arsenal, he was pure strength and power. A honed, mouthwatering weapon.
And he was about to be unleashed on her.
Her breathing hitched.
“Come.” He beckoned her forward.
He held all the power. Like with Hollisworth, there was nothing she could refuse. Nothing she could deny him. Not if she wanted to live. Not if she wanted to have the strength to escape.
From the depths of her soul, the woman she’d started to become screamed out in rage and pain.
Trembling, she forced her boots forward.
She stopped when she stood a hair’s breadth away—and had to look up and up.
Her breathing picked up another notch.