Branded Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 3)

by Cari Silverwood

  After what he’d done before, she couldn’t avoid hoping to be fucked.

  When he produced a large dildo on something like a broomstick, she did blink.

  Not those. She grimaced when he introduced the tip to her pussy and pushed, turning it, trying to screw it into her though it barely seemed to go in.

  “Remember these?” Ryke pulled it out and rotated the dildo before her eyes. “My new fuckspear. I’ve put a few of these in you but not one this large.”

  Fear trickled into her throat, closing it down. Not just large, this was enormous.

  “You make me wonder about why you’re doing this. You’re volunteering information when we haven’t been nice to you, have we? You hate us, Mekkers. You’ve said so.” He sat on the bed, casually finding her pussy lips with his fingers while he talked. The thing pressed at her again, at first this wasn’t awful, but the pain built as the dildo stretched her, as it advanced inward. “I figured you didn’t need lubrication, seeing I’ve put some in you already.”

  The dildo crept in, tunneling. By then she was gasping, her eyes tearing, and he kept pushing, pushing. She wouldn’t beg but it was too big. He’d tear her. Then with one shove he burrowed it inches further to the full depth.

  Mouth opened wide, she coughed through the hurt, voicing only one wretched no before she shut down her protests. She closed her eyes and gulped. The thing stretched her to the point where it hurt, especially when her muscles tightened.

  “Done.” He sat up and wedged the stick into the decorative metal board at the end of the bed so the position kept the stick in place. “You’re leaking cum.” Ryke slapped her ass. “Dirty.”

  Still acclimatizing to the dildo inside her, she swallowed again and bit back a whimper.

  “How’s the size?”

  “It’s too big. Please...”

  “Please what? Remove it? No. It’s in. You’ll have it there while I speak to this mechling. “Learn. You do not dictate to me what I do to you.”

  “Mmm.” She nodded, agreeing to anything to make this go faster, the pillow behind her rubbing on her hair.

  “I don’t quite trust you, Gio. I don’t. I don’t understand why you’re helping, and not understanding worries me. Maybe you can think on that.” He bent and picked up something from the floor. Little clips, she saw, shiny clips attached to wire – one at either end of the length of wire. “Not sure what they did with these, but I’m good at making up stuff. One end goes on your cunt...and the other.”

  It had teeth. Fuck, that clip had teeth.

  “Ffff...” Then she whined as he attached several of them to her cunt lips and clipped the other ends to her inner thighs. The pain of those and the dildo threatened to overwhelm her. She shut her eyes. The feelings ballooned inside her. Pain, here, there, thumping at her.

  “Be good and I’ll make you come. Shhh.”

  He invited Aunt M in and spoke to him, listing things to do, which she couldn’t concentrate on or remember. Then he dismissed the mechling.

  “Now. Just you and me.”

  Ryke grabbed the stick and rotated it, sucked it out, thrust it in.

  “Fuck, fuck.” Her head jerked forward. “Stop.”

  “I will soon. Maybe I should find a bigger one for after?”

  “No!”

  “Why are you helping me?” In contravention of all torture rules, he placed his hand over her mound and then slid his fingers down to her clit. “Sloppy girl. You get so wet for me.” Circling her clit, pulsing with finger and thumb, he methodically turned her on while fucking her with the giant dildo.

  Being aroused by this...

  Groaning, she dropped her head to the pillow and pushed herself at his fingers, only to find the little teeth biting and pulling. Though she was bound, the tip of her toes just reached the bed when she couldn’t help herself and strained to arch into the pleasure. Then her ankles pulled at her wrists, pulled at her arms. Arousal climbed, made her thighs shake. Her toes began to ache, but she pushed and treadled. Couldn’t stop. If she came...if she came...those teeth would hurt her. Something hot and wet engulfed her clit, licking and sucking. Oh god, he had his mouth on her.

  In seconds, she was gasping and bucking, hurting while coming, her eyes rolled back and nothing of worth in her head except the orgasm and his mouth and that fucking huge dildo crammed into her, hurting her inside. Her pussy squeezed onto it, hard.

  The little teeth bit. Sharp beautiful pain.

  Her pussy muscles were already at their limits. When they spasmed onto this immoveable object, there was nowhere for them to go. She arched again, thighs hard, her back bowing, forced by the strength of the orgasm.

  Her last few choking gasps turned into a scream.

  Spent, she succumbed, sinking into the bed and sucking down air, until his palm landed on her mouth and nose and stopped her inhaling.

  Eyes flung open by panic, she found herself staring into his as her supply of air became drastically scarce.

  Her pleas filtered through his palm and came out as muffled desperate grunts.

  Ryke removed his hand then watched her wind down from the panic and her hard-fought climax.

  “Remember. I can do what I like to you still. I may want to keep you, but keeping you can mean all manner of things. If I ever find out you betrayed us...”

  Gio licked her mouth. Were those tears at her eyes? It seemed ages before she could finally say what she needed to. “I won’t.”

  “Good.”

  She had forgotten. Ryke was the man in the blood-snack room who’d killed a line of women just because they got in his way.

  She watched him unplug her from the fuckspear and unbind her, remove the pillows. Exhausted, her legs flopped open. Her arms trembled if she tried to move them.

  She would never forget that again.

  Chapter 31

  The meeting with the Followers occurred outside, again, on the grassed area before the crop, beside the entry to the king’s residence. She’d assumed it would be in some meeting room but guessed this suited a people who never saw the naked sun. They’d dimmed the farmland lights and in the hanging houses above, people had come out to watch. A few had children sitting on their laps. Legs dangled through the railings, kicking at the air. It made her wonder how many hoped this little book of prophecy would come true.

  What would it be like to know that your people had once roamed the stars but were now relegated to trundling over the lands of Aerthe inside huge metal boxes, going round and round on predetermined paths? Afraid to leave their landships, afraid to greet the sun or walk on the surface – they were a miserable remnant of what they had been.

  Even if they had mostly destroyed civilization on this world, and had the rest of the world scared to death of them and their war machines.

  Karma was kicking the hell out of the Mekkers.

  And these? She surveyed the much smaller crowd seated before Badh, Ryke, and her...these seemed to be the good ones.

  No regrets. Whatever she did there should be no regrets.

  “Why are we here again, Badh? You know our decision. You say there is something new to do with the Text of Symaia?” Their spokesman held up a copy of the little book.

  “You’re here because we have evidence that Symaia did indeed see what no one else can. That she did have visions. That our mother...” He nodded at Ryke. “Told us the truth. I thought you would like to know of this new evidence and, because it concerns Gio, that you should hear her speak.”

  Fuck. Now she was on the spot.

  The speaker for the Followers looked to her, and only a small crease between his eyes showed he was disconcerted. “Very well. She can speak.”

  Everyone seemed to stop breathing to look to her. She gulped. Birds swooped and squeaked but the odd thing about this place was the absolute lack of bugs. It was a place for the Mekkers and few other creatures except the mechlings. No crickets. No bees.

  Mechlings.

  In the silence she was hyperaware of the
ir little sub-thoughts and there were a few here, in the crop, near the distant circular windows that let light in from the outside. She frowned. One mechling rang in her thoughts like a black bell, spreading dissonance. A wrong note.

  “Gio?” Ryke nudged her with an elbow.

  “Oh. Sorry. I was thinking.”

  “Answer him, please.”

  Please was a weird word for Ryke, but she inhaled, exhaled, then spoke. “I saw your Text of Symaia for the first time last night and I had...” She paused, should she call it this? “I saw something odd on the cover. Something impossible.” She raised Ryke’s copy. “Most of you will know I am human and from another world. This cover has a picture of a landmark from my world, Earth.”

  Murmurs erupted from the crowd and she also heard someone shout what she’d said to the people watching above. Had no one brought a megaphone? Or a mic and speaker? Sometimes the lack of certain tech among the Mekkers baffled her.

  “This shows the Eiffel Tower and that can only be there, on this book, if Symaia saw my world in a vision. She cannot have visited my world!”

  That was enough. People yelled her words, spreading them. The volume of discussion and arguments rose and rose until Badh stood and shouted, “Stop!”

  Slowly they quietened.

  “I know this might be disturbing or enlightening, or it might even be exactly what you’ve wanted to hear, but please be gentler. Talk more softly. And...what can we do with this? Ryke and I have thought and talked and we think it best if we see whether there is anything else Gio can find in the text. She has new eyes.”

  “She’s a human and a slave. Not a Mekker!” someone yelled.

  She could do nothing except sit and weather this, and hope they’d come to a conclusion that she could manipulate, somehow.

  After several minutes, the spokesman from the Followers stood and raised his arms. A hush fell again.

  “We have conferred and decided to do as Badh has suggested. The Gathering approaches, and if nothing else, we wish to spread our faith to other deckers in other landships in other swathes. We should let her study the text.”

  That was it then. She was allowed to stay here. Had their blessing, in a way.

  Except, they’d not told the deckers in other swathes? Without anything like radio or the internet, with no simple method of communication, she supposed it would be difficult to spread information.

  Out of the blue an idea occurred to her and she held up her hand. This was what she needed to do. Misdirect. Make them waste energy and time.

  The speaker of the Followers noticed her and nodded.

  “What if there was an original version of this book? Was there one? Have you looked?”

  “Of course. There was one. She preached from it. That’s what inspired this copy to be made from memory. The original vanished when Symaia walked into the Engine Sea.”

  Curious. Her heart thudded loudly. “Why not search for it? Where could it be?”

  “If we knew that we would have found it by now.”

  “I see.” Push too much and she might get them suspicious. Perhaps Symaia had walked into the sea with it in her pocket.

  Ryke was already glaring at her.

  Be small and non-challenging. Merge into the damn floor. Her instinct for self-preservation reared its head. She subsided to sit on the grass.

  The little crowd eventually dispersed, and she was left to wait for the two men to decide what to do.

  Badh helped her to her feet. She hadn’t needed help but it was rare that she’d been touched by this man. Same as Ryke, he had a certain masculine appeal, though his hair was the opposite in color, and he was gentler.

  “What are you doing with her then, Ryke? Where can she study? Among the Followers? They have regular meetings in Building Shaft One.”

  To be out among others would give her new options. Then Ryke took her hand and pulled her to his side, keeping her hand in a firm grip. Jealous? Of his brother?

  “No. I don’t think so.”

  “But...” Ryke’s stare made her rethink. “If you don’t want that then okay, but I will go crazy inside there forever, with only Aunt M for company.” She indicated the residence. “You’re going to be away, yes? What about out here? Is it safe enough here if Aunt M is with me?”

  Was he worried she’d run away? Where to? In the Above, escape had been problematic but down here seemed a more tightly knit community with few places to hide. They’d know if she put a foot wrong. Her chances of escaping and hiding were miniscule, unless she could reach the outside.

  Her chances of him agreeing to her suggestion would be as small?

  “Here?” He looked about. “I suppose you can study here. I will decide how long you can do this for, and only while the mechling watches you. The hoppers won’t obey you. Every building shaft is locked down to anyone not a decker. So you will stay here. Understand?”

  “Yes. Aunt M can teach me, if I need anything?” He’d actually said yes. Wow.

  “Sure.” He brushed a finger down her nose. “Be good and you can learn from it. I need to help Badh until we reach the Gathering site.”

  “Which is soon?”

  “Yes.” He looked to Badh. “They must be adjusting for our slow speed?”

  He splayed his hands, palms upward, shrugged. “They must be, though I’m only the leader of the deckers. I’m last to hear anything.”

  “Of course you are.” Ryke stared across the farmland. The lights above grew stronger and soon they glared full force across the crop, but Ryke didn’t budge. Gio wondered what he saw, what he thought. The man didn’t strike her as a philosopher. “Of course.”

  Her small freedom was a big step. To be allowed to sit on the grass and read with only Aunt M to watch her, it was wonderful.

  Her heart threatened to burst that first day.

  That Ryke chose to mostly ignore her when he returned at night? That was a surprise and she tried to see how it was connected to her being allowed out.

  It couldn’t be, could it? He must be tired from the work. She knew he was using a core flyer, as they called the silver-winged craft. On Earth it would surely be classed similar to hang gliding? When the woman flew beneath her at the bow, the wings had looked as intricately filigreed with holes as a piece of Indian jewelry. Which would be impossible, if this wasn’t Aerthe.

  If the lift from air didn’t keep them airborne, it must be the energy from the sea. Some sort of power at work. The Mekkers might not understand either. They seemed in a flux between being the supreme owners of the near galaxy and being a people sinking in a swamp of neglected technology they no longer fully understood.

  She read the book in a few hours and came across nothing much new. The complex words took a few seconds to figure out, especially with Aunt M teaching her. Learning those was child’s play. She must pretend to study it and think of something to distract them with. Something connected to the text.

  The second day she gained courage and ventured closer to one of the large umbrella-shaped windows. Shadows marched past. Mountains, she thought. Maybe forests.

  Sometimes flares of blue wriggled upward just outside the curved glass.

  Whatever were those?

  Her eternal curiosity drove her to go even closer until the window was inches away. She placed her palm on it. Cold and smooth. She leaned in, trying to focus on something at the periphery.

  Though their outlines were blurred by the thickness of this transparent material, there were mechlings outside, riding the edge of the window. The blue gushed and wriggled from them or into them, brightening the glass until it was near unbearable to look.

  “What are they doing, Aunt M?”

  “They recharge. It is what we do. By doing so they also help recharge the waik cores in the Engine Sea.”

  “Ahhh. And you? I’ve not seen you do this.”

  “It is possible to simply take from the core also. I was in stasis for a long time. I woke by using core energy then recharged that way also.
I cannot get to where they are now. My body is too large. There are small outlets, so that mechlings can get onto the outer hull.”

  There was the answer to her question about the birds. Though they might also have entered the landship when the DRAK hit, as she first thought. She couldn’t get out through a hole a small mechling used.

  When the recharging was done, she could see what awaited her if she did escape. A lonely landscape. A desert with endless dunes of sand or orange-colored dirt. Elsewhere on Aerthe there existed snowy lands and forests. If she could leave and could choose when, it would be when she could stay alive outside. Not here.

  Here was a landscape for lizards and camels.

  Nevertheless, she had the book.

  Gio sat near the window, cross-legged, to study the volume again and touched the cover. It had become so very familiar to her and made her wonder about this woman who was Ryke’s mother.

  Why had she left her sons? Why die and leave them sad and alone? To make this religion spring to greater heights? How could she have known her death would be treated like that of James Dean and Cobain? Celebrity status guaranteed. She couldn’t have. Her choice seemed the very antithesis of motherhood. Her boys had already lost their father.

  That was the past though and something terrible must have made her despair.

  How was she going to use this text? Must she invent something again?

  Her study times outside were limited by Ryke’s instructions. Inside the residence, however, she could get Aunt M to teach her what she thought of as the forbidden things.

  Things Ryke would disapprove of if he knew of them.

  How to fight with a knife. How to throw one.

  How to punch and kick and take out a man’s throat.

  Not that she had the muscles to do any of those to anything larger than a bug. She needed months and months of practice, and probably a courage implant too. That was disheartening. The truth often was.

  Even so, Aunt M had some fascinating and useful teaching modules and with her humanoid size and shape Gio could even spar with him...her. She discovered Aunt M wasn’t keen on taking a kitchen knife to the eyeball. Luckily there were spare eyeballs.