Marked 2: Marked for Desire

by Jennifer Leeland

  Chapter Eight

  Shit. Leo couldn’t believe the power, the sentient consciousness he’d sensed from the planet. It wanted to own her, suck her dry. No wonder she was terrified to be here. And he’d asked her to use the very power that would kill her. All because the bleeding man had touched her, had her sweet mouth around his cock. Leo clenched his fists. She was right. He was a fucking asshole.

  He’d barely brought her back. Her eyes had glowed, her fingertips red and hot. When he’d kissed her, those fingertips had burned his skin, burning through his shirt, scorching his arms. Like the mate mark, they throbbed and hurt now, but they would fade. Unlike the mark he’d forced on her.

  In her gaze, he saw that irresistible submission that fascinated him. The Nyral rage, only subject to the heart, not the body, had swamped him because she’d implied she’d fucked him casually. It hadn’t been like this with Shanie. How the hell was he ever going to survive this? He’d lost his last mate in a horrific bloodbath. Would he condemn his princess to the long years without a mate? Would she miss him as he’d missed Shanie?

  A groan in the dark reminded him that they had a prisoner. He retrieved his discarded knife and stalked the man. An assassin. Like the one who killed Shanie. Amazingly, the fucker sat up on his elbows and stared at the princess. He didn’t like that at all. “Get your eyes off her, killer.” They were all killers.

  The man’s gaze fell.

  Leo placed the knife at the man’s throat. “She wanted to save you. For information. If you don’t give it to us, you’re fucking dead. Clear, killer?”

  The man’s Adam’s apple moved, and he nodded.

  “Where are you from?” The princess asked the very question he didn’t want to ask. Leo thought he knew.

  “Nylar.”

  So, he hadn’t lied on Sethos Five. He really was from Nylar. Violence was close to the surface. Leo trembled; the knife brushed the man’s skin. A fellow dominant, touching his mate, threatening his mate.

  “Leo!” The princess gripped his arm and shook it, but he wanted the man dead. He’d touched her, laid his dominant hands on her. He’d tried to kill her.

  A muffled curse from his princess barely registered before her soft lips pressed against his. It certainly got his attention. So did the firm stroke of her fingers on his cock through his pants. From the killing rage to hot passion in half a second, he jerked the knife away from the assassin to claim his mate.

  Slowly the haze around his brain faded, and he recognized what she was trying to do. He broke the kiss and stared at his woman. Her eyes were lined with worry, and two small lines marred her forehead. He smoothed the lines and kissed her gently. “I’m okay now.”

  She let out a long breath. “I really don’t give a shit if you kill him, Leo, but we’ve got to know who gave the orders and why.”

  He nodded and turned back to the assassin, the Nyral assassin. “Explain to me how someone who shares my planet would become the scum of the galaxy.”

  The man’s hazel eyes blinked. “I was recruited.” He was young, Leo realized. The club information stated his age as twenty-two. He certainly couldn’t have been more than that.

  “How were you recruited?” the princess demanded. Leo liked how her voice was hard, threatening. There was nothing wimpy about his woman. He flexed his hands to keep them to himself, even though he wanted to bury himself inside her again. Focus.

  The assassin said nothing.

  “So you’re a traitor.” Leo sneered.

  “No.” The word exploded from the man’s mouth. “I swear it.”

  “Then why are you a Brotherhood killer?” Leo pressed.

  The assassin’s lips tightened, and his breath blew out. “You don’t understand.”

  Leo glared at him. “How are you to contact the Brotherhood if you’re stranded?”

  Those hazel eyes shifted. Gotcha! The man was going to lie now. He cleared his throat. “We don’t. If we’re stranded—”

  Leo’s hand gripped the man’s throat, and he gurgled, choked. “Liar!” Leo snapped. “The truth. Now, asshole, or I’ll snap you in two.”

  He released the man’s throat enough for him to speak. The assassin’s voice was hoarse. “I have a frequency, a call sign.”

  Leo glared at him. “There are ten of you, killer. We’ve only seen five. Where’s the rest of your cell?”

  The assassin’s silence was enough of an answer. They didn’t have much time. The princess made a small sound, and Leo glanced at her. “Shall I kill him now?” He kept his tone casual. He wanted to kill the man. A traitor. A Nyral dominant who used his power to murder the helpless. A killer who preyed on those who sought sexual relief in the clubs, he should be put down like a feral ferwak.

  “No,” his princess said. Leo gazed at her. The expression on her face was regal, imperious, passing judgment. “We’re going to use him.”

  The assassin shook. “What are you going to do to me?”

  His princess leaned closer to him and glared. “I’m going to use you as a human sacrifice, assassin. If your friends come to find you, this planet is going to eat you alive.”

  * * *

  “He’s terrified.” She shuddered. Leo tried to refrain from touching her, but she needed his comfort. He wrapped his arms around her, his hands gentle, the same hands that had just rendered their prisoner unconscious.

  “He’s young. But he’s a Nyral dominant, Princess,” he told her. “As a child, he was taught the danger, the pitfalls of power. We are well trained in our restraint, our control.” So much for his own control. When it came to the princess, he didn’t have much. But he wasn’t abusing his power either. He gazed at the young man’s sleeping face. He seemed even younger. “He has betrayed all of it. Murder is a heinous crime on Nylar. It denotes a lack of control, a lack of understanding. Even those of us trained in combat use killing only as a last resort.” He stroked her back and rocked her. She curled up against his chest and sighed.

  “Can we help him?” Her voice was muffled against his chest.

  Ah, his sweet princess. “Perhaps. We may have to let him put his call through. There’s more to this than he’s telling.”

  She nodded. “There’s a communications complex about two clicks from here.”

  He leaned back and stared at her. “How do you know this labyrinth so well?”

  Her lips tightened, and her gaze was riveted on his chest. “My mother…trained me here.”

  Trained her. Leo was pretty sure it wasn’t pleasant. Something in her demeanor screamed her discomfort. “I see. Well, let’s wait until our prisoner wakes up. We need to find some food and water.”

  She nodded. “It’s on the way.” Her blue eyes swirled as her gaze met his. “Leo, I don’t like any of this. How do you think the Brotherhood is recruiting?”

  “Maybe some of the foot soldiers like him are forced into the Brotherhood, but the leaders? No. They’re committed to the cause—whatever the cause might be.” He smoothed her hair and held her close. Somehow his perfect submissive had climbed right into his heart. His mate mark throbbed, a low-level reminder of the passionate explosions that happened between them.

  She purred.

  His cock hardened, stirred by her nearness, taunted by her sweetness. God, he wanted to keep her naked, leashed, and on her knees. He imagined her red hair spilling over her back, her breasts taut and ready, her hands clasped behind her. This was going to be torture. His mate mark burned, and she muttered.

  “What?”

  “I said, stop it. My arm is scorching. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

  “I doubt it,” he said drily.

  She tipped her head up and smiled. “Oh, I think so. You want to put a collar on me and have me down on my knees for you. Isn’t that what every dom wants?”

  “I want a lot more than that,” he murmured, his mouth nearing hers until their breath mingled. “I’d want an anal plug in that sweet ass of yours and nipple clamps on those spectacular tits. And I’d
want your pussy within reach of my fingers always, every moment, so I could touch you and make you come over and over—” His own words were making his cock leak. Fuck. The image was so real, so clear, so potent.

  “Ohhhh,” she sighed. “When you say it like that, it sounds heavenly.”

  He groaned. “Princess—”

  She pressed her lips to his. He growled and took over. She belonged to him, all of her, every inch. He wanted to worship her, get inside her skin, inside her head. Instead he kept trying to get inside her pussy. He softened the kiss and pulled away. He cupped her face, stunned by her half-lidded, drowsy expression. Just from his kiss. Damn it. She was sex incarnate, from her sweet curves to her complete surrender. His fingers twined in her soft tresses and gently tugged to expose her neck. He pressed his lips to the slope of her shoulder. “There is so much more to mating than that, Princess.” He raised his head and brushed her lips with his. “It’s not just sex and domination.”

  Her eyes widened. “What else is there?”

  He cursed himself silently. “I’ll show you. Don’t write us off too soon.” He almost groaned when she squirmed in his lap. It took every ounce of control he had to slide her out of his lap and onto her feet.

  The assassin stirred. Leo dropped his hands away from her, stood up, and gripped the prisoner’s arm. “Get up, killer. We’ve got some walking to do.”

  His princess led the way, and they left the alcove into the confusing labyrinth.

  * * *

  Sera’s memory served her well. It was so odd. She was leading a Brotherhood assassin and her new Nyral mate through the confusing twists and turns beneath a sacred Placido temple. The corridors were lit with ankai stones, which gave off a natural light. The planet thrummed beneath her feet. It pressed against her, shifting and impatient. As a child, she’d experienced the planet’s demand, but her mother had deflected much of the pressure. Yet her young mind had sensed the danger, the overpowering need under the surface. Her mother insisted it was Sera’s destiny, a word that brought the taste of ashes on her tongue. All her life she’d known it would come to this.

  The last confrontation with her mother had taken place on Sethos Five when they’d clashed over Sera’s errant sexual behavior. The moment was burned in her brain.

  “You’ve humiliated us for the last time, Sera. You’re the last of our line, and our planet needs us.” Her mother’s brown hair, turning gray, was ruthlessly pulled back in a complicated bun. Her blue eyes glittered. Determination tightened her features into a hard mask, one that Sera recognized. Not much had changed between them. Her mother still demanded, just as the planet demanded, her soul.

  “I am not going to sacrifice my whole life for that fucking planet.”

  Her mother’s hand lashed out and slapped her. It stung her cheek and her pride. But she refused to be cowed. She was twenty, almost legal. Her mother’s nails bit into her arm when she grabbed her.

  “It’s your destiny. You must give the planet everything.” Her mother’s voice was shrill and piercing. “It’s your fate.”

  “No, it’s your fate,” Sera snapped, trying to rip her arm away from her mother. “You want to sacrifice your life for that place. I don’t.”

  “You’ll see,” her mother said in a tight voice. “It will devour you too.”

  “No. It may take you, but it will never have me.”

  “All your training has been geared to harness that power! We need it. Our people—”

  Sera interrupted. “Our people have found new lives.” Her fists clenched. “They ran away from the power. Why would they want it back?” She glared at her mother. “You know Placido demands a price for the power. We wield it, but it steals from us.”

  Her mother’s hand tightened on her arm in a painful twist. “We can be a force in the galaxy again. Our people can have a home.”

  “They could also be dead. I’ll have no part in that.”

  She’d run away from her mother and hadn’t seen her again. The next time they’d been in the same room, Placido had taken Queen Myla. The vision haunted Sera. A final stand, a performance staged for the faithful, had resulted in a spectacular show filled with blood and death. Her mother had thought to control the power, direct its destructive force. Instead it melted her skin, hollowed her cheeks, and turned her bones to dust. Her last words had been an agonizing scream.

  Stumbling, Sera almost lost her balance, but a warm hand caught her arm. “Watch your step, Princess.”

  In the eerie light, Leo’s gaze seemed to pierce through her as if he could see her thoughts. It both disturbed her and thrilled her. She stepped away from him, her arm throbbing where his mark glowed. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

  His fingers stroked her skin and then released her. She missed the warmth, her body instantly responding to his slightest touch. Part of her wanted to crawl into his arms and seek comfort she wasn’t sure was there. She took a deep breath, seeking to calm her erratic pulse, and walked on.

  “You said you were trained here. What kind of training?” Leo asked her.

  The kind that still gives me nightmares. The kind that makes me run to every corner of the galaxy to escape this fucking place. “Nothing unusual. I learned the labyrinth with a blindfold, and I had to learn the ancient texts.”

  “What language is this?” Leo asked her, his finger tracing some of the writing engraved on the walls.

  “The language of the stars,” she said shortly. She didn’t want to talk about this. He’d never understand. Her childhood had been about obligation and duty,. Memories of her mother were so clear, so vivid. Her father? He’d faded away, unwilling to participate in the creation of a religious acolyte. Her mother called him weak and pathetic, but he’d made an impression on his daughter. Sera would not follow her mother into the grave.

  “Is that what you used at the ritual?” Leo persisted. He had no idea what she’d awakened. It wanted to devour her, use her to live. Tears blurred her vision. Fuck. She hadn’t felt this helpless in a long time. Destiny was what her mother had called it. Sera called it suicide. But everyone wanted her to give in, surrender to the planet, believing that was the key to bringing her people home. Except Leo. He just wanted her. Even that thought didn’t banish all the terror that churned inside her.

  Leo’s hand brushed her neck. “You don’t want to talk about it?”

  Her lips tightened. “My childhood was not some pleasant memory to hug close to my chest. There’s a reason I kept running.”

  He nodded. “I can see what it does to you.”

  Their companion was silent, and Sera wondered what he made of the conversation. She’d revealed very little about the power she’d inherited. Dangerous and threatening, she used it only when she had to. Like with the Teran Three priest who had stolen those artifacts.

  Her people had little left of their planet. Their temple’s treasures were their future. Sera would loan items to museums, but she was no fool. She made sure they went back where they belonged. Her ancestors had known so little about the power they’d accessed. She was afraid whatever awakened the monster of Placido would create another monster on another planet.

  “Where are we going?” the assassin finally asked. Brave man. Leo would kill him without blinking.

  Sera didn’t glance backward to look at him. “A few years ago, I granted archeologists access to the temple above us. I put in an underground replicator room for them. We need food and water.”

  Leo touched her again, a quick, reassuring slide of his fingers. He seemed to know she needed comfort. The closer they got to the heart of her planet’s power, the more her stomach churned and the drier her throat became.

  “Here it is,” she said finally.

  The assassin collapsed, and she slid down the wall as well. She was worn-out. It was Leo who replicated food and set it in front of both her and the other man. Leo touched Sera’s cheek. “Where’s the com room? I’m going to call the Nyral council for reinforcements.”

  “It’s
down the corridor, the next door on the right.” She picked at the food he’d given her.

  Leo waited until the other man finished eating. “I need something to restrain him.”

  “There’s some laser ties in that drawer over there.” Sera pointed across the room. “They’re used to keep the food stores from moving around during transport, but they should work.”

  He retrieved a laser restraint and tied the man up. “I don’t want you to move until I get back.”

  Leo left her alone with the assassin.

  She studied him. “What’s your real name?”

  His hazel eyes glanced at her and then back to the floor. “Shaun Fenway.” He kept his gaze lowered. “What did you mean you would use me as a human sacrifice?”

  “When I use my powers, my planet sucks life away. I plan to use you for that if your friends show up.” She studied him. So young. And who knew if he was telling the truth about anything. The Brotherhood was a group of killers, not children. He didn’t react to her statement. As if he was resigned to his death.

  “I see,” he said. He took a deep breath. “I’m not a monster.”

  “Aren’t you?” she responded. “What about the children killed on Corilus? Collateral damage? How about my guards?” Every member of the Brotherhood deserved to die. Every single one of them. “It’s easy to kill when you don’t have to pick up the pieces, I suppose.”

  His hand clenched into a fist. “You don’t know anything.” When he lifted his head, he glared at her. Shaun swallowed. “They kidnapped my sister. To keep her alive, I did whatever they told me.”

  “You know she’s alive?” Sera asked.

  The man nodded. “I’m allowed to see her each time I complete a mission. If I fail, they’ll…violate her. If I die, she will be killed.”

  “Good motivation,” she muttered. She couldn’t blame the man. It was brilliant, really. To use hostages to keep them in line.

  “Were you recruited by the general?” Sera knew two of the generals had been captured. Which one had forced Shaun to become a killer?

  The assassin shook his head. “No. I was abducted and left in a cell. I never saw the man who threatened my sister.”