by Renee Rose
Something in Seke snapped to attention. He tightened the arm around her waist. “Only with me?” he rasped.
“Yes,” she breathed, still bucking her hips, her pussy clenching on air.
A buzz sounded, and Seke brought a vibrating capsule between her legs and pressed it against her clit. She’d never seen such a thing before, and she flinched, fearing pain, but it brought only instantaneous pleasure. She jerked, thrusting toward it and throwing her head back against his shoulder.
He brought it slowly up and down her slit.
“Oh...oh!” she shrieked. “What are you doing?” Panic rang out in her voice.
Seke immediately took it away, and she sagged between his knees. “Does it hurt?”
“No—stars, no. Please, do it again.”
He didn’t require more encouragement, returning the little device to the apex of her sex, where he circled her clitoris with a slow-quick motion that drove her wild.
She gave a cry of excitement.
Seke moved the capsule to penetrate her pussy. When she pushed up at him, seeking more, he stood abruptly, still holding her around the waist, her feet dangling above the floor. With a quick movement, he carried her to the bed, forcing her down on her belly beneath him.
A thrill of heat surged from her core upward—the knowledge Seke was going to veck her. And she had no doubt about her interest in that action. She wanted him—desperately.
But instead of his cock nudging at her entrance, the vibrating capsule returned, his heavy erection still contained by his leggings pressing her welted ass down and forcing her pussy against the hard plastic he held in place.
She gave a choked cry as the device penetrated her, Seke’s pumping hips thrusting her pussy over it and back, the vibration setting every nerve ending on fire.
“Seke,” she cried out. “What are you—?” But she couldn’t finish the words. Her orgasm came hurtling over her, core clenching, bottom bucking against Seke’s contained cock.
She collapsed, taking the capsule deeper into her still-squeezing channel, her thighs shaking, body limp. “Seke,” she repeated again, knowing she was babbling and not able to stop herself.
She hadn’t orgasmed in years. Hadn’t masturbated or even considered sex after Johan died. Not until she’d met Seke. Now, the part of her she thought long dead, or at least broken, surged up, in perfect repair.
The capsule stopped vibrating, and Seke eased his weight off her and pulled it out. “As your master, I control everything. When you’re obedient, I’ll give you release.”
Maybe if he hadn’t just scrambled her mind with the most potent climax of her life, she would have contained her fury at those words. Maybe if she hadn’t assumed a closeness over what they’d just shared. But his words brought her reality crashing back down on her, and she suddenly hated herself for letting him please her.
With all the force she could muster, she twisted and aimed her heel at the bridge of his nose.
~.~
Seke dodged the kick without thinking, but he should have let it fall. To wound Leora like that was unconscionable. She’d just given herself to him. Beautifully. Had just surrendered, allowed him to pleasure her, opened to receive everything he gave. It had been a vecking privilege to watch her go off. And because he’d felt so much more than he expected, because he should not have taken her that way—because even though it hadn’t been sex, it had been vecking close—he’d sought to justify it as something a master does. Not a lover. And he’d hurt his little human.
Veck.
If he could take it back, he would. But it wasn’t possible—he couldn’t apologize without undoing the training he’d worked all planet rotation to establish. And if he apologized, he would show his hand—his real feelings for her. And where would that get them? They were feelings he couldn’t act on. Not without breaking his vow of celibacy and debasing the memory of Becka. Not without breaking Zander’s word to Lamira. And Zandians didn’t break their vows.
No, it was better this way, even though seeing how he’d hurt Leora flayed him, gutted him like a sword to the chest.
He took control of her swiftly, capturing her wriggling body, cuffing her wrists together, then doing the same with her ankles to limit her wild fighting. He didn’t have it in him to punish her again. She’d been through enough already, and he couldn’t bear driving them further apart.
“In your cage, now, little one.” He forced a tender tone, even though anger and hate poured off her in waves.
“No,” she screamed, bucking and kicking as much as she could with the cuffs binding her.
He carried her to the cage. “Open cage.” The voice-activated door swung open. When he tried to slide her through the entryway, she thrashed even harder, striking her head against the pale rock-wood bars, which were as hard as marble. She grunted in pain, and he drew back, not wanting her to hurt herself more.
She stopped her fighting, panting and warily watching him with narrowed eyes.
Veck.
If she were a student of his, there to seek his training, he would impart the lesson until she learned it, never bending, never deviating from his plan. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t truly a slave. She was Leora. Honored mother of the prince’s mate. Lovely, proud human, who held herself with the dignity of a queen. His Leora.
He sighed, knowing he’d lost the battle. Probably had lost it before they’d even begun this training.
He walked away from the cave and over to the sleepdisk and lowered his beautiful, naked slave onto the mattress. She curled up on her side in a defensive position. If he were a wise male, he would leave her now. Leave the chamber, let her settle on her own.
But it seemed his wisdom had been blown out of the chamber when he’d witnessed Leora’s climax because he lay beside her and curled his larger frame around hers, noting how perfectly she fit, notched against him, her trembling body soft, the citrusy scent of her hair soothing his frayed nerves like a drug. He wrapped a beefy arm around her waist and tugged her closer.
“Sleep, Leora. Tomorrow, we’ll discuss your resistance.”
He wasn’t sure whether to log it as a success or failure that she did not even tense at the threat. Her breath slowed and became easy, and within a few moments, the female who had just overtaken his life dropped into sleep.
His cock throbbed, pressed against her bare ass, the heat from her punishment searing even through his leggings. This was his penance. Suffering her constant presence, her nudity, witnessing her explosive orgasms, taking care of her vulnerable human body, would punish him for the liberties he took with her. He would pay in blue balls and a petrified cock. Which he could only reason he deserved beyond measure.
Chapter Three
Lamira rubbed her belly, swollen below her newly pierced belly button. She was naked and on her knees, as Zander required when he entered his chamber, but her huge purple-skinned mate didn’t even look at her when he entered. He’d been ignoring her since their return to his pod the previous planet rotation.
It was better than being banished from his chamber, as he’d done when she’d refused to tell him the truth about her psychic abilities. Sort of. Still, suffering his continued silence made her chest ache.
“Zander—”
He held up his hand. “Do not speak unless spoken to.”
She nibbled her lip. So they were back to this. After he’d taken her as his mate, pierced and adorned her with Zandian crystals, after he’d admitted his love for her, now he was back to treating her like nothing more than a breeding slave.
She tried to build a wall against the pain lancing her heart. Should she fight him? Insist he communicate with her?
But no. Zander retreated when something bothered him. If she pushed, she only risked him sending her farther away. Only, there was one question she couldn’t hold back. “Have you taken my mother from me?” she croaked.
“No.” He didn’t turn to face her, giving her his back as he stripped out of his clothes.
&nbs
p; “Where is she?”
“I’ve given her to Seke for punishment and obedience training.”
Lamira sucked in her breath, shocked. Every cell in her body went on alert, protectiveness for her mother overriding her concern for her own well-being. “My lord—”
“Do not speak.” His voice lashed like a whip.
Tears gathered in the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them back, her mind turning over what he’d said. Punishment and obedience training. Her mother could handle that, if anyone could. She had managed to make their lives as slaves as easy as possible on the agrifarm, teaching Lamira how to blend in, keep her head down and her rebel heart well hidden. Seke would be a kind and humane master compared to the foremen and directors of the agrifarm. Besides, Seke cared for her mother. Everyone had noticed. He took special care with her—with little chivalrous acts like escorting her through the halls, opening doors. He always had an eye on her, standing silent in the shadows, his large presence more comforting than any guard’s.
“Go to sleep, Lamira.” Zander sounded weary. He still hadn’t looked at her, or even faced her, moving about the chamber with heavy purpose as he readied for bed.
She rose to her feet and padded to the sleepdisk, curling up on her side.
Zander voice-commanded the lights off and lay down without touching her, just as he’d done the night before. This time, she couldn’t hold back the tears. Daneth said the pregnancy made her more emotional, and it seemed to be true, although she’d always cried easily when it came to Zander. He’d turned her inside out from the day he sent Daneth to purchase her.
“Why won’t you just punish me, Zander?”
He flipped over and lunged for her, covering her mouth with his hand, her body with his long, muscled one. Despite the violence of the move, the anger behind it, her body responded to his nearness, to his touch.
She arched into him, the pointed tips of her breasts brushing against his beautiful, sculpted chest.
He didn’t cover her nose—she could still breathe, and though he easily dominated her body, nothing about what he’d done had hurt or scared her.
A light on his cuff flashed, probably telling him how much he’d aroused her.
His eyes flashed violet, but not with arousal—with anger. “I told you not to speak,” he hissed.
Fresh tears flooded her eyes.
“Don’t.” He always said humans were too emotional, and he particularly didn’t like when she cried, although he’d grown to understand it in their time together.
She turned her face away, as if she might hide her emotions, and he released her with a muttered curse.
He remained still, braced on his arms, his body poised over hers for a long beat, then he lowered himself to her side. When one of his long arms came around her waist and tucked her back against his front, all the tension in her muscles eased.
Yes.
This.
She needed him, needed the closeness, his touch. Even if he wasn’t ready to talk or to punish her, at least he didn’t deny her this. She closed her eyes and let the remaining tears run down her nose onto the pillow.
The following planet rotation, she’d try again.
He couldn’t block her out forever.
~.~
Leora woke to the sound of Seke holo-conferencing with one of his heads of security, Lundric, a handsome young Zandian who had to be around Zander’s age. She remained lying down, remembering she might be seen on the hologram if she got in the view.
There hadn’t been such fancy technology on the agrifarm, nor in the factory where she’d been enslaved. She supposed the directors had access, but the humans never saw it. It certainly wasn’t wasted on them.
The human resistance movement used the most ancient form of communication—word of mouth among those trusted. She’d been a link in a long chain of communications. She wondered if they’d filled the gap since she left. She wanted to be on that death pod with Rok and Lily, helping ready the humans who’d escaped death, thanks to Rok and Zander.
But they were readying them for a war no one in the human resistance had foreseen—the war to regain Zandia.
The dull ache that had been with her ever since Lily’s rescue flared to life. Her daughter hadn’t recognized her, hadn’t remembered her. Of course she hadn’t—she’d been only three solar cycles when one of the factory guards grabbed her to sell into sexual slavery. Still, Leora had wanted to reestablish a relationship—immediately. But she understood. Lily had fallen in love with Rok, the Zandian pilot who rescued her. Their relationship was new and fragile, exciting. And it had been their idea to utilize the humans to make up Zandian troops, her daughter as committed to human freedom as her father had been. It hadn’t been the time to go quietly back to Zander’s pod with her mother and sister and get to know two strangers who looked just like her.
Leora understood. But it still hurt. She wanted to know her daughter, to learn what she’d missed. To be as integral a part of her life as she was of Lamira’s.
Seke disconnected the communication, and Leora sat up, pulling a blanket up to her armpits to cover her nudity. She winced at the contact of her sore bottom with the mattress. The surface still burned and, below it, a dull ache made her infinitely aware of every stroke Seke had administered.
Her new master swiveled in his hover chair and gave her one of his inscrutable gazes. “Drop the blanket,” he said after a pregnant pause. His blue eyes darkened to smoky purple.
She looked down at her hands, fisting the fabric; the small mounds of her breasts shifted beneath it. It felt incredibly wrong to be naked, after all those years dressing in the most loose-fitting, ugly sacks she could find, to disguise her shape and form. When she’d first met Johan, he’d made her feel beautiful, and she’d loved her feminine body then, but in the years since his death, she’d become disassociated from her body. Being female meant danger at every turn.
She closed her eyes and reluctantly lowered the fabric, little by little, until it rested at her waist, her fingers still gripping it as if her life depended on hanging on.
“Thank you for your obedience. Remember, when you are in my chamber, you will be bared to me.”
She couldn’t muster anger toward him at that statement, just the beginning pulse of interest between her legs. Damn him.
“You may use the washroom, then come to me.”
Her tummy fluttered. What did he have in mind for her this planet rotation? She climbed off the sleepdisk and headed to the washroom. Once there, she eyed the washtube. He hadn’t said what she could and couldn’t do in the washroom. A nice hot shower might feel good and would delay whatever torture he had in mind.
She used the facilities then slipped into the washtube, which closed and automatically filled with water. Lamira had shown her how to use it when she’d arrived, after regaling her with the comedic story of her first panicked use of one, in which she thought she would drown.
Water swirled around her, but far from soothing, the heat of the water stung her sore bottom, making her gasp and dance around. She gritted her teeth as it rose up over her head then drained a moment later, leaving her bottom more tender and prickly than before. Even the warm air blowing across her skin irritated her marked ass as it dried her. A sheen of oil blew over her skin while hot air concentrated on her hair until it, too, had dried. The door slid open, and she stumbled out, feeling more fragile than when she’d gone in. And now she had to face Seke.
She desperately wanted clothing. What she’d tolerated due to shock the previous planet rotation now seemed an even higher penance to pay, but there was nothing for it. With her chin lifted, she stepped out of the washroom and walked to where Seke sat, busy at his calculations.
He ignored her for a moment, but when he turned, she saw the effect of her closeness, or more likely, her nudity on him. His sexy horns thickened and tilted in her direction, eyes glowed, changing color. Even his skin seemed to darken. She longed to touch that purple skin. Did it feel like a
human’s? It was hairless, as far she could tell. Except for the dark closely-shorn hair on his head.
He reached out and rested his huge hands on her hips, drawing her forward between his knees. “How did you sleep?”
She flushed, not expecting him to be solicitous. “Well, thank you.” She lowered her eyes, fidgeting with her cuffs.
“I need to examine your posterior.” Before she could protest, he’d hauled her forward over one of his long thighs. Her legs parted for his knee, bottom raised, toes leaving the floor.
She stifled a gasp, shocked at the pressure of his hard thigh on her clit. She rocked her pelvis, grinding the sensitive nub against his leg, sparks of pleasure shooting off behind her eyes. Apparently her traitorous body had not lessened its wanton attraction to Seke during the night.
He ran his large palm over her sore bottom, and the tactile reminder of what that palm had delivered the previous planet rotation—his firm-handed spankings, the butt plug, the whipping—had her grinding again, harder this time.
He stroked her with both hands, one on each cheek, up and down, kneading and massaging. “You like your inspection, don’t you, little human?”
“No.” She sounded like a petulant child and a liar.
He popped her on the ass with a quick spank. “I will not tolerate lies, beautiful female, and I know you don’t want a spanking on this already sore bottom, do you?”
He waited when she didn’t answer.
“No, master,” she finally forced herself to say.
“Good girl. First we must deal with your defiance last night.” He parted her butt cheeks.
She flinched at the vulnerability of it.
He gave her ass another pop—not hard, more like a warning. Something liquid dribbled down her crack, and Seke rubbed an oil or lubricant over her anus. “You’re going to wear this plug and spend an hour in the cage as punishment. If you accept it without protest, I will consider your slate wiped clean.”
Something smooth and round probed her most private hole. The tail again? No, she didn’t feel the hairs brushing her legs.