Dangerous Ties

by Devyn Quinn

  And she weathered it all. Weathered it for long moments with her eyes closed tight and a euphoric grin broadening her lips. Against his every burning desire, he pulled out of her body and came to his feet before that euphoria lifted.

  The rapturous look passed too soon. Her eyes came open to fill with accusation. Worse, though, was the shame he could sense settling over her.

  “I didn’t want that,” she snapped. “Any of it. You plant feelings in my mind, make my body think it enjoys it when you treat me like your slave. That doesn’t change the fact that I hate you.”

  Fuck, the want to pull her into his arms…

  Sebastian laughed instead. “As much as I enjoy the ego stroking, I’m simply an empath who can read the occasional mind to go with feelings, not a sorcerer who wields passion as his magic.” Squatting beside her, he took her chin in hand. “You want everything that I do to you, Leia. Everything. And you don’t hate me. Far from it.”

  He released her chin, and with an uttered incantation, the vines were gone from her wrists and a mat lay beside her on the dirt. Taking hold of her arms, he trailed his thumbs over the thin skin of her wrists, lifting away any ache the vines may have caused. “Sleep, slave.” His fingers went to her thighs, slipping past to caress the tender, dewy folds of her labia. “Morning comes early and I have many a pleasurable thing planned for you and this most luxurious of pussies.”

  Leia jerked awake with the sound of someone behind her.

  Sebastian.

  Damn it, she’d been so relieved when he’d left her alone to sleep last night, and now something that felt too much like delight filled her to think he’d returned.

  He was turning her into another person. Someone she didn’t know. Didn’t understand. Didn’t like.

  Don’t you?

  Preferring to face her captor rather than the answer, she rolled on the bed mat. It wasn’t Sebastian who looked down at her but Aubrie. The elfin-eared, white-haired midget was in female form and naked once again, her smile as brilliant as the red of her lips. Her gaze didn’t meet Leia’s own but fell hot on Leia’s crotch. Leia was well aware that the scent of sex clung to her skin. Given how eagerly Aubrie handled her yesterday, it was probably all she could do to abstain from a morning tonguing.

  Unless she didn’t plan to abstain…

  Belly tightening, she shot to her feet. “Where’s Sebastian?”

  “He has a full morning. He asked that I take care of you.”

  Take care. So much those words could mean. And if they meant the worst, would Leia have a chance of fighting Aubrie off? “Do you have his powers?”

  “I’m as mortal as you are, just not of the same race.” Aubrie’s gaze lifted, meeting with Leia’s own. “Would you care to use the toilet before breakfast?”

  “You mean the hole in the ground?” The remnants of desire died from Aubrie’s smile, replaced with amusement, and Leia added, “Do I get to wipe myself? What about breakfast, will I be allowed to use a fork that I operate?”

  “Sebastian does those things because he cares for you.”

  So seriously the words were spoken, but no way could they be sincere.

  You felt cherished by him last night.

  Only for one blind, stupid second. After that she felt…something else. First, sympathy to know he’d met such a violent end. And then…and then something else. “All he cares about is getting off on my misery.”

  “Skin-shifters are mortal, but one thing they can’t do is lie.” Again, so seriously were the words spoken. Maybe Aubrie just didn’t know him that well. Or more likely, Sebastian had taken over the midget’s mind as completely as he’d taken over Leia’s, and she believed she was speaking the truth.

  “What about Sebastian? Is he allowed to lie?”

  “Yes, though doing so would not bode well for his situation. As you can guess, He frowns upon liars.”

  Leia frowned at the inflection on the word He. “He?”

  Aubrie looked up at the moss and root ceiling, where the rays of morning sun were once again peeking through. Leia realized then that the female’s thoughts were focused well beyond the forest floor. Past the Earth as she knew it and into the heavens.

  “The Camaloe worked well.” Aubrie’s fingers touched down, stroking the inner curve of Leia’s thigh.

  Leia’s attention jerked back to the cell, to the small hand caressing her as its owner beamed over the magical herb that had become the bane of Leia’s existence. It worked well, all right, to blind her once more and steal away any chance she had at fighting off the orgasm. And another orgasm on top of that one. Both stronger than anything she’d ever known.

  Both incredible.

  “Your injuries are healed,” Aubrie clarified. A salacious smile pulled at her lips as her fingers traveled higher, up Leia’s thigh to brush against her shaved mound. “You’re right, though. It also serves other purposes well.”

  “I have to pee.” Honestly, with the arousal moistening her sex over the memory of last night’s orgasms, Leia wasn’t even certain she could pee. She’d force it out if she had to. Anything to end Aubrie’s advances.

  “I’ve left a bowl of warm wash water and a towel.” Aubrie gestured to the items sitting a few feet from the makeshift toilet. “I’ll be back soon with breakfast.”

  Elated over the thought of cleansing her body of dirt and sex, Leia didn’t bother to note how Aubrie left the cell. She hurried to the bowl of water. The bowl was six inches deep and another six around, reminding her of those times in the winter when she and Ken had had to bathe from a bowl of stream water heated over the woodstove. Simple living that, in the early part of their relationship, had led to simple pleasure.

  God, her life had changed so much the last couple years.

  For the better?

  In some obvious ways, yes. But had she let materialism become her? Had her attempt at erasing the violent months she’d spent with her ex shaped her into a woman she didn’t know or like even more than what Sebastian was doing to her?

  The questions wrapped around Leia, stewing at her mind as she used the hole in the dirt to relieve herself and then washed from head to toe. The questions still consumed her thoughts when Aubrie returned with a covered platter, like the one Sebastian had brought to her last night, in her hands.

  Leia’s stomach growled with the delicious smells coming from the platter. She realized aloud, “I’m famished.”

  “Eggs Benedict.” Aubrie lifted the cover off to reveal a glass of orange juice along with the promised dish. “Sebastian made it for you before he left. He said it was one of your favorites.”

  “Did he know Ken?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never heard the name.”

  “He was my—” Abuser. “Never mind.” Even if she could voice the words she’d never spoken aloud, Leia wouldn’t reveal them to Aubrie. “What is Sebastian’s situation? If he’s not alive or dead or a ghost, how can he exist?”

  “He’s in his middle life. His fate was undecided when he died.”

  “Fate? Like whether he goes to Heaven or Hell?”

  “Mostly, yes.”

  “Mostly?”

  “I can’t say more.” Aubrie held out the platter of food. “Eat before your food cools.”

  Accepting that nothing she could say would make Aubrie reveal more and not about to give the midget a chance to do the feeding, Leia took the platter and sat cross-legged on the mat. After taking a drink of juice and setting the glass near her thigh, she forked a bite of hollandaise-glazed eggs into her mouth. A dusting of green herbs covered the sauce cresting the egg-and-bacon–covered muffins. For all she knew, it was what Camaloe looked like in its native form, and eating them would send her into a state of uncontrollable lust. Right now, she didn’t care. Right now, as the rich scents cloaked her senses, her stomach growled so intensely it was as if she hadn’t eaten in days.

  Aubrie sat on the ground several feet away, mirroring her cross-legged stance. Ignoring the way the midg
et’s gaze coasted over her naked body, Leia dug in and ate and drank with relish. If she could say nothing else nice about Sebastian, he was an incredible cook.

  Five silent minutes later, with a sated smile, Leia handed the plate and glass back to Aubrie. “Thank you. It was wonderful.” She glanced at the plate, which she’d given serious consideration to licking clean, and a touch of embarrassment slid through her. “Guess that explains my fat ass.”

  “You have a beautiful body,” Aubrie assured as she set the plate and glass aside, and came to her feet. “One that responds to pleasure the way every human would be lucky to have happen.” She went to the chest against the wall.

  Leia had tried to open the chest before falling asleep last night, in the hopes of learning what other fates might await her inside. The lid wouldn’t budge. Aubrie merely lifted the front edge and the lid rose without hesitation.

  Pulling out a length of vine, the female grinned. “You’ll love this.”

  “What is it?” Leia asked uneasily. It looked like any other vine, and in that way she could guess it was another tool to be used against her.

  Against, truly?

  “Ecstasy,” Aubrie supplied, contradicting Leia’s panicked thoughts, agreeing with those darker ones that were escaping her mind more and more.

  Those darker ones that had her sex dampening as the midget returned to her. Leia had all but forgotten about the collar around her neck. She remembered it now with clarity as Aubrie harnessed the vine around her middle and then drew it between her thighs and tight against her labia before securing the tail end firmly to the collar.

  6

  Sebastian stayed away until the shadows were long on the holding-area floor, darkness nearly fallen. Throughout the day he’d honed in on Leia’s thoughts and emotions, more often than not able to make a clear connection.

  She’d been waiting for him, hours now, torn between placing a name on her wait: whether it was impatience because she was eager for whatever sensual game he might choose to play or because she feared that game and her response to it, and wanted it over with.

  He hadn’t been torn over a thing.

  He knew damned well why he’d kept his distance. Why tonight he had to push her even further until she was left with no questions, only pussy-drenching facts. Then he could release her. Then he could get her away from him, before he forgot they had no future and made her his by taking her in every way imaginable.

  As she had yesterday, Leia seemed to sense his emergence through the dirt wall. She shot up from the mat to glower at him. “Where have you been?”

  Sebastian grinned arrogantly, loving what her expression revealed even as he hated it. Loving how exotic she looked with her hair mussed and the vines looped around her neck and waist, and threaded between the folds of her sex, even as he hated that, too. “Missing me already?”

  Am I? The way I jumped to my feet like a good little pet would make it seem so. But no, that was just because I’ve had nothing to do for hours but stare at dirt. And think. And be too damned conscious of the crotch vine’s constant rubbing against my clit. My freaking soaked clit!

  The frown left her face as she eyed her sex. How can something meant to constrain be so arousing?

  Shifting her gaze to the ground, she sank back onto the mat, knees curled under her. “Never.”

  Biting back a broader grin, he crossed to the chest against the wall and sat down. “As I said yesterday, this is my home—this holding area and the woods that is over us. It’s my job to take care of it and see to the welfare of all that live within it.”

  “You don’t see to all.” The resentful words came snapping out of Leia’s mouth. Immediately, her head jerked up, regret for voicing her feelings overt.

  Sebastian’s grin evaporated. His body tensed as the painful knots that always emerged with thoughts of her abuse slid into place.

  With shadow-hooded eyes, he called out to her courage, dared her to speak of his failure to keep her safe. “Who or what have I missed?”

  “I…” The need to place blame on his shoulders was wild in her eyes, the clenching of her hands in her lap. Censure filled her mind. Not for him, but rather for herself and what she viewed as her own pathetic actions those months where she’d endured her ex’s wrath.

  Courage losing out to shame, she looked back at the ground. “No one.”

  He frowned at the top of her head. That response wouldn’t do. The time for her weak thoughts had long since reached its end.

  “Are you certain, slave?” The dark question rolled from his lips as he stood. Summoning the vine whip, he arced it out, enlivening the tepid night air with a blistering crackle.

  Once more, Leia’s head shot up. Wildness returned to her eyes, not fearful this time, but dark green and hungry with lust. She eyed the tail of the whip—that same tail that had licked at her belly, her thighs, her cunt—and he could sense her sex, already so wet and needful from the erotic play of the crotch vine, go molten.

  I don’t really want it. I’ve never wanted it. Have I?

  Long seconds, she considered the silent question only to fall to the safe side. “You’re not seeing to my welfare now.”

  “I’ve seen you cleaned and fed. Allowed you to sleep and use the bathroom. I’ve given you two unforgettable orgasms, with plans to deliver more of the same. How is it that I am not seeing to your welfare?”

  When he put it like that…But no, sleeping on a mat in the dirt and peeing in a hole were hardly things to relish. Soul-stirring orgasms and amazing cooking also changed nothing. “I don’t want to be here, in this godforsaken cell. I want my life back.”

  “That, slave, is precisely why you are here.” Sebastian lashed the vine whip out again, this time directly in her path.

  The tail swatted against her breasts, one generous globe at a time. Twice in succession. Leia gasped for breath as the thin tail flicked her nipples taut and red before moving lower to meld with the vine cinched around her waist.

  A snap of his wrist had her jerkily propelling to her feet, her body zipping toward his. Last night, he’d done much the same. But last night her hands had been bound, keeping them from splaying out in front of her in wait of the impending crash. And last night, the crotch vine hadn’t been in place. The hard tug of the vine around her waist spiked forceful pressure downward to where that same vine nestled between her labia.

  “Ooh…” The cry left her mouth as a ragged sigh. Her hands moved from preparing to brace for impact to cupping her mound, attempting to tug at the vine holding her pussy captive.

  Ah, God! Heat. Wet. Hurt. “Too much. It’s too much!”

  Mentally dissolving the vine he’d used as a rope, Sebastian caught her in his arms. “Wrong, slave.” The words whispered, dark and decadent, along the sweaty skin of her neck. Sitting back on the chest, he pushed her onto her belly over his lap. “Not nearly enough.”

  Not now when he had the most succulent of treats inches from his hands—her ass, plump and rosy, the crack lined enchantingly with the vine that continued to her sex.

  He palmed the roundness of a butt cheek, pleasuring in the silky texture. Liquid excitement trickled from her sex to dampen the thigh of his jeans.

  Squeaking out a mewl, Leia tightened her cheeks. Yes, please. No. Maybe. Maybe I’m losing my freaking mind. “I don’t know what the hell I want anymore, so just do it already! Spank me.”

  Even as his body panged with needful ache, he sighed his relief for her words of acceptance. Words he would love to take her up on. But that end would be far too fast and easy. As high as the relentless rub of the crotch vine had her, a handful of swats and she would climax. Tonight, orgasm would come at his hands, but also at those of reality.

  Sebastian continued the coast of his palms along her ass, cupping and squeezing the supple flesh. Circling the sweet spot of her asshole. Petting the highly sensitive flesh inches from her cunt.

  Hot breaths panted from her lips. Her heart beat a staccato rhythm. Parting her thig
hs, she shifted eagerly as he moved his fingers past her perineum to fondle the rear of her sex and begin what had to be her final lesson in remembering. “There are things that happen in our lives that make us blind. Things that are so horrific we choose to shut them out. We erase entire months, years. Our dearest dreams, our darkest desires. That happened to me. And that happened to you. Someone opened my eyes. And now, slave, I’m opening yours.”

  “I didn’t erase—”

  He cut off what would be an unintentional lie on Leia’s part, with first the shove of two fingers into her pussy, then the lengthwise press of a newly summoned short, smooth stick between her lips. Hand on her jaw, he forced her to bite down and clamp it between her teeth.

  The eager shifting of her thighs turned to trembles of fury. Rage seethed through. Rage she took out on him with the biting press of her nails into his legs.

  What the fuck—You bastard!

  Inwardly, Sebastian smiled, so pleased with her continued bravado. Outwardly, he pulled his fingers from her sex and smacked her ass hard. One time for punishment, and one time to take her higher and make her ache for more. “Spit it out and just see what a bastard I can be.”

  She hesitated, breathing deeply, loudly through her nose before allowing the smallest of nods. He rewarded her by taking the crotch vine between thumb and forefinger, and strumming the engorged pearl of her clit. “That’s a good pet.”

  A sound between harrumph and husky moan escaped around the stick, and he continued the idle strumming with a wickedly knowing smile. “I was a developer before I died. I wasn’t an empath then, but I could still read people, spot their tells. Their weaknesses. I was the best at what I did. Everyone knew it. If a company was after a piece of land an owner was adamant about not selling, they would come to me, have me do the dirty work. I did it, for a hefty fee.” His smile grew thin, condescending. “I had all that money can buy. And then I died at the hands of a landowner who wasn’t any too pleased about being blackmailed into selling his property, and I realized what a joke my mortal life had been.”