by Marie Dry
He started over.
“No, don’t you dare. I need you. Come inside me, please, Larz. I can’t take anymore.”
“You are my breeder. I will do the first knowing. I will do it until I please you.”
“You please me, oh God, do you please me,” she sobbed.
“I will honor you, my breeder.” He arranged her hair, gently wiped the tears off her cheeks. She cried silently, holding still. Emotion choked her. Never would she doubt his feelings again, his commitment to making her happy. Just in case he decided to prove it, even if he had to kill her with pleasure in the process.
She wanted to ask him if she would have to endure the first knowing again. As much as she enjoyed this torment by pleasure, she didn’t think she could do it more than once in a lifetime. But she couldn’t speak, could only endure the pleasure.
He arranged her hair, caressed her neck and shoulders, moved his thumbs over her nipples, rolled them around. She tried to think of agent Parnell’s rules, but even that didn’t take her mind off the pleasure.
He held her hips in his hands and stroked her stomach with his thumbs. Every nerve and intestine inside her curled with pleasure. She knew if the doctor took X-rays at that moment, he’d find her insides tied into knots.
At last, he opened her legs wider, pushed them back and opened her even more, and then slowly entered her.
Rulebook, she chanted wordlessly to herself but it didn’t help. The moment he entered her she came and, mercifully, he didn’t pull out. He simply continued to stroke into her slowly, steadily, waited while she came, and then continued stroking. She panted like a woman giving birth. She couldn’t come anymore, her body was overloaded on pleasure, but he surged deep and set a strong rhythm. She climbed again, each nerve in her body tightening until she vaguely heard herself scream and scream with pleasure. Heard him give a hoarse cry before he fell on her.
“Can’t, can’t breathe.”
He lifted slightly. “Can you breathe now?”
“Barely.”
“That will have to suffice. I cannot move.”
Margaret felt a huge smile break out over her face. “Don’t tell me I wore out my strong Zyrgin warrior.”
He slowly lifted his head. Cocked his head. “Are you not satisfied. Should I prove to you I am capable of pleasuring you?” he said, deadly serious.
She pushed against his chest. “No, I am so pleasured and so satisfied, my body is sated. I am honored by the first knowing. You have proven that you are capable of giving me the ultimate pleasure. You are brimming with honor. Really, I would never ever, ever doubt your ability to please me.”
She was so well pleasured she’d go out of her mind if he started all over again.
He stared down at her and she held her breath. If he started that all over again, she would die of pleasure. He withdrew from her, the slow movement pleasuring her sensitised body.
He leaned over her and she thought his eyes changed subtly. Became a more intense red. Before her horrified eyes his incisors lengthened. He looked like the lizard she still sometimes called him. A demonic lizard that wanted to bite her. She shrank back into the bunk, tried to disappear through it, but there was no escaping this frightening Larz.
“No, Larz, please don’t kill me.”
He bent down, the movement like that of a snake striking its victim. She felt every inch of those long incisors entering her neck with excruciating terror and, before she could register pain or anything else, the world around her turned black.
***
She came to consciousness, and the first thing she became aware of was his arms around her. His steady heartbeat under her ear. She touched her neck, couldn’t feel a wound.
“You bit me,” she accused. How could he make love to her like that and then hurt her?
“I ensured you will live for my lifetime.”
“Oh.” She’d forgotten about that. Natalie had told them the day they went on the picnic, but she’d been so convinced Larz would never bite her, she’d buried any thought of it. Wait, what picnic? She’d never gone on picnics with them. They kept her locked up in the guest house. Didn’t they? “Why now? Is it because I remembered? Or do you feel sorry for me because Parnell planted a bomb inside my body?”
“The doctor said the many times that woumber used the machine on you made you vulnerable to Alzheimer’s.”
Dread slithered down her spine. She’d rather explode than live that hell. “Will your bite fix me?” Please let his bite make it so she never had to lose herself again. She couldn’t bear living with her worst fear hanging over her head.
“Yes. We have medicines that would help but this is the easiest way to ensure it never takes hold in your brain.”
They lay in silence for a while. She felt different, as if his lovemaking had freed something in her mind.
“I cuddled you, I knew you would be scared when you woke,” he said, as if admitting to making the supreme sacrifice for her.
She bit her lip. He was so human, sometimes, and then, at other times, so totally Zyrgin. Hiding her smile, she held onto him. “Thank you. I appreciate it.” She idly stroked a finger over the ridges formed by his muscles. “I would’ve been scared out of my mind if I didn’t have your arms around me.”
And just like that it hit her. Who she was. She was forced to be Marcie, someone so alien to her personality that just the thought of it grated over her like sandpaper. She had been a young girl called Maeve. Now, she was a woman who’d fought to carve a life for herself. A woman called Margaret.
CHAPTER 14
She struggled out of his arms, sat upright on the hard bunk, and looked around. This small room on the Zyrgin space ship seemed unreal. As if her memories were reality and this moment in time, when she was sharing a bunk with an alien on a spaceship after their rude doctor took a bomb out of her, was fantasy.
“What is wrong?” He sat up too, watching her as if he expected her to bolt and was ready to catch her.
“I’m not Marcie.” She laughed out loud in sheer joy, grabbed his hand into hers, and held it against her naked breasts. “Larz, I’m not Marcie, I didn’t do those--”
The euphoria left her abruptly. She might not be Marcie, but she still did those terrible things. Still had the memory of them. She swallowed, her throat so dry it was painful. It was like seeing a split picture in her mind. Having a very unwelcome look at everything all the different characters did.
Larz changed his hold on her, holding her hands now. Even the warm firm grip he held her with didn’t chase away the terrible knowledge of what she’d done.
“You remembered again?”
Maeve, her name was Maeve. Her mother...her mother died when she was sixteen. The grief at that thought was so fresh it almost crippled her.
“Are you in pain? Do you require the doctor?”
“No, oh, Larz, I’ve just remembered losing my mother.” It was like losing her all over again. She didn’t want to remember anymore.
“This is sad for humans?”
She didn’t want to think about the implications of his question. “Yes.”
After her mother passed, her father had accepted the job as sheriff of No Name Town. He’d never spent much time with her. After her mother died, she sometimes thought he hated her.
Her father. She suppressed a sob. Her father gave her to Parnell to train. Even though he never seemed to love her, that betrayal was hard to deal with. She never saw him again. He didn’t even care that Parnell nearly destroyed her with his so-called training punishments.
She had to shove both hands in front of her mouth to try and stop the terrible sounds that wanted to escape. She remembered Parnell using the machine to make her appear older. He’d changed her hair from black to a mousy brown. She’d become Margaret. Going into the machine at all was risky. Going into it twice was looking for trouble. How many times did Parnell put her into the machine that she didn’t know about? Memory loss was one of the side effects. It was a miracle she
remembered most of her life.
She spoke around her clenched fists. “That bastard made me Marcie. He forced me into that machine and implanted Marcie.”
“When you had the nightmares, sometimes you would talk about the machine.”
“In the golden age, they invented all kinds of technology. There was money to explore. Parnell got his hands on a lot of that technology.”
“And this machine can change your hair and skin and implant another personality?”
“Yes.”
He took her hands in his and rubbed a leathery thumb over the marks her teeth had left. “How did you come to work for Parnell?”
“When I turned sixteen, I came home from school and Parnell was there.” She laughed. A bitter sound. “I was such a young fool, excited because he had a hovercraft. I thought maybe I’d get to ride in it.”
“How did he know your blood--your father.”
“They went to school together. My father--” She swallowed. “--my father just gave me to him. Said I was to be trained by him and I never saw him again. He just forgot about me. He betrayed me.”
“Do you remember searching for the name of the sheriff of No Name Town?”
“No.”
“A few days ago you wanted to know who was sheriff before Adam.”
“My father?”
“Yes, his name was William Tate. We traced him. He died three years ago.”
She waited for that overwhelming feeling of grief she’d experienced when her mother died. For some regret or even shock at the fact that he’d passed. She was numb.
“You were trained as an agent?”
There was something strange in the way he said it, but she couldn’t put her finger on what bothered her and, with her brain bombarded with jumbled memories, she didn’t have the will to try and figure it out.
“There were others that he trained as well. All very young girls. It took me a long time to realize he had no real training himself.”
“In our investigations we found that he rose in the ranks through bribery and killing anyone in his way. He used the collapse of your government systems to elevate himself to a position of power.”
“That’s why he chose us to be agents. We were too young to question him.”
“You questioned.” It was a statement.
“Yes, though it was a mistake.”
“Why?”
“In the building, the one where he ruled from, in the basement, there’s a small hole in the ground he calls the box. Someone my size can lie in it. When the lid is closed, you can’t move at all.” She shuddered.
Larz squeezed her hands and she realized she’d closed her eyes, almost felt as if she was back in that box. She shuddered and held onto him.
“Insects crawl over you in that horrific darkness and you can’t move. That was the worst, not being able to move.”
He pulled her into his arms. “I will kill him. Slowly.” He suddenly stiffened and helped her to stand. “The shuttle is ready. We have to go.”
Images bombarded her while she showered. She scrubbed her skin until Larz took the cloth away from her. “I can still feel them crawling all over me,” she whispered and leaned her head on his chest.
He lifted her head with a hand under her chin. “Look at me.” His eyes flashed red and his skin changed from copper to green and copper. “No insect will dare walk on you when I am near. I would kill any of them that try to come near you. Our dwelling cannot be infiltrated, not even by the smallest insect.”
She nodded and smiled. It was sweet the way he tried to reassure her. Unfortunately, the creepies were in her mind and not crawling where she could squash them and get rid of them.
“We have to hurry or we will lose our take-off slot.”
She nodded and getting up on her toes she kissed him and then quickly dressed.
Before they left, he held her back for a moment. “I will make Parnell suffer. You will see him beg for mercy.”
“Thank you.” That was probably not the right response, but what else did one say to such a sweet but inappropriate offer? Truthfully, she never wanted to face that monster again.
She followed him out the door and her mind was too full of the past to notice any detail on the spaceship. Not that she saw anything but long silver corridors anyway.
Before Parnell made her Marcie, her cover was that of a woman ten years older. That machine had colored her hair a dull brown and she had to act like a shy retiring woman. She’d loved being Margaret and decided to keep the name when she found a way to get away from Parnell.
Having friends, doing something as innocuous as watching a movie and making a pizza--because Julia swore that was what they used to do when watching movies in ancient times--had seemed magical. She rubbed her head. She was going crazy. Would Natalie and Julia even believe she was Margaret? Her friendship with Natalie, Julia, and Sarah had meant more to her than they could possibly realize.
She and Larz stopped before what looked like a huge hangar door. A Zyrgin stood with a silver handheld and tracked their movements, as if he suspected they wanted to steal a shuttle and disappear with it.
He and Larz grunted at each other and the doors slid open. The shuttle stood in an empty cavernous space. Larz helped her inside and strapped her into the seat.
One piece of knowledge haunted her and she had to tell Larz, before she lost the courage to do so. She stopped him when he wanted to move to the controls. “Larz, I stole the ring. That’s why she gave Sarah over to the reverend.”
He stared at her in silence and then nodded. “We will talk in our dwelling.”
“All right.”
A snake coiled in her stomach, almost lazily honing in on her heart. Parnell had sent her to No Name Town to keep an eye on the reverend. She’d thought he planned to stop the reverend’s activities, but he’d been protecting his own interests.
The shuttle took off, pressing her back into her seat and she barely noticed.
She’d stolen Sarah’s stepmother’s ring. The snake struck her heart, clamping its teeth into the vulnerable organ. When she stole the ring from Sarah’s stepmother, she’d set in motion the terrible events that followed. She’d caused that horrible woman to sell Sarah into the raider camps in retaliation for her stolen ring. Images of Sarah being hurt tortured her. Like a monster, she’d made sure Sarah suffered. Now the knowledge of what she did to her friend spread through her like venom. Taunting Sarah, making sure she starved. Bile rose in Margaret’s throat. She’d encouraged the men to hurt her. How could she do that? Even after Parnell implanted that vicious personality into her brain, a small part of her had to remain. How was she supposed to live with knowledge like that?
“Marcie, are you well?”
It was only when he asked her that, that she realized she was rocking as much as the restraints would allow, making a low keening sound.
“Yes,” she gasped out but couldn’t stop.
She’d betrayed Sarah. She was the reason Sarah had empty eyes and never spoke. And she’d murdered Sarah’s stepmother. It was a sign of how dead her soul was that she didn’t feel guilty about cutting that bitch’s throat. She’d enjoyed the fear in her eyes. Had made sure she knew why she was killed.
“Don’t call me Marcie.” She’d never again answer to that vile name.
“What is your name?” He spoke without turning, all his concentration on the controls.
She wiped her brow. The small interior of the shuttle shrank even more. Her skin crawled and she scratched at her arms. She thought about Larz’s question, desperate to focus on anything but the feeling of something crawling over her, the feeling of being the lowest kind of human being.
“Maeve, I was born Maeve, but I don’t want to be called that.” She’d been Maeve for only sixteen years, and Maeve had been betrayed by her own father. “I’ve outgrown that name.”
“What do you wish to be called?”
“I think Margaret.” Margaret had friends, had at least tried to outwi
t Parnell. But she had betrayed Sarah. Her actions had caused her friend horrific suffering.
“I will call you Margaret,” he said with calm acceptance. “How did you come to be Margaret?”
Her heart melted. He knew she was going crazy cooped up in the shuttle. That’s why he kept her talking.
“I had two assignments and then he sent me to Denver.” She clenched her fists. “I hate that man.”
Again that dangerous thickening in the air. “His death will be slow and painful. What happened in Denver?”
He might keep her talking to keep her calm, but she also knew he’d report each word she said to Zacar. She didn’t blame him.
She loved the fact that he was so honorable. With the stain on her soul, it was almost soothing to know that he was so rock solid.
“At first I didn’t want to go. The Benzoni family is truly vicious.” It always amazed her that Julia came from the same genepool. She might be outspoken, but she had a soft core the rest of those vipers lacked. “He put me in the box and after that I kept quiet and did what I was told.” Even knowing he did that to agents, it had been a shock when he did it to her. He’d betrayed her too.
“He only put me in there twice. After that, I killed who he wanted me to kill and got any information he needed.”
“Did you ever try to escape?”
“That was when he put me in the box the second time.”
“I will kill him slowly,” he said again. “I know how to ensure that he stays alive for a very long time. He will not escape Zyrgin justice. Not even in death.”
“When he sent me to Denver, Julia was my third assignment. I had to find a way into that horrific family. At first, I was going to use her because she was the soft target. She was different. Somehow, she reminded me of myself. Trapped with vicious people and no way out. I sent her to No Name Town because I thought it was the last place her family would look for her.”