by Nya Rawlyns
“Come.”
Caitlin limped with an odd rolling gait, her inner thighs a mass of abrasions from losing her grip in the saddle during her ill-timed nap. She settled onto the bedroll and 55
shivered in the rapidly cooling night air. She recalled that caves often stayed in the fifty-degree range, though this one, being so shallow, should have had at least some residual heat from the furnace of midday.
The man handed her a piece of jerky but she waved it off. Her jaw and cheekbone
still stung from his strike, and she doubted she could swallow anything without suffering a great deal of pain from her cracked ribs. Depression and shock gripped her with a vengeance and she collapsed onto the thin cover, shaking violently.
The man crouched low and gently touched her brow, moving the lank strands off
her face and running a fingertip around the abused eye socket. She barely felt the touch for the swelling and soreness.
“I can help you,” he said, not unkindly, “if you will allow me.”
The strangeness of that offer hardly registered as he slipped beside her and began to slowly unlace the bodice that bound her ribs. Caitlin thought her insides would tear apart as the leather released the ribs from relative stasis into a new, excruciatingly painful configuration. She moaned softly, conscious of their situation and the need for absolute quiet but the agony tripled as he pulled the lacing through the final hole.
Unable to bear it any longer she choked back the scream, releasing it on a low growl that crescendoed and echoed around the walls.
Before she blacked out, she sensed his hot breath on her face, imagined his full lips tracing a path along her chin, his tongue trailing heat and moisture over her cracked lips, probing gently, and finally demanding.
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Chapter Nine
Trey cursed under his breath as he assessed the woman’s injuries. He despised
what he had to do to keep her under control. He cursed his father and his brothers and his gods for the ease with which he connected with the anger and hate he’d tried to bury.
The violence rose like bile, sharp, acrid, throat gagging; yet he embraced it with almost a sensuous joy. It was familiar; an avowal of his worth and a measure of the respect accorded his status and bloodlines. He had entered manhood with scars on his back and blood on his hands.
Take her; she is ripe.
She calls me Aiden.
Take her.
I haven’t the right.
Smell her desire.
Only fear.
She wants you.
I know.
Take her … now.
Trey gasped at the overpowering rush of desire, the descent into madness that
would drive him insane with greedy hunger, for he longed to touch her. Not with the healing strokes that would restore balance to her chi but with passion and power and dominance, shared pleasure, a release from the constant pangs of loneliness and the emptiness of his tortured existence.
The woman moaned softly as he explored her ribcage. How could he have done so
much damage? He rolled her thin blouse above her small breasts, each rib protruding through skin like parchment, brittle and dry. Athletic in build when he’d first
encountered her, he saw that now she was whip thin, almost skeletal. His long fingers gently manipulated each fracture, adjusting the position, while knitting the bones with brief bursts of energy. Bones were easy. The bruising and severe hematomas would require time to be reabsorbed into her system. He could only give her immune system a boost. The rest was up to her.
Trey traced a thumb along the waistband of the rough cotton homespun of the
skirt. He quickly untied the cord belting the fabric about her waist and slid it down over narrow hips, taking care not to dislodge the ribs or to further aggravate the tailbone which was not broken, only badly bruised.
He whispered, “Oh sweet Freyja…” when he saw the damage done to her inner thighs and calves from the weeks of riding without proper protection. At the time he’d given little thought to the mechanics of riding, never having had to consider a woman’s special needs, so he’d gone with what had been handy. That she’d suffered unbearable agony was clear to him now. His face flamed as he recalled how he’d used his power to humiliate her and to feed his own burgeoning lust with glimpses of her womanhood.
He wondered if she were a virgin. Could he be her first? Unlikely, but that
thought morphed into a waking dream. He would spread her thighs, ease into her tight heat, and succumb to the tension and quick release as he thrust to the hilt. Cries of pain 57
followed by whispers of pleasure, moans of joy. He ached with need, his desires
swamping reason with passion.
With a growl he spread her damaged legs and roughly squeezed the hard muscle,
kneading with vicious strokes, until the deep purple and blues and greens faded to a liverish yellow stain. Exhausted he rocked back on his heels, nearly spent from the outflow of energies. He was no longer strong enough to deal with such extensive
injuries. While genetically superior to most humans, he still had physical limits. The lack of food and water would eventually debilitate him to the point where he could no longer fulfill his mission. If he did not provide for them soon, he would lose the woman, the final piece on the board—game, set … match.
He hesitated to touch the swollen inner folds, splotched with open sores, oozing pus. He’d seen worse so the sight did not disgust, though in truth he was taken aback by the frailty of the female form. What he feared was losing the little self-control he had left. The whispers of his mind, the exhortations by his brothers, his father, his cadre mates take her, she’s yours, take her roiled through his system, a Greek chorus of self-indulgence.
“Damn you, woman.” Trey lunged to his feet, his body aching and his mind
reeling. He stared at her for a long moment. She shivered once, involuntarily, but settled back into a dreamless state. She would heal during this extended moon phase if he could keep her unconscious long enough.
His healing was more problematic. He could never undo the damage to his own
soul, never shed the guilt or responsibility for his actions—not now, not for this. He’d extracted honour, respect and admiration for doing his duty, with pain and blood the currency more often than not. Emotionless! More android than human! She’d thought him a devil or a demon. It suited then, but no longer.
Trey staggered to the cave entrance. Distant jagged peaks cradled the small
yellow orb, its orbit close, rotation about the planet rapid, lapping the larger, more distant neighbour several times over during the extended moon phase. He watched as the moon slipped quickly behind the ridge, blinking once, then extinguished like a candle flame. The loss of lumens barely registered as the larger satellite loomed menacingly close, its light diamond hard, translucent. If he had a scroll, he could read it easily, but he had naught but his lust and it drove all need for caution from his thoughts.
For he had no thoughts, only pulsing energies and whispers.
****
Trey pulled his worn blanket over top of the woman. He would lay with her to
keep her warm, but not yet. Not when his need overpowered good sense. He tended to the horses, unclear what to do to make them more comfortable, but he suspected their usefulness was limited. Her mount seemed in fair shape but his horse looked worn, exhausted, his eyes dulled, almost lifeless. The pitiful animal had born his weight up and down the gods-forsaken mountains for weeks. Even with extensive rest and a real meal and water, he doubted the creature would last out another week of heavy going. That would mean the woman must walk, though after seeing the damage done from the
saddle abrading her soft flesh, he supposed that might not be a bad thing.
He could let her ride, he should let her, but with any consideration, any comfort extended to ease her passage, he risked losing control over her powers. As it was, she 58
taxed hi
s abilities to block and contain the burgeoning Seid reserves. How those powers would manifest was anyone’s guess. Her bloodlines indicated a high probability of prescience, perhaps even—and this was purely theory—the ability to shape shift. Such a gift would prove immensely attractive to the Althing and Greyfalcon clans.
Trey adjusted the hobbles on the mule and gave him a pat. He wandered onto the
broad ledge in front of the cave. To the right, the path slanted slightly downhill, but it was open and offered no convenient places to hide. To the left, uphill, large granitic outcrops offered far too many coverts for an enemy or predator to shelter while waiting for him to make a mistake. There was no discernible path in that direction, but that did not preclude a clever adversary from swinging down from ledges farther up the slope.
His hope was that he would hear them coming and that meant staying awake. He’d told the woman time had no meaning here and that was partially true. The aborigines
measured events in terms of daylight and moonlight. The perturbations in the planet’s orbit and the dissimilar orbital characteristics of the two moons made for an
astronomer’s wet dream, but he was no astronomer or mathematician and could only guess when the planet’s wobbling would thrust them back into daylight.
For now all he could do was stay alert. The barrenness of the landscape, the lack of vegetation to support mammalian-like species, precluded any ‘lions and tigers and bears, oh my’. He smiled at his near joke. It was the closest he ever came to humour or irony, characteristics thrashed out of him by his “pater familias” with a quick and lethal hand. Duty and honour rested on the hilt of a sword, writ in blood and vengeance. He fingered his blade and cast a wary eye to the night sky. The danger would come from above on silent wing beats, bearing talons and sharp beaks, large enough to carry away even a horse. The indigenous population worshipped the creatures and built their settlements on the flats, well away from known nesting areas.
He listened carefully but not a sound, not a breath of wind, buzz of an insect, nor even his own harsh breaths penetrated the crystalline light. He existed out of time, out of place on this world—in it, yet not of it. He hoped he’d made a wise decision bringing her here. He’d had few choices at the time. As his uncle said, this time he’d really screwed the pooch. He was more inclined to call it a cluster fuck for the shrapnel had hit far and wide. In this time-space, he had at least a small chance of being the last man standing.
Thinking of her made him hard again. He rubbed the front of the tight jeans but
it brought little relief. With a moan he staggered toward a granite outcrop and leaned against it. He glanced quickly around but nothing stirred. He released his straining cock into his rough hand, sighing on each stroke, desperately holding onto the physical sensations only; blocking his fantasies for fear they would transmit to her. The vision of her lifting her skirt, revealing the slim line of her thigh, leaked into his consciousness and the memory of rubbing her muscles hard, harder, drove him into a frenzy. He
yanked his glasses off and covered his eyes with his left hand, pressing hard, forcing the visions to parade across a black screen and came on a whimper.
“Was it good for you?” a familiar voice sneered.
Trey inhaled sharply, then, froze as the knife blade pierced his still-weeping cock.
He turned his head to confirm the identity of the man threatening to castrate him.
“How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t easy, boyo. But you’ve been getting careless. Leaving blood scent.”
Trey gave the man a curious look then muttered, “Fuck.” He’d forgotten how
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effective a tracker his assailant could be. “What do you want?”
“It’s not what I want, Trey. It’s what my … what he wants. And I’m here to take the asset back.”
Trey’s head spun. He desperately wished he had his glasses but he’d dropped
them somewhere to his left when he’d felt the first stab. For some reason, in this time-space he was intensely myopic. It put him at a distinct disadvantage.
“You know I can’t let you do that.” He flinched as the tip of the blade traced a line across the slit, adding beads of blood to the slick coating. He pulled his right hand away from his cock and wiped it on his jeans.
“I’d rather not hurt you. But, a long time ago, you chose wrong.”
Trey inched his right hand along the waistband of his jeans. He allowed a small
mewl of pain to escape as the assailant’s blade dug deeper into his cock. Though he blocked the pain as best he could, he wasn’t sure how much more he could take. Leaning forward, he forced the blade even deeper and stared into the man’s eyes, now widening in shock and incomprehension.
With a savage thrust Trey drove his stiletto deep into the man’s gut, twisting and slicing until his assailant slid to the ground.
“I’m sorry, Bryn. I’m so sorry, my brother.”
****
Caitlin resisted the pressure on her chest. Her ears buzzed and echoed eerily. She tried to wriggle her left shoulder but it seemed pinned in place, the effort sending a sharp shaft of pain across her torso. A whisper, inside her head, told her shallow breaths, easy, stay calm. She cracked her eyelids open and tried to peer through the tangled mass of hair covering her face. A guttural sound in her ear made her jump. She immediately regretted the movement, as muscle groups argued over access to flaring nerves.
She wondered, briefly, where she was. Shifting her focus, she concentrated on the pressure pinning her body in place, shoulders and hips immobile. She could move her legs and did, slowly lifting them against the weight of the blanket. Startled, she realized she was naked from the waist down as the frigid air caressed her thighs. She gave a shiver and arched against the weight bearing her to the floor.
The cave. The demon-stranger. Moonlight.
With a grunt she tried to wriggle free, but stopped as warm fluid trickled across her belly. She concentrated on the single point of flow, a drop, then a stream, inching toward her thigh, cooling to glacial slowness and pooling in the cavity left by her bony hips. What had he done to her this time?
A sharp grunt and snort blasted her eardrum. She flipped her head to move the
strands of hair out of her eyes and stared askance to her left at the man imprisoning her with his massive frame. His light brown hair fell in a tangle across his face, hiding the square jaw and cruel mouth. His head rested against her ear and the harsh snores blasted her inner ear with almost painful intensity. He lay with his upper body partially across her own, his left arm balanced and pressing on her collarbone. The heat from the points of contact were searing on her parched skin. It confused and troubled her. She’d touched, or been touched by him, frequently over the last weeks and at no time did she remember his body temperature being abnormally high. She wondered if he had a fever.
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It would account for his immobility. For all she knew he could be unconscious. Her immediate concern was that, with his mass, it might be impossible to move him off and away so that she could at least get up and tend to nature’s call.
The pressure on her bladder occupied her thoughts, as she explored what pinned
her hips so solidly and perhaps identify the source of the odd stream of fluid trailing along her hip bone. With her legs free she had more leverage to wriggle sideways, crablike, sliding against his groin, all too aware that his body responded immediately to her stimulation. The thought of him growing hard as she moved her hips and belly was almost too much to bear. Another gush of warm fluid as she maneuvered under his bulk made her realize that it came not from her, but from him. He was bleeding and every movement she made seemed to aggravate whatever wound had opened.
She whispered, “Aiden, Aiden wake up,” then more loudly, “AIDEN.”
She managed to work her lower body loose. He moaned softly and rolled onto his
back, freeing her torso. Caitlin gingerly fel
t her ribs, shocked to find them achy but not especially painful. How long had she been out? The bones felt solid and she allowed herself the luxury of a deep breath, then immediately regretted it as the chill air burned a path down her chest. Recalling why she was so anxious to get up, she stumbled across the uneven floor and approached the cavern entrance with caution. The horses and mule stirred restlessly. She reached into the canvas bag and distributed a bit of grain to each to keep them from nickering or otherwise alerting any predator that might be lurking outside.
The smaller moon was at apogee though its lumens barely registered as the larger satellite dominated the southeast quadrant. The light was no longer diamond sharp but still gave off enough illumination that Caitlin could make out the dark stain on the ledge to the left of the cave entrance. Curious, she forgot about the urgent demands of her bladder and crept onto the outcrop after carefully checking right, then left, as if looking for traffic at a busy intersection.
She laughed to herself, old habits die hard.
The pea-size gravel over a sandstone base had caught a pool of the fluid. She
poked at it with an index finger. It was viscous, skinned over but not yet hardened in the chill air. She sniffed at the finger and wretched at the familiar iron scent. Blood—vast quantities of blood, was this from him? If it was, he must be badly wounded, but by what? Had a flying predator surprised him? The talons could easily gut a man. The thought of him dealing with that kind of injury, alone, made her want to weep in despair. She would need to tend to him at once. Survival on her own was not an option.
She needed the man to take her to safety. Without her powers she was helpless in this alien environment.
Caitlin pulled at her thin blouse trying to cover as much of her belly as possible.
Shivering, she tended to her body’s needs and retreated into the cave. She found her skirt in a bundle at the foot of the blanket and pulled it on. The man’s flannel jacket lay discarded by the panniers so she slipped that over the blouse and knelt beside the prone form to assess his injury. Garish weak light reflected off the walls, barely enough to see, but they no longer had any bottled gas with which to light the lantern and apparently candles were not part of the technology of this planet.