by Cynthia Sax
Tears trickled down her cheeks.
She brushed them away. “While I wait for my targets to leave the Refuge, I’ll be your slave.” Dita didn’t want to be alone, not yet. She would tolerate his judgment to prevent that. “You can use me to satisfy your hungers. I will use you to satisfy mine. Our relationship will be passionate but it will end. It has to end.” She stood, grasping her body covering, using it as a shield, as a barrier between him and her. “I have nothing to offer you, to offer any male.”
“Dita.” Kralj’s voice was harsh with emotion. “You offer—”
“Nothing. I can give you nothing.” All she could offer any being was her skills at killing. He was the ideal weapon and didn’t require any assistance with that task. “Once the males leave the settlement, we’ll part ways. You’ll rule your Refuge.” She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t see his reaction to her revelations. “I’ll hunt down the clones and keep my vow to the survivors.”
Her word was the only thing she had left. No one would take that from her.
Dita had to get away from him, regroup, recover. She walked toward the cleansing chamber, stopped on the threshold. “Do I have your permission to leave the chamber, master?”
Kralj followed her, pressed his chest against her back, rubbed her arms, giving her comfort she couldn’t accept. “Little one, I—”
“Do I have your permission?” she repeated, her heart aching.
He sighed. His breath blew hot against her neck. “You have my permission.”
Chapter Nine
He was a monster.
Kralj lurked outside the cleansing chamber, waiting for Dita to emerge.
She’d told him she couldn’t become pregnant. Multiple times. He hadn’t heard her. Accustomed to intercepting every being’s private thoughts, he’d forgotten how to listen.
His little assassin had been forced to share her horrific past. He had pushed her too far.
Moments passed. She didn’t exit from the cleansing chamber.
Because he’d hurt her, not physically but emotionally. His fearless little assassin had cried during the sharing, every teardrop puncturing a hole in his heart.
He also hadn’t sexually satisfied her.
Fuck. He hadn’t even fed her.
Kralj scowled, his self-directed anger escalating with each passing moment. She’d allowed him to feed from her multiple times, offering him her pale neck, her mouth-watering blood.
He hadn’t appeased her hunger once.
He looked at the entrance to the cleansing chamber. She gave no indication she was emerging from the space soon.
He had time to rectify one of his errors. Kralj quickly dressed and stalked out of his private chambers.
The chatter stopped as soon as he entered the main public chamber. Gazes fixed on him. He heard everything, could read their thoughts, knew he was the focus of the chatter. The beings, both guests and workers, speculated on his relationship with Dita.
They didn’t know he’d fucked it up.
Kralj approached the long horizontal support in the center of the chamber. Radnik, a newer member of his team, tended the area, serving the patrons seated along it.
One beverage, three nourishment bars. He pushed that thought into the male’s mind.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. He’s talking to me. Beads of sweat formed on Radnik’s forehead. “W-w-what type of beverage would you like, sir?”
Beverages came in varieties. Kralj studied the display of beverage containers behind the horizontal support. Not needing to drink anything other than blood, he had forgotten that. “Palavian Ale.” That was the outlet’s bestselling beverage.
I thought he was ordering for his female but he can’t be. Radnik hustled to fill a container with the liquid. That’s a beverage males drink to impress other males. It’s harsh and bitter. I’d rather drink my own piss than Palavian Ale. He set the container in front of Kralj.
Kralj passed it to the male on his right. “Drink this.”
The male gulped the beverage, his hands shaking.
Dita deserved the best. “I want a container of Dracheon Mist.” That was the most expensive beverage.
Must be nice to be the Ruler. Radnik filled another container. I’d have to work for a solar cycle to afford this. “Is there a specific flavor of nourishment bars you’d prefer, sir?”
Fuck. Those came in different varieties also. Kralj frowned. “Give me an assortment that complements the Dracheon Mist.”
He looks angry. I’m taking too long. Radnik selected three bars. He’s going to terminate my role or worse. He swallowed hard, placing the bars carefully in front of Kralj. Much worse.
Kralj’s lips flattened. Everyone feared him, everyone except Dita. “Thank you.”
He grasped the beverage container and the nourishment bars and headed back to the privacy of his own chambers. Beings whispered, guessing correctly that he was feeding his female. They feared her also, feared the changes they were certain she’d bring. Females didn’t like violence, didn’t like rough warriors, they chattered.
They didn’t know Dita. Kralj pushed through the doors. Her scent washed over him. It felt like…acceptance. He breathed deeply, walked into the sleeping chamber.
She wasn’t there.
She must still be in the cleansing chamber. Relieved, Kralj set the beverage on a horizontal support, the one she had claimed. “Are you hungry, little one?”
She didn’t answer.
Which wasn’t like his tiny assassin. She didn’t hesitate to talk back. He palmed a nourishment bar, entered the cleansing chamber.
It was empty. She was gone.
His beast roared, anger sweeping over him, fury at her for leaving him and at him for giving her permission. She had asked if she could leave the chamber. She hadn’t specified which chamber.
He would lock her inside his private chambers permanently. But first, he’d hunt his damn female down and redden her ass until she couldn’t sit.
Kralj scanned the thoughts of every being in the settlement. No one had seen her.
His little assassin was good, too good for his comfort.
He rushed through the structure he considered his domicile, following her scent, his beast excited by the chase. Some of his panic subsided. Tracking her wasn’t a challenge. She hadn’t much of a head start on him.
Kralj sped along pathways. Despite her single-minded focus on killing her targets, she hadn’t returned to the clones’ domicile. That surprised him. He had thought that would have been the first place she’d visit.
His height-loving female had also restricted herself to the ground level, keeping her booted feet planted on the pathways. She hadn’t climbed any walls, hadn’t jumped from rooftop to rooftop, recklessly risking her lifespan as she was prone to do.
Dita must have known he’d hunt her down yet she made no attempt to cover her tracks, to evade him. And she wasn’t trying to leave the Refuge. Her meandering path circled the center of the settlement, far from the walls.
She must be taking a walk, clearing her head. The knot in the pit of Kralj’s stomach unraveled.
As the gap between them narrowed, he calmed more and more. When he spotted Dita, his little assassin crouching in a dark alleyway, he didn’t pounce on her as his beast yearned to do. He didn’t pull her to him and kiss her pain away, assuring her she was everything any male could ever want in a female. He didn’t fuck her against the wall until she came three times, making up for his previous neglect.
Instead, Kralj slipped into the shadows behind her and waited, acutely aware of his little assassin. Her black body covering stretched over her shapely ass. The brown curls at her nape made his fingers twitch.
He wanted to touch her. Badly.
“You gave me permission to leave the chamber.” She lowered her voice so only he could hear her.
“I did give you permission.” He unwrapped a nourishment bar and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” She bit into it and chewed, wa
tching the action in the alleyway.
He followed her gaze.
Sari, the breeding female, was warning Azalea, the young settler female, about the dangers of wandering the settlement alone. The older female didn’t realize Hulagu, the Chamele boy, was standing less then an arm’s length away from the girl, concealed from view.
Although Sari’s action sprang from a sense of duty, not love, she was behaving as Kralj imagined a parent would.
Was that why Dita was drawn to them? Did she think he longed for a miniature version of his monstrous self, a being doomed to inflict pain on others, on him or herself, destined to kill, to always be alone? “Normal beings might want children.”
She tensed, the muscles in her arms and legs flexing tight.
“But I’m not normal, little one.”
“You might not want them now.” Dita tossed the half-eaten nourishment bar to the side, discarding his peace offering. “But you will. All beings do.”
“I’m not all beings.” His stance on children would never change. “I won’t bring another monster like me into this universe. I escaped the Humanoid Alliance to prevent that.”
“That was the action they pushed you too far on?” She looked over her shoulder, her expression openly skeptical.
Soon, horror would darken those big blue eyes.
“They added a human female to my holding chamber.” He recalled the female’s face, her scent, the sharp, cutting thoughts radiating from her. She had been terrified. The guards had abused her sexually, physically, emotionally before giving her to him. They had taunted her, telling her he would treat her even worse. “They wanted me to fuck her, to impregnate her. I refused.”
“Your beast wasn’t interested in her.” Dita straightened.
“No parts of me were interested in her, not in that way.” The female hadn’t been Dita. “And I had already decided I would be the only one of my kind. I knew what I could do, would never wish that ability on another being.” He stepped closer to his little assassin. “The female was my companion for sixty-two planet rotations. We didn’t touch.” She couldn’t bear that. “But we talked.” Eventually, she lost her fear, grew to trust him.
“You loved her.” Dita leaned against him.
He strapped his arms around her and considered her comment carefully. “I cared for her.” His fondness for the female was a pale, watered-down version of the feelings he experienced with Dita. “Then they took her away.”
“Those bastards.” She reacted as though the punishment had been hers, as though she had personally felt his pain, his grief, his anger. “Did they artificially inseminate her?”
“That had been attempted previously. The monstrous part of me wouldn’t allow it.” He’d killed everyone involved. “The Humanoid Alliance tried another tactic. They refused to feed me until I agreed to fuck her.”
“You didn’t agree.” Dita placed her hands over his, the action comforting him.
“I was prepared to starve to death.” He’d foolishly thought only he would be affected by his rebellion. “They waited until I was ravenous, until I was out of my enhanced mind with hunger and then they reintroduced the female to my holding chamber.”
Dita turned to face him, her eyes wide. “They forced you to kill your companion.” There was sympathy in her voice.
He wasn’t worthy of her understanding, didn’t comprehend how she could offer it to him. He’d killed a being he should have protected. “She trusted me.”
The human guards had brutally ravaged the female while she was parted from him. She had approached him with no hesitation, relief in her eyes, viewing him as a friend.
And he had eaten her, ripped out her throat, devoured her until there was nothing left except picked clean bones.
He was a monster. “I misjudged my enemy, lost control over my beast, waited too long to escape, put—”
“Stop.” Dita touched his face. That contact, one only his fearless little assassin would dare to initiate, brought him back to the present, back to her. “You can’t change the past, handsome.”
She didn’t tell him he wasn’t responsible, that he hadn’t caused the female’s death, and he valued that honesty. Kralj pressed his scarred cheek into her palm. He valued her. “It might have been our future. If you had become pregnant, I would have killed you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.” Her lips curled upward into a hint of a smile. “You would have thought about it and you might have tried to do it but you wouldn’t have killed me.”
She was right. He couldn’t kill her.
“And I can’t become pregnant.” She searched his eyes. “I’m less of a female.”
“You’re not less of anything. You’re everything a monster like me could want in a female.” He held her gaze, allowing his lust, admiration, possessiveness to show. “You’re meant to be mine, little one. Never doubt that.”
They stared at each other for several heartbeats.
Dita’s gaze lowered. “I’m yours until my targets leave the Refuge.” She turned toward the two females.
Kralj allowed her to emotionally retreat, content to have her physically near him. She watched Sari and Azalea as they interacted. He held Dita, wondering what she was thinking. It was a unique experience for him. With any other female, he’d know.
His little assassin, however, wasn’t any other female. He’d told her he ate a friend and she accepted that, continued to care for him, a monster.
Sari’s handler, Yorick, a male with monstrous proclivities, entered the alleyway, looking for a female to verbally and physically abuse, that need filling his thoughts.
“Go quickly.” Sari pushed Azalea frantically away from her. “Return to your domicile.”
The girl took one look at Yorick and scurried out of sight. Hulagu followed her, his body placed between the girl and the handler.
“Is this why your earnings have been low?” Yorick glowered at Sari. “You’ve been hiding in alleyways, chatting to friends?”
“My earnings will soon be zero. I’m leaving the Refuge.” Sari straightened. “When the settlers depart, I’m going with them.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” The handler’s laughter was edged with cruelty. “I own you. You’ll work for me until you’re dead.”
“I’m not a slave.” The breeding female knew Yorick couldn’t kill her, trusted Kralj to stop that from occurring. She was prepared to tolerate a beating to earn her freedom. “I can leave if I wish to leave.”
They argued. The handler yelled at Sari. She held her ground.
Dita stiffened more and more, her body shaking with, Kralj suspected, anger. His little assassin cared too much about the breeding female, about him, about everyone.
Yorick smacked Sari in the face, bloodying her bottom lip, the scent exciting Kralj’s beast. The breeding female tried to defend herself. She had no physical skills, was at the mercy of the larger male.
She wasn’t the only being in danger.
The clones were rallying their cronies, trying to incite a mass rebellion. Only the perception that Kralj controlled Dita was stemming their efforts. If residents knew she was walking freely around the settlement, they would rise up, demand he kill her.
“We should return to the beverage outlet.” He nudged her forward. They’d reconciled their differences. Yorick and Sari’s situation wasn’t any of their concern. “It isn’t safe.”
“It’s never safe, not for me.” Dita said that casually as though she were commenting on the weather. “And it’s certainly not safe for the defenseless.”
“The weak will always be victims.” Kralj couldn’t stop that. It required all of his efforts to prevent Refuge inhabitants from killing each other.
“Being defenseless isn’t the same as being weak.” Dita gazed at Sari. “A weak female would back down. It takes strength to risk her handler’s fury, to fight for her freedom.”
“She’ll lose that fight.” But the female would survive. The beings in more grave danger had
a greater claim on his protection. “I can’t save every being.” He touched the scar on his face.
“I thought you were all powerful.”
“I’m not.” Kralj tightened his hold on her. He’d told her part of the story. He should tell her the rest. “After I’d killed the female, I decided it was time to escape the Humanoid Alliance.”
“They’d pushed you too far.” His little assassin paid attention, remembering what he’d told her.
“They would have tried more extreme methods to make me procreate and I couldn’t allow that.” They might have been successful, might have created another monster like him. “I attempted to free all of the modified humanoids in the structure.” He’d killed their Humanoid Alliance keepers en masse but opening each holding chamber had to be done manually. “It took too long. The Humanoid Alliance had the structure rigged to explode, using detonators they could control while residing a safe distance away. They couldn’t risk the enemy finding us, using us as weapons against them.”
“They blew you up.”
“Using Erinomean Green Fire.” It had engulfed him, burning him to the bone. The pain had been excruciating. Only his rapid healing abilities had saved him. “I barely survived.”
“But you did survive. You lived through what would have killed any other being.” She reached back and placed one of her hands on his scarred cheek, her palm cool, soothing against his marred skin.
He needed that connection, needed her. “It taught me a humbling lesson—my powers have limits. I can’t protect everyone.”
“I’m not asking you to extend your territory or to leave the Refuge. She’s within your walls.” Dita tilted her head toward the breeding female. Yorick continued to beat Sari, the female’s defenses ineffective. “And she needs your help.”
He valued his own freedom and wanted to help Sari. But he had set the rules. Maiming was acceptable. Killing wasn’t.
“The residents of the Refuge are brutish beings.” They were the scum of the universe and he was their King. “Violence is how they respond to disagreements. If I intervened in every scuffle, that’s all I would be doing.”