She shuddered when she thought of him. She suffered a twinge of excitement at the thought of seeing him again. She hated herself for wanting him, and now she had to put herself at his mercy all over again. What price would he exact for helping her find Moira?
She started walking in the direction Damen disappeared, but with half a heart. Moira was gone, probably dead. Rose’s team had lost their Allies representative. That made their team incomplete. She had to contact the Command. By rights, their mission should be aborted, but without technology, she had no way to contact them. The team planned to stay on the planet without contact with the Allies for the whole year. After that, the Allies would send a rocket shuttle to pick them up.
She made up her mind then and there to contact Rex Masters, the representative on the other team at Assan Keep. She would ask Haya and Callan Assan to put her in touch with Callan’s family.
Even that could take a while. Without any technological communication tools, she would have to travel to Assan Keep to talk to Rex, or have him come here. Assan Keep was a couple hundred miles away to the south. Even sending a message there would take days, if not weeks. Going there would take even more time.
While she thought over the options, she walked slower and slower. She looked around for a place to sit down and rest. These woods weren’t so dark and foreboding, once you got a good look at them. They were really quite stunning, with the mountains rising above the trees in the distance.
The dragon perched on a distant peak. At this distance, he looked tiny and harmless. Maybe the Krataks understood he was just part of the landscape. He occasionally flew overhead and roared, but then he returned to his perch. They got used to him, and they had their hands full with these enormous pigs and whatever else roamed the woods.
She found a nice big tree with a patch of soft moss at the base and got ready to sit down when a thunderous bellow startled her out of her skin. She spun around to see a huge black shape moving between the trees. Was the wounded pig coming back to wreak its vengeance on her? All thought of sitting down to rest flew out of her head, and she set off headed as fast as she could in the direction she thought Damen went.
She couldn’t be certain which way he went. All the trees looked the same. They stretched their branches over her and extended their clawed hands to grab her. Bursting into a run, she had to get out of here. She stumbled this way and that, bumped into things, and ran on.
All at once, an enormous creature thundered out of the woods on a collision course with her. It was as big as an elephant, but with shaggy hair and horns on its head like a cow. Its great humped back loomed high above its swaying head, and blasts of steam blew from its nostrils.
Its beady black eyes fixed on Rose, and it swung around to face her. It tossed its head and rolled its eyes, and it pawed the ground with its massive hooves. Rose backpedaled as fast as she could, but she kept her head enough not to run. She walked backwards away from it, but that only antagonized it even more. It roared in her face.
She looked right and left, but could find nothing to defend herself. Not even the high-powered plasma rifles the Allied Command used in all-out battle zones would frighten a creature as big as this. If she wounded it in any way, it would turn vicious and brutal.
Her only hope was to get away from it. Maybe, if she got back to the waterfall, she could lose it among the cliffs where it couldn’t follow her. She could hide until it lost interest and then make her way back to the Keep.
She turned to back that way when the beast charged her. She raised her hands, but there was nothing she could do to stop it. It barreled toward her with all its incredible bulk. Its hooves shook the ground under her feet. She opened her mouth to scream, but she never got a chance.
It struck her in the chest with its hard, flat forehead. Knocking the air out of her lungs, it hurtled her backwards faster than she could imagine. The creature charged forward with all its strength and slammed her against the nearest tree trunk. Its horns stuck in the wood and made a tiny space in front of its face. If its horns hadn’t stuck, it would have crushed her chest killing her.
The animal thrashed and tore the sod underfoot in its desperate effort to free itself, but its horns stuck fast. It wrenched its head from side to side. Rose screamed until she was hoarse. She flailed in terror and tried to push the monster away, but she couldn’t budge it.
The thing roared, and the acrid breath from its nostrils burned Rose’s throat. She choked and screeched in terror. She struggled to slip out of the space between those terrible horns and the powerful head, but they locked her in a prison too strong to break.
At last, the animal succeeded in shattering the bark of the tree and twisting its horns free. Rose slipped to the ground, but she couldn’t rejoice in her freedom. The animal shivered the whole forest with its bellowing and lifted its head to make another stab with its horns. It would tear her limb from limb and leave her dead body lying on the moss. Would her friends and family ever find out what happened to her?
She crouched on the ground and waited for death. The animal arched its head sideways to sweep its horns at her when a whistle sang through the air. The animal bellowed one more time and spun sideways. It reared on its hind feet and came down within inches of Rohn.
Rose stared at him. She couldn’t get her stunned brain to comprehend what he was doing there. Then she saw him pull back his arm and send a long spear hurtling through the air. It stuck in the animal’s neck, right next to the other spear he threw to stop the creature from goring Rose.
The spear impaled the animal right behind the head. It severed a major blood vessel, and black blood spurted from the wound. The creature reared one more time, but the two spears also penetrated its spine. The animal stood on its hind legs for a long moment and pawed the sky with its hooves. It let out a blood-curdling bellow and collapsed on its side in front of Rohn.
The ground shook, and the sod bounced from the concussion. Then all lay silent and still.
Chapter 8
Rohn put out his hand to Rose. “Are you all right?”
Rose tried to stand up, but her knees buckled underneath her. Rohn hitched his hands under her armpits and hauled her up. He supported her with his arms around her chest.
Rose drew a ragged breath. Every breath brought her closer to complete breakdown. The terror of the last moments caught up with her. She burst into tears. She threw her arms around his neck and held on for dear life. “Oh, thank you! Thank you.”
He tried to gently pry her arms away. “Never mind. It’s all over now.”
She didn’t hear. She covered his face and lips with kisses. She clawed at his skin with her fingernails. She tried to grab every inch of him while she could before he slipped away.
Maybe he never wanted her in the first place. Maybe that incident in her room, when she was supposed to be giving him a medical examination, was just a trivial dalliance. He stayed away from her afterwards, so he must not think much of her company.
She couldn’t let that happen again. He was here. She had to seize him. She had to take him into herself. She stroked his hair off his forehead and pressed her breasts against his chest. She pushed her tongue into his mouth. She had to show him how much she desired him.
Oh, how she desired him! She never desired anything in her life like she desired him. She ached for him. She wanted his flesh inside her, stroking her deepest tissues and making them shiver with new life.
He accepted her kisses, but he held back. He held her up with his arms around her waist, but he made no move to own her the way he did before. What was wrong with him? Was he waiting for a polite opportunity to disengage from her and take his leave? He was a dominant man. A woman taking what she wanted and throwing herself at him must disgust him.
With a monumental effort, she disentangled herself from his arms. She wiped the saliva off her lower lip and took her place on the ground on her own two feet. She straightened her clothes. “Sorry. Thank you. I don�
��t know what I would have done if you didn’t come along just then.”
He glanced at the creature. “I’ll go get Damen and Callan to butcher this thing. We can’t let it go to waste.” He disappeared into the forest.
She sank down at the base of the tree in a miserable heap. Her hands and legs trembled with nervous terror. He didn’t want her. He had her once, and now he was finished with her. Butchering that animal for food concerned him a lot more than she did.
He took his time coming back, and she didn’t want to wait around to let him ignore her while he did the job. She supported herself against the tree trunk to get on her feet. Then she struck off through the trees after him, toward the Keep.
She met Damen and Callan coming the other way, but saw no sign of Rohn. She pressed on her way. She didn’t want to see him anyway. She had work to do back at the Keep. She should concentrate on her job, instead of selling herself to the first man to look at her sideways.
She walked and walked, but she never came in sight of the Keep. She adjusted her course more than once, but after more than an hour of fruitless trekking, she had to admit she was lost again. No paths marked that forest. How did the Krataks find their way through it? They seemed to travel by instinct alone.
A shadow crossed the sun, and Rose looked up to see the dragon passing overhead. It craned its neck to look down on the forest, but it couldn’t see her from so high up. She slowed down and stopped. She had to rest here.
She leaned her hand against a tree and let her head fall onto it when a voice startled her. “What are you doing here, Rose?”
She whipped around to confront Rohn. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s what I just asked you. You’re miles away from the Keep. You’re lucky I came to find you, or you would be out in these woods overnight.”
“Don’t you have work to do back there, butchering that thing with Damen and Callan?”
“They can do the job. You’re much more important than that.”
Her head shot up. “Really?”
“Why do you think I came back for you? Damen told me you were out in the forest alone, looking for your friend Moira. I’m glad I found you when I did, or the morlock would have killed you.”
She shuddered. “Thank you. You saved my life.”
He took a step closer to her. “Are you sure you’re all right? The morlock didn’t injure you, did it?”
“It didn’t injure me. It just scared me.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’ve never seen one of those things before. That’s why it scared me.”
“You had every right to be scared. I was scared, too.”
“You were?”
“Of course. Any man would be a fool not to be scared, facing one of those things alone. We never face them without at least five men attacking at once. That’s the only way we can bring them down.”
“You attacked it alone, and you killed it. You didn’t look scared to me.”
“I was. I only attacked it alone to save you, and then, I only did what I did because its horns were stuck in the tree. I never would have gotten close enough to kill it if it wasn’t.”
She turned away. “Well, thank you, anyway. If you just show me back to the Keep, you can get back to helping the others butcher.”
He frowned. “I didn’t come out here to help the others butcher. I came out here to find you.”
“Thank you. I couldn’t find my way back to the Keep. I don’t know the way as well as you do.”
He peered into her face. “Rose.”
“What?”
He cupped her chin in his hand. “Look at me.”
She lifted her face to meet his eyes. His skin shimmered in the pale light, and his pupils swelled to take in every detail of her face. “You have nothing to fear from me, Rose.”
“I... I don’t fear you.”
“Then why are you trying to get away from me? Did I frighten you?”
“When you killed that thing? Of course not. I’m eternally grateful. I told you that.”
He drew closer. His buckler brushed the tips of her breasts. “I meant in your room. You said you were scared. Maybe I was too forceful with you.”
“No, it was okay. I was scared, but also excited. What you did....”
“You wanted it, didn’t you?”
“I told you I wanted it.”
“Do you want it again now?”
She tore herself away from him. “What you did in that room...It was nice and everything, but it only happened once. I understand you probably don’t want to get serious about a woman like me. You’re used to submissive women, and I’m definitely not that.”
“What makes you think I want a submissive woman?”
She waved her hand in what she thought was the direction of the Keep. “Your whole society is based on dominant men and submissive women. I’ve seen that for myself.”
“The women of Kratak are not submissive. Whatever you’ve seen, you misunderstood. The women of Kratak stand up for themselves. In any case, I would not have chosen you if I wanted a submissive woman. I chose you because you speak your mind. You don’t let my father or any other man hold you down. I admire that about you.”
“You do?”
“Of course. You Allies seem to think someone has to be dominant and someone has to be submissive. In your case, the women are dominant so the men have to be submissive. That doesn’t work very well for you, does it? You would not have responded to me the way you did if you didn’t want a dominant man. All women do. It’s their nature.”
“I let you dominate me once, but I won’t do it again.”
“Oh? Why not, if you say you liked it and wanted it?”
“You think all women want a man to treat them the way you treated me? You think it’s our nature? That only proves how little you know about women.”
“I know all about women. I’ve lived with them all my life, and I’ve chosen mates at the gatherings. I know as much about women as anyone.”
“You know about Kratak women, but you don’t know about me. What we did isn’t in my nature at all. Men among the Allies respect women and treat them with deference.”
“I just said I admired you for standing up for yourself. Didn’t I treat you with deference when I asked if you wanted it? If you wanted it, if you enjoyed it, if it excited you and brought you pleasure, why wouldn’t you do it again?”
“Because it’s not right. No woman would want a man to treat her that way.”
He fixed her with his fierce eyes. “You want me to treat you that way. You loved it, and you want me to do it again.”
She tried to speak, but his eyes held her transfixed. An intolerable itch tormented her deep inside, somewhere down between her legs and running all the way up into the center of her being. She could think of no way to scratch that itch except with deep, penetrating strokes of some thick tool inserted to its limit. She had to ride that stick until she satisfied her agonizing need.
He read her thoughts. Even before he spoke, he understood. He knew the torment that drove her crazy, and only he had the cure for her madness. He stepped forward to bump his chest against her body. He pushed her back a step and shoved her against the tree.
“You want it. You want it more than anything. You want a man to take you, to give you what you want.”
She gasped for breath, but he crushed the air from her lungs with his weight.
“Does it hurt, baby? Does it burn down there between your legs? Does it make you wet to think about me bending you over and slamming into your tight ass?”
“Rohn...” she croaked.
“Say my name, baby. Say my name over and over again. Say you want me to take you right here and now. Say you want me.”
Before she could answer, his mouth covered hers and swallowed any sound she made. She couldn’t whine and sob his name out loud, but she thought it. Rohn...Oh, Rohn
....Oh, yes, Rohn, please. Oh, yes, please, I want it so bad. Take me now. Oh, God, yes!
He grabbed her arms and lifted them over her head. He pinned them to the tree trunk and held them there while he ripped her shirt open. He cradled her pendulous breasts in his hand and teased the nipples to hard little nubs.
She seethed in a ferment of excitement and desire. Her nest of dewy wetness between her legs gave her no peace. She could rub her legs together as much as she liked. That only made the intolerable itch worse. She needed something in there, something to scratch her itch. She couldn’t imagine anything going deep enough to satisfy it, but she had to find something or explode in the attempt.
Rohn slid his knee up between her legs and jammed it into her crotch. She buckled down on it with all her might and ground her cunt against it. She pumped her hips forward in frantic thrusts to gain some relief. Her blood pounded in her veins. She yearned and reached, but her complete satisfaction hovered just beyond her sight.
Rohn grabbed her ass with his free hand and forced her down on his knee. She whimpered into his mouth. His tongue sought out hers, demanding its attention. He tore her pants down, and they drooped around her ankles. She kicked them away in desperate fury to get her crotch back on his knee.
He slid two fingers between her lower lips and glided them on her wet syrup along either side of her clitoris. She bucked and fought to torture her clit on his fingers, but even that didn’t fulfill her deepest desires. She needed something hard down there, something stabbing into her core and dislodging her ancient self from its moorings. She needed something solid to beat against, something to drive its way through her secret curtains and awaken the sleeping giant within.
Rohn put his hips behind his hand and used them to stroke his fingers on either side of her clit. He came up with a handful of slick sugar that spread down her thighs and wet his pants. His swollen crotch bumped against her mons. She tried to arch her hips to touch it, but she couldn’t get to it with her hands pinned above her head.
Rohn (Dragons of Kratak Book 1) Page 6