Flame of the Alpha

by Lacey Savage

  Chapter Seven

  Dante’s self-control was slipping. It had been steadily lapsing ever since he’d applied the first tender smack to Sophia’s delightfully pink pussy, turning the delicate folds a rosy red.

  He’d thought licking her delicious cunt was as good as it got, short of plunging his cock deep into her and feeling that tight channel close around his shaft, milking him with each shudder of her orgasm. Now he knew better.

  It was as though the captain had known all along what would make Dante tick. The longer he pushed, the more Sophia gave in ‑‑ and the harder Dante became.

  And now he was supposed to fuck her, too?

  “No way,” he said, pulling his fingers out of Sophia’s pussy. Her cream dripped down the back of his hand, and he couldn’t resist the impulse to bring it up to his mouth and swipe his tongue over the trickling drop.

  Her taste ‑‑ musky and sharp ‑‑ assaulted his senses, causing his cock to jerk hard against his stomach. The familiar onslaught of impending orgasm gathered low in his balls, churning with agitated hunger.

  To banish the desire, he turned his head and fixed his gaze on his pants, hanging from the statue’s massive dick, and bit the inside of his cheek. Hard.

  The metallic taste of blood trickled down the back of his throat, chasing Sophia’s heady miasma of raw, feminine flavor. “I won’t do it,” he repeated, wondering if anyone was even listening to him.

  “You seem to think I’m giving you a choice,” Captain Jolen said. “I’m not. I have plans for you. Yet, if you choose to be difficult and refuse, I’ll chain you over there by the opposite wall, and you’ll watch me as I fuck your Priestess.”

  Dante’s nostrils flared as he ground his teeth together, trying to keep his temper under control. It would be so easy to unleash the inner beast and tackle this man to the ground, to let his claws dig deep into the captain’s tender flesh. He’d be dead before his head knocked against the marble floor.

  Dante fisted his hands. His nails dug into his right palm, while the fingers of his left hand gripped the wooden handle of the whip so hard his knuckles turned white. He couldn’t allow his animalistic urges to get the better of him, whether they were inciting violence or lust in his soul.

  Thanks to Sophia, he now knew what was really at stake. Images of joyous, innocent children flittered across the surface of his mind. Killing Captain Jolen would guarantee a formal investigation. The safety of the little ones depended on the Academy’s ability to not draw any unwanted attention upon itself. It operated as a profitable business, which was good enough for the Terran government. If they had reason to believe otherwise, however, they’d storm the place in the blink of an eye.

  On the way back from the children’s quarters, Sophia had told him everything he’d wanted to know about the Lighting of the Flame ceremony. He knew those kids had been born, not created in laboratories. Even if they didn’t carry Alpha genes, they were an abomination in the eye of government officials. And if they were unlucky enough to have mutated DNA running through their bloodstream, they’d be killed instantly.

  A shudder ran up his spine, cooling some of the outpouring of lust raging through his system. He could do this. He could do whatever Captain Jolen asked of him. And then he could find a way to draw the captain’s attention away from the Academy. Even if it meant going home with the man.

  “She’s sacred,” Dante said, trying again to dissuade the captain from the course he’d chosen. He might have agreed to go along with the man’s plan, but that didn’t mean he was going to allow Sophia to be defiled. She’d made it clear that only High Priestesses bore children, and that those offspring were created by the grace of Saint Valentine, who blessed the union during the ceremony. One day, the female progeny would grow to become priestesses themselves, while the male children would eventually be sent to off-world colonies where they could live the rest of their lives free from Terran persecution.

  The Lighting of the Flame only happened once a year. For the other three hundred and sixty-four days, the High Priestess remained pure. Untouched. Ready to receive a man’s offering and grant her own to the Saint when the time came.

  “Right.” The mocking tone in Captain Jolen’s voice didn’t escape Dante. “So sacred that she works in a whorehouse, leading the troops.”

  “The Academy isn’t ‑‑”

  “Isn’t what? A place where you train people how to be good little submissive sex slaves?” Captain Jolen grabbed a fistful of Sophia’s hair and yanked her head up again, forcing her to look into his eyes.

  Rage surged in Dante’s veins, reminding him that he was doing this to keep her safe, too. “It’s me you want. Leave her alone.”

  The captain’s lip quirked upward in a wry smile. “Ah, so you do have a backbone. Good. Do as I say, and she won’t get hurt.”

  Dante grimaced. “What is it you want from me?”

  “Fuck her. Drive her to the brink of madness, then ask her again what secrets the Academy’s hiding. Withhold that next orgasm she needs so much, if you have to. Then do it again and again, for an entire week if she doesn’t talk. You know as well as I do no one would interrupt our games for longer than it would take to deliver food.”

  “That’s torture.”

  “The sweetest kind,” Captain Jolen agreed. “Consider this your second lesson.”

  “It’s fine, Dante.” Sophia’s voice was hoarse, gritty. She tried to turn her head to stare at him, but the cage around her shoulders limited her movements. “Do as he says.”

  “I won’t ‑‑”

  “You can hold out. So can I.”

  He stifled the words of protest that rose to the tip of his tongue and gritted his teeth. She was right, of course. He’d promised her he could hold back his own release, since she seemed so intent on convincing him that he lost control of his shifting abilities when he came.

  That wasn’t true, of course. He’d come thousands of times. On his own, in front of a mirror…he’d have noticed if he changed without initiating the transformation himself. Still, he’d agreed to go along with her plan. For some reason, she seemed to wholeheartedly believe in what she was saying.

  Dante squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed the bridge of his nose. The scent of her arousal wafted around him, enveloping him in the sweet odor of feminine heat. His erection raged, pulsing against his stomach as he kneeled.

  He could hold out. He prided himself on his self-control. Hell, he’d learned enough about controlling his urges in the Mars General Alliance. He knew those drills would come in handy some day.

  “What about the rest of it?” he asked. “The ceremony?”

  She hesitated for a moment. “This is it.”

  Dante gaped in confusion. The Festival he’d been able to handle. This…this entire experience bordered on the surreal.

  He shook his head, knowing he was too far gone to back out now.

  Dante’s palm traveled up the metal wrapped around Sophia’s thigh, making brief contact with her flesh. She trembled slightly, her head tilting at an angle as her breathing quickened while his fingers trailed closer and closer to her pussy. The folds were deep red now, and heat emanated from her core.

  “Good decision. Mount the cage, Dante.”

  Grabbing his cock in his right hand, Dante rose and bent over the cage. For the first time, he noticed the lid was slightly indented on the sides that didn’t reach Sophia’s body. His left arm slid easily in one of the depressions, and he gripped the edge of the cage with his fingers.

  He nudged Sophia’s folds with the tip of his cock and she gasped. He pulled back slightly, knowing he’d hurt her. “I can stop. I can ‑‑”

  “No,” Sophia and Captain Jolen said in unison.

  Dante shook his head and pulsed his hips a fraction of an inch. Sophia cried out, but the sound was pure pleasure this time. He felt her pussy muscles squeeze, inviting him to delve deeper.

  “See? That wasn’t difficult, was it?” Captain Jolen reached for a smal
l plastic bottle at the edge of one of the tables, which was laid out with a variety of leather crops. “Remember what I said. She can’t come.”

  “Yeah. I heard you.”

  The head of Dante’s cock slipped easily between her nether lips and into her channel, stretching her inner muscles as he thrust himself inside her in slow, rhythmic strokes.

  He gritted his teeth as pure pleasure streamed down his veins. Saints, she felt even better than he’d imagined. Soft and hotter than Enigma’s furnace, her cunt gripped him tight and trembled around his cock, driving him to the brink of distraction.

  From the corner of his eye, he saw Captain Jolen stroke his cock. Fine. If the guy wanted to watch, Dante wasn’t about to stop him.

  Leaning deeper onto the cage, Dante stretched his body across the metal grills and placed a soft kiss on top of Sophia’s head, then tucked her long hair behind her ear and grabbed her earlobe between his teeth, swirling his tongue around the tender flesh. Her moan turned into a whimper and she thrust her hips back against him as far as her restraints would allow.

  Closing his eyes, he gave himself over to what it felt like to be inside her, knowing this was likely the only time he’d get to experience such bliss. After today, he’d convince Sophia to let him go with the captain. From there, he could figure out a way off the planet on his own. Hell, he was resourceful. He’d gotten himself out of worse binds in the past.

  He couldn’t expect her to continue to shelter him. It was too dangerous. For her, for the children. For him.

  A muscle jumped in his jaw. He thrust hard, his cock reaching deep inside her core. Where had that last thought come from? It wasn’t any more dangerous for him to be here than with Captain Jolen. If the captain learned of what he was, he was just as dead there as he’d be here.

  Except… He sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. Emotions swirled through him, fast and furious. He yearned to reach out and hold Sophia as he delved within her sweet folds, to kiss her mouth and stroke his tongue over that full bottom lip.

  He wanted to make love to her. He wanted to give her more pleasure than she’d ever possibly imagined, with his hands, his mouth, his cock. He wanted her to scream his name in the midst of climax, again and again and again.

  He craved more than sex. The inner beast needed ‑‑ no, demanded ‑‑ a deeper intimacy.

  His cock pulsed, hardening to impossible proportions as she writhed inside the cage, her cries filling the air.

  He wanted her. As his friend. His lover.

  His mate.

  Saints! He blinked his eyes open, focusing his gaze on the blissful face of Saint Valentine. If he stayed here, the danger wasn’t to his life.

  It was to his heart.

  The captain placed both hands on Dante’s hips, taking him by surprise. With skilled fingers, he spread his ass cheeks and nudged the tip of his cock against Dante’s back entrance.

  Dante sucked in a gasp as his head reeled from the impact of what was taking place. “Ugh!” He grunted loudly as the Captain’s cock stretched him, filled him.

  “I own you, Dante,” Captain Jolen said, his voice a booming contrast to Sophia’s frenzied moans. “This is just a sample of what’s to come.”

  He thrust harder, plunging his shaft deeper into Dante’s ass. A wet substance coated the inside of his back entrance and Captain Jolen’s rod. With a groan, Dante remembered the bottle and the man stroking his cock. He’d been preparing for this all along.

  The captain’s balls smacked against his ass, making Dante grip the cage harder and pump his own needy shaft into Sophia’s pussy.

  “Dante! Oh, Saints!”

  His name spilling from her lips was still the most erotic sound he’d ever heard. He wanted to hear it again, to make her scream it a thousand times while he toyed with her pussy in myriad ways, bringing her to the brink of pure erotic sensation before letting her tumble over the edge into sheer ecstasy.

  Captain Jolen’s fingers dug into Dante’s hips, keeping him steady while he worked his shaft in and out of his entrance.

  He’d been with men before. This wasn’t an entirely new sensation, but being sandwiched between a dominant male intent on possessing him and a submissive woman who’d captured his heart was utterly overwhelming.

  He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to think of something other than the pleasure streaming through his cock, his balls, and his ass. The captain was gentler than he’d expected, fucking him with slow, easy strokes, never pushing or demanding, just enforcing his authority and claiming his property.

  The familiar tingle in Dante’s balls intensified. Sophia’s pussy clamped around him, spasming in a way he recognized. She was close. As close as he was.

  He couldn’t let her come. Couldn’t let himself come. He couldn’t ‑‑

  Every coherent thought flew from his mind when Sophia tilted her head at an angle and rubbed her hair against his cheek. The feel of those silky tresses against his skin was so sudden and unexpected, so intimate, it reminded him of feeling her hair across his abdomen and thighs as she’d sucked his cock into her mouth the night before. Then, her attention had lingered on the tip of his shaft before she took the engorged length between her lips and flicked it with her tongue.

  Erotic images poured across his mind’s eye. And just when he thought he could force himself to shut down that train of thought, Sophia did something she definitely shouldn’t have.

  She arched her neck, swung her head back toward him as far as she could and brushed her lips against his jaw as her pussy clamped down hard on his cock.

  Dante’s hips bucked wildly as he tried to restrain himself, impaling his body deeper on Captain Jolen’s cock. The man cried out and dug his fingernails hard into Dante’s flesh as his cock pulsed, unleashing a jet of hot cum deep in Dante’s ass. The rush of sticky heat intensified the rampant desire in his own balls, drawing another strangled cry from his throat.

  The sound echoed through the room, a rough, growling roar hardly recognizable to his own ears. Jagged strands of electricity poured through his body, calling to the inner beast that lived within his soul.

  His head reeled. He fought for control, but the animal in him was stronger, more desperate than he was. His balls tightened, drawing up flush against the base of his shaft and raw, violent need coursed through his veins. Lightning flamed up and down his skin, tearing at his self-control, drawing on his last reserve of discipline.

  He watched through a veil of streaming pleasure as his arms widened to forelegs, his hands turning into broad paws covered in dark golden fur. Claws sprouted where his fingernails should have been. His jaw shifted and the sound of cracking bone and cartilage filled the air as it readjusted itself into a muzzle. Teeth lengthening, tail sprouting, ribs cracking and reshaping themselves ‑‑ all those nuances of the transformation were lost to him as he shuddered violently and unleashed the pent-up desire he’d been trying to hard to hold back.

  Colors, vibrant and organic, flashed before his eyes. Above him, Saint Valentine’s tranquil bronze features seemed to distort themselves. His lips broadened into a fragment of a smile while his brows drew down as though in a concerned frown.

  Dante had no time to make sense of the oddly contrasting visage. Through the chaos of emotions pouring through him, only one coherent thought made itself known.

  It wasn’t the orgasm that made him lose control. Not entirely.

  It was her. It had always been her.

  A razor-edged slash of pain against her labia cut through Sophia’s euphoric afterglow, drawing a sharp cry from her lips. Her head spun. Hell, the entire room rotated on its axis, whirling around her as though she stood still and the rest of the world had gone on tilt.

  The offering she’d presented her Patron Saint had been unlike anything she’d ever experienced, whether on her own or during a Lighting of the Flame ceremony.

  Having Dante in her, thrusting his massive cock inside her tight channel, grinding his pubic bone against her ass, his
balls slapping the nether regions of her folds…it had all been too much.

  Despite the captain’s warning, Dante had done nothing to prevent her from giving in to the bliss of release.

  So she’d come. Saints, had she come.

  Her orgasm had been violent, wild, furious. It had shattered from her very core and spread outward, hard and fast. And she’d let it, without a thought for the repercussions.

  Until now.

  “By all holy Saints! The man’s a shifter!”

  The captain’s wild cry resonated through the room, bringing Sophia’s surroundings back into focus. She grimaced, knowing instinctively what had brought the sudden agony upon her tender, bruised folds.

  There was a reason panthera leo didn’t have sex in their animal form. The tiny spikes that protruded from an erect lion’s cock were enough to elicit raw agony in a woman ‑‑ human or otherwise.

  Dante had slid his shaft out of her, leaving her sore pussy empty but thoroughly satisfied. She could feel the soft fur of his paws brush her cheek as he clutched the edges of the cage.

  Her heart hammered hard against her breastbone, thudding into the metal bars.

  They were dead. Oh, Saints, they were so dead.

  She barely had time to register that thought when Dante leapt off her and swerved around the cage. He came to rest in front of her, where she could take in his fully transformed form.

  Her mouth went dry. He’d gone from six and a half feet of pure masculine perfection to ten feet of raw, untamed physical force.

  She’d thought him beautiful before, all feral strength and brawny muscle, but he was absolutely regal in his lion shape. Powerfully built, with strong, lean limbs and a rippling dark blond coat that hinted at the sturdy muscle beneath, he was by far the most stunning creature she’d ever seen.

  His long tail swung from side to side in silent challenge. The brown tuft at the end of the tail stood straight up, daring the Captain to come closer. When he tossed his head back, his wild mane ruffled around his elongated muzzle and he roared, the sound shaking the foundation of the statues at the base.