She was coming again…the excitement of it causing a surging pressure in Tarken's shaft, his balls tightening as Cushla's vagina gripped him tightly. She was beautiful, erotic, and exotic—so very exotic—and he couldn't help being mesmerized by her enchanting crystal stare, now becoming prismatic once more.
There was something magical in them, in her—a transcendental essence that resonated from her, weaving its way through him, binding, melding and enslaving him. Tarken breathed it in, savored it, possessed it, craved it as thought the absence of it would mean the arresting of his own heart.
She seized against him, embracing Tarken, gripping him tightly with her legs and arms, her hips in the same frantic yet rhythmic pace as his own. His cock swelled, stiffening further, ecstasy devouring him, the surge of carnal delirium overwhelming him, as he slid in and out of her slick sheath.
Cushla's cry of passion infused his senses, driving him over the edge and they reached it together. Their orgasms collided. Fire shot through his shaft, his body quaking as Cushla shuddered. He spewed into her even as she spewed back, their juices combining, the climatic release charging through their nerves, through their flesh in thunderous bursts of near unbearable pleasure.
They both cried out.
Breathless, they continued to cling to each other, their hips still moving in harmonic grinds against each other slowing gradually, their minds in a daze, only vaguely aware that the room was in shambles, only vaguely aware of the lightness leaving their still-joined bodies as they settled back down and sank into the mattress, Cushla, becoming small and feminine beneath Tarken.
Shifting slightly to the side of her, he drew his arms around her, holding her tightly. She settled against him, her muscles relaxing. No words were exchanged between them. None were needed. Even as he held her to him, he could still sense the essence of freedom that claimed her, claimed him—his freebird, his Libertas…His!
As if confirming his sentiments Cushla turned in his arms, facing him. Pressing her cheek to his chest, she inhaled, held it, and then released it slowly, her warm breath fanning across his chest like a comforting blanket. She tipped her head back and studied him, her eyes first locking to his before roaming his face, her gaze caressing his features as strongly as if she were touching him. Her nostrils flared. Her lips pursed, and for a brief moment she stiffened in his embrace as her eyes shifted upward to meet his gaze once more.
He saw pain there, the emotion seeming to cut through her so deeply it pierced him. She must’ve seen the strain of sharp reaction on his face because her hand came up, her fingers tracing the lines on his forehead until he felt his own facial muscles relax. Her fingertips settled on his lips, tracing the crease. Cushla closed her eyes slowly and then opened them again. When she did, he saw that the pain had faded, replaced by a shroud of sadness now filling them, the emotion Tarken saw cutting so deeply his heart wrenched for her.
“They decided it was time I shred my virginity—I guess.” She continued her treacherous tale from where she left off when they were in the eatery’s garden. Her voice sounded distanced when she spoke—flat, as if the very life was draining from her, and then her lids fell shut. She opened them again and sighed, blinking a few times before the vacancy he’d come to loath consumed them.
“How old were you when you were sold into slavery?” He asked, softly stroking her hair as she rested her head on his chest.
“I was five when I was taken as a slave,” she paused for a moment, “I was not good for much except being a companion to the owner’s children or helping in the kitchens. I stayed with my first master until I was eight. Then I was sold and then sold again when I was nine. That is when…” Cushla stopped speaking, pursed her lips, took a heavy breath and continued. “I was bought by a household that had many slaves, mostly females, most quite young.”
Tarken could sense her anxiety rising in the way she spoke and the way her hand stiffened where it had been resting on his chest as she began to speak. He said nothing, but just kept lightly stroking her hair. Inside however, his stomach was churning with pure dread.
“When they…” Cushla gulped. “When the men came to look at us, there were no girls over the age of eleven solars and all of us were virgins. We were either newly captured or gently used in the household like I was. They lined us up naked and the men, six in all, looked us over, touched us, even sniffed at us.” She suppressed a shudder. “I was bought, along with another girl. She was as naïve as I was and had no idea what was going on.” Cushla was silent for a time as though memories flashed through her mind.
Tarken could tell when the memories became difficult for her to think about because her legs would move restlessly. He tightened one arm around her and continued to calmly stroke her hair.
Seeming to seek that comfort, her hand slipped from his chest and encircled his waist. “We were made to serve them naked and they had collars around our necks as well as the slave bands we wore. Sometimes, they attached leashes to the collars and led us around like animals. Some of the girls would walk around like automation machines, their eyes and expressions so blank that it was difficult to even know if they were alive or android. When they weren’t given an order, they would stand lifeless, staring off into space. Others were cruel to us, slapping and yelling to us. But a few of them were nice and tried to help us, tried to warn us of what would happen, tried to ease the way…” Cushla’s voice trailed off though her eyes still held that vacant stare.
Tarken held her and waited, the bile rising in his throat. He knew of these types of men in the universe—cruel for cruelty’s sake.
“They sold the one I was to replace and brought me into a room with a bed and restraints. They told me to get on the bed and lay down. I told them I wasn’t tired and didn’t want to lie down. I wanted to go back to the holding room.” She drew a shuttering breath as she seemed to relive it. “On the walls hung whips and more restraints and stuff I don’t’ even know to this day what they were. One man grabbed me from behind, I kicked and screamed and fought so hard. It took three of them to tie me to that bed. I gave one a bloody nose with a kick. This seemed to excite them, my fighting like that…” Cushla paused and took a wrenching breath.
The scene she laid out for Tarken became all too real in his mind and hatred rose in him.
“They all removed their clothing and stood around the bed stroking their cocks. They seemed so huge to me, so ugly. I fought the restraints as they jacked off and spewed on me. I started begging, pleading not to do this, I would be a good slave I would do anything else they asked, if they would just let me go back to the holding room—they laughed and—they all started touching me. Still, I pleaded. One man tried to force me to take him into my mouth. I tried to keep my lips sealed. I tried to turn my head, but he grabbed my hair and tried to force me. He pinched my nose and I was unable to breathe while his other hand squeezed my neck so tightly I thought I would die from suffocation…” Cushla’s voice sounded strained as though she couldn’t breathe with the telling.
Tarken held his breath too, as he waited for the rest of the nightmare story.
She expelled her breath and went on, “I had to open my mouth to scream, to breathe, I don’t know, but when I did he shoved his cock in my mouth and warned me to keep from biting him or he would slit my throat. At the same time—another man got on top of me and tried to force himself into me. I was too dry and too tight...”Cushla released an anguished sound and pulled away from Tarken, sitting up on the bed as if being touched at the moment was too much to bear.
Silence filled the room as he patiently waited.
“They brought some kind of oily liquid and poured it over my genitals and he slid his cock up and down on me several times and then he ripped into me hard. He was so big and I was so small, it hurt—oh stars did it hurt! I screamed and screamed. The man that had my hair kept forcing his cock into my mouth, into my throat, and they both came at the same time. I choked and threw up all over the place, and in consequence one o
f the men slapped me many times. As he was doing that another man climbed on top of me and entered me. I don’t’ remember much after that. Just moments of clarity—of me screaming and all of them taking turns pounding into me. They reveled in the blood. If their cocks were marked with blood they were strutting around, if not, they tried again harder to get me to bleed on them.”
“Demons of hell…” Tarken gasped loudly pulled her to him and held her tightly, cradling her against his chest. He could feel her tears as they fell onto his flesh, and his mind began reeling with murderous anger at what was done to her.
“I died inside that night, Tarken.” Cushla sniffled and then swiped at her tears. “Just as you did the eve your wife passed.”
“I was a man, fully grown, Cushla.” Tarken kissed the top of her head and then rested his cheek there. “You were a child, still learning the unknown. Your hell is a monster compared to mine.”
Within a short time, her muscles relaxed and she became still. She slept within his embrace, and Tarken listened to her easy breathing stealing the rhythm of his own contented breaths. He was truly relieved that she had finally opened up to him completely, not to use it against her but because he simply cared and that was all there was to it.
Something tragic, something truly traumatic had happened to Cushla, and Tarken wanted so badly to hold her in his arms forever, and comfort her, to tell her that nothing horrible would ever happen to her again, that as long as she was with him he would protect her from harm. He gritted his teeth. How could he promise her such a thing when she belonged to the king?
Just as before, he made every attempt to cast aside the wayward thought but it was too much of a struggle, and he failed miserably this time. He no longer saw Cushla as a slave to be trained and it was impossible to be removed emotionally where she was concerned. She was a friend and he desired to be a friend to her—more than a friend.
He respected and trusted her almost as much as she had learned to trust him.
How he’d failed to protect his own wife and son—this was something he never intended to speak to anyone about, to convey the tale of his own tragic life, but when he saw the compassion on Cushla’s lovely face, when she asked him about it and saw the genuine concern in her expression, The way she touched his hand to form not only a physical but emotional connection…there it was. He was ready to spill his guts to this woman. Old memories surfaced, memories he was ashamed of, memories of the life he’d hidden deep into the recesses of his memories a long time ago.
For some bizarre reason, he knew he could confide in her, that he could give his most vulnerable secrets to her for safekeeping. In telling her, Tarken somehow found comfort, made peace with it…and she responded to him so genuinely. He couldn’t help but be warmed by her response, by the tone of her voice, non-judgmental and compassionate, her consoling voice sweet to his ears, so entrenching to his heart.
Never before had a female affected him as such, and Tarken realized he might never experience it again. She was an amazing woman, his beautiful slave girl, his freebird. To survive such horrific thing and still remain so strong of will. He admired her and respected her with an enormity he could’ve never foreseen.
He winced at the pang in his chest at the thought of handing Cushla over to the king. The idea of living without her filled him with great emptiness. Cushla had given herself to him, heart and soul. He saw it in her gaze upon him, sensed it in the way her body her responded to his, believed the words of love she'd spoken to him. One thought and one thought only assaulted Tarken's head.
Cushla belonged to him, to him alone, and he was going to keep her.
Chapter Nineteen
They made love again, this time with a fever yet a tenderness that neither could escape. It came from deep within, a mating of souls, with a heightened awareness of the unconditional devotion and desire for each other rising and rushing through them like a tidal wave, an awakening of two hearts once lost in numbness.
While the sexual fog and overwhelming passion cleared from their heads, the low beep of Tarken’s commlink sharpened in his ears. Blinking several times to focus his vision, he reached around Cushla, who still rested in slumber against his chest and grabbed his communicator.
It was a message from the royals that it was time to return to the ship.
Tarken jerked to awareness.
Beneath him, Cushla's eyes shot open in time to see him rubbing his forehead as if in distress. She turned to face him and pressed a hand to his chest. “What is it Tarken?”
Should he tell her he had no intention of taking her back to the ship? He needed to think on how they would make their escape. “It’s a lovely dawning outside.” He patted her thigh. “Enjoy a bath and then we’ll take a walk.” He began to roll from the bed but stopped briefly to smile down at her. He gave her lips a tender kiss and then gazed into her crystal eyes, now sparkling brightly.
Her returned smile was dazzling, and he was loath to separate his body from hers, but he had plans to make. First and foremost, how he could escape capture and prosecution by the king for stealing his goods.
Shifting over her, he sat on the edge of bed and donned his trousers. He then stood and strolled toward the door leading to the small terrace attached the cabana. With an ease he did not truly feel, he leaned against the frame, staring across the field that separated the cabana from a nearby lake. With one arm crossed over the other, he became lost in his thoughts, only vaguely aware of the two men who seemed to be enjoying a stroll along the banks.
He had enough credits in his account to manage their living needs for quite a while, and he had skills. He could take work as a military trainer again or possibly as pilot on a freighter ship, delivering goods to various ports in the galaxy…Cushla at his side. Would she object to such a life? They would need to take aliases, but identities were easily bought if one had the right connections, and Tarken had plenty.
Behind him, he vaguely heard the water running in the shower as his attention became more focused on the strangers when they stopped and appeared interested in the cabana. His eyes narrowed. Almost immediately he recognized Ayia, but not the other, a male, who accompanied her. Still distracted, he heard Cushla moving about, but was too focused on the pair to pay her any heed at the moment.
Until that is…he heard Cushla gasp, and the sound of the cabana’s other door crashing against the wall. His head whipped around in time to see the door swing and slam shut.
Cushla was gone from the room.
His head snapped back around and he gazed down to the courtyard, unbidden anger erupting within him.
The slave girl was sprinting across the terrain. Wrapped only in her towel, and wet hair dripping down her back, she was rushing toward Ayia and the others who were waving her on. Cushla was fleeing, escaping—running as she had vowed not to..
She was leaving him!
Something deep to the gut shattered inside of Tarken—betrayal, deceit…
Heartbreak…
Pain, unbelievable pain, and then…rage blinded him. Reaching toward his waist, Tarken pressed the button on his belt, and activated the slave band. She arched sharply as if struck in the back, her arms flaring outward, the towel dropping, and she screeched, her agonized cry so horribly loud it echoed through the air.
Glancing downward, he saw that the setting was on maximum. He looked up again in time to see another female had joined Ayia and her male companion. He recognized her immediately.
It was that Shalcar woman who had attempted to snatch Cushla when they had made port on Wind Drift.
Without conscious thought of the distance, Tarken jumped from the balcony grasping the ledge and vaulting down to the ground.
“You’re dead man, slavemaster!” The man’s voice echoed angrily from across the field.
He and the two women were stalking toward him, but at the moment Tarken’s concern was only with Cushla, and he paid no heed to the threat. Instead, he rushed from the Cabana and sprinted to Cushla’s side
before the others could get to her and watched in horror as her body quaked violently on the ground where she had crumbled. She was wailing in pain and guilt assailed him, along with a hefty dose of fret. He never meant to hurt her. It was his heart that activated the slave band not his brain—angst-ridden at her betrayal—her promise. He truly believed, wanted it to be…her proclamation that she loved him.
Dropping to his knees beside her, Tarken drew Cushla’s pain-racked body into his arms. “Cushla, why? I’m sorry.” What had he done? “I thought you loved me. I thought…”
That you would stay with me, he reflected silently, unable to admit his desire out loud.
She didn’t answer. She couldn’t answer, he knew. Cushla was gasping and shrieking with the stabbing torment that rushed along her nerves.
“Why, Cushla,” Tarken pressed his cheek to hers, his voice straining with dismay. “Why did you run?”
“My, my—” She gasped and stiffened, gulped for air.
“I’m here my little one!” The man yelled, hurriedly spanning the distance of the field to reach them, Ayia and that other woman rushing with him. “Unhand my daughter you bastard!”
“Daughter?” Tarken looked up at the man suddenly befuddled. Father…Bazil?
Bazil and the women continued to charge toward him, and he was now close enough for Tarken to discern the unmistakable fury on the man’s face.
“I should strangle you with my bare hands, slaver,” Bazil growled as he drew a stunner from his belt.
Stiffening, Tarken was unsure of what the hell blazers was going on. He reacted instinctively also drawing his stunner. Through the corner of his eye, he caught movement and glanced briefly in that direction.
The royal guards, Rube and Scoac leading were sprinting in his direction. One of the guards drew his stunner, aimed at Bazil and fired. He missed, and Bazil skidded to a halt, glanced in their direction briefly, growled and then turned to charge Tarken.
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