by Vonna Harper
“Sakima. He has led the Ekewoko since I was a boy. More than that, he became a father to me after…”
Where was your father? she nearly asked, but if he told her, she might hear something that made hating him difficult.
“Do you have a name?” he abruptly asked.
The way he’d posed his question…did he think her people were too primitive for names? About to respond that he couldn’t be more wrong, she held back. If he believed she was a simple creature, he might let down his guard around her.
“Answer me! What do they call you?”
“Nothing.”
A harsh breath warned that she’d pushed him too far. Before she could decide what to do, he closed a hand over the breast closest to him. His fingers pressed against her flesh, hurting and awakening it at the same time. Disconcerted, she divided her attention between his face and what he was doing. His grip was firm and secure. No matter how she might struggle, if he didn’t want her to be free, she wouldn’t be. Drawing in a ragged breath of her own, she vowed to wait him out. She’d give away nothing of what she was feeling.
“What is it?” he taunted. His hold tightened until she was certain he’d leave finger imprints on her breast. “You want me to think this is nothing to you? You don’t feel it here.” Using his other hand, he fingered her nipple. “But you do, my slave. Your body is giving you away.”
No! she wanted to scream. You’re wrong. But her nipple had already hardened, as had the one on her other breast.
“There’s so much you don’t know about me,” he informed her. “You may think I’m only a warrior, but you’re wrong.”
He kept fingering her nipple, causing her to curl and uncurl her toes. She longed to thrash her head about, to run or, if necessary, crawl away from him. At the same time, a warmth that had nothing to do with the day licked over her body. He wasn’t hurting her; if he had been, she’d have concentrated on his cruelty and hated him.
Instead he was reminding her that she was a woman.
At least partly.
“I can do this all day and into the night if that’s what it takes.” That said, he bent low over her and licked her too-sensitive nipple.
“Ah,” she moaned. Shaken by the sound, she tried to dive back into silence only to moan again when he ran his teeth over her nub. “Stop, stop!”
“Why would I do that?” His breath washed over her breast. “In fact, I see no reason not to continue this—” He released her breast but only so he could suck much of it into his mouth.
Her head suddenly felt as if it was going to burst. Even more upsetting, the drawing sensation encompassed her entire body with too much heat settling between her legs. Every muscle tightened as she struggled to not let him know what he’d done to her. He’d lightly raked his teeth over her flesh while swallowing her breast, the promise of injury and pain teaching her a lesson about him she’d never forget. Within him lurked the capacity for savagery. Although he was now tonguing and sucking her, she didn’t dare move.
Caught in ways that threatened to shatter her mind, she again struggled to divorce herself from her system. Fought and failed.
Please, please, please.
If he heard her, he gave no indication. Either that or her trembling body had told him how close she was to falling apart, which was why he continued to hold her as she’d never been held. His ropes were nothing compared to his teeth on her skin.
Moments ago her muscles had protested the position he’d forced them into, but now nothing registered except for damp heat over and around her breast and an even greater heat in her pussy. The wonder.
She hated him, hated! Feared. But her emotions weren’t that simple. Much as she wanted him to do something to make a lie of her thoughts, she half believed he knew more about her than she did. He’d restrained her leg the way he had not simply so she couldn’t get away but because he had easy access to her sex.
Desperate for something, anything to think about, she tried to bring the sky into focus, but his form was in the way. If a Falcon was watching, she couldn’t see it.
Make him pay for this! Punish him!
Diving into the act accompanying her silent command, she imagined Falcon digging his talons into her captor’s back. Blood would leak around the long gashes, and he’d scream. Keep on screaming.
Instead, he suckled on her breast. Shocked and disbelieving, she twisted her wrists in a desperate attempt to get at the knots, but even as she strained to escape the inescapable, the drawing sensation grew stronger. He wasn’t hurting her. If he had, her loathing of him would be simple and clean. Instead, the chasm between the two of them was blurring almost as if they were becoming one.
No, that couldn’t be his intention. Could it?
“Stop it! Stop it!” She struggled to turn away only to have him plant a hand against her collarbone. Her breast was starting to throb, whether from discomfort or pleasure she couldn’t say. Most upsetting, she no longer understood what she was feeling. In many ways, her body had turned against her.
“Don’t!” Digging her free foot against the ground, she struggled to get out from under him. “You can’t—don’t!”
Using his tongue, he pushed her breast free, but before she fully comprehended what had happened, he’d rolled her about so he could cup a hand around the other breast and position it near his mouth.
“Attack! Kill him!”
At her outburst, he froze, his system hard and unmoving. Even as she struggled to comprehend what she’d said, she likened him to a predator—a cougar, maybe, or a wolf. Much as she loathed admitting it, the thought of him being ruled by instinct sent energy shooting through her. He could become an animal. More than human, like her.
Still holding her in place, he rocked back on his heels and looked all around. Because she couldn’t not, she studied him. Yes, this enemy warrior had become more animal than human.
“Who were you trying to command?” His voice was cold.
Careful. “Do you think I’d tell you?”
“Maybe not now but you will, once I’ve taught you.”
Could he? she pondered while he continued to study his surroundings. She couldn’t fathom him altering her from what she’d always been, but then until today she hadn’t believed a man would ever control her as he did.
Moving with a speed beyond her comprehension, he gripped her chin and forced her to look at him.
“There’s no one here. Nowhere for someone to hide.”
Someone? How little you know. “Isn’t there?”
“No.” He cocked his head to the side, smiling faintly as he did. “But you want me to think differently. You want me to believe I’m about to be attacked so I’ll let you go, but that’s not going to happen. Think about this, Wilding. Maybe the time will come when I have no use for you. When and if that happens, I’ll discard you. But until that happens, you won’t know what freedom feels like.”
Left tied and immobile? Was that what he was hinting at? Fear dried her throat, and it took all her self-control not to look toward distant Raptor’s Craig for reassurance.
“What’s this?” He touched his fingers to the sides of her throat. “Your blood is racing. What I said frightens you, doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
He thought she’d tell him the truth? As one moment became another, her heart rate slowed, and she no longer found it so difficult to swallow. Her momentary fright confused her because even though right now only she and her captor shared this area, she suspected that the Falcon who’d been watching earlier was on his way to Raptor’s Craig to tell the others. Maybe instead of just waiting and watching, her kind would defend her, find a way to free her.
Maybe they’d kill her captor—unless his arrows found them first.
“I didn’t expect you to say what you did, that’s all,” she admitted, her tone as unemotional as possible. “If you’ve never been tied up, you can’t comprehend what I’m going through.”
; His hold on her chin let up. The way his fingers now moved, she almost believed he was trying to soothe away whatever discomfort he’d caused her. The man confused her. Maybe that’s what had been behind her irrational fear.
“You’re right,” he said and turned his attention to her useless ankle. “No one has ever done anything like this to me. I’d hate it, and whoever did it to me.” He continued to regard her. “Do you have a name?”
“Do I—of course!” she snapped, recalling that he’d already asked the question. Damn him for lightly running his fingers over her anklebone and calf! She could barely think.
“What is it?”
She wasn’t going to tell him; revealing something so personal would take what existed between them in a direction she didn’t want. But if he didn’t call her by name, he might think of her as “slave,” and that was even worse.
To her surprise, he didn’t demand a response. Instead, he studied her deeply bent leg and barely concealed cunt. His eyes were like fire against her skin, somehow touching tissues that had never felt this alive or vulnerable. Much as she wanted him to know how wrong he was to call her kind “Wildings,” much as she needed to see awe and disbelief and pain and even fear in his eyes, she needed other things from him even more.
“Don’t look at me like that!”
“Haven’t you figured it out? What you do or don’t want doesn’t matter. I’m in control, not you.”
Not once I’m free. Although she was tempted to warn him, she didn’t. Let him discover for himself what he’d begun when he’d captured her. Before she was done with him, he’d regret having ever seen, let alone touched her.
“You think you’ve won something by not speaking?” he demanded, his scrutiny increasing. “You haven’t. And to make sure you understand—”
Before she could begin to guess what he had in mind, he grabbed her free ankle and bent her knee forward toward her belly. She fought him, of course, but all too soon, he’d forced her heel against her thigh. He only grunted when she cursed him, only held on as she struggled against his greater strength. All too soon, she was drenched in sweat and exhausted. Still, she continued to try to straighten her leg. She refused to ask herself what he had in mind, and although he was looking into her eyes now, she resolutely didn’t return his stare.
When she had no choice but to rest her head on the ground and pant, he closed in on her until he’d anchored her leg under his knee. With both hands free, he turned his attention to caressing her thighs, buttocks, and belly. She had no doubt what he was doing: proving his superiority. More than that, he was giving her an unforgettable lesson in how much he understood about her body.
Once again she went from loathing everything about him to anticipation. His fingers, although rough, were also gentle. He knew exactly how much pressure was needed to keep from tickling her and used his knowledge to slowly work his way through her resistance.
He toyed with her navel, first filling it with his thumb pad and then his knuckle. When he did, she jumped and shuddered, not that it changed anything. He repeatedly focused on her navel, but when he wasn’t there, his fingers slid over her belly to what he could reach of her pussy.
Maybe he was only pretending he couldn’t penetrate her opening so she’d be forced to wait. To anticipate. To silently cry out.
But what did she want? To be free of him or something—intimate?
He no longer had to force her leg up by her belly; surely he realized he’d stripped resistance from her. Surely he knew, what, everything?
Despite her determination to resist and rebel, she went limp and weak under him. The closer he came to her core, the harder it was to wait for that exciting and terrifying moment. Sensations swirled through her, some she’d experienced before, others beyond her comprehension. Nothing about her body still belonged to her but not just because he’d robbed her of the use of her limbs. It wasn’t that simple.
When he rested the side of a finger along her labial lips, she tried to rest with him so she’d have the strength for what came next. Tried and failed. He was under control, damn him. In contrast, she was flying into tiny fragments. At the same time, her thoughts drifted back to when she’d been in the lake. Probably because of the poison raging through her system, she remembered only bits and pieces. Most of her memories centered around sinking beneath the surface.
Until she’d summoned up the strength to close it, water had threatened to fill her mouth. Even as she’d taken comfort in her small victory, she’d acknowledged the water around her eyes and drifting through her hair. The sinking sensation.
She was drifting now, floating, surrounded and supported by something without end. A magnificent and powerful force touched every inch of her being and, even though that force frightened her, she wanted nothing else. The past faded into nothing, and the present swarmed around her. She was lost. Sinking down.
Forceful hands on her shoulders pulled her back to reality. Before she could fully center herself in the here and now, however, her captor flipped her onto her belly. The leg he’d bent against her belly was now caught under her weight, and the ground flattened her breasts. Tugging uselessly at her bonds, she lifted her head and looked behind her. Yes, there he was, still looming over her. Still controlling her world.
Then he ran his hand along her ass crack and from there to her sex, and she understood why he’d done what he had. Her earlier vulnerability paled in comparison to this.
“You’re beautiful,” he muttered. “I never thought I’d think that of a Wilding, but you are beautiful.”
His hand hadn’t moved but, with a finger resting against her entrance, it didn’t matter. She couldn’t think how she might straighten her leg, but maybe she didn’t want to because this way he had full and free access to her.
Careful! You risk losing yourself.
“Your strength intrigues me.” His deep tone silenced her inner voice. “Yes, I’ve taken that away from you, for now, but it’s still part of you. Something I want to explore.”
Speak! Tell him he has no right!
“This is what you’re about.”
His words began to penetrate only to shatter like a thin layer of ice. She’d just begun to wonder why that was when she realized his hand no longer lay quietly along her sex. A single finger was sliding into her, moving slowly and yet surely, touching inner flesh, gentle and masterful at the same time. Her mind blinked, stayed closed. There was nothing to her beyond his finger inside her. And her pussy weeping for him.
“Please, please, please,” she moaned. Her breath stirred the dirt.
“Please what?”
6
What are you doing?
Nakos’s cock felt as if a knot had been tied in it, making it all but impossible for him to think. Yes, he knew what he was doing, barely. The energy coursing through his hands was impossible to ignore, as was the pressure in his temple. He’d fingered females before, of course, but they’d either been willing participants or had reconciled themselves to a man’s mastery. Today was different. Not only hadn’t this Wilding ever experienced ropes, she’d yet to acknowledge that he was superior to her in any way.
She was like a meadow painted with a fresh dusting of snow: virginal.
Shifting his position brought him closer to her. Much as he wanted to see her reaction to being finger fucked, he couldn’t shake off her impact to his senses. Her skin was coated with the sweat of her struggles, her mountain of hair tangled around her. There was something otherworldly about the positioning of her useless arms, and he couldn’t tear his attention from the contrast between her coloring and that of the rope he’d put around her.
He loved accepting that she was his and she’d never again taste freedom unless he chose to hand it to her. Maybe it was because he’d gone too long without sex, although a part of him expected that life-weariness and old nightmares played a part. So much of his existence revolved around staying alive and being a valuable Ekewoko, but he’d recently shrugged off that weight
so he could concentrate on his possession. The gift that the spirits had handed to him.
“You’re soft here,” he observed in a whisper as his finger sank deeper into her warmth. “Soft and ready for me. Sleek.”
“No, no,” she chanted.
“Don’t deny the truth, Wilding. Feel yourself.” Bending his finger, he stroked her secret walls. “Feel your response.”
“No. No.”
She was on the move, not fighting but, he believed, trying to stay on top of whatever she was experiencing. He debated pointing out that her pussy was flooding itself, but she might call him a liar, and he needed a measure of honesty between them.
“My name is Nakos,” he told her. “Nakos of Ekew, although I haven’t seen my home for many moons. I’m here with my fellow warriors because our lord and our shaman told us this is where we must come if we’re to ever reclaim Ekew.”
She might not care about what he was telling her now, but she’d remember. More important, she’d never forget what Nakos of Ekew had done to her. Fighting what raged through him, he concentrated on milking her responses. If only breathing wasn’t so difficult! If only fantasies of burying his cock inside her didn’t threaten to engulf him.
His finger retreated and advanced, twisted and stroked. Her scent seeped into him, almost as if she was gifting him with her essence. He took the smell of female arousal deep inside him, then opened himself up to the way that scent pushed into his veins and pulsed within his heart. Lost, he ran his other hand over her thigh and buttocks. Dirt clung to her in places, but he didn’t care. Dirt was part of their world, part of this strange thing they were sharing.
“By the spirits.” She jerked her body in one direction, stopped, then rocked herself back to where she’d been. “I—I…”
His mouth remembering how her breast had filled it, he bent low over her so he could run his tongue over her backside. The moment he did, he felt as if he was being pulled into a whirlpool. Startled by her power over him, he pulled out of her pussy and sat up.
She was whimpering like some small, lost animal, her arms and legs trembling, hips moving.