by Vonna Harper
“Ah! Ah!”
The other men were speaking, their words thudding around her. But her captor continued his relentless hold, and that became her all. Everything.
Belly clenching, she struggled to push herself at him. Helplessness surrounded her, yet she reveled in it. He’d taken her apart and was putting her back together.
Or maybe she was on the brink of shattering.
Coming.
Yes, coming!
On and on and on. Legs screaming. Her mind pulsing. Trapped pussy tightening endlessly.
Laughter, male laughter. Her captor lapping at her, and her pussy endlessly filling him with liquid proof of his knowledge.
She hated him and feared herself.
15
“Remember what I said?” Nakos was somewhere far away, his voice faint and fading. “That when I was done with you, I’d expect you to show your gratitude by telling us what we want to know.”
The words slowly gathered around her, and although they didn’t all make sense, she comprehended that something was expected of her. He’d lowered her onto the ground again but hadn’t allowed her to close her legs. A hand rested against tissues so sensitive that her brain couldn’t distinguish between pain and pleasure. She couldn’t feel the rest of her body.
“Where are they?”
Tau’s voice grating on her nerves, she rolled to the side a little to take what pressure she could off her arms. Doing so earned her a wave of dizziness. When her vision returned, she turned her attention to Nakos. He was close enough that he could touch her if he wanted, but his hands were flat against his thighs, and he didn’t return her gaze. She belatedly recalled that he’d been telling her something when she regained consciousness.
“Tell us,” Tau repeated less patiently than the first time. “I’ve already waited much longer than the spirits promised I would have to.”
“Tau.” Nakos sounded irritated. “This is between her and me.”
“No, it isn’t! You wouldn’t have taken her if I hadn’t ordered you to.”
“That’s it. I caught her, not you.”
“Nakos, enough,” Sakima interjected. “Have you forgotten that we have only one use for her? As long as she tells us what we need to know, it doesn’t matter how that knowledge is gained.”
Nakos wiped his mouth clean of her juices. “Do you understand what this is about?” he asked her, sounding weary and wary at the same time. “Freedom is behind you. Your choice is simple. Either you lead us to the falcons’ home or Tau will find a way to force that information from you—a way you won’t enjoy and might not survive. Because of who he is to me, even if I could, I won’t try to stop him.”
She couldn’t go on looking at Nakos, not with the memory of the climax he’d just pulled out of her still overwhelming her. But neither could she bring herself to acknowledge the shaman. Nakos was right. Freedom belonged to yesterday.
Or did it?
When she nodded, Nakos removed her gag. She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly until it was no longer numb.
“Falcons?” She made the word a curse. “They are nothing, small and insignificant birds. Eagles rule the sky, eagles and buzzards.”
“Buzzards? Do not insult me with the word.”
Judging by his outburst, Tau was reaching the limit of his self-control. If she could push him a little more, bring out the violence she sensed lurked in him, Nakos would be forced to protect her, wouldn’t he? Afraid she might not survive the alternative, she made herself study the shaman. He put her in mind of a coyote, a predator capable of both killing its own food and stealing from other predators if the opportunity arose.
“Buzzards are as vital to this land as any falcon, maybe even more because without them, the dead would make the air and ground unbearable,” she told him. “That’s what your spirit dreams are about, not trying to train some small bird with no value but taking buzzards back with you so the stench of the dead no longer pollutes. That will be your legacy.”
His breath hissing, Tau kicked her in the side. Because she’d seen the blow coming, she managed to deflect it by turning away. Just the same, pain bloomed around her ribs.
“Tau, no!” Jumping to his feet, Nakos positioned himself between his shaman and her. “That’s not the way to—”
“It is! We were wrong to treat her like a slave when she’s an animal, a simple, groveling creature. The only thing she understands is pain.”
“Tau!” Sakima warned. “Your impatience is blinding you.”
His expression still harsh, the shaman turned toward Sakima. “Of course I’m impatient. The longer we stay here—”
“I know. We want to return home, before winter if possible.”
“But not empty handed. Never that, never.”
She might be wrong, but the shaman sounded desperate. If he couldn’t turn his vision into reality, maybe his position within the tribe was in jeopardy. Although she didn’t want to feel sorry for him, in a small way she did. If he wasn’t respected, and believed, what was he?
“Nakos,” Sakima said. “Take her to your place.”
Instead of pulling her into his tent, however, Nakos led her over to Lamuka’s cooking fire. The slave wasn’t there, but a small pig carcass hung from a stick suspended over a bed of coals. The smell of hot fat and meat reminded him of how long he’d gone without eating. And as was Lamuka’s way, a clay pot filled with water was nearby. Fortunately, the water was clear, proof that the slave hadn’t used it in his food preparations. After repeatedly dipping his cupped hands in the pot and quenching his thirst, he indicated he wanted Jola to kneel near it. He started to fill his hands in preparation for helping her drink when he changed his mind.
“Don’t try anything you’ll regret,” he said as he untied her.
She said nothing, only winced as she brought her hands in front and tucked them against her body, rocking. He’d already regretted his outburst against his shaman, but seeing her in pain made him reconsider.
“How long were you tied like that?” he asked.
“Too long.”
After rocking a little more, she shook her arms, then dipped her hands in the water and drank deeply. She eyed the sizzling carcass.
Lamuka never left meat untended, which meant he’d probably gone after more wood and would return shortly. In the meantime, however, there were two hungry people with growling stomachs. Lifting the stick off one of the vertical branches that held it above the fire, Nakos turned the carcass so the side that had been closest to the coals was now on top. A couple of slices with Lamuka’s knife and he’d cut off two good-sized chunks of hot pork. He handed the smaller one to her.
After blowing on it, she ate quickly, licking her fingers when she was done. He was cutting off more meat when he noticed that she was studying the sky. Whatever she’d told Tau about how worthless falcons were, it was a lie.
“This changes nothing,” he told her as he gave her another slice. “Just because I refused to turn you over to my shaman earlier doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”
“I know.”
“Then tell him what he wants you to. Take him to the falcons’ nests. Do that and he’ll have no further use for you. And the Ekewoko will leave your people alone.”
“Will they?”
“You don’t believe—”
“He won’t be satisfied until he has gathered all the eggs and hatchlings he can.”
“So? If, as you said, falcons have no value here, you shouldn’t care what happens to them.”
She turned on him, eyes blazing almost as fiercely as they had when she was climaxing. “I will not betray—No matter what happens to me, I will not do that.”
Even if it costs you your life? he wanted to demand, but her eyes supplied the answer. The falcons’ safety was more important than her own. What he didn’t understand was why.
They ate in silence. Even when Lamuka returned, Jola said nothing, and Nakos had little to contribute to the slave’s questions about the me
at’s quality. He was trying to decide whether he wanted more when movement to his left distracted him. His lord was leaving the shaman’s tent. Although Sakima didn’t look his way, the older man’s presence was enough to get him to his feet. Sakima hadn’t detailed what he wanted Nakos to do with Jola once he’d taken her back to his tent because it hadn’t been necessary.
She hadn’t been broken down, yet. But it would happen, soon.
Jola, too, must have seen Sakima, but she didn’t acknowledge the lord. Instead, she again glanced skyward. What he’d concluded had been rage faded from her features, and in its place bloomed a deep longing.
“Come,” he said. “Do as my lord ordered.”
Lowering her head, she fixed him with yet another expression. This one whispered of resignation along with a hint of rebellion that instantly brought him to her side. “Don’t,” he warned.
“You can’t stop me from being who I am. No one can.”
All too soon, Jola was asking herself whether she’d lied when she’d warned Nakos not to try to change her. Once again her hands were tied, one wrist over the other, in front of her this time. He’d ordered her to kneel before him, and when she’d refused, he’d picked her up and deposited her on her back on his mat. With his scent drifting up from the bed to envelope her, she’d lain there waiting, anticipating even.
That had been before he’d clamped a warrior’s hand over her crotch, his grip so firm it bordered on the painful. She tried to slap his arm away only to have him grab her bonds and force her arms over her head and against the mat as he’d done too many times.
“Move them and I’ll tie them in place.”
That she couldn’t handle.
As soon as he released her hands, his hold on her pussy tightened. A finger slid past her cunt and between her ass cheeks, trapping her anus under his heated strength. He lifted her until her buttocks barely brushed the bed and held her there, the moments beating on and on, his finger pressing against her rear entrance. His heat was everywhere on her, storming past her labia and slipping deep into her. Then he settled his other hand between her breasts, separating them, claiming them. She felt disfigured by him, her breasts molded into shapes and places they didn’t belong.
But if she tried to stop him, he’d anchor her arms, and she’d be even more helpless than she was.
She’d wait, anticipate, feel, breathe, fight for control.
Maybe mostly anticipate.
“There’s more than one kind of force, Jola, more than one way to compel someone to speak.”
“Torture?”
He didn’t immediately answer, and when he did, his voice sounded strained. “Not the kind of torture you’re thinking of.”
She nearly laughed at that because his handling of her was taking her past being able to think. Her existence began and ended with his hands. Not only did he rule her body, she didn’t want it to be any other way. In some respects this was like being wrapped in a soft, warm blanket. Even with her nerves snapping and humming in anticipation, she was content to live in the moment—his moment.
Had she ever felt this way with Raci? Could she even pull her dead mate’s image into her mind?
“A woman’s body is far different from a man’s,” he went on. “In some ways I envy a woman’s ability to experience pleasure after pleasure without having to recover in between, but as much as I might want endless pleasure, it is better this way.”
“Do you know what I’m talking about?” Cupping a breast, he drew it upward. “A climax is a powerful thing, a wonderful moment. But when it never ends…”
Never end? Was that possible?
All too soon, he’d pulled her into a deep swirling pool without beginning or end. He began by lightly slapping her sex. The flat-handed taps echoed deep inside her, reaching not just her pussy but her belly. They came faster and faster, each slap a little stronger, and the echoes seeped clear to her spine. Once there, they spread up her back, flowed over her shoulders, gripped her neck and sent hot fingers to her mind.
Her breasts caught fire. Flames licked at her thighs and buttocks and still he forced teasing blow after teasing blow on her system. She barely noted when he stopped slapping and buried a finger in her hole.
In and out he drove, in and out. Faster and faster he fucked her, heating and heating and heating her already overloaded channel. Lowering her arms, she scratched his shoulder.
“Ah, so that’s where you are,” he exclaimed. “Reaching the edge. Trying whatever you can think of to keep from falling into space.”
What space? What edge?
Claiming one breast and then the other. Pulling up on them and pushing down. Taking hold of a nipple and painting crude, uneven circles with her so-pliable flesh. Finger fucking her at the same time, going deep, so deep. Reaching her depths only to pull out only to rush in again. Fire everywhere. Crying and screaming and sometimes howling like a wild thing.
Climaxing. Body shaking. Teeth clenching and jaws aching. Body exploding, flying off, flying apart, pieces lost.
Air! Everything became about getting enough air into her lungs. But as soon as the light-headedness faded a bit, her body started screaming again.
He hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t let up on his attack.
One thing had changed, a little, and not that it mattered. His finger no longer filled and owned. Instead, he caught her throbbing clit between thumb and forefinger and rolled the nub about.
“No!” Closing her fingers around his shoulder, she struggled to leverage herself off the bed.
“Yes!”
Her back slammed against his bed, shaking her entire body. Her eyes couldn’t focus, and her mind struggled to hold on to something, anything, in answer to the question of what had just happened.
Then she knew. He’d pushed her off him, simple as that. Struck her with undeniable proof of his superior strength, his goal.
By the spirits, he hadn’t released her clit!
Knowing nothing except that for this moment he wasn’t rolling it about, she tried to breathe her way to the other side of this overwhelming explosion. But she kept climaxing, pussy tightening and tightening again.
Then he gripped her hips and flipped her onto her stomach. Her arms were trapped under her, useless. She couldn’t see him, could only feel as his fingers crawled over her buttocks.
He spread her wide, exposed her in a way she’d never been exposed.
“No, please!”
“Yes, Jola, yes.”
Working with a speed that rocked her, he bent her knees so her ass was forced up off the bed and into the air. She tried to straighten her legs only to jam her feet against some part of his body, maybe his knees.
Anchored, face to the side and worthless hands against her cunt. The proof of her not-yet-done climax seeped between her fingers and too much of her weight was now on her shoulders and flattened breasts.
But those things didn’t matter because he was spreading her ass cheeks again, seeing everything.
Not just seeing, touching.
No! No! Not his finger there. Not pressing against tight, puckered flesh and invading a little.
“No!” the beast she’d become shrieked. “No!”
“I won’t hurt you, but by the time I’m done, you’re going to belong to me.”
At the thought of what he was both penetrating and studying, shame shook her. This was the private, most personal part of her body, or rather it had been before he’d claimed ownership of her. Maybe, if she fought hard enough, and he let her, she could regain some of what modesty belonged to her. But every muscle still hissed with the aftereffects of the climax he’d forced out of her.
Not only that, she longed to hold on to the sensation, to wrap herself in it, to climb onto it again and die in the middle.
Defeated and desperate at the same time, she stopped trying to sit up. Her focus closed down until there was nothing except his hands on her. His mastery.
“Not fighting anymore, Jola? Because you know it’
s useless, or because you want this?” Pulling out of her asshole, he stroked the space between her two openings.
“I—hate you.”
“Emotions are extreme, Jola. Disbelief, self-hatred, horror: they can all be the same.”
What was he talking about? Any other time, she would have insisted on an explanation and if she could hold on to the question, maybe she’d draw the truth out of him. But this was now.
“There are other emotions, not all of them bad.”
Wondering whether he might be speaking more to himself than her, she lifted her head and turned it so when she again rested her cheek on the bed, there was less discomfort. The instant the strain let up, her focus shifted back to her ass. He was still caressing her, not invading, the potential and promise flowing between them.
“Our bodies are precious,” he all but whispered. “Their well-being vital to our survival. We’ll do whatever it takes to safeguard them, and when they’re filled with pain, nothing else matters.”
Once again she had the sense his words were designed more for him than her. He might be thinking of his grandparents’ deaths. If he was, she wished she knew how to hand him the compassion and understanding he needed. But maybe the only way she could was by telling him about Raci’s death, and she wasn’t strong enough for that.
Right now she had strength for only one thing: surviving his plans for her.
“A slave has no right to her body. It belongs to her master. He can do whatever he wants to it, reward or punish it. What do you want, Jola? To be punished or given pleasure?”
She wouldn’t respond, wouldn’t!
“Pleasure comes in many forms. Food, water, a place to sleep. Being touched by someone who knows everything he needs to about the other person. Answer me this. Do you believe I know what I’m doing?” Diving deeper between her legs, he stroked her labia once, twice.
“Yes! Yes!”
“Ah. And is this pleasurable?” A second finger joined the first, the two gliding over flesh still so sensitive and hot from her last climax she was desperate to escape him.
“Damn you!”
“No, no, my little captive.” Cupping his palm around her labia, he drew the loose flesh toward him. “No swearing. Only the truth. Do you like this?”