by Robin Lovett
We’ve been awake for twenty hours, tending to the freed prisoners. I’m exhausted, my body drained from fighting the Attachment burning through me, from denying the need to be immersed within her permanently.
I see her digging through a storage closet for clean uniforms to give to the prisoners, and I glimpse her mouth. Her fangs are out, the little tips gleaming white extended past her bottom lip. It’s an intensely erotic sight that has my cock swelling on instinct. I cannot see her fangs and not think of her biting me, of the exquisite pleasure of feeling her pierce my skin and share her venom with me.
She closes the closet and stops, staring at me. Her breathing elevates. I expect to see revulsion or for her to immediately run from me. Instead, she drags her gaze over me, her eyes resting between my hips. Her delicate twin-tipped tongue snakes out to lick her fangs, like she’s thinking of tasting me, of taking me in her mouth.
A laugh sounds from the other end of the corridor and startles her back to the present. She shakes herself and turns away from me, but stumbles.
She catches herself, but not before I reach out to help her. I grasp her upper arm, and she groans. I assume she will pull away, but she does not. Disbelieving she’s letting me touch her, I stroke her arm, the feel of her warmth in my hand, the sound from her throat seething with lust and need.
It reminds me of the discomfort she must be in. It’s been hard for me, and I’ve been a Ssedez for over a century. I have endured the pleasures and tortures of the mating bond before. For her, newly formed fangs, new to the mating bond, new to anything else that she may be experiencing because of my venom, her body is under siege.
“Let me help,” I whisper.
She shivers and starts to walk, away from the others. I follow. I will not leave until she tells me to go. She turns a corner and comes to an alcove, then grabs me and shoves me against the wall.
I have no time to breathe, no time to think if this is a good idea, no time to ask if she thinks this is a good idea. She tilts my head and buries her fangs in my neck.
My moan of pleasure and gratitude rumbles through my chest so loudly, I wonder the entire ship does not hear it. But I do not care. I wrap my arms around her, and I soak in the bliss of feeling her body against mine, of having her lips sealed to my skin as she pours her venom into my vein with her precious fangs.
I comb her back, wishing I could peel away her clothes and feel her naked, skin flush with mine, and sink inside her and never leave. She writhes against me, the apex of her thighs rubbing me, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from coming.
She reaches a hand between us and wraps her palm around me, stroking me, as if I needed to be any harder. She detaches her fangs from my throat and hisses with her sweet tongue in my ear, “I’m going to ssssuck you off.”
I swear and watch in awe as she retracts her fangs and descends to her knees. I don’t understand why this is happening or care what the consequences may be. All I can think of is seeing her mouth stretched wide and the tip of my cock disappearing between her lips.
She fumbles with the fly on my leathers, her hands shaking in urgency, and I help, my rigid gold flesh freed and distended. She swallows me to the back of her throat, her jaw stretched and wide, trying and unable to take all of me. I pant heavy breaths, the pleasure of her hot, wet mouth so exquisite. Her hands stack on the shaft, stroking and twisting; her tongue laves and lathers the tip, salivating.
I will not last, not with watching her and feeling her at the same time. To see her, this human who I have come to love like she is one with me, in front of me, pleasuring me so—amid her rejection of me—it fills me with hope. Maybe she has changed her mind. Maybe this is her giving in to us.
Or it could be the opposite. She could reject me again when we’re done. She could be doing this only to alleviate the sexual agony of the Attachment in the moment. I do not have the will to stop and find out.
My body throbs with the need to be inside her, and my gums ache to bite her. My Attachment instincts do not care what her motives are. I want only to make her come.
I grip her hair and pause her head. “Are you ready for me to fuck you now?”
Her eyes meet mine, her lips swollen and wet from sucking on me. “Yessss.”
I grasp her shoulders, pull her to standing, and twist her back against the wall. I look down at her waist, at the material shielding her luscious cunt from my view, and hiss in gratitude. She’s still wearing the Fellamana suit with the “fuck panel.”
She pulls open the buttons. I wrap her thighs around my waist and drive inside her.
I growl at the pleasure and the agony—the heaven of her tight heat gripping my cock, the hell of not knowing if she will let me stay here, of not knowing if this will mean anything to her.
I pause, buried to the hilt inside her. My hips pump convulsively, unable not to move within her. “Let me…love you,” I groan in her ear.
She wrenches at my hair and growls, “Shut up and bite me.” I do not need to be asked twice.
I strike, hard, fast, my fangs penetrating deep into her neck. Her resounding cry is so sudden and abrupt, I worry I have hurt her, but she holds my head to her neck, fingernails digging into my scalp.
“Don’t stop…don’t stop…don’t stop.” She breathes in litany and grips me so hard with her thighs, squeezes me so hard with her cunt, I am gone.
Primal and unbridled, I pound her hips like a piston, a machine of need unable to slow or lessen. All I can do is keep going and going and going. In and out of her. I gnaw at her neck and thrust inside her like the ravaging animal she makes me become.
My purpose in this world, my whole existence, depends on making her come, on filling her with everything that I am, and driving her so insane with the ecstasy I make her feel, she’s incapable of rejecting me again.
She holds me like it’s true, clings to me as though if I ever let her go, she will die with the loss. Her incessant sounds, her orgasmic cries, her incoherent sighs break through my fears and wrap around my heart as though each one is a declaration for more of us and a withdrawal of her refusal.
I want to hear it in her words, though.
After she’s come more times than I can count, and at a lull between my orgasms, I retract my fangs and kiss her, her mouth a succulent haven made for tasting and exploring.
“Be with me.” My words sound hoarse and guttural. “Be mine.”
She freezes, every muscle in her body going rigid, her softness and surrender at an end. Alarms go off in my head.
I swear and cling to her. “Please, Assura. What this is between us is—”
“Just sex,” she snaps and pushes at my shoulders. “Get off of me.”
I do, but slowly. I slide out of her, and she shudders at my withdrawal, little whimpers of longing. This one time is not enough. The lust still raging between us from the Attachment is not something that can be satisfied after even hours of sex. It would take days, weeks. And now that she is Ssedez, her body would be able to withstand everything she craves.
“If it were just sex, it would not be like this.”
“I can’t, Gahnin,” she moans. “Please let me go.” Her arms push me away, but she folds toward me as though her mind and body are at war, unknowing what it is she wants.
“You want me; I know you do. You are growing to love me. Why do you fight it?”
“Because I don’t know who I am when I’m with you.” She breaks away from me, and the absence of her, the loss of her touch feels like I’ve lost a part of myself.
“I know who you are.”
Her eyes clench shut in confusion. “If I don’t know who I am, no one can.”
“Then help me to know. Let me help you to know.”
Her chest heaves up and down as though just breathing is a labor.
Encouraged, I step closer. “We can figure this out together. You do not have to suffer alone.”
She glares at me, a barrier of defensiveness shielding her expression. “I don’t trus
t you.” She bends down to pick up the pile of uniforms and stalks away down the hallway.
Her words are a fist to my gut. Seeing her walk away, all of me still desperate to have her back, to touch her and never let her go.
She is right. She has no reason to trust me. She did not ask for this mating bond, and I did not warn her. She should have had the choice, and I robbed her of it. I don’t know how we ever come back from that. How can I ever expect her to accept a bond that was forced on her?
I cannot.
Which means…I have lost another mate before I ever learned to know her.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
ASSURA
I finish my rounds checking in on my freed prisoners—I have to think of something else to call them. I don’t think I can call them my friends. A jailor can’t become the captive’s friend. That’s not how it works.
The physical pain I feel being separated from Gahnin beats through my veins and aches in my core. I would weep if I could, but I’m too exhausted from just resisting him to cry. I’m still damp between my legs—from all his copious amounts of come. It’s even more than before. The mating bond must make it worse.
I should shower. I should clean up. But I don’t want to let go of the reminder of him inside me. Of him making love to me. It’s what he makes it feel like. The brutality and near violence of him fucking me should be just that—a fuck. But it wasn’t. I could feel it as though in the center of my heart how much he wants to love me. With every thrust and drip of his venom into my veins, it was like him drilling home how he cares for me.
But I don’t trust it. I don’t trust him. I don’t trust myself. If he knew, really knew me and what my life has been like with the Ten Systems, he would not feel those things. No matter if it’s a biological mating bond. He doesn’t know me. The Assura he thinks he loves does not exist.
Besides, I have more important things to worry about.
I need to find a way to communicate with Lennina and get her out of the hangar. She’s still trapped in there with the rest of the crew. I’ve checked on the security system multiple times, and they are not getting out of there. We have to figure out what to do with the crew. Some of them will probably declare allegiance to our rebellion, but the rest…
I’m too weary to solve any more problems today. My heart and soul feel like they’ve been slaughtered, and I can’t move another step. I collapse on a bed in an empty officer’s quarters, too wasted with emotional pain to tap the control to close the door.
I close my eyes and let myself feel all the life-changing things flowing through my body. It’s like my nervous system is on hyperdrive, like every inch of my skin is so sensitive and desperate for touch—his touch—I have no idea how I move forward from this, how I go about living a life without him in it.
“Assura.”
I bolt up at the sound of his voice. “Gahnin?” Forgetting in my weakness that I’ve sworn not to speak to him. Gahnin is at the door, but it’s not him who said my name.
The recently released Ssedez stands in the doorway, gaunt and wearing Ten Systems uniform pants. His chest is covered in scars, many of which I gave him. Just to see him makes my stomach twist in revulsion and disgust—not at him, at myself. At what I have done and can never make up for.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Gahnin says gently. “I thought Zeigan might like to talk to you.” His expression holds more compassion than I deserve. I can’t look at him.
“Fine.” I turn my attention to Zeigan, and Gahnin leaves.
“I am sorry to intrude,” Zeigan says in my language.
I clear my throat. “How are you feeling? Do you need something?” I try to remember what I’ve given him—food, water, clothes, a bed, medicine, I think. Or was that someone else? My brain is so fogged from the Attachment, I can’t remember.
“I am well enough. Thank you.” His gaze catches on the window on the wall, of the view of the solar system, and he gives a pleasurable sigh. “I have not seen anything but the inside of a prison cell in a hundred years.”
“You’ll never have to see the inside of a cell again.” I try to be positive and not dwell on my guilt of not being able to free him years ago. It took me too long.
“Assura…” he murmurs, and there is a note of awe in his voice. “May I come in and speak with you?”
“Um, sure.” I stand up from the bed on shaking legs and gesture toward the seating area of straight-backed chairs. “Please sit.”
He shuffles in on shaky legs, one dragging more slowly than the other. I remember when I broke that leg a year ago, how Dargule forced me to shatter Zeigan’s kneecap with one of his fancy torture devices that was similar to a hammer.
He catches me staring. “It will heal, now that I can get proper medical treatment.” He sits, slowly, gingerly.
I intended to sit beside him, but I can’t. The shame inside me is like a vapor poisoning my lungs. “I’m sorry.”
He gives me a sensitive smile and points to the chair beside him. “Please, sit with me.”
My lungs seizing around the air, I do. But only because he seems to want me to.
He reaches for my hand and holds it gently in his. I have to bite my lip to keep from losing it. His gentleness is more than I deserve. “You are remembering when you broke this leg.” He nods toward his deformed knee.
I try to speak, but my words are stuck in my throat. I can only nod.
He squeezes my hand. “Do you also remember saving it?” I can’t answer, I do remember, sort of. “I would have lost the leg entirely to infection, probably died from it, if you had not snuck me the antibiotics.” He points to a round scar on his chest, the one where I stabbed him with another of Dargule’s brutal toys, so many times it left a scar, though it never completely penetrated his Ssedez armor. “Do you remember this one? How you whispered, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, the whole time, and told me to scream louder so that Dargule would let you stop?”
I try to agree, but all that comes out is a hiccup.
He points to a jagged scar along the length of his bicep. “You won’t remember this one.”
“You had that when I met you,” I mutter.
“I had many torturers before you. Do you know what they were like?”
I nod, then shake my head. “I knew some of them. I…tried to make sure it was me and not them who Dargule picked.”
“You did.” His expression is so warm and tender, I have to turn away. Kindness is not something I can accept. “You saved us, Assura.”
I clench my eyes shut, determined not to let the relief and pain his words inspire come spilling out in tears.
“You came back for us,” he whispers. “You freed us.”
I can’t take anymore. I know he means well, but all his words make me want to do is wail and scream about all the horrible things I’ve done. About how it doesn’t matter how much I tried to make up for it, it doesn’t change the fact that I still hurt him.
I take back my hand and stand away from him. I go to the window and stare at the stars. I force out the words with a tight voice, straining not to cry. “Thank you, Zeigan.”
I dread what he’ll say next, but instead, I hear the chair scrape and footsteps going out the door. I sigh with relief and lean against the glass. Zeigan left.
But my relief is very short.
“You can tell me.” A different deep voice sounds from the door.
I stiffen and cringe. It’s not Zeigan this time. I know that voice.
“What do you have to lose?” he continues, his voice moving closer inside the cabin. “What is the worst that could happen?”
Anger rises thick and furious in my gut. I turn to yell at Gahnin, scream at him to leave me alone. But the words stop in my throat. Gods, look at him… He is not only the center of my world, and the axis around which my life turns; he is the sexiest, most erotic vision I have ever seen. He is…
My mate.
I clench my fists and growl in my chest. I won’t give in to it. Thi
s godsdamn mating bond has to go. Now. “You knew what he was going to say, didn’t you?”
“I had no idea. I just assumed it was something you should hear.”
My lungs tighten. “You should go.”
He sits in the chair where Zeigan was and crosses his legs, like this is a leisure occasion. “Tell me your worst. Scare me away. Let us get this over with.” His expression is a mask. I can’t tell what he means by it.
His eyes flash with a thrill of expectation. “I dare you to disgust me. If you can.”
My upper lip peels back in a snarl. “You can’t handle what I did. You’ll run screaming like a baby.”
“That is what you want, is it not? To get rid of me.”
I meet his gaze and stare down his challenge. He’s right. If I want to kill this mating bond he feels for me, I can.
He leans forward. “Do it.”
I want to. If I tell him the truth, it’ll kill his delusions that he could ever love the real me.
I inhale and start with Zeigan, every injury I caused him, every twisted sick thing Dargule forced me to do to him. Gahnin’s reaction isn’t the revulsion I expected. He’s still blank-faced, but I don’t stop there. I go through each prisoner, in order of their cell numbers, and what tortures I put them through: the guts and the gore, their blood on my hands and their screams in my ears. Every single malevolent thing I did to them.
But as I go and go, minutes bleed into an hour, more, and I lose track of why I’m doing this, what my actual goal is. I forget to care about Gahnin’s reaction and just keep talking and talking with this never-ending need to be heard.
I pace and stay on my feet for as long as I can, but my anger wanes.
My energy fades, and I sit in the chair across from him.
“Did you want to do it?” Gahnin asks quietly.
My whole body revolts, “No.” A whole new desire of other things I need to say forms in my chest.
He nods encouragingly, and my words change from scare tactic to confession.
I divulge my struggle to make sure it was me and always me that Dargule picked. The sick things I did to prove I was the best at making the prisoners feel pain, so that Dargule wouldn’t pick one of the other guards, one of the true psychopaths. I describe how Dargule punished me when he thought my torturing wasn’t severe enough, how he sometimes tested his new toys on me first.