The Claiming

by Imogen Keeper

  She should push him away, but her head was too heavy to move. She would in a minute. But for now, the sound of the air moving in and out of his lungs too soothing, the feel of him, still thick and hard inside her like a tether, connecting their very beings.

  The sweat cooled on her back.

  Just for a moment, to feel connected to someone. It felt so good not to be alone. There, lying on the floor in the dark, in the silence, she didn’t have to be a felana, and he didn’t have to be a Prime. For just a moment, she let herself pretend they were just a couple of humanis, post coitus.

  “How long will it last?” he asked, voice scarcely a rasp. Different felanas had different heat lengths. Some lasted nearly a week. Some as fast as a day.

  “Three days, usually. Maybe four.”

  He pulled her hair again, so her neck arched, and she was forced to look up at him, meet those dark eyes. “We’d better feed you then. We may not have much time before it starts again.”

  Always with the hair-pulling, this guy.

  17

  as many as you want

  HE MANEUVERED THEM to their feet, steadying Tessa when her knees wobbled, and her thighs shook.

  Her stomach growled loudly. His shirt rested on the floor, against the wall near the stairs where he’d tossed it earlier. She grabbed it and pulled it over her head, rubbing her cheeks against her shoulders, inhaling his scent, and rubbing her wrists along her belly.

  The floor creaked beneath his feet, drawing her attention. The look in his eyes, nothing short of feral, tight at the corners. Intent. Possessive. Almost pained. The normal still and robotic face, flickering with a façade of something deeply human.

  She blushed, embarrassed to have been caught in such a blatant display of felana mating behavior.

  “Don’t stop for me.” He turned lightly and padded naked into the kitchen.

  She followed hesitantly, forcing herself to stop kneading her fingers into the fabric of his shirt where it rested over her stomach.

  There was a single metal stool, pulled up close to a polished countertop. She perched on the edge and watched as he made a hash of eggs with vegetables.

  Her mouth watered.

  The last time she’d eaten eggs was with Jonan and Leyla. They’d just run away. He’d used the last of their yenna to buy a dozen eggs, and they’d let themselves share a single egg each day. Crouched in the corner of a broken building like beggars. They’d cooked it on a piece of broken metal, hot from the sun, laughing at their own brilliance, high on hope and life and being too young to know any better.

  Jonan had put on a fake performer’s voice, gesturing at the city around them. Water from the fountains, heat from the sun, all the food we can steal, what more do we need?

  Nothing! Tessa had shouted.

  Leyla hadn’t relaxed though. She never did.

  Jonan had been confident, but he’d planned it too.

  It was only Tessa, who’d never even doubted that they’d live. Thrive. She’d never even questioned it.

  She brushed the memory away, back to the hidden place where she kept the things that hurt too much to face.

  “How hungry are you?” Sanger asked, popping a couple pieces of sliced painnea into a toaster.

  “I’ll eat anything you put in front of me.”

  He cast her a sharp glance, and she got her first good look at him in the light. She’d seen him outside the warehouse, seen him at the aerie. It had all been dark. Now, she stared at him hungrily. Hard angles. A face that had seen a lot of the world, and not much of it good. Mid-thirties. Older than her.

  A flashback of him pinning her to the ground, and smacking her upper thigh, as he pumped inside her, sent a slash of arousal blasting through her lower belly. She’d leave a puddle on the stool.

  Battle-marked and seasoned, weathered, like the stars themselves had tested his mettle and come away defeated.

  He turned away, and after a quick stir of the eggs, went back to the fridge to remove a plate of fruit. Big, beautiful lintorippi berries, so dark red they were almost black.

  The plate clattered as he set it in front of her. “Eat as much as you want.”

  She expected to see sadness, or worse, pity in his eyes, but he’d already turned back to the stove.

  They didn’t talk much after that, because she was too busy letting her taste buds explode around the violently tart, sun-bursting sweetness of the berries. A ridiculously expensive treat.

  He spread nut butter on the toast with extravagant abandon, as if the butter were free, and pressed a plate on her.

  “Aren’t you eating?” she asked.

  “I ate dinner earlier. At a normal time.”

  It had to be close to three in the morning now.

  She shrugged, picking up her fork. Normal implied regular. Regular implied doing the same thing day in and day out. She didn’t have that luxury.

  Besides, if he didn’t eat, there’d be more for her, and as he’d said, they’d need their strength. Her heat had barely even begun. Soon, she’d refuse to eat anything at all, be unable to tolerate anything except his dick in her mouth.

  Next came eggs, stacked with vegetables and crispy, fatty shredded meat.

  It was delicious. She ate faster than she should, until the eggs were gone, and the toast. She licked the crumbs from her fingers, under his watchful gaze.

  He pushed the half-full fruit plate back toward her. She ate that too, until her stomach felt uncomfortably full.

  “Do you want more?”

  She shook her head. “Thank you… Sanger.” She tried his name again. Both familiar, and a little scary on her lips, and she didn’t care for the pleased look in his eyes, or the way her stomach twisted in response. “I would reimburse you bu—”

  His eyes hardened. “I’m your Prime. It’s my responsibility to care for you.”

  She’d have loved to tell him to go to the abyss and that she’d feed herself, but it was a lie, and he’d know it. So, she didn’t comment. If he wanted to stuff her full of food, great. She’d eat until he had to roll her down his steps to get rid of her.

  An idea took hold. Maybe, maybe she could use the concern in his eyes to get him to help her find Leyla, to help her get her hands on a gun, to help her take down the Boss, too.

  Something thumped down in front of her. A choco bar.

  Her mouth watered, even though she was full to bursting. She lifted it. She hadn’t eaten choco in a long, long time. It was far too expensive. Even at the seraglio, her brother hadn’t let them have it all that often. Only when they had other Primes to impress, and the sugar didn’t keep a person full long enough to be worth stealing. It was too well guarded anyway.

  Leyla would love it.

  The purple wrapper crinkled as she forced her fingers to release it. She’d save it. Give it to Leyla as an apology. “Can I save it for later?”

  His eyebrows tightened. Displeasure? Maybe. But it wasn’t at her. He stepped close, looming over her, palmed the back of her neck, and lowered his lips to hers.

  This kiss wasn’t like before. It wasn’t about lust and mating. This kiss was different. Gentle. Tender. Foreign, like they were both unearthing some instinct long suppressed. His lips brushed against hers feather-soft. And over in a blink.

  She wobbled on the stool. When her eyes drifted open, heavy and languid, he was back at the stove, moving the pans to the sink.

  “Eat it now. I’ve got more. I’ll give you as many as you want.”

  18

  a good slave

  BRIELLA crawled down the hallway on limbs as solid as jelly. She tripped somehow. Maybe her elbow went out from under her but her face hit the carpet.

  “Vaniiya, you lazy whore. Hurry up.” The servant kicked her in her ribs.

  Briella forced herself back up and kept on crawling. “Water. Can I just have some water?” she whispered.

  “That’s up to Manivietto. You know that. Now move, before he has me whipped.”

  She tried. She
really did, even though every single part of her body ached and twisted, like her blood was boiling under her skin and bubbling through her pores. The estrus-stimulator. She didn’t know if it had turned her into a felana or just activated her into an Argenti red haze, but her body needed something, anything, preferably something hard driving between her thighs, in her mouth.

  And he’d been denying her food and water aside from what came from his cock for two days.

  She’d taken to drinking water from the fountains in the garden when no one was looking.

  Manivietto himself wasn’t affected, felt none of the bond on his end, but she felt his. Argenti bonded for life, and whatever he’d done to her, he’d bonded her to him. She could feel his emotions. The trickle of anticipation like a finger tapping a staccato beat along her spine.

  That was him. He was excited about something.

  She crawled down the hallway toward his office, licking her lips.

  Maybe he’d fuck her. Gods, if he’d only fuck her, she’d be able to think. Last time he’d let her suck him until her mouth flooded with his semen, and then he’d bent her over the desk, right in front of his scar-faced sidekick, who she’d come to know was Quinton. That would have been embarrassing enough if she hadn’t proceeded to have an orgasm that had left her twitching and groaning for hours after. And then he’d had her taken away and put in a cage in the felana wing, where she’d cried and begged and pleaded for him. Her body needed him, monster that he was.

  She rounded the corner, tripping again when her hand landed on a swath of her own white hair trailing on the carpet. The hair was slippery and she went down again, landed on her shoulder and cheekbone.

  But he was there, Manivietto. Her god now. Because he was the master of his cock, and his cock was the only thing she needed.

  She needed it like she needed air.

  Moving faster now, in closer proximity to him, desperate for that cock, she fast-crawled past his mother with her pinched-up supercilious sneer. If she ever got her hands on some of that estrus-stimulator, she’d inject that bitch with a double dose and laugh.

  Well, wait. If she was in the business of wishing, she’d wish for a knife so she could stab Manivietto in his heart and end this misery.

  She stopped in front of him, gazing up at his horrible beautiful face. “Please, master. May I touch your cock?”

  He sent an uncomfortable glance in the direction of his mother and jerked his chin toward the door. “She’s safe with a Prime. My most loyal soldier. He has a bit of a heavy hand, but he won’t leave any marks. And when it’s done, she’ll go to Vinderro.”

  His mother stiffened like she was about to argue, but he snapped his hand in her direction, then smiled benevolently down at Briella. “Have you been a good slave?”

  She sat back on her heels and took perverse pleasure in rubbing her leaky pussy all over his carpet. Maybe Argenti vaginas were corrosive to Vestigi wool and she’d ruin it. “Yes, master. Please, may I please have you cock?”

  That pleased him. He liked her weak. “Oh, fine. If you insist. But really, we’ll be forgetting who’s master around here and who’s slave if you keep getting your way all the time.” He lifted his togata, and she lunged for him, earning an indulgent chuckle.

  “Now, Quinton, tell me what you’ve learned about my sister.”

  “She showed up at the Night Market tonight and was pursued first by the Polizei and then by a mysterious Prime who everyone insists is the largest they’ve ever seen.”

  Briella’s eyes rolled back into her head as she was rewarded with the first blast of precum. Manivietto might be an asshole, and he might have a woman’s face, but there was nothing wrong with his balls. She hummed, earning a stroke to her hair, and bobbed her head.

  His fingers grabbed hold of a few strands and yanked.

  She winced.

  “Slower, slave. There’s no rush.”

  She forced herself to slow down, but it was hard. Her body was so hungry for more of him.

  “She always did love to run, my sister. What else?”

  “That’s all for now. I have some people looking into it.”

  “And the felana trade?”

  “Vangeline doesn’t know about that. But she did help me find Freysa.”

  “And?”

  “She lives with her mother and sister by the docks. We’ve been following her, but so far nothing has come up. She works at a gym.”

  “Keep following her. Eventually, she’ll do something out of the ordinary. If she’s moving felanas out, she’s got to find them at some point. There must be a point of contact. Find it.”

  “I will, sir.”

  “We can’t keep having them cutting into my profits.” Manivietto pulled his cock away from Briella’s lips and backed away.

  No, she whispered, and he raised a brow.

  “Bend over the table, slave.”

  Oh, thank god. She bent over it with glee, anticipating the blast of pleasure when they both orgasmed, the blood she’d reign down on him when he least expected it. Let him see her as nothing but meek and sloppy for his cock. She pressed her face into the desk, smiled up at him adoringly, wiggling her ass and arching her back.

  His cock pressed inward. Briella drifted off to her happy place where Manivietto was a lover, a caring one.

  “It’s time to remind Vangeline what I did to her mother when she crossed me.” He slammed inside, battering up against her cervix. “I want to know exactly who this Delsanthio is. We can’t have her loyalties conflicted. There’s only one boss in Didgermmion.

  19

  staring the big bang in the face

  and coming out on top

  “WHAT’S IT LIKE to be a Prime?”

  Sanger opened heavy lids.

  This felana never gave him a chance to think. She was always in motion, always acting, moving, pushing, shoving, fighting, arguing, asking questions. And before, wild and rabid and savage…she’d fucked him back and demanded more.

  She was slithering her way inside him like a virus. No one slept beside him. No one touched his body without permission.

  He fucked on his terms.

  And apparently, she fucked on hers.

  When she’d finally finished eating, he’d given up on resisting the rut, gone with his gut and done the first thing he’d done in nearly eight years that was for no other reason than that he simply wanted to.

  He’d dug his thumb into her chin, opened her choco-flavored lips, and licked her sticky-sweet tongue, lifted her off her stool, so she lay across his counter, legs wide open.

  She hadn’t resisted, just spread herself, in a gesture as submissive and pure as a felana got in the face of her Prime.

  He’d licked a path from neck to tit, then tit to navel, and from her navel, a straight-line south to her clit. She made these noises, exultant, rampaging, crescendoing moans, like she was having a religious experience every time she came.

  He hadn’t gone down on a woman in a very very long time. The taste was incomparable. Primal. Savage. It had woken something inside him he’d thought long extinguished.

  When they were done, he’d tossed her over his shoulder, and carried her up here to bed, where he’d fed her straight from his cock, and they’d both fallen into a half coma.

  He’d never had a rut like this—it was fucking with his head, eroding his focus, making him forget that he didn’t want or need a felana around.

  Now the sun was rising on the other side of the windows. His dick hurt. So did the muscles of his ass and thighs, his biceps. He should be exhausted, but at the sight of her, body sticky in some places with his cum, red in others, his dick pulsed all over again.

  She was the first woman to have come into this home in Didgermmion, the first one he’d seen through a heat since the slaughter of his family, the first felana he’d fucked since they’d died. It brought back memories of a life he’d worked hard to forget because if he let himself, he’d fall back into the bottomless black pool of the past
and sink forever.

  “Talk to me, Prime.” She crawled across the bed, climbed astride him. Any other woman who did that, he’d dump on the floor, walk out.

  All that single-minded focus she’d spent directed at finding the Boss, then finding her sister, was now firmly planted on his dick. All the frenetic motion she’d displayed every time he’d seen her, was now isolated on him, like a one-woman army bent on distracting him, making him forget that he’d sworn he was done with felanas forever.

  She leaned down, so her breasts rested flat on his chest, her face pressed against his neck. It felt suffocatingly like a hug.

  “Please.” She poked him in his ribs, so he caught her hands, pulled them together behind her back, switching the grip to one of his hands.

  He should be starting a long day of work, playing so many different roles he could barely remember who he was half the time. He should be doing a lot of things. “Why do you want to talk?”

  “I’m drowning in your cum, Prime.” She tugged experimentally at his wrists. “I know nothing about you.”

  Because no one knew anything about him. Since her tits were right there in his face, he went ahead and took some liberties with them. “What do you want to know?”

  “What’s it like to have night-vision, or be able to move the way you do? What’s it like to order people around?” She froze. “And have them listen? What’s it like to be the biggest person in the room?”

  A smile tugged at his lips. “What’s it like to be the smallest?”

  “Shitty.” She answered fast. Too fast.

  He could imagine that—never feeling safe. “It’s good being big. People tend to leave me alone.”

  “It’s scary being the smallest person in a room.”

  “Are you scared now?”

  “No. But I’d take twelve inches, some night vision and a little fucking respect all day long.”

  She sent him a glance he couldn’t read. Flinchy. Like maybe she expected him to be offended by that.

  “I can’t imagine walking around at night half blind.” He let go of her wrists and her tit, tried to picture what it would be like to set your foot down on night-dark floor wondering if you’d step on a bug or a rat or a puddle, wondered what he was supposed to say next. “Right now, it feels pretty damned good to be a Prime.”