Branded

by Clare London

  He took his fingers out of his ass, used that hand to grasp my hip, and reached his other hand to my cock. He slipped his palm, slick with oil, around me, back and forth. I gasped with the pleasure of his caress, afraid I’d come before I even got inside. I’d been hard ever since I started to suck him. Then his hands slipped off me and he grabbed his knees, bending his legs and pulling them back toward his chest. He jerked his hips up too, as if prompting me.

  I drew a deep breath. With one hand, I ran my fingers down behind his balls, stroking over his exposed entrance, watching his muscles clench involuntarily then relax again, the pucker flexing its need. His balls tightened against my palm. I held my cock in my other hand and pressed it to him. The tip slipped gently against his flesh, both of us well oiled by now, but I redirected it and pressed harder until I breached him.

  He cried out softly, grunting his encouragement. I pressed more firmly and slid inside of him. His balls were taut, nudging my cock as it sank into him, and his cock jerked up, swelling again. “Maen!” he cried.

  I laughed with both pleasure and astonishment at the pure, pure delight of possessing him again. It would have been a dream come true, except my dreams had never offered even a fraction of the ecstasy of this reality. I could feel his bones and muscle under my hands, smell the sweat of his skin in my nostrils, hear the groans of his efforts in my ears. And it was all real! I started to rock in and out of him, holding my breath, my gaze fixed on his face, watching his expression. The climax was tightening in my groin, the tension my just reward for waiting too long, for being too excited by him in my arms.

  “Dax,” I moaned. My breath caught in my throat as I gripped his flesh too fiercely, trying to anchor myself, my cock engorged almost painfully inside him.

  “Yes,” he murmured, still smiling, still gasping, reaching out to hold me as well, to pull me closer, to arch up against me, drawing me in as our skin slid sweatily against each other’s.

  I had no more words. I came, my body going rigid. My hips slammed tightly up against him, my head fell back and my mouth opened in a silent, heartfelt cry of ecstasy. It seemed to last for a very long time; it seemed like nothing I’d ever felt before. Shocking pleasure, poignant pain, a wash of emotion that had finally been released from behind a dam, from the confines of a prison’s walls—from within me.

  Dax laughed as I drew out of him. He chuckled as I shuddered and fell clumsily to the blanket beside him, and he was still smiling as I took his face in my hands and tried to kiss into him the words I knew I couldn’t verbalize.

  “Yes,” he whispered again. “That’s enough.”

  We pulled another of the blankets over us. I rolled so my arm rested possessively over his chest, and we slept.

  SEVERAL HOURS must have passed, for when I woke, the light through the cave opening was much brighter. Dawn crept across the mountainside, its pale yellow light striping the trees and hills. Dax stirred beside me, stretching out and pressing his naked back against my torso. My cock hardened again. The heat of it, underneath the blanket, lay thick against my thigh. Desire spiked inside me, and I was astonished I could be eager again so soon. Dax turned sleepily, his eyes still closed, his hair a tangled mess, and he nuzzled his face against mine. Maybe I wasn’t so astonished, after all.

  “I have to go back to the camp,” he murmured, reluctance in every syllable.

  I caught at his mouth, thrusting my tongue into him, swallowing his words. When I pulled back again, his breath was harsh and his eyes had sprung open, alight with a fresh fever.

  “We have to go back,” I amended. “But in a while.”

  I rolled him onto his belly and ran my warm fingers down between his asscheeks. His skin was smooth from sleep, the smell of warm hair and sweat mixed with that of the blanket’s coarse fabric and the lingering tartness of the oil. He arched back, grunting softly, the noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh, flinging his arms out wide to grab handfuls of the blanket beneath us. I leaned over him, held up on my arms, and slid my cock into him with much less difficulty than before. I thrust slowly and sensuously, savoring every slide, watching the way the muscles in his buttocks clenched with every movement, and the way his hands fisted and relaxed on the blanket. Then I dropped down onto my side, my cock still inside him. I tugged gently at him, pulling him onto his side as well, so his back pressed against my chest and I entered him from behind rather than on top. Threads of his hair stuck in my mouth and I spat them out. He reached back a hand to grasp my hip and pull me in more tightly against him. He splayed his fingers, covering the faded mark of Eila’s brand on my thigh. When I glanced down, I could see the same pale marks on his own hip.

  I started to thrust into his ass again, our bodies spooned together. I reached my upper arm over his waist and down to his groin, and grasped at his morning erection.

  “In a while, yes.” He laughed softly, pressing back against me, our bodies moving in delicious rhythm, as if made to fit together, as if we moved just as the other wanted and desired. I came first, clutching him to me as the heat rushed down to my groin and my seed pumped out, the strength temporarily fleeing my muscles, leaving them limp and exhausted. Then with my softening cock still lodged inside him, it took a few more firm, slick strokes to bring him to satisfaction too. I pressed my face into the crook of his neck and kissed him as he came, feeling with my lips the quickening pulse under his skin, and listening to the halting, hiccupping groans of his pleasure.

  We lay there for a while, but neither of us felt drowsy, so we rose and wiped ourselves clean with one of the thinner blankets, then dressed again and put the remaining supplies to the back of the cave. Dax blew out the lamp, for there was plenty of morning light outside, sharp and almost painfully bright against the mouth of the cave.

  We were silent together, but it was a comfortable thing.

  I heard the noise first, but maybe he saw the figure at the cave entrance slightly before me. Whatever it was, we both swung around, startled but alert. The figure was human and slight, and as far as I could see, unarmed. The sunlight lit it up as a dull silhouette so we couldn’t immediately see its features.

  Then I moved forward and realized it was Veli who stood outside the cave, her eyes glimmering in the half-light of morning and her expression grim.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  DAX ALSO stepped forward, but I put out a hand to keep him beside me. Veli barely seemed to notice him, her gaze fixed on me.

  “The Gold Warrior,” she said softly, though with a sharp edge under the melodic tone of her voice. “I remember you, of course, from when you were our prisoner. Twice.”

  I nodded to her, unsure what to say.

  “You were his commander,” she continued. “Hann’s. Or should I say, Dax’s commander.” She held her head high but awkwardly, as if she’d have been happier to let it drop onto a comforting shoulder. “He’s not in your Guard anymore. He’s an Exile now.” Her eyes narrowed, and I recognized the sharp glint of possessiveness. “Hann’s mine.”

  I felt Dax shift impatiently, but I still held him back. “I can’t help you, Lady,” I said. “He doesn’t belong to anyone, no one does. He’ll make his own decisions where he wants to be.”

  She stared at me angrily. “You came from the city, how can you say that? You belong to the Queen, she commands you, she owns you. You have no right to come here and take what’s mine.”

  “Neither of us does,” I said slowly. I wanted to be gentle but I didn’t know how to deal with her, for she was unlike any woman I’d come into contact with in the city. “It’s taken me all my life to look at the world in a different way, and to understand what feels right, rather than what’s decreed. To admit it too. And I’m not going back now. Everyone should make their own choices.”

  “It’s not like that here.”

  “It’s like that everywhere,” I replied sharply.

  She looked between us, between my stern face and Dax’s. His head was now at my shoulder, his arm brushing mine. I co
uld hear his breathing speed up, the sound of it tight and shallow.

  “There’s no fight here, Veli. You and I are no love match,” he said, more compassionately than I’d expected. “We’re just partners. It was what Eila wanted, to keep control of the group within your family.”

  “What about the baby—?”

  “You’ve been seeing Brod for months,” Dax interrupted more sharply. “I’ve known about it since the beginning. And I’ve not refused you that comfort, even though it’s my child you’re carrying.”

  She frowned, though she didn’t deny it. I didn’t know the background to their partnership, but I felt stupidly relieved he’d never committed his heart to her. It would have been torture to leave him again—yet it would have been as bad to know I made him choose over an existing love. And then I chastised myself, for wasn’t the whole concept of love something I’d never even considered a year ago? It’d only ever been something for youngsters to laugh about, a game for the immature Ladies who played with the Bronzemen, a consolation for the Remainders who’d never enjoyed the possessive training we knew in the Households. And we’d always considered them disadvantaged because of that.

  I’d learned what a strength love was, not a weakness. It had turned my world around.

  “I know it’s him you want, not me. It always has been.” Veli’s expression was oddly twisted. “Even the first time you were here, I saw the way you worshiped him, talking about him all the time. Even when you came with me to my tent, your words were always about him, your expression mimicking his, even as you spread my legs and took me. It was an obsession.” She hissed out the words as if they burned her tongue. “Not much has changed in a year, except you keep your mouth shut now.”

  Dax frowned. “That’s enough! I’ll support both you and the child—there’s no question of that. I know that’s where my loyalty lies.”

  “But not your love?”

  He tensed up. When I glanced at him, he was looking back at me. There was no need for any other words.

  Veli gave a strangled sound in the back of her throat. “Come with me now, back to the camp. Flora wants to see you both.”

  WE ARRIVED with Veli at a clearing around the back of the settlement to find that most of the adults were already gathered there. Mistress Flora stood among them, her city soldiers beside her. Even in the crowd, my gaze fixed immediately on her. She was as imperious as before, but with a further hardening of her royal look, as if she became more of an Exile the longer she stayed with them. Dax touched my arm, caught my gaze, and I nodded in understanding—it was his place to be with her, not me, not in this situation. He left my side and went to stand in the center of the clearing. The other Exiles began to settle, sitting on fallen rocks or on the ground itself. I saw Eila and a couple of her followers to one side. I stood behind the rows of men and women, taking up a position where I could look directly at Dax, yet I had some peripheral view of the whole clearing. Military training bred habits that were hard to shake off.

  Many of the men there turned to look at me, the women too. Some glared at me and some looked away, embarrassed at their own fascination. I stood very still, shoulders straight and head high, as if at attention. I knew what the looks meant, from Exile soldiers who both feared and despised me, yet hungered to be someone like me. That reaction was familiar, even in the short time I’d been in the camp. And also the looks from Exile women who desired me, or wondered what it would be like to have me, a man who’d been trained since late adolescence to service women to the highest standard. Eila had looked at me in that way a year ago, and I saw the embers of it still in her eyes. Then I looked at Dax and saw the man who desired me and trusted me, and who would be beside me for as long as I needed.

  I knew where my loyalty lay now.

  “We will move on the city at night in two days’ time,” Dax announced, many of the men around him nodding in satisfaction. “You know who you are, the leaders of each group. The scouts who have identified the weaknesses in the city walls were brave, strong men, and we mourn their deaths.” A few heads lowered, and a young woman sobbed quietly. Dax didn’t look my way. “They’ve made it possible for us to enter the city this time. Keep to your groups, and if you’re challenged by the Guard before you reach the Household of Physic, turn to the formations I’ve taught you, and face the fight with courage. The longer you can keep the Guard at bay, the longer your fellow soldiers will have to take what we need from the Household. Move in from the outer fences, through to the central workplace where the potions and mixes are kept, as we’ve seen on the plans.”

  Eila appeared suddenly at my side, Brod beside her. I turned to her, keeping my voice low so as not to distract from Dax. “What plans are these? Have you managed to get information out of the city already?” For the first time, I wondered whether their contacts inside the city might be at a higher level than I’d previously suspected. Mistress Chloe was now in charge of the Household of Physic, and she’d also shown sympathetic attention to me. Did she perhaps retain some loyalty for Flora that made her risk helping the Exiles?

  Eila shrugged, but her gaze flickered to Flora and back again to me. “Why does it concern you? You’re not part of this exercise. You’re not one of us.”

  “Not yet,” I said.

  Brod glared at me. “I don’t trust him, Eila. He’s still one of the city soldiers.”

  I sighed, still half listening to Dax’s speech to his men. “We’re all soldiers, aren’t we? We’ve all been used and misused, by one side or another. The time should come for us to combine what we know and stop fighting among ourselves.”

  Eila sucked in a breath beside me. “Where have you got those ideas from? From Flora? Most definitely not from your Queen! I can’t believe a member of the Royal Guard—a man of the city—would suggest cooperation between the Exiles and the citizens. We’re different races now, even though we’ve drawn people away from the city who support our alternative ways. We’re a bastardization, Maen, a strange, ugly mess of people. We can’t ever return to the true, pure citizenry.”

  Maybe I wasn’t concentrating enough or in full control of myself, but my reply slipped out regardless. “There’s nothing true about it. It’s a bastardization of its own making.”

  Eila frowned. At the corner of my vision, I caught sight of Flora approaching me too. “That’s nonsense. Your behavior’s very odd.”

  “The soldiers of the city have their behavior controlled by the Devotions,” I snapped back. “And the Queen’s been manipulating that to a greater extent in the last few months. We’re not acting naturally. We never have been. If we were, I suspect we’d return to the Exile pattern more readily than we imagine.”

  In the background, I was suddenly aware that Dax had stopped speaking, and my voice had carried quite clearly in the fresh morning air.

  “You know I hope to bring us back together as one people,” Flora said, now at my side. “But the more I see of our world, the more I doubt it can happen. Society here is everything that the city despises and denies, its people alien and outcast.”

  “Its people are real and volatile and strong in a very different way,” I said rashly. “Isn’t that what you mean?” I glanced around to find many pairs of eyes on me. “You may have left the city, Mistress, but your upbringing has been city-led. Everything you believe—every ambition you pursue—issues from those core beliefs. But the Histories tell a different story, back in the original days of colonization. At that time we were all one people. We struggled as one to make this planet habitable, we lived and died and fought together. That included citizens, Remainders, and Exiles—there were no separate factions.” A few of the watchers shifted awkwardly. There were many Remainders in the crowd, escaped from the city in the past.

  “The Histories?” Flora frowned. “Where are they? Can you show me this information?”

  “No, they’re in the Royal Library. But they exist, right back to the beginning of our race. I’ve read many of them.”

  The
re was a rumble of surprise from the people around me.

  “They have no relevance to today—” Flora began.

  “They have every relevance!” I sharply interrupted. “Throughout our history, our leaders have manipulated far more than the drugs that apparently keep city dwellers well and in their prime. I believe they’ve manipulated their way into power and developed castes of people to service that. Then they’ve suppressed these Histories and ignored the inconvenient past.” I stopped keeping my voice low; I was weary of the machinations of the city.

  “The Queen would have known about such injustice,” Flora protested.

  “Our successive Queens have overseen it,” I replied, somewhat wearily. “They’ve ordered it.”

  There was a collective gasp of breath from the group before me.

  Flora gripped at my arm angrily. “Tell me exactly what you’ve found in these Histories.”

  “I can’t remember it all.” I didn’t want to discuss the detail with her now, yet I couldn’t hide the knowledge I had anymore. Instead, I reached for Eila’s arm. She pulled back but was no match for my strength. I wrenched the sleeve up her arm, exposing both of her brands to Flora and to whomever else could see. “Which one of these is like yours, Mistress? The royal brand? The hereditary brand?” In my grip, Eila flushed deeply, but I didn’t release her. “A form of this design has followed our ancestors since the beginning,” I continued. “But it’s not a royal gift to us—it doesn’t rightfully belong to any Queen at all. On this woman you will see two different views of it, but neither of them is true to the real source. That had its own purpose. It represented the medication that people needed when they first colonized the planet.”

  “You mean the men?” Eila’s voice was hoarse. “The Devotions?”