by Marie Harte
Caging the Beast
Creations Series
1
Colony6, the Outer Rims
Year 3956
“This one. He’s huge. I think he might stand a fighting chance against the beast.” Against the din of the bloated guard’s surroundings, his words had to be shouted to be heard.
“Just make sure to put him in a challenging round first. Can’t have him going against the beast until he’s shown his mettle. It’ll drive the bets higher, you’ll see.”
“Good point, Yorum.” A hard punch knocked Tarn to his knees. “You hear that, slave? You want out of this stinkin’ place, win your bouts.”
Inside a firelit cavern that made the primitive jungles of Mardu look tame, hundreds of grimy and disease-infested men pressed against one another, hoping for a better look at the latest offerings in pugilistic entertainment. A half dozen vidscreens hovered in the air over the crowd in random spots, allowing a view of the battles in the three caged rings in the center of the cavern, but they didn’t showcase the newest group of slaves bound in chains, being led towards the night’s entertainment.
Tarn rose unsteadily to his feet. Blood dripped into his left eye, and his ribs hurt. The pain they’d inflicted surprised him, mostly because it took a lot to hurt an Ebrellion. His race primarily existed outside the Vrail System, away from these human slavers and their barbaric practices.
Not that his kind could brag about being so much nobler, but Ebrellions didn’t stand for slavery. Enemies met certain death. Those who wouldn’t work to earn their keep suffered harsh imprisonment in hopes of reforming them into worthwhile citizens.
His own presence in the Vrail System, normally on planet Mardu, kept the peace between rebellious Ebrellions hunting for mates and the few System lawmakers who knew his kind still existed.
Hence his arrival in this godsforsaken world. A favor for his newly found nephew, Dreyk. Dreyk had pressing business on planet Mardu, where he and his mate worked for lawmen—peacemakers who had no jurisdiction this far into the Outer Rim. The lawless area on the edge of the Vrail System invited chaos and depravity. Tarn glanced around him and imagined this was just a taste of what was to come.
Dreyk, you owe me big for this.
“In you go.” One of the slave handlers shoved him into the caged cell and slammed the door shut behind him.
The raised platform consisted of a door on each end, metal bars along the walls and ceiling, and a machenite floor, no doubt courtesy of stolen Eyran technology. Machenite had a firmness at odds with its ability to give, which made it the perfect flooring for the fighting realms.
Leave it to the slavers to have an eye for detail.
Tarn wiped his own eyes clear of blood, stood up straight, and stared at the giant male they expected him to battle. A Ragga? Though this man hailed from a planet where the strongest men in the System were found, the brutish slave would fall too easily and too quickly should Tarn fight at full strength. With a sigh, he prepared to engage.
Something to break the doldrums of his recent time on Mardu, at least. With the Ebrellion skirmishes almost nil, Tarn had grown tired of tending that ragged bar in Four Walls. But after a few days in slaver hands, he wasn’t sure this type of excitement was all that much better.
The slave before him screamed out a challenge and rushed him. The fool didn’t even take the time to study his opponent, to measure him for weaknesses or vulnerabilities. Pathetic.
Tarn allowed him one punch. He even pretended to lose his breath from the blow to his stomach. Before the Ragga could hammer him again, he retaliated. A swift punch to the man’s face and a knee to his groin took him to the floor.
The scent of body odor, blood, and stale ale assaulted him all at once, and Tarn shook his head to break free of his need to shift into a more defensive form. No shapeshifting and no teleporting, not until he did what he’d been sent here to do.
The Ragga he’d laid out groaned and rose on wobbly legs to his feet. “You drun. I’m going to kill you for that.” He made a fist and uttered another horrifying battle cry.
Chants of Loen, Loen, filled the area around the metal cage.
“Don’t tell me you’re the current champion?” Tarn sneered, disappointed he wouldn’t receive a decent fight. Stars, it had been a year since he’d engaged anyone worthy of respect, and those had been rogue Ebrellions. “You fight like a half blind Melan.” The popular insult had its intended effect.
The Ragga dove at him.
Tarn let him make contact, and they rolled to the ground amidst cheering and shouting from the crowd. Loen landed a few more blows before Tarn had had enough. He caught the male with an elbow to his back. A sharp snap sounded very loud to Tarn’s enhanced hearing.
Loen groaned and lay still, breathing heavily against the pain filling his aura with enough brilliance to blind an Ebrellion.
Tarn glanced away and into the eyes of Yorum through the cage bars.
“Not bad for a first fight. Now try that one.” Yorum grinned through brown, broken teeth and nodded to a spot behind Tarn.
Rolling onto his belly and regaining his feet, Tarn met the next slave. A Zeiren, by the look of him. Tall and lean, with angular features and a decent fighting stance.
Tarn gave this fight twice as much time as the last one before defeating his opponent. When finished, he glanced at Yorum again.
“Not bad.” The guard appeared pleased. “I like you, Tarn. I think we’re going to be real good friends.”
Not in this lifetime. “When do I get a rest and some food?” His metabolism felt off. His ribs remained cracked, his flesh bruised, and his blood continued to flow, now not only from a cut on his forehead but from his mouth and knuckles as well. Not good. If his wounds continued unabated, he’d be unable to stop his transformation into a stronger, more sustainable form.
And blow his cover all to hell.
“One more bout and then a small test. To see what he thinks of you.”
“What who thinks of me?”
Yorum didn’t answer. Guards dragged the unconscious slave from the fight and gave Tarn another. This one carried a knife.
Irritated at having to prove himself, Tarn didn’t hold back. He punched the male full in the face, disarmed him, and stabbed him with his own weapon. To his disappointment, the male didn’t rise again, and the guards quickly threatened Tarn with laser fire if he didn’t turn the knife over immediately. So much for using it on Yorum.
“Very nice.” Yorum grinned and entered the fighting ring. “Don’t worry, you’re done for the night. We just need to let him have a look at you.”
“As if I have a choice in the matter,” Tarn muttered.
Yorum guffawed. “That’s the spirit.” He motioned to the guards outside the ring and yelled, “Bring in The Beast.”
The room grew silent except for heavy footsteps drawing nearer. Everyone stilled, waiting for this man they called The Beast. A strange anticipation lit Tarn from the inside out, and he welcomed this new foe for at least taking his mind from the disturbance in his shei—his life’s energy.
A huge male stepped up to the caged door, opened it, and walked through. Tarn stared in astonishment. He’d been around most every race one could find in the System. From the warring Melans to the political Jaronans to the pleasurable Nebites. Mardu, Ragga, Zeiren, he’d seen them all.
But this male didn’t fit in any category Tarn could identify. Unless…
The Beast stood a head taller than Tarn, making him one of the largest men Tarn had ever seen in this star system. Strength gleamed in the abundance of muscle all over the male’s sparsely clad frame. Golden skin shimmered in a distracting rhythm.
The brief loincloth he wore did little to distract from the large bulge underneath, one that seemed to stir as the male studied Tarn. His age seemed indeterminate. Certainly, the beast looked like a male in the prime of his life. Other than the rak-hide loincloth and wealth of gleaming silver hair on his head, only a slim black band
around his neck touched his hardy frame.
Dark red eyes flashed with fire around pupils of gold, no whites to be seen. Like the fabled demons in Four Walls, Tarn thought distantly. The only creatures he’d seen with such inhuman eyes were known as Creations—artificially constructed beings hunted down and exterminated with prejudice. Hell, his nephew had been Created, as had Dreyk’s mate, a formidable fighter in his own right. Most Creations turned out to be crazed killers with a need for destruction. Only those with discipline and integrity resisted that call to needlessly destroy.
Which begged the question: what category did this Creation belong in?
The warrior in Tarn went on full alert, especially when the beast changed his stance, moving from careful to guarded.
Taking a chance, Tarn blinked, allowing his inner lids to shield his eyes while he surveyed his new opponent with Ebrellion sight. Tarn noted the torn strands of alien shei along the beast’s body. Tendrils of pain caught and held around bands of hunger and need. Loneliness covered him like a blanket, matched only by the sheer rage that turned the male’s eyes a brighter red.
Tarn blinked and erased evidence of his alien nature, but not fast enough. Beast took a step forward and growled in a low, threatening tone. His skin flushed and darkened and called to Tarn like a beacon in the shadows of the cavern; his animosity stirred Tarn’s fighting spirit.
Beast stopped several arm’s lengths away, but his scent drifted over Tarn like a heady perfume, an addicting essence that Tarn drew into his lungs. It pushed everything else away.
After a nod, Beast grunted, turned, and left, displaying a tight ass and thick legs that could crush a man to death.
But it was thoughts of what Beast could do with that huge bulge beneath his loincloth that obsessed Tarn as Yorum led him from the platform and into his cell for the night.
2
Zachem’zen strode from the stage in his haste to leave the new slave’s presence. His cock burned against the taut confines of the rak-hide loincloth they insisted he wear. He swore as he shoved through the crowd and headed for the slave pens—his home for the past year.
Hungry and growing hungrier, he slammed his fist into the head guard’s face when the slave keeper had the nerve to try to stop him.
One of the guards behind him muttered, “Stupid drun. Should know by now only two things will settle the beast.”
Zachem inwardly agreed. After feeling the effects the new slave had on his senses, he wanted a fuck, not a fight. He rubbed his crotch, not at all ashamed of his needs. He’d been Created for sex. To serve his creator, handler, or whoever paid the highest price for his indenture. For years he’d done his best to obey. And then he’d just snapped. No longer content to endure, he’d killed anyone and everyone that stood between him and what he wanted.
Freedom.
In the pursuit of his goals, he’d killed his handler and his creator, two godless bastards bent on wringing every last drop of life from him that they could. He’d destroyed the small laboratory where he’d been Created, a tiny rock in the Asteroid Belt between the sun and the Outer Rim.
Just his luck to be captured by slavers on his way out of the fucking Vrail System for good. Autonomy, so close, had been to be ripped away by the promise of acceptance. He damn well knew better.
Cursing at his naïveté, he tugged on the collar around his neck, reviled by the feel of yet another yoke on his hard-won independence. The world suddenly turned red, a definite indicator he needed to satisfy himself before he lost all control.
He growled a warning. “I need. Hurry.”
The guards around him raced to find him suitable donors. He stalked into his private den, a paltry room not much bigger than his confines in the laboratory where he’d been created. At least in this place, he had a large pallet lined with furs, a table and two chairs, and an attached lavatory to fulfil his basic needs. Gifts because The Beast brought in more currency to the slavers’ fighting business than any other slave had in all the years The Pit had been in existence.
Zachem paced, trying to tamp down his aggression. He studied the cobbled walls and floor with grim satisfaction, glad that at least his prison afforded a semblance of privacy. With the door closed, he had complete isolation from the rest of the world. Granted, his jailers could open the door at any moment, but most of them feared him. The few that didn’t kept him happy per the slave master’s orders, and thus left him alone unless they needed him to fight.
Two females and one male suddenly stumbled into his room before the door slammed shut behind them. He needed to release, but he wanted it especially rough tonight and didn’t think the females could handle him. He usually preferred men and wondered why they kept sending him female slaves. In hopes that he’d impregnate one, perhaps? What they didn’t know worked in his favor. Zachem controlled his reproductive glands and never released the fluid that would make his seed fertile. He had no intention of bringing another of his kind into the world. Not here and not now.
The females stank of fear, the male of drugs and the need to rut. Perfect.
“I won’t hurt you,” he growled, unable to help the harshness of his voice. The females looked at one another then back at him. When he made no move to approach them, they slowly eased out of their clothing.
“We are pleasurers. We come to soothe The Beast.” The tall blond bowed her head.
The petite brunette had ample breasts, but she didn’t arouse him. Nor did her taller companion. Even the large Ragga they’d sent him did little to pique his interest, but it didn’t matter. With the new slave still on his mind, Zachem motioned the trio closer.
He dealt with the women first. “I like to watch. You two, pleasure each other. You.” He pointed at the male. “Come to me.”
All three of them stared, unmoving.
“What?” he snapped.
The Ragga answered in a raspy voice. “We were unsure of what to expect. Some rumors have you devouring your companions, the ones that are never seen again. Others talk of your appetites and the pleasures to be had in this cell.”
Zachem grunted and removed his loincloth. He had no idea what any of the others in The Pit thought. Nor did he particularly care. He worked hard not to harm those who were thrown unwillingly into his cell. He left the beatings and killings to Master Furon, that heartless asshole.
The women took his suggestion and began touching and kissing each other. The sight of soft flesh being caressed and stroked worked his need, because he couldn’t give them what they gave each other, no matter how much he might want to. Softness was not a part of Zachem. And he didn’t think it would ever be.
“Ragga, on your knees,” he ordered.
While the male approached, the brunette spread her thighs wider and moaned, her gaze on the male lowering to his knees. The blond woman sucked on the brunette’s clit and speared her with one finger, then two. He knew because the brunette told him everything the other did in throaty whispers.
Growing harder and needing relief, Zachem put his cock between the male’s lips. He didn’t care how much experience the Ragga had in dick play, but to his grateful surprise, the man didn’t have a problem handling him.
With firm suction, the Ragga teased the head of his shaft and licked him from base to tip. He played with Zachem’s tight balls, rolling the hardening sac in his rough palm.
“Harder.” Zachem shoved deeper into the male’s throat.
Pleased when the Ragga gagged yet accepted the rough treatment, Zachem began to fuck his mouth. Lust released the firm hold on his pheromones, and his attractant spread throughout the room.
The brunette came and clenched the other woman’s head to her pussy. After grinding against her face, she traded positions with her partner and began eating the other woman in earnest. The male at his feet stiffened and moaned, his hand busy over his own cock.
The smell of sexual release filled his small cell, and Zachem exploded with a sigh of relief. The blond and male before him cried out as well, a fe
eling of mutual pleasure and peace saturating the small space.
But after a moment, Zachem’s hunger pulsed anew.
“Get to your feet, against the wall on that stool,” he growled to the Ragga, all the while keeping his gaze on the women mewing with pleasure. They moved to his pallet and continued to lick and play with each other. Such slender fingers gliding over slick flesh, over skin that didn’t change color or glow. Too easy. Too soft. But so pretty to watch.
Zachem pushed the male against the rock wall and inhaled, pleased at the faint scent of fear wafting from his body. He couldn’t help it. The beast he’d been named always came out to play when his needs hit.
After lubing two fingers, he gripped the man’s ass to spread his cheeks wide then used a blunt finger to prod his anus, slowly adding another. Thrusting his digits deeper, Zachem grunted his satisfaction when his partner moaned and pushed back over his knuckles.
“That’s good, Ragga. Real good,” he said on a breath, eagerly fantasizing about the new slave, a black-haired male with green eyes. About how tight and ripe he’d feel around Zachem’s cock…
He withdrew from the male and lubed his cock, getting himself nice and slick. Then Zachem turned back to the male, who waited impatiently against the wall. His eyes were glassy, his cock full and as he pumped through his hand and watched Zachem’s every step.
“Please,” he gasped, overcome with lust.
Zachem didn’t want to hear him, didn’t want to see the man in front of him, not when his thoughts strayed to the new slave who looked and smelled so different from all the others. So right.
He reached the male and, angling forward, Zachem pushed his slick erection forward. Past the Ragga’s firm cheeks and deeper, cramming his cock into a tight passage. He thrust hard and fast, imagining the feel of the hardy new slave he intended to conquer inside the fighting ring and out.
The new slave with the obvious strength and size to take him on, who one moment possessed slit pupils that reminded him of the canine-like guard thrells, and in the next, he had normal-looking green eyes that blazed with hunger. So, was the newcomer alien or normal? That oddity made the slave as much a beast as Zachem.
