He affected a disappointed frown. “Not by choice, Master Slaver. I have come into… how shall I put this… some financial difficulties and I must find the chits to keep my head on my shoulder before Hrung Crortek removes it.” He let his gaze fall to the bare, bowed back of the woman kneeling at his feet. “It pains me to part with Jaienna, but losing my head would pain me more.”
The Archeron burst into loud guffaws. “Wise, if not wealthy.” He reached down and dug the talons of his right hand into the woman’s chin, forcing her head up, and a wave of pure rage and protective anger roared through Tornada. He ground his teeth. Now was not the time to let his heart control his actions. Otherwise, both he and Jaienna might end up dead.
“I have heard of the amazing talents of Raavelian Alpha slaves, but have never had the fortune of experiencing them.” He licked his lips, darting a look at Tornada. “Are they as good as they are rumored to be?”
Tornada smiled, wide and satisfied. “Better.”
The Archeron crossed his arms across a plated chest both broad and muscled. “Prove it.”
A bitter wave of triumph washed over Tornada; just the invitation he was wanting. “Slave,” he said, tugging on Jaienna’s leash. “Give the Master Slaver a blowjob.”
The smooth, bowed back shifted as Jaienna made to move forward on her knees, sending a warm ribbon of something dangerous into Tornada’s groin.
“Stop,” the Archeron suddenly said, stepping back, yellow eyes unreadable.
Tornada frowned. “You do not wish to know of her skill? It is a mind-altering experience.”
The Archeron grinned. “Oh, I wish to know of it, Trader.” His muscles flexed and his scales shimmered a faint orange. “But before her lips touch my cock, I wish to see what she can do with her mouth on you.”
Eyes narrowing, Tornada studied the Archeron. The hair at his nape prickled and his palm itched for his pulse pistol. The Master Slaver’s request was not normal. No slave trader in their right mind hesitated to accept a slave of the Raavelian Alpha camps, especially one as unique and sensual as Jaienna Ti. He let a look of confusion fall over his face. “Master Slaver?”
The Archeron’s scales shimmered orange again. “Consider it a gift, Trader. I can see how loath you are to lose possession of the slave—your heart is in your eyes—so let me give you one last moment of rapture before she becomes my property.”
A wild beat hammered in Tornada’s neck. His gaze fell to Jaienna’s back. One moment of rapture…
He’d lost his title because of Jaienna. He’d been publicly humiliated because of Jaienna. Flogged almost to death by the man who once had been his future father-in-law because of Jaienna. Had lost any right to his Jjor privilege and station because of Jaienna.
Had lost his heart to Jaienna. Never to get it back.
What he would give to feel her lips on his flesh once more. To feel her mouth pull on his cock, her teeth nip at its swollen tip, her tongue massage his rigid length until he screamed her name and erupted with his hot seed.
One moment of rapture…
He tightened his grip on her leash. His balls began to grow heavy, dark anticipation flooding them with hungry desire.
One moment…
He closed his eyes and pulled in a steady breath. He was not wearing a psych-lock. If Jaienna made him come—and she would—he would be incapable of preventing her slipping into his psyche. His mind would be vulnerable to any suggestion she planted in there. He opened his eyes, staring hard at her motionless back, at the perfect formation of her spine curved into the motionless arc of subservient patience. Jaienna hated him. If he let her into his mind…
“Trader?”
The sharp aggression in the Archeron’s voice lifted Tornada’s head. The Master Slaver’s scales were now entirely black. Not a good sign. Archerons only turned black when they were about to attack. “Is there a problem, Jjor?” he asked, dagger-like fangs flashing. “Shall I summon my guards?”
There’s to be no blood, Tornada. Jaienna’s orders before boarding the barge filled Tornada’s head, her voice low and calm and not to be argued with. We go in. I retrieve the info, plant the suggestion and we leave. Hrung Crortek is not to hear of this at all.
“Jjor?”
Tornada lifted his chin and leveled a cold look at the Archeron. “Summon your guards and you insult my trade and the trade of every Jjor in the Boundaries.” He yanked on Jaienna’s leash. “Slave,” he snarled, his blood running hot, his mouth dry. “Show the Archeron how talented you are.”
He jerked on the leash again, the long strip of leather snapping tight. For a moment Jaienna didn’t move and a cold sense of unease twisted in Tornada’s gut. But then the finely toned muscles in her back flexed, her ass cheeks tightened and she lifted slightly from her obeisant bow, turning while still on her knees to face him, her head aligned with his crotch, her hands folded loosely in her lap.
A lump formed in Tornada’s throat. Thick. Solid. He looked down at her, his eyes drinking in the fire-red of her wild hair, the smooth pale perfection of her shoulders. His cock twitched and stiffened, eager for the touch of her lips. His chest however, squeezed tight, knowing the heaven, the sheer rapture of her mouth on his shaft might very well end with his suicide.
And then she lifted her head and wide eyes the color of Keltarian jade stared at him. Unreadable. Indecipherable. Enigmatic. “As you command, Master,” she said on a husky breath, before reaching forward, unsnapping the fasteners of his trousers and releasing his cock of its snug confinement.
Her long, tapered fingers closed around its throbbing length immediately, sending shards of liquid pleasure straight into Tornada’s balls. He sucked in a sharp breath, fighting—no, battling for control. The need to bury his fingers in the thick tumble of her hair was overwhelming. To bury them into the cool, silken strands and direct her mouth to his cock, to feel her slide her full lips over its bulbous head. Almost as overwhelming as the inescapable knowledge she was going to kill him, slipping into his mind the second he orgasmed and suggesting something ominous and irresistible. That the pleasure he felt now, was the last he would ever feel.
He ground his teeth, every fiber of his being taut, every muscle burning. Silently, slowly, she leant forward at the hip and touched the tip of her warm, wet tongue to his turgid erection.
A low, raw gasp filled his lungs and his eyelids fluttered closed. By Aop, he remembered this. So well. Too well.
Her tongue swirled over the stretched skin of his cockhead, tracing tiny lines across its hot surface, flicking at the sensitive glands just below its distended rim. Her fingertips found his thighs and slid up their bunched length, teasing the soft hairs on his balls with a feather-light stroke before slipping around to grasp his ass cheeks.
He opened his eyes and gazed down at her, fisting his hands on his hips, forcing his body to be still. No matter how much he longed for every exquisite, dangerous second of her touch, he needed to convey the impression of a slave master, not a man ruled by a heart that should know better.
Her head dipped forward, her teeth nipping ever so gently at the very tip of his cock. Her fingers caressed his ass, kept his hips motionless as her tongue painted his cock with long, wet strokes—head to base, base to head. His blood sang in his ears and his pulse quickened, more so when she closed her lips over that bulbous, throbbing head and took it into her mouth. She sucked lightly, the pressure sending shooting ribbons of tension down his shaft into his balls. A low groan sounded in his throat and he pulled in a short breath through his teeth.
Control. Control.
Her tongue worked the underside of his cock, lathered it, teased it. Her head bobbed, drawing her lips up and down his turgid length, drawing another groan from deep within his chest. A movement in the room caught his pleasure-fogged attention and he flicked his gaze to the Archeron. The Master Slaver stared at them, the snug material of his leather breeches tented at the crotch, his right hand cupping at the bulge beneath. But his eyes, glowing
orange with hunger, still revealed his wariness. Either he knew who they were, or he suspected they weren’t who they pretended to—
Jaienna’s fingers slipped from Tornada’s ass and cupped his balls and the disturbing thought vanished from his mind to be replaced by utter sexual fervor so intense his eyes closed and his muscles coiled. Her tongue curled around his cock, her teeth scraped its sides. Pain threaded through pleasure and he let out a raw moan. By Aop, her mouth was better than the Ninth Heaven!
He thrust his hips forward, shoving his cock deeper, feeling its swollen head ram the back of Jaienna’s throat. The tip of her tongue flicked at the swell of his sac, sending a wild wave of wet heat into his groin and up his spine. He ground his teeth, determined to hold off the inevitable. If this was the last time he drew breath, he wanted it to last.
“Very good,” the Archeron murmured, voice oily with appreciation and approval. “Very good.”
Tornada tuned him out; drew to his mind a room scented with fine incense and decorated with even finer silks and satins. He no longer stood in the seedy viewing room of a Cluster-Fuck Barge, but the master suite of his family’s primary castle. He no longer feared for his life from the woman at his feet, but feared for the day she would leave him, claimed by time and old-age, gone to the Nine Heavens after decades of contented, blissful life together.
Jaienna’s fingers slipped from his balls, worked their smooth way past his perineum to the clenching hole of his anus. One firm fingertip pressed at that puckered hole and Tornada bucked, ramming his cock deeper into her mouth. She knew exactly what to do to make him boil with scalding pleasure. She always did. Her finger pressed harder to his ass, penetrating ever so slightly the gripping circle of muscle even as her mouth continued to pull and suck at his cock.
“Aop!” The cry burst from his lips, hoarse and savage. He grabbed at her hair, tangled his fingers in the cool, thick strands, a lifeline he knew she would both enjoy and despise. Unable to control himself, he fucked her mouth, plunging into the hot, wet well in wild thrusts, his aching, heavy balls slapping against her chin, his body burning with the need to erupt.
A moan sounded in the room, a vibration filled his balls. He opened his eyes and, blood like electricity, dropped his gaze to Jaienna.
She sucked at his cock, her lips glistening with moisture, her own eyes closed—the perfect picture of an obedient slave. But it was the expression on her face that made Tornada’s heart pound. Ecstasy. Another moan tickled his ears, another tiny wave of vibrations rippled his balls. Euphoria flooded through Tornada. Jaienna was enjoying what he’d ordered her to do! For three moon-cycles they’d devoured each other’s bodies in lustful hunger. Just as she knew him, so too, he knew her. The expression that softened her face could not be created, no matter how important for deception.
She wanted to give him pleasure. Drew her own from his.
The thought sent a surge of absolute hope to the very center of Tornada’s being. Not for his survival, but for a future he longed for with all his heart. His balls rose up, grew tight and heavy. Jaienna’s mouth slid up and down his shaft in rapid strokes, as if she could feel the wild rhythm of his heart and wanted to match its beat. Her finger pushed at his anus again, harder, harder. He felt her first knuckle stretch the clenching opening, felt her tongue caress his shaft, felt a mounting pressure of scalding tension rip through his body, from his cock to his balls to his chest and then his orgasm smashed over him, consumed him, and he threw back his head and cried her name. “Jaienna!”
Liquid heat charged through his limbs up his spine. He gripped at Jaienna’s hair and held her head still, pounding into her taking mouth in wild, erratic thrusts. His skin felt on fire, his breath like flames. His hips bucked convulsively, his thighs trembled. The finger in his ass wriggled, sending fresh waves of pure pleasure into his groin, pleasure sucked eagerly through his cock by Jaienna’s mouth. His seed burst from him in unending wads of thick fluid and she took it all, swallowed each spurt, her soft moans feeding each ejaculate until his head swam and his heart constricted. By Aop, she was draining him of everything he had.
And then he felt it.
The softest tickle in his mind. Like a feather of sound. A whispering kiss of words…
Tell me your heart.
He hissed in a wild breath and then the words faded. As if they’d never been there.
He bucked his hips, his balls still full of liquid release, his cock still thick and swollen and spurting. Oh, when he finished, when Jaienna’s lips had slipped from his length… The things he would tell her. Things he’d wanted to say since they first met. Things he’d kept locked in his heart…
He dropped his head and gazed at her; found two shining green eyes gazing back. Her lips slid up his shaft, down, up, her rhythm decreasing with the slowing thrusts of his hips. The finger in his ass slowly withdrew, a shard of concentrated pleasure spearing into his being as it popped free of the clenching ring of muscle. He sucked in a ragged breath, staring into Jaienna’s eyes. Waiting.
He needed to tell her something. He must tell her something. Now. It was imperative. Vital.
Her mouth slid one more time up and down his shaft and then she released him, his cock slipping free of her lips.
She settled back onto her heels, the glorious swell of her breasts heaving with each shallow breath she pulled, her eyes studying him with an ambiguous, almost haunted light. “Tell me,” she whispered, the words not quite inaudible.
Heart thumping, blood roaring, Tornada dropped to his knees before her and took her hands in his, staring into her face, his chest aching. “I love you,” he said simply. “Irretrievably. Unconditionally. Without end. I exist to make you happy. To see you smile. To give you pleasure. I have been stripped of everything I ever held important—my title, my heritage, my station—but I do not care because I love you. For every moment of pain I gave you, I wish it ten-fold back. For every moment of joy I gave you, I wish it ten-fold again. You are my past, my present. I curse the day you were no longer my future. The biggest mistake of my life was to lose you. Without you I am less. Without you I am just an empty shell. Without you I am—”
“What the fuck is this?”
The words punched into Tornada’s feverish mind like an eo-blast. He started, fixing Jaienna with a wide stare. Fuck. What did she make me do?
Jerking his gaze away from her stunned and tormented eyes, he turned to the Archeron slave master standing beside him, scales shimmering black.
He leapt to his feet, hot aggression ripping into his limbs. Change of plans, Raq.
“What is this?” the Archeron demanded, enraged. “What type of slave master—”
Jaienna leapt to her feet, her sublime body coiled, nothing like the submissive slave anymore. She lashed out, smashing the Master Slaver in the jaw with a bone-shattering punch. His head flung to the side, giving Tornada enough time to drop into a crouch and smash his fist up into the scale-plated stomach. The slaver doubled over, shock and fury in his eyes, his breath bursting from him in a violent whoosh. Jaienna spun around him, snatched at his arms and snapped them up behind his head, locking her fingers at the base of his skull and jerking him into a brutal upright position, his booted feet scraping and skidding on the floor.
“What the fuck is this?” he screeched, bucking in her hold.
Tornada stepped forward, the intoxicating pull of physical aggression dampening the demanding itch in his mind to tell Jaienna something. He hadn’t finished. Whatever she’d told him to do, he hadn’t—
“What the fuck are you doing?” the Archeron spat, scales blacker than black.
“This,” Tornada snarled, and smashed his fist into the Master Slaver’s stomach.
The Archeron’s breath gushed from him, but Jaienna reefed him into a severe arc, yanking him upright again.
Tornada clenched his jaw, stepping even closer to the slaver, letting all his hate, contempt and disdain for the slave trade and its despicable masters burn in his stare. “No
w, my loathsome friend,” he stated, his voice dripping with deadly promise. “You will tell me exactly where Hrung Crortek is, or my very talented ‘slave’ here will demonstrate just how talented she really is and there will be nothing you can do to stop whatever she suggests.” He let a menacing, bleak grin stretch his lips. “One way or the other, you are going to die today. How can depend on you, or her…” He cocked an eyebrow. “And trust me when I say, you don’t want to leave your fate up to her. She knows how to be nasty, and I know how she feels about slavers.”
* * * *
A thick gray fog shrouded the room. Odorless. Tasteless. It pressed upon him, weightless yet suffocating, trying to steal his breath. He shifted slightly, squinting into the gray nothingness and a burning pain, like a vortex of crushing fire, erupted in his head.
He gasped, every muscle in his body tensing, his eyes squeezing shut.
“Shhh,” a soft feminine voice hushed. Warm breath feathered his forehead and he felt gentle fingers brush a strand of hair behind his ear. “I’m here.”
He swallowed, his throat coarse and stripped of moisture. “Who are you?” he croaked, turning to the voice and the warmth. “Where am I?”
“You’re on Ii’olia,” the voice answered, worry and relief in the whispered words.
Tight anger ripped through him and he blindly reached for his blaster, his hand smacking against his thigh. His naked thigh. He tried to sit up, but the agony in his head and a firm, warm hand on his chest kept him prone. “Who are you?” he repeated through clenched teeth. “Tell me.”
The hand on his chest smoothed across to his right pec, long fingers brushing over his nipple, before feathering down over his stomach, across his hip and back to his chest again—an intimate caress that sent his skin afire and his anger on edge. “It’s me,” the voice whispered, the fingers resting lightly over his heart. “It’s Bhelais.” A soft pause followed, and then: “I’m taking care of you… Jak.”
Chapter 2
Jak Thorson’s eyes snapped open. Ice ripping through his veins, he stared up at Jaienna Ti’s sister. Sons of Urik, he still couldn’t see! Nothing but gray fog clouded his vision.
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