by Raven Dark
The thing was, I’d never seen anyone killed before. Before today, I’d never even seen a dead body in real life. Except for the Rith, but they were different. They were little more than animals, and the men had been defending themselves then. Gwen had been innocent. She’d just been a young woman taken from the world she knew and forced to become a slave.
A slave.
The understanding of my role on this world pulled me further down into a pit of mind-numbing shock. Shock that I only seemed to snap out of when Raul dragged me out of the tower and practically threw me over the back of his hepta like a rag doll.
He swung into the saddle and pulled me across his lap so that I was draped over his legs and the animal’s back.
The position left me too vulnerable, and instinct kicked in. I tried to jerk upright, but without a way to get my feet under me, I had no hope of twisting into a sitting position.
And besides, Raul put his palm on the middle of my back, keeping me still with little effort.
“Amet, nayna.” He patted my ass.
Amet. The word for ‘stay.’ Unable to curse at him, I whipped my head around and growled at him. After I did, I realized what I’d done. I was behaving like an animal.
He just shook his head and got his mount going. The other two men followed a pace behind on either side without a word. Tarku trotted along beside us.
I deflated, humiliated and beyond pissed.
Raul tangled his fingers in my hair, pulling it lightly so that my head lifted. He bent toward me, his alien words washing over me with a tone that carried the barest hint of a threat.
Fuck, this broken translator was getting on my nerves. There was no way to know what he might do once we got wherever we were going.
A few hours passed. I hung there, almost upside down, swaying with the motion of the hepta, a smell that reminded me of a barn, horses and hay, filling my nose. I should have been grateful for the anti-nausea medication Z’pheer had given back on the ship, otherwise riding like this, I would have barfed. Thing was, I was too pissed to care.
Quiet, numbing fear seeded itself deep, finding a home under my skin.
At some point, the jungle around us had changed to rough mountain terrain until, eventually, we stopped at a large cave high up on a rocky ledge.
Why we didn’t return to the ship, I didn’t know. Perhaps the men thought more Rith would find us if we went back that way, or that they’d be looking for the ship.
Malek rode his mount up to Raul’s. He ruffled my hair and said something, followed by an amused laugh.
I’d been beating on him, and he was laughing. Malek was incredibly hard to figure out.
Raul chuckled and hummed in affirmation, running his hand over my ass as if to say “You’d better believe it.”
Raul dismounted, somehow pulling me down from the hepta’s back at the same time. He barely waited for me to get my feet under me before he pulled me into the cave.
I was too numb to think to fight him. My thoughts spun crazily, stealing my focus until it felt as if my body had been disconnected from my brain.
The cave we’d entered was small, a little bigger than a living room. Someone had lived in it before. Small rocks had been set up to form a fire pit, though whatever the prior inhabitant had burned there was now nothing but ash. There were a few boulders near the back of the cave, and an old dusty mug, obviously left behind by whoever had stayed here.
Raul tugged me by the leash toward the back of the cave and sat me on a boulder. He took off his weapons and set them against the cave wall. Malek and Z’pheer said something to him and they both left with their weapons still on their backs, but not without a smirk for me from Malek and a touch under the chin from Z’pheer.
I wanted to punch that smile right off Malek’s face and break Z’pheer’s damn fingers. As it was, Raul unwound the leash from his wrist without a word. His eyes stayed on me, those golden spheres filled with dark promise.
I’d be damned if I was just going to sit here and take whatever the bastard was going to do, and besides, I wanted this fucking muzzle off. I stood and lifted my cuffed hands, pointing emphatically at the muzzle.
“Hiet.” His tone carried firmness as he pushed me back down onto the rock. He unclipped my leash from his bracelet and tossed it down, picked up one of the heavy boulders, and dropped it on top of the end of the leash.
I sighed at the stone ceiling. He’d made lifting that rock look so easy with all those muscles, but I didn’t have to try lifting it to know it wouldn’t have budged for me.
I wasn’t getting out of this.
Raul knelt at my feet and quickly removed my boots, of all things. His massive hands cupped my feet firmly, making them feel painfully fragile.
Panic bit into me, and I tried to get his hands away, but he grabbed my cuffed wrists and stilled them.
I thought he was going to slap me again. He didn’t. Instead, he waited until I dropped my hands, letting him know I wasn’t going to fight him. Doing so would have been utterly useless.
Straightening, he reached behind him and pulled his poncho over his head, letting it fall to the cave floor and revealing those layers of muscle that suddenly drove home what he was. An alien, a barbarian, and probably three times stronger than a human man.
An urge to bolt stabbed at me, but I wasn’t about to make another idiotic mistake. He’d be on me before I reached the cave entrance, and I’d only make the situation worse.
Sitting there before my captor, all the things I would have said raced through my mind, all things I couldn’t say because of this fucking muzzle.
What was he going to do to me? I knew he was going to do something, I could see it in his eyes, and I’d heard it in his voice every time he spoke on the way here.
I wasn’t sorry I’d punched Malek, and didn’t he understand, Malek had killed Gwen?
Without my being able to understand him, such questions were pointless. There was nothing to do but wait for him to dictate how things would go.
I did the only thing I could have. I met his eyes with the coldest stare I could and waited. Letting him know that I only stayed where I was because even I knew when I was screwed.
The faintest curve touched his lips, a satisfied look, before he pulled me to my feet. He took my cuffs off and clipped them to his belt, then stepped back a half a pace.
“Toth.”
The single syllable was obviously a command. If the muzzle hadn’t been on my face, I would have asked him why the hell he kept forgetting I couldn’t understand him. Instead, I settled for shaking my head.
His gaze rolled to the ceiling. Raul lifted my arms above my head and jerked the poncho and the red dress under it off in one motion, tossing both aside.
Leaving me stripped naked before him. Again.
So ‘toth’ meant strip or something of that sort.
I had the unsettling feeling I was going to be hearing that word a lot.
Instinctively, I folded in on myself, turning away from him and trying to cover my breasts and pussy with my arms. Raul grabbed my hair and pulled me back to him so that I ended up with my back against his chest, the sting of his grip making my eyes burn and stealing the fight out of me.
Anger and hatred burned under my skin, but with his fist in my hair and his other arm caging me against him from behind, there was no way to vent my emotions. I let out a broken sob, deflating into him.
As soon as I relaxed, he let go of my hair and pulled my hands behind my back. Cold steel encircled my wrists, the cuffs giving that activating buzz as they locked. He whirled me around to face him.
I expected to meet his cold, hard stare. The moment I saw his expression, however, I wished the cold cave floor would have swallowed me whole right then and there.
His eyes were hard, but they weren’t cold at all. They burned like gold set to a flame, raking over every inch of me with shocking hunger. And something else that scared the hell out of me.
That gaze fixated on the mound
s of my breasts, on each nipple, on my bared pussy with unmistakable possession that left me feeling as if he’d somehow stripped me of something far more elemental than clothing.
That was a master’s stare.
Oh, God, I really was a slave.
His slave.
I tore my eyes from his, or tried to, but he took my jaw between his fingers and pointed at his eyes.
Look at me. I wouldn’t receive even the small comfort of hiding anything from him. Not even my eyes.
I wanted to cry, but I managed to hold it in. He’d seen enough weakness from me.
Where the hell were Malek and Z’pheer? Not that it mattered. I’d seen it in their eyes; they knew what was going to happen. They wanted it to happen.
Raul released my jaw slowly, only when he knew I wouldn’t look away.
Now that I was naked and bound, unable to offer any real resistance, he finally took that fucking muzzle off. He tossed it aside. My eyes followed its trajectory, watching the retched thing drop to the dirt. I worked my jaw, worked moisture into my mouth.
Raul tipped my face up to his again, pointing at his eyes. Telling me to keep my gaze on his.
The urge to explain, to defend my actions and at least appeal to his sense of decency was too hard to ignore. “Raul—”
He shook his head sharply and put one finger to his lips. “Ma’na.”
I got the message. Shut up.
“But Malek—”
“Ma’na.” He put his finger to my lips this time and said the word in a low voice, slow with warning. His eyes were pitiless.
I put my head back and heaved a broken sigh, desperation making my toes curl in the dirt. I wanted to beg, but I couldn’t bring myself to try something so pathetic. And pointless.
Raul nodded in satisfaction. He stalked in behind me, a silent wolf circling his prey.
My gaze collided with the open mouth of the cave. Fading sunlight streamed in. Without him blocking the opening, anyone could come upon us and see me standing there, buck naked and cuffed like some alien’s whore. Malek or Z’pheer might return. At least I knew those two, but the idea of them walking in now wasn’t any better than some alien stranger doing so.
I tensed, and Raul must have realized what I was thinking, because one of his hands slid across my bare middle, his palm taking up the whole breadth of my stomach and trapping me against him.
I wanted the bastard’s hand off me, but when I twisted, he tugged the cuffs downward toward my ass. Forcing my back to bow just enough to give him complete control.
Alien words dripped from his lips, brimming with heat and authority. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what the hell he was saying, even while not knowing scared me.
The warmth of his hand on my stomach sent little shivers to every nerve in my body. I closed my eyes, but it didn’t shut him out. In fact, I only became more aware of his scent, the masculine spicy aroma sending my senses into overdrive.
Unlike before when I’d smelled him on the ship, my nipples peaked as if invisible fingers were plucking them. His fingers. He must have seen my body’s reaction to him because he rumbled in pleasure.
Hearing the hunger in him, a low ache started between my legs. That made me strain against him, desperate to escape his effect on me as much as his touch.
No one had ever had this effect on me before. A hundred times I’d imagined what it would feel like to need a man this way, but why did it have to be him? I was supposed to hate him, but everything the man did drove me crazy.
My nipples were still hard as fucking bullets. He didn’t touch the needy peaks, instead sliding his hand from my stomach slowly toward the junction between my thighs.
“Raul, don’t—” Fear mounted to a feverish pitch, mixing with desire that should have shut itself off.
“Hes, nayna?” he rasped in my ear. His fingers descended lower until they cupped my pussy, sliding between my folds. Wetness coated them.
Humiliation washed over me. Of course I was soaked.
Raul didn’t stop. His fingers stroked my slick sex.
“Hes,” he rasped in affirmation. He went on, every syllable dripping with hunger as he showed me his fingers, slicked with my own juices.
God help me. I was pretty damn sure I knew what else he’d said. He liked that I was wet. Wet for master.
Shit. Suddenly I was bucking and twisting to get away. His fingers tightened on the cuffs, and his other hand returned to my pussy, his fingers strumming my aching clit.
The sound he made, barely human and wholly animal, sent every nerve in me buzzing. And filled me with disgust, because I liked the sound of it.
The hand on my pussy slid away. Relief almost sent me to my knees. Until that same palm roamed over my ass, savoring every curve.
“Raul—”
“Ma’na,” he said coldly.
Heard him back up, I turned to face him. He was sitting on the rock I’d been sitting on earlier. He jerked me to him by the slack of the leash until I was right in front of him.
“What are you going to do?” I bit out.
Next thing I knew, he’d somehow pulled me across him and I was draped over his knee.
Oh, fuck, no.
With my arms cuffed behind me, there was no way of pushing off of him, but even if there had been, he gripped my outside arm so that his was across my back like a steel bar, keeping me still. My breasts were squashed against his thigh.
Damn, I’d never felt so vulnerable, so exposed in my life.
I didn’t have to understand shit-all about this world or the ways of his people to know what was coming now. Draped over a man’s fucking knee, ass bared—this position carried implications every girl recognized from the deepest pit of her soul.
I tried to turn my body around. “Fuck off!”
He ignored me, gripping my arm tighter. He felt up every inch of my ass. Warming the skin with his palm.
“You bastard, don’t you dare!”
I’d been expecting the blow to fall, but nothing happened.
Out of the corner of my eye, movement at the cave entrance made me lift my head. Malek and Z’pheer were both standing there with huge grins. Malek was holding a large bird of some sort by the feet, and Z’pheer’s arms were full of long, thick leaves. Both men looked like they were about to drop everything in surprise. My cheeks heated until I thought they were on fire.
Malek chuckled and walked over to the fire pit in front of us, putting the bird on the ground while Z’pheer dropped the leaves.
While the two men took off their weapons and set them aside, Raul said something to them and patted my ass. Both men nodded, responded with approval, and went about their work. Malek sat on the other boulder and pulled the feathers off the bird, and Z’pheer gathered sticks outside the cave for a fire.
Both men behaved as if this was all par for the fucking course. As if Raul was doing something a man did every damn day on this world.
Oh my God, I was going to die. I’d never wanted to kill someone as badly as I wanted to murder these three men right now.
Raul’s palm came down on my ass with a hard crack and a sting that jolted my attention back to him. I screamed.
He slapped the other cheek just as hard.
I screamed again and kicked. He held on to me by my arm and gave both cheeks the same burning slap.
I cursed and thrashed and tried to turn my head and bite him. Fuck, I hated him. Hated him with a fury so dark and pure it couldn’t be put into words.
He growled something that was probably supposed to be a command to submit, stay still, shut up, or all the above while his hand reigned down hell on my ass cheeks until they felt like they were on fire.
Malek and Z’pheer worked on, both watching with obvious amusement. Z’pheer arranged the twigs in the pit and lit a fire with a lopsided smile while Malek sat there de-feathering the bird, his dick bulging in his pants.
A few more slaps from Raul and more alien words that sounded like reprimands. Between each sla
p, he stroked my ass cheeks almost tenderly, the gentleness somehow turning the pain into something ridiculously erotic. Every slap caused my sex to rub against his hard thigh, intensifying the ache there.
Oh, fuck, was I going to come? I was almost grinding into him.
“Fuck off,” I wailed in a horribly small, useless voice. “I’m going to kill you, Raul! I swear will!”
But was I cursing him because he was beating me, or because it was getting me off?
I was too livid, too shocked, to hurt and humiliated at my own actions, as well as his, to think that I might be saying things I shouldn’t and giving Raul far too much. Tears streamed down my face. I probably sounded like a small and petulant child.
He chuckled darkly.
Another slap. And then another. God, I wouldn’t sit for a week after this. The fucker.
By the time the hellfire from his hand finally stopped, I was sobbing silently, my head hanging toward the ground. My ass felt like I’d sat on hot coals.
Raul’s fingers yanked my head up by the hair. He asked me something about Malek, probably whether I was going to hit him again.
The fight had gone out of me. I shook my head, sniffling. “No…” I whispered softly. “I won’t hit him again.”
I was giving in, letting him win, and I couldn’t stand that.
“Damka, nayna.” His palm caressed my ass, barely touching it while praise filled his tone. I winced, half sobbing at the sting. He made a low approving noise, enjoying whatever he saw there.
His hands left me. “Ana hai.”
With no way to understand his words, I just lay there…processing.
He took me by the shoulders and lifted me off his lap, setting me on my feet. “Ana hai,” he said, letting me know I was supposed to stand up. My legs gave out, but he’d stood up before I could drop, his arms banding around me and holding me up.
He scooped me up in his arms, not romantically or gently like a lover holds a woman he cares for, but the way a barbarian carries his prize. Draped over his arms, listless, I did the only thing I could do. I shut him out and let him carry me wherever he wanted.
Raul set me down on the leaves Z’pheer had laid out on the ground for a bed, turning me onto my stomach so that my flaming ass didn’t touch anything. The sudden show of compassion, however small, somehow only made me despise him more.
