“Stay there until I call you. There are tracks outside the cave, but they’re animal not man. Small in size, but that means nothing.”
“Okay.” A slice of yellow illuminated the opening, throwing a shaft of light diagonally across the cave floor. Faint twittering heralded some sort of dawn chorus sounding too much like the birds back on Earth. The thought stopped in her head.
Back on Earth. Now she was thinking like him. Slowly starting to accept this bizarre nightmare might be real after all.
“Janie, come.” Kelskar’s dark shape stood silhouetted in the entrance. She scuttled forward, blinking away the blinding morning light making dark spots dance before her eyes. When her vision adjusted, she gasped in amazement at the sight of bright colours clinging to stark rock, to the carpet of green and blue, bright oranges and rusty browns in the valley bottom rolling out before her. Touched by the blurring morning light, accompanied by a symphony of gurgling water and lilting birdsong, it could be Paradise.
Yes, appearances certainly did lie.
The water ran in a narrow tumbling stream emerging from under smooth flat rocks. Kelskar dropped to one knee, scooping the water into a cupped hand. He nodded his satisfaction and motioned her to drink.
On her knees, the sharp shale stabbing through her pants, cool clear water soothing her parched lips, she realised how dehydrated she’d become. Her swift, standing heart rate should have been a warning, but she had other things on her mind, like staying alive and wrapping her head around all of this.
“God, it’s heavenly.” So cold and clear it stole her breath. She caught it back in heaving pants and bent to dip her face in the racing water, the need to be clean again suddenly overwhelming. “Can we wash?” she said, imagining the sweat and dirt of their captivity swept away with the torrent. Skin pink and glowing from the cold.
“Not out here. I’ll wet one of the undergarments I took from the store on the ship for us to use inside the cave.”
Kelskar pushed aside his short sword and lay flat to plunge the whole of his head into the water. It flowed over and around him, tugging at the loose pieces of metal at his scalp. Metal, or whatever this material he’d had implanted to his body was. She had so much to learn about him. He surfaced with a noisy intake of breath, shaking his head to scatter droplets like a wet dog.
“By Jopra, that feels so good.” Swiping dry his eyes with the back of his hand, he gave her a feral grin. “I’d like nothing more than to strip naked with you and stand under that torrent. But don’t be fooled by this.” He tilted his chin at the idyllic scenery. “Beauty can be deceiving. There is real danger out there and it’s coming for us.”
Janie’s shoulders slumped. She looked again. A bank of deep pink and grey cloud lurked on the horizon. Bare patches of earth scarring the verdant green of the rolling meadow looked scorched. The brightly coloured berries decorating the bushes and shrubs could well kill them in moments. And those small creatures, even the birds might have come directly from hell.
“I know.” Danger in Paradise. Was that the title of a film, a book she once read, or a warning? Hanging in the sky over one of the lower slopes, the floating metal box glinted in the rising sunlight. As if reading her thoughts, it lifted without sound and swung towards them. That, she couldn’t deny. They were being watched or followed. Maybe the thing even had orders to kill them should they not fulfil whatever brief the watchers decreed.
Shit, she stood carefully, swiping grit and fallen leaves from her pants. Don’t panic. And don’t ask stupid questions. Kelskar may have more survival experience than she did, but even a pastry chef could learn.
He stood beside her, a bead of water zigzagging over his nose and chin. She resisted the urge to catch it with her thumb. Too much heat building between them, too much simmering danger to deliberately fan those flames.
“What season do you think it is?” The chill bite to the morning, the golden fallen leaves said autumn in England. But who knew how the seasons played out on this planet moon, if it even had seasons.
He kicked at a small pile of brown and red crunching at his feet. “I would say the moon is in leaf fall, but only the passing of a solar cycle will tell us.”
“Americans call it fall. We Brits call it autumn.” She no longer expected him to understand everything she said.
“You are from Dev On, in the land of Brit Ain? My home world too has provinces and countries. Smaller than your Earth but far ahead in development and technology than your primitive planet.”
“And yet you still fight gladiators in arenas? We let go of most of that stuff two thousand years ago.”
“With advancement comes death of the senses. It’s a pattern often seen. Everything becomes so clinical, so predicable that beings begin to crave excitement again, to demand spectacles that call to baser instincts.”
“That’s why they want our blood?” Shading her eyes, Janie stared up at the blinking box, imagining some technician in a room full of screens, zooming in for close ups, cutting to the gore while people on distant worlds sat on sofas cheering and stuffing their faces with popcorn.
“Ultimately, yes.” Kelskar crouched for another long drink of the cool mountain stream, cupping water to his mouth with both hands. Rising, he surveyed the slope, above and below, gazing out over the valley, eyes half closed against the rising sun. “I told you, Janie. I’m still alive because I was the best. And I plan to stay alive, and keep you alive with me.”
“Does anyone ever leave this place?” His rallying speech lifted her a little. Not enough for hope to bloom. No way to spin this into anything but doom for them both.
“Sometimes it’s allowed, but only for sport when ratings dip. Escapees never get very far.”
“So what do we do now?” For the first time, Janie looked into a future and saw nothing. Even when the bank closed in and she lost the tea room, she had a plan, dreams to see her through. This felt too much like the end of the world. Disorientated, no clue which way to step, where to go. No idea what she might find if she did start walking. So outside her experience she might be on a different planet.
A small desperate laugh bubbled in her throat. Yes, it was time to start living this unreal life.
“I understand,” Kelskar said, in that disconcerting way he had of reading her thoughts. “You feel lost, as I do when the mist fills my brain and two different lives war in my head. But Madame Fate has been kind. She gifted me with you to be the keeper of my memories and remind me who I am.”
“And she’s given me you to teach me how to survive.” Janie groped for his hand, linking with his in a gesture so familiar to them now they did it without thought. All those days in the cage when this was the closest they got. They learned to make a simple touch speak volumes.
His reassuring grip said she would never be alone. Never have to face what was out there without him standing as her shield.
“My own personal superhero.”
“Had I been a hero, my family would still be alive and I a free man.”
Janie’s stomach gurgled and growled for breakfast. She swayed, lightheaded from lack of food. “Maybe it’s because you were a hero that it all happened.”
Kelskar caught her, steadied her. “Time may yet reveal my past. We need to eat, to determine what’s edible and what’s hostile.” He tilted his head at the camera box sitting above and to their left. “That we were not immediately attacked tells me they have plans for us that might involve a period of respite, of masking from the others here. We could risk a fire if there’s meat to be had.”
“You’ll have to kill it. I don’t think I can.”
“Let go any delicate sensibilities, Janie. We kill or we die. I’m sorry for you, but that’s how it is.”
She heard the softening in his tone and the steel too. “I know. I’m tougher than I look, don’t worry.”
He led her back to the cave, pausing at the entrance to drop a kiss to the top of her head. “I worry for your safety, the forces beyond our control
. But not that you might fail to rise to the task ahead. A bonded couple is of more value to the Corporation and viewers alive than dead. They will not wish to see our early demise.”
“Is that how they see us?” She was glad of the gloom to cover the growing heat in her cheeks. It sounded so primitive, so primal. Is that how Kelskar saw her? As his?
She could think of worse fates, given her dire situation.
“It’s how we must see ourselves.” Kelskar pushed in behind her, filling the space with his heat, his bulk and height. “You need to know that this place is full of desperate men who prize unclaimed females for mating and trade. Who view a claimed female as a challenge to be conquered.”
“What are you saying?” A zing of lust pulsed between them. More than lust, desire tangled with want and need. She wanted to be safe. She wanted him. “That doesn’t sound like a win win situation for me.”
“Let me take you, Janie Roberts. With my mark on you, I can protect you better.”
“Your mark?” A ripple of panic made her step away. He intended to mark her?
“My seed, inside of you. Janie, don’t step away from me. I will never hurt you.”
She stood with her back to him in a rush of liquid heat. Wet and ready to let him do whatever he wanted. She had no will to resist.
“That’s one heck of a pick-up line.”
“I want you regardless of claiming,” he said, stepping closer, invading her personal space.
“It happens. Two people thrown together, getting close. The outside world goes away until there’s only the two of them.”
“Perhaps, but this time I think not.” He lifted her plait, fingers grazing her nape, sending a shiver over tense shoulders, her arms. “Tell me you do not feel the same. That this will be more than a claiming of necessity.” He kissed the words to her skin, working around to her throat. She tipped back her head, exposing herself to him.
Man, he was good. The dim thought flittered through her fogged brain.
“I’ve met few men in life who made me feel like this,” she said. “You make me feel, Kelskar.”
No, her rational brain screamed. Pregnancy, Stockholm syndrome. She had to face this guy in the cold light of day when reality set in. When she realised what a gullible idiot she’d been to fall for his smooth talk.
He turned her around. Traced the line of her nose, her quivering mouth. “It’s not always so between a male and a female. If my memory serves, this feeling between us is more than lust. But whatever we feel, if I don’t claim you, then some other male will.”
His voice dropped to an urgent intensity. Smooth and persuasive. “If this is indeed a window of respite before the others discover our presence, we should do this now. I’m ready for you, Janie. You need only give me leave.”
Wrapped in his sensual web, she didn’t have to touch him to know how much he wanted her. He must hear her body’s silent screams for him to take her now before she started thinking again. And yet, she couldn’t force the words past her lips. Not stranger sex, he called it a claiming. It sounded permanent and final. As if once done it could only be undone by death.
“Don’t get me pregnant.” On the starvation rations in the cage, she hadn’t seen a period in how long? Safe maybe, but it was a gamble she couldn’t take.
“Marking you with my seed will suffice. I’ll try not to get you with child.”
He moved closer. She closed her eyes, feeling the hard length of him, her breasts soft against hard muscle. Heard the swish of his coat sliding from his body. The clink of buckles and weapons on stone.
“I would linger over your pleasure. Strip you naked and learn every parkese of your flesh.” He bent to nuzzle her neck, worrying at the sensitised spot he’d already discovered. “Neither time nor place is our friend, it seems. But one day... Open your eyes, Janie. Would you like to wash first? They can’t see us in here.”
Trust. It all came back to that one little word. Trust that this really did mean something. That he wasn’t spinning a web of lies with that honeyed tongue of his.
A tongue tracing a lazy line from her neck to the shell of her ear while he deftly twisted open jacket buttons. Permission given, she raised her arms to let the jacket fall and sought his mouth, mashing lips with his, opening to his probing tongue.
A small moan in the back of her throat, a deep groan from him, throwing fuel on the fire.
Lifting her, he kissed away her breath, every last drop of her resistance. Then the slide of his thick coat at her back, the hard rock beneath. His body making a cage above her. And the fire became an inferno.
Chapter Eight
As Gladiator Kelskar, he killed when required then walked away without thought. Coupled on demand, giving cold pleasure to the wealthy females who came to be mastered at the hands of a beast. He got the job done, no emotion required.
Janie lay spread beneath him on his coat, on the cold unyielding stone. Vulnerable, trusting. The look of naked need tempered by an anxious set to her mouth tugged at his frigid heart and filled him with emotions he could not easily name. He could take her, grant exquisite pleasure. Make her writhe beneath him and cry out in ecstasy.
But this was so much more.
Once done, she was his for life. Did she know that? Realise the implications of this claiming? Kneeling between her bent knees, he slid hands down her thigh, tugging them gently apart. No resistance. He knew of this Justin, the man who promised her the world and then left her for another. Knew Janie was no innocent in the ways of the flesh.
His fingers gazed her mound through the thick material of her pants. Slid between her legs to cup her. She arched into his hand in a silent plea. No innocent, but had she ever known real pleasure at the hands of a man? The kind of pleasure that came with heart, body, and soul?
The kind that came with love?
The revelation hit him in a flash of knowing. More than wanting, more than need, he felt... Closing his eyes, he searched for the words. Perhaps not love, but this was more than just wanting. Janie’s fingers traced the length of his rigid cock. Foreplay they had no time for, he thought with real regret.
“We must be swift. It’s too dangerous to linger.” He leaned over her, mouth touching her lips, hands working at her belt, the closures of her pants. “But I want to. You don’t know how much I want to take you slow and deep.”
“I want that too. Touch me, Kelskar. I know we don’t have the luxury of time, but I want you to touch me.” She was helping him, lifting to work down the pants, instinctively knowing they couldn’t undress and lie flesh to flesh. He sat back on his heels, working his own belt, freeing himself. Shoved down his pants and thought it might be a kindness to them both that he forget about pleasure and think only of claiming her as his.
They’d both come too far for that.
She blushed fit to light the cave when he swept the damp cloth between her legs and then over his own private parts. Not as good as a real shower, but even this semblance of clean would help make her feel human again.
Kneeling forward, he cupped her buttocks, lifted her and dipped his mouth to the neat curls hiding her folds. Wet and ready for him, he touched her with his tongue, seeking out the small hard nub of her clitora to worry and suckle and graze with his teeth. He’d seen all of her in the cage, touched her, held her. Tasted her mouth and skin, but never here. This was nectar of the gods.
Every bit as sweet as he’d dreamed of in that stark cage.
She rewarded him with small panting cries of desperation, lifting her hips in time with the leisurely back and forth of his tongue. Hands clutching aimlessly at his hair, his face, anything she could reach.
Did Justin make her moan like this?
Lifting his head, he slid both hands under her tunic, counting each rib, covering her small breasts. He could spend an age caressing the hard peaks of her nipples, bringing her to climax with that touch alone, had they time. She moaned again, a low, delicious sound deep in her throat. Clutched at his sleeves to draw him
to her.
He went willingly, freeing his hands, to brace himself over her. His. No male would take her from him.
“I’m clean,” he said, echoing words he’d spoken countless times in the Ludus Maxim for the reassurance of the paying clients. A daily dose of Telagrim, and barrier protection ensured that no disease took hold. “And I won’t get you with child.”
She was guiding him inside her, no longer listening. His loins rippled with the surging hormones pouring into his bloodstream. Her fingers circled him, brushing the sensitive tip, grazing his tight balls. His perfect control shattered with the need to thrust, to feel every part of her slick channel, to get ball deep inside of her and stay there until he came in an explosion of pure bliss.
The rising pitch of her whimpering moans, the sound of his harsh panting breath echoed faintly around the enclosing cave walls. Kelskar clawed back control, concentrating on her pleasure, her climax. As gladiator, he would thrust for as long as required, holding back his release until the clients got what they paid for. Far harder now to hold back with Janie fluttering around his cock, telling him she was near and enticing him to drown with her.
“Kelskar.” She made his name sound like a prayer to a fallen god. Calling out for something she didn’t fully understand. Knowing only that he would be her salvation.
He would steal time for her. Time they didn’t have, but in all the coming horror, she’d always know this with him.
“No.” Janie rose up, sensing his withdrawal. Breathing swift and shallow, she lifted her hips to lock them together. “I don’t care. Come inside me, Kelskar.”
He went very still, teeth bared in bliss that walked too close to agony.
“One day,” he growled. “One day.”
He spilled his seed onto her soft belly in a mindless thrusting rush, his cock sliding over her clitora, jumping together into that dark abyss where a man could lose himself for a brief moment and simply feel. He pinned her hands high above her head, seeking out the surrender in her eyes, the silent yes that made her his.
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