by Loki Renard
Her cries could be heard up and down the halls but nobody came to help her. She was entirely at Savage's mercy as his hand met the red flesh of her bottom in a fast hard tattoo. There was no lecturing, there was no room in the thrashing for words. Savage was saying everything he wanted to say with his hard palm.
Her pants wriggled down her legs and her hot red cheeks bounced and rolled with every slap. When her pants finally fell free of her feet her legs began flailing and parting, showing Savage her tight dark anal bud and her pink slit which was, for reasons she could not have hoped to explain, slick with her own juices.
Savage growled low in his throat. The spanking stopped and she heard the belt slipping out from the belt loops of his trousers. She thought she was going to feel the sting of the leather but instead she felt the thick bulbous head of his manhood pressing between her lips.
She was sniffling with tears from the spanking as he slid inside her, taking her with more care and consideration than she'd expected. “You are mine, Matthews,” he growled, his cock deep inside her, his thighs pressed to her red hot rear. “Don't make the mistake of forgetting that.”
Zora moaned and growled almost simultaneously. She could not deny her arousal, nor how good it felt to have Savage buried inside her. But her rebellion still burned as she jabbed her elbow back and up into his solar plexus, winding him momentarily. He rolled off her and she scampered backwards, yanking her pants up quickly.
“What the hell has gotten into you?” Savage breathed, holding his hand to his midsection. She must have hit him harder than she thought.
“You can't treat me like this,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest. “You can't disregard my feelings and you can't just smack me because you don't like what I have to say.”
He growled as he replied. “I didn't smack you because I didn't like what you had to say. I smacked you because you were rude and insubordinate.”
“Well I just got a whole lot more insubordinate, didn't I? So what are you going to do? Beat me?” She watched defiantly as Savage stood upright, moving gingerly as he did. Her eyes narrowed. Something wasn't right. She was damn sure her elbow hadn't done that much damage. Before he could stop her, she stepped forward and lifted his shirt, revealing a white bandage wrapped around his lower ribcage. “What happened to you?”
“Broken rib or two, nothing serious.” He winced slightly as he tugged his shirt back down. It was obvious that he wasn't pleased for her to be seeing him injured. The man was like a wild animal that way, never willing to show the slightest bit of weakness.
“Fuck. I'm sorry.” Her ass was throbbing, but the guilt was way worse than any physical pain. She'd never meant to hurt him, she'd just wanted him to respect her a little.
“You didn't know.” He smiled a small, tight, non-smile.
His politness was much harder to deal with than his anger. She started speaking quickly, almost babbling. “I am really sorry. I missed you and then you bought back... her... I would never have hit you if I knew.”
“You should never have lifted a finger to me in the first place,” he said in a tone so solemn it was almost sad. “But we will deal with this later. Enjoy your new quarters.”
* * *
Tex sat watching his silent captive sleep. Hooked up to several IV's, she barely moved. If it weren't for the slow rise and fall of her chest he might have worried that she was dead. There was something about this woman, something that drew him in spite of his reservations. The stories he'd heard about her piqued his curiosity for sure. To satisfy that curiosity he'd had a nurse inject something into the IV to wake Anja up. He needed some alone time with the woman before Savage came back and interfered.
As the drug took effect, she began to stir. Her pale eyelashes fluttered then she made a small groaning sound and suddenly sat bolt upright, her hair flying around her head in a pale gold halo as she went from barely concious to a hundred percent alert in a split second.
Tex held back the utterance of surprise that had risen to his lips and exchanged it for something more debonair. “Hello, my dear.” He let his voice go low and husky, the tone that ladies usually melted for.
Anja ignored him at first, only eyeing him suspiciously as she looked around the room. Oh yes. This one was legit. This one had seen real action. It was in every line of her body, her muscles already tightly prepared for fight or flight.
“Who are you?” She spat the question at him viciously.
There were many responses he could have given. The one he did give was driven by an impulse of possession. “I'm your new owner.” It was true, if a tad on the incendiary side.
Anja growled. “I don't have an owner.”
“Oh but you do,” he corrected her.
She wanted to do him violence. He could see it in her eyes, in the way they flashed with furious passion. Ordinarily he would never have tolerated such a display but he wanted to know this one in a way she could not be known if he simply frightened her into submission.
“What's your name?” She sneered as she asked the question.
He kept his cool, his voice staying measured and even. “You can call me Tex.”
“Tex.” Recognition glimmered in her eyes. “I know who you are.”
“I see my reputation proceeds me.”
“As a bottom feeding mercenary pimp.” Anja's eyes blazed. “I'd rather die than work for you.”
Tex's voice was silky smooth. “That can be arranged.”
He was impressed by how thoroughly unconcerned she was at his threat. She called his bluff immediately. “Go on then, draw the gun and do it.”
Tex smirked slightly. She was very presumptuos. “Who says I have a gun?”
The sneer established itself under her nose. “You're an idiot if you don't.”
Leaning forward, Tex lowered his voice to a soft drawl as he held her rebellious gaze. “I don't need a gun to handle you, little lady.”
The impact of his display was lost on her. “Call me little lady again and I'll crush your balls.”
Tex's cheek twitched in what could have been a smile. “Fiesty, aren't we.”
“Don't call me fiesty,” she said, looking around the room again, appearing to have dismissed him entirely as a viable threat. “Fiesty's a word you use for stupid fat women who won't shut up.”
Tex's brows rose. “Abraisive then.”
She tilted her head to the side and thought for a moment. “That's fair.”
His prediction of her allure diminishing with the opening of her mouth had proven to be quite accurate. She was abraisive. She was rude. She was a hundred times worse than Zora Matthews on her worst day. How the hell had Savage ever managed to run a team with these sorts of people on it?
A flash of movement interrupted his thoughts. Anja had ripped the IV fluids out of her hand and was steaming towards him at a fast rate of knots. It was difficult to take evasive action or direct action either for that matter, her movements were quick, erratic and almost impossible to predict. He reached out to try to stop her, but she wasn't there anymore, she ducked under his arm and drove the base of her palm up into his nose.
There was a crunch and a sunflower burst of pain as he fell backwards. She was instantly atop him, her hands around his neck squeezing. Trickles of blood from the places where the IVs had been roughly removed spread down between her fingers, smearing his skin with her blood. It quickly mingled with his own as the flow from his nose flooded all the way down his neck making a complete mess of his shirt.
It all happened so quickly Tex was quite unprepared to respond. She had immobilized him easily using pressure points which made it almost impossible for him to fight back as she choked the life out of him. It was quite likely, he thought in the recessed part of his brain that was forever the observer, that he was going to die there on the floor at the hands of the femme fatale that had so fascinated him.
There was a loud noise, but the world was going blurry and he wasn't sure he quite cared anymore. Then Anja's ha
nds slipped away from his neck. Air rushed in with his deep choking breath, bringing with it the fear and anger of the fight for survival. They were impulses that came far too late, for he had already been saved.
“GODDAMIT ANJA! YOU DO NOT TOUCH ANYONE. YOU DO NOT MOVE FROM THAT DAMN BED. YOU DO NOT FUCKING BREATHE WITHOUT MY PERMISSION, YOU UNDERSTAND ME?” Savage was in the room, shouting angry words at Anja as he backed her down towards the bed. Where she had looked crazed, she now looked cowed as she slunk back up onto the mattress.
“Yes sir,” she wailed, curling up on the bed in the foetal position. “Sorry sir.”
“I WILL NAIL YOUR HIDE TO THE FUCKING WALL,” Savage shouted, snarling at her with unrestrained anger.
Tex watched fascinated as he tried to staunch the blood from his nose. Where his refined approach had failed, Savage's agression seemed to be having a real effect. Anja clearly respected power and masculinity. That dissapointed him. It indicated a primal, simple temperament. Perhaps she was not everything he had imagined her to be. Perhaps she really was little more than a shell of a woman with a slavish devotion to the man who had once been her commanding officer. Pity.
The room was fast filling with agents. Two of them helped him up and ushered him to another part of the medical ward where a doctor was already standing by to set his nose. He could still hear Savage yelling at Anja at the top of his lungs like a drill sargeant with a rebellious young recruit.
“Are you ready sir?” The doctor spoke with polite deference, the kind he was starting to appreciate as the numbers of arrogant ex-military castoffs grew.
“Sir?” The doctor interrupted his train of thought with an apologetic smile.
“Oh yes, the nose,” Tex said, “please go ahead.” It was going to be yet another tedious, painful complication in his day but he supposed it couldn't be helped.
Chapter Fifteen
“Feeling better?” Savage managed something like a sympathetic smile. Tex didn't like it. He didn't enjoy being on the receiving end of sympathy. Sympathy was for the weak. He was also aware that he looked silly sitting on a gurney with a large white bandage across the bridge of his nose and bruising and swelling forcing both of his eyes into a half closed position. Funny that one lucky blow could do so much damage.
On the bright side, Savage's presence gave him the opportunity to have the word he'd been meaning to have ever since that batshit junkie had taken a swing at his face. He fixed the behemoth of a man with the best version of a steely look he could manage given his facial bruising and ground out a question. “Do you seriously expect me to entertain the idea of that woman acting as an agent on my behalf?”
“She just needs a little discipline...”
Tex cut him off before he could get started with the explanations and the excuses and the rationalizations that poured out of the man whenever the failings of his subordinates were mentioned. “It seems, Mr Savage, that every female under your command lacks discipline.”
“I can see how it would appear that way,” Savage admitted, failing to withhold a smile. “But they all do their jobs when the time comes.”
“And in their downtime they lash out, misbehave and become irrationally attached to you. They pine for you if they can't have you. They fight one another in the hopes of gaining your favor.” Tex cocked his head to the side. “I'm not sure if you ran a military unit or a small cult.”
Savage made no reply. He just stood there being impenetrably handsome in a way that even Tex could appreciate. He'd stripped down to his undershirt and his bulky musculature was defined even when he was at rest. It was no wonder women lost their minds over him, he was everything they'd ever been taught to want, a classic alpha male having his way with any female in heat. Well the alpha was about to learn that he couldn't always get his own way. “I don't want Anja here,” he said finally. “She is of no use to me.”
“You haven't seen her in the field yet,” Savage said, completely failing to get the message. “She's a tiger.”
“I don't care if she's a damn chimera,” Tex snapped, on the verge of losing his temper entirely. “She attacked me.”
Savage nodded dismissively. “And she'll be disciplined for that.”
“Oh yes, slap her bottom and tell her she's a bad girl. Good idea.” Sarcasm positively seeped from every syllable.
“No. That would be a very bad idea,” Savage said, ignoring his tone.
Though Tex knew he would probably regret it, he couldn't help but ask the question. “Why?”
“Spanking works very well with women who are rebellious but inherently soft. Someone like Zora responds to it because it imparts just enough discomfort to make her think without the need for being brutal. It's intimate in nature and encourages a domestic kind of submission.” Savage paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts before continuing. “Spanking does not work well with a fighter like Anja. She'll push you to places you don't want to go, she'll interpret it as a fight and she won't lose. Someone like Anja needs to be put in her place hard and fast. That's why she's so dangerous injured. Handling her softly is bad for her and bad for everyone's safety.”
“You do realize that you're talking about her like she's some kind of vicious animal.”
“It's not far off the truth,” Savage agreed. “Whilst we're on the subject, don't undermine me in her eyes the way you do with Zora. It will destabilize her and make her dangerous.”
“If she's that unpredictable, maybe she should be put down.”
“She just needs time to adjust,” Savage said, missing the flow of the conversation yet again. “And maybe a low dose anti-psychotic.” He cracked a smile as if he'd made a joke, but Tex saw no humor in the truth.
“She lacks respect and empathy. She is a clear and present danger to everyone here,” he stared Savage down. “This is a business, not your personal harem.”
Savage finally began to take the affair seriously enough to look a little concerned. As Tex expected he became more aggressive in his demeanor. He drew himself up, his chest thrust out, his back ramrod straight. He probably wasn't aware of the way he was projecting authority and it might have had some effect on someone less studied in human behavior, but all Tex saw was a man desperately trying to get his own way.
“I know what this place is,” Savage said. “You wanted me because I can run teams that do things other teams just can't do. That means having people who aren't on other teams either. That means Anja. That means Zora.”
“Anja and Zora would gladly kill one another,” Tex pointed out softly.
“But they won't, because I will not allow it.” There was total certainty and arrogance in Savage's voice. The man truly seemed to believe he had both women right where he wanted them. Tex rather doubted he had an effective measure of control over either one of them.
“You're very confident, Mr Savage,” Tex said. “I hope your confidence is not misplaced.”
“It isn't.”
* * *
“Wakey wakey Zora.”
Pulled out of what was already a bad night's sleep by an insistent nudging, Zora opened her eyes and found herself staring down the barrel of a snub nosed pistol. Behind the pistol, in the fuzzy focused mid-distance was a familiar face. Anja. Of course.
“Hey,” Zora squeezed her eyes shut as if that would help repel a bullet as she reached up and pushed the gun away with the back of her hand. “Go easy.”
“Go easy?” Anja cackled and pointed the gun back at Zora's forehead. “She says to go easy.” She addressed the wall as if there were someone there listening and nodding along. If there had been it would have gone some way to explaining the way her head was bobbing up and down in a subconscious repetitive motion, though it would not have explained the teeth grinding that accompanied the movement.
“She does,” Zora yawned and looked over at the alarm clock. 4.59 am. Maybe it was just the sleepiness but she felt strangely peaceful inside, as if she were a mere passenger on a stream of events so far beyond her control that attemp
ting to influence them was a complete waste of her time. “It's far too early for me to die,” she observed casually. “I don't want to die before breakfast.”
Anja looked perplexed. Clearly this wasn't playing out the way she'd imagined it. “You should be scared.” She shook the gun threateningly in Zora's direction and pressed the muzzle to her head sharply for a moment before drawing it away. “Why aren't you scareder?”
“Ow,” Zora rubbed her head where the barrel had left a circular pressure indentation. “I don't know. I guess I figure you would have already shot me if you were going to.”
“Maybe I want to see you seeing me killing you.” Anja slurred the words slightly and swayed where she stood. Her hair was rumpled and knotted. A few silver blonde streaks fell over her pretty face, the rest were contorted and greasy, matted against her head as if she'd been forced to lie down in one position for too long. She smelled weird too, a strange acidic sour milk scent emanated from her and became worse when she made her periodic erratic movements.
“Fine,” Zora sighed, laying back against her pillow and closing her eyes once more. “Shoot me then.”
“I'll do it,” Anja threatened.
Zora opened one eye. “I know you will.”
“Why don't you care?” Anja scowled. “It's not as much fun if you don't care.” She tapped the tip of the gun against Zora's head three times. “I'm crazy you know,” she confided with a swift change of subject.
“Are you? Well that's nice,” Zora said agreeably. “Have you been crazy long?”
“The military therapist said I had a break with reality. That's why they discharged me. But I think reality broke me, that's what I think.” Anja settled in on the end of the bed looking very comfortable. Zora scooted up to make room for her, eying the pistol that was now held loosely in Anja's hand. She seemed to have forgotten about murdering anyone for the meantime.
