by Mara Leigh
“Leave us,” Octavia says to Diederik.
“Yes, boss.” The bulky Austrian nods. “I will remain outside should you need me again.”
“Fine.” Octavia flicks her wrist as she turns her attention back on me.
The door closes behind Diederik, and then she stands and sashays toward me. Her petite curvaceous form is objectively alluring and, as she moves, her dark hair swirls around her olive-skinned face, with its near perfect features.
I swear, even a gay man would find this woman sexy, and I am decidedly not a gay man. Sure, I have dabbled in that arena—what man who spent years on a pirate ship has not—but on a ten point scale from gay to straight, I’m at least an eleven.
“It’s good to see you.” Octavia eyes me up and down, her gaze lingering over my crotch. “It’s been too long.”
I shift my stance to make my semi-hard bulge more prominent, and the smile on her face tells me she thinks my arousal is for her.
In truth, I got hard while thinking of Ember.
“Looks like you’re glad to see me too.” Her hand lands on my package and squeezes.
Groaning, I lean forward, my lips close to her ear. “My cock’s always glad to see you, luv.”
Her hand strokes me again, and then she steps back, pushing forward her ample breasts. “While I am flattered by your stiff cock, you have been a very bad boy.”
“Then punish me.” I lick my lips.
As soon as I have her under my spell, I’ll ask her to release Ember. She’ll cave to anything once she’s impaled on my cock. If it comes to that. My charm, a little flirting should suffice.
“Believe me, pirate,” she says. “I do plan to punish you.” Her hand cups one of her breasts, pushing it up.
She glances over her shoulder at one of her mates, and he moves in behind her.
Replacing her hand with his, he pulls her breast free of her blouse and squeezes her soft flesh, his thumb and forefinger tightening around her hard nipple as his other hand slides between her legs, parting and lifting the fabric of her skirt from behind to fondle her sex.
Ripe and ready as always, Tavi’s scent fills my head. If forced to fuck her, I’ll close my eyes and pretend it’s Ember…
I step toward her, but one of her other mates shifts to block me.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he asks, gruffly.
Leaning, I look past him toward Octavia. She wants me. I know it. Why doesn’t she tell her mate to fuck off?
A new look arrives in Octavia’s eyes. One of determination and power. “You know how I once loved your cock,” she says to me.
The mate behind her hikes up her skirt further, and thrusts a couple of fingers inside. Rising onto her toes at the force, she moans and then strokes his face behind her, rocking her hips as she fucks his fingers.
“You had your chance, Ryker.” Her tongue rests on her upper lip as her lover’s hand pumps. It looks like he’s added more fingers, maybe threatening his whole fist. But the skirt’s hanging too far down in the front for me to be certain.
“But if you ever want to touch me again,” she says, stroking her mate’s face, “you must first tell me why Zuben had you arrested.”
“The gold bars—”
“Bullshit.” She breaks free from her lover and steps toward me as her mate licks her juices off his hand, damp far past his wrist. “I want the truth.”
“How the fuck should I know why that robot does anything?”
“So, you know nothing of Zuben’s research project?” Her breast still exposed and the scent of her arousal strong, Tavi circles me, her hand softly on my leather jacket as she makes her rounds.
“The robot and I aren’t exactly friendly.”
“I thought his pet project was a fools errand, based on a fairy tale,” she says, “but it was in my best interest to let him pursue it.”
I shrug as if it’s nothing to do with me.
“Zuben assured me that you were the key he’d been searching for.” Her hand slides up my back. “I’ve had your vein before, but not for many years, and I never thought to test…” She stops in front of me. So close I could lean down to steal her lips.
Should I? No.
“You’re saying Zuben wants me for more than my gold bars?” I lower my gaze to her chest and rub my package. “Maybe he wants a taste of this too?”
It’s best if I act like the Ryker she knows, distracted by her, all my thoughts and actions guided by my cock.
She takes a step back. “Look at me.”
“Believe me, I’m looking.” I lick my upper lip.
“Look into my eyes, you ass.” There’s a hint of amusement in her voice. A good sign.
As I look into Octavia’s eyes, I think of Ember, hoping the woman I’m with will mistake my near-rabid lust as being for her.
“Clearly Zuben was wrong.” She shrugs. “Or he purposefully misled me. Who the fuck cares. Let him rot with the others in that dungeon.”
“Who else you got down there?” I ask, seeing an opening but trying to sound indifferent. DEFTA has a legit prison for vampires who break our laws, one where prisoners have rights and proper sentences. That dungeon is something else all together.
She frowns. Asking questions, I’m walking a tightrope here. I need to bring up Ember without arousing suspicions—suspicions that would drive Tavi to keep Ember captive forever—or even worse, land me back down there myself. My chest tightens as panic threatens. I cannot be held captive again.
“My dungeon is not your concern.” She returns to her chair and sits, leaving her skirt hiked up around her waist. Holding her tit in one hand, she fondles her sex with the other.
“Of course.” She squeezes her nipple. “If you and I can come to an agreement, my business would be your business too.” Bending up one leg, she rests her heel on the chair and lets her knee drop to the side, fully exposing her red, wet pussy.
My cock pounds as her scent reaches me even more strongly. As much as it’s Ember I want, I am a fucking male vampire who recently fed, and “fucking” is starting to dominate my brain, dominate my whole body.
In spite of what she’s done to me, it’s all I can do to keep from whipping out my painfully hard rod and slamming it into Tavi right there on the chair in front of her mates. She loves a good hate fuck and used to piss me off just to earn one.
Memories of our time together race through my mind—the way she liked to be bound tight while I drove into her. How she liked sex to hurt.
“I have a dilemma.” She traces her index finger through her damp folds, then plays with her clit, and I can’t help but watch. “Now that you’ve been in my dungeon, I can’t just release you, not without due process.”
Absurd. There was no hint of “due process” involved in putting me into that dungeon. The place is clearly for vampires she wants locked up without the benefit of a trial or the relative comfort of DEFTA’s prison.
What is she up to?
Pushing two fingers inside herself, she moans as she licks her upper lip. “I can’t show you any favoritism, just because I crave your hard cock.” Her fingers draw in and out, the wet sound heightening my building need. “But perhaps we can strike a deal for your freedom.”
Anger and lust stir my brain, and I try to concentrate. To remember my objectives. To think about anything beyond wanting to punish Tavi with my cock. I want to take all the power away from the most powerful vampire in the city, the one who hurt me and trapped Ember. I want to control when she feels pleasure and pain, when she comes, when she breathes. Fuck.
More memories rage through me. When we first met, it was Tavi who was under my spell, but as she gained her mysterious power that allowed her to seize the top post at DEFTA, eventually I realized it was her who controlled me. That’s when I got out.
“Is this what you want?” She lifts her other leg, spreading herself, and two of her mates take her ankles and lift them, stroking her legs and spreading them wide. Her long sharp nails scrape
through her soft folds, drawing blood.
“If you want this,” she says, her voice full of lust. “Take it!”
Releasing my cock from my pants, I move toward her. I’ll fuck her if that’s what it takes to free Ember.
But she holds up her hand to stop me. “Not yet.” She shakes her head slowly and glances up to the males holding her legs.
They release her, and she shifts her position, crossing her legs and hiding my target. I squeeze my member, letting her see its girth, its exposed head and the seed already spilling from its tip.
She wants me. I know it. It’s written all over her, I just have to figure out how to use that to my advantage.
“Ryker, my love,” Octavia coos. “You’re the only man who’s ever said no to me. You’re lucky I didn’t have you killed for rejecting me.”
“Like I told you back then.” My voice is strained. “I can’t be tied down.”
“Oh, but I know that you can.” Her eyes flash with mischief and lust.
I chuckle and then lower my voice. “You can tie me up—literally—but only after I bind you and fuck you senseless first.”
Her cheeks redden and her legs rub together. “You’re lucky I have so many fond memories of how you can use that cock.” Licking her lips she stares at my pounding erection.
“Yeah?” I squeeze it. “How fond are we talking?”
“Fond enough to forgive all—if we can strike a deal.”
“A deal sounds good.” Stroking my cock, I grin. “But deals have two sides and I’ve got terms too. Something I need from you, before your cunt, ass or throat get any of this.” I pump into my hand.
Her chest rises with a quick intake of breath, but she quickly regains her composure. “Do you want to hear my terms?” She leans back in the red chair and rubs her legs together.
“Shoot.”
“I will grant your freedom, forgive your past transgressions and crimes, under one simple condition.”
I stroke myself. “Is this condition stiff enough for you?”
Laughing, she licks her lips. “Refuse what I want, and you’ll be locked in that dungeon forever.”
My heart rate increases. She hasn’t even said what she wants yet, but I assume it’s my cock, and I’m ready to give her anything so I won’t be trapped down there again.
“Ryker.” Her voice rises in volume, and her body seems to expand in size. She’s still physically tiny, but her power has grown in the years we’ve been apart, and she’s terrifying now.
“I will not forgive another rejection,” she says. “Be my mate, or spend the rest of eternity in my dungeon.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ember
I wake from a deep sleep, wrapped in the heavy warmth of a bed that’s firm but yielding enough to be comfortable.
My moment of comfort vanishes when I remember not only where I am but also the source of the warmth. I’m trapped in the arms of a gigantic bear.
His breaths come slowly. Very slowly. His massive ribcage rising and falling in what seems like intervals of fifteen to twenty seconds.
He must be asleep. Now is my chance to escape.
I shift, trying to use my shoulders to nudge away his huge arm, but just that one limb feels like it weighs a ton against my body.
Pressing down into his fur for leverage, I try again.
He snorts, and tightens his hold on me. Crap. I’ve woken the beast.
I lie still, hoping to fool him into thinking I was only moving in my sleep, but he turns over.
He’s going to crush me.
I fight to get free, unwilling to suffocate without putting up a fight.
But the creature gently settles me onto the stone, my body retracting against the cold hardness after the bear’s body warmth. He nudges me up to sit.
His breath is warm and moist, and as my eyes adjust to the darkness, his shape backs away from me, whimpering each time his left paw strikes the ground.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, even though it seems foolish to talk to a beast.
His head dips and rises, like he’s nodding.
“Can I help?”
The beast exhales a sound, almost like an attempt at vocalization, but I have no idea how to interpret the sounds of a bear—even if I’m right and that’s what he’s trying to do.
“I can’t see much.” I fight to keep my voice calm, but it’s equally scratchy and shaky.
He moves again, continuing to favor his left paw, and then gently nudges my body.
“You want me to stand?”
He huffs.
I rise onto my feet, and then feel the pressure of his snout at my hip.
“This way?”
He huffs again and, keeping one arm on the stone wall, I walk slowly, the creature moving alongside me, guiding my way.
He snorts and I stop. Then I feel the pressure of his snout pushing up one of my arms. I reach along the surface of the wall until I reach something different. My hands explore what it seems like he wanted me to find, and I recognize the shape from the ones I saw in the halls. A torch.
But how do I light it?
I fumble around, feeling everything, until I discover a thin, metal stick protruding from the base of the torch.
The bear snorts. I lift the stick. It releases from the base, and I feel its length, detecting a different texture at its tip. Is it a match? Or something like that?
Remembering a different texture on the wall to the side of the torch’s base, I find that place again. Yes. There’s a place on the wall that’s rougher, unlike the smooth cold dampness of the cave walls.
The bear nudges me again and something brushes my other hand. The bear is trying to give me something. I take it, trying to guess what it is from the texture. Twigs? Straw?
Going on instinct and hope, I drag the stick’s tip quickly across the rough spot. A spark! It’s just a flash, but it confirms the position of the rough area to the side of the torch, and what it’s for.
Excited, I raise the straw near as I strike the rough patch again. Then again. On the fifth try, the spark hits the straw and it lights, small flames flaring in the darkness.
I raise it and the torch springs to life, filling the space with light.
“I did it!”
The bear snorts and huffs, and my pride is flooded out by fear as the mammoth creature comes into full view. Bigger than any bear I’ve seen on TV or the movies. He’s several times the size of a human and his brown fur shines in the torchlight. But nothing outshines his eyes, amber that borders on gold with flecks of bright light that seems to come from within.
Should I run? No. He would outrun me. And if the bear plans to hurt me, wouldn’t he have done so already?
I reach forward, slowly, and he moves until my hand is against the fur at the side of his head. Without thinking, I thread my fingers into the soft warmth, and he moans, a rumbling sound that transfers into my body and almost makes me pull back my hand.
But gathering my courage I continue stroking the bear’s fur, and he rubs his head against my hip.
Then I remember why he wanted me to light the torch. Or at least why I wanted light. It’s crazy how I’ve been attributing human traits to this animal. Anthropomorphizing. That’s what it’s called.
But my survival instincts, or something inside me, urge me to believe that this animal wants my help. That he might spare my life if I do.
“Your paw,” I say gently. “May I see?”
He backs up to sit on his haunches and then raises his left paw toward me. It’s massive. More than a foot in width, with pads across the top that mimic human toes from the underside. Above that, claws extend several inches, sharpened to points that could rip me in shreds without effort.
My body tenses, bracing for a flesh-ripping swat, but the paw stops a foot ahead of my face and turns toward the light.
Something glints. Something metallic stuck between two of the meaty looking pads of his paw.
“That must hurt,” I say softly.
It looks like it would be like having a huge splinter between your toes, one that gets jammed further in with each step.
The bear huffs.
“May I?”
He nods. This is not my imagination. This bear understands what I’m saying. There is no other explanation for what’s happening.
Less than a quarter inch of metal is protruding from the bear’s paw and, without any kind of a tool, I’m going to have to touch what looks like thick, leathery skin.
I place my index finger and thumb of one hand around the spot to brace it, then pinch the same digits of my other hand around the metal. I tug gently.
The bear’s bright amber eyes show so much pain it hurts my soul, and a low muffled howl struggles in his throat.
“I’m going to have to pull harder,” I tell him. Maybe it will be like ripping off a bandage, the faster the better.
He dips his head again, then looks at me with what seems like gratitude or at least trust in his eyes.
I dig into the fur beneath the metal, moving my fingers as low on the shard as I can, then I inhale a deep breath and pull.
An inch-long piece of metal comes out of his paw. The bear howls in pain and backs away from me. Then he rises on his hind legs and makes a noise—half roar, half howl—that penetrates every last part of me. He twists to the side, his back writhing as if he’s in even more pain.
What have I done? Will he kill me now that I’ve done what he wanted? Or worse, did someone put that shard there on purpose to tame him into submission?
He backs away into a dark shadow at the back of the cave, and his body convulses, his spine seeming to crack and change shape before my eyes. His roars transform from howls into something more human, and his fur contracts into his skin. He seems to be changing shape.
But I can’t trust my eyes. Once again he’s only a shadow in the darkness, even harder to see in detail now that my vision’s adjusted to the light.
My body is frozen, unable to act, and when I try to coax myself into movement, I’m not sure if my inaction is rooted in curiosity or fear.
