“The data knife? Sure. It’s –”
He snatched it from her. “You are evil female. Dirty. I will show you how we treat blasphemers before we behead them.”
Oh. She liked her head even more than her fingers. “Wait, umm...”
“Unfortunately I cannot behead you because those above want you. However you will now take off your dress. You want to be dirty. You be dirty.”
That didn’t quite make sense but she obeyed, slowly, sweating through every twist of her body as she drew the dress over her head. Her lack of underwear and the torn and stitched crotch of her tights drew more mutters from the officer and jeers from his men.
It was then that she realized she’d not seen any of them show a single square of skin. Not even an eye.
“Leave the boots and the tights on. Give me the data knife.”
The officer took the dress and stuffed it into a backpack one of his men carried. From that same pack he pulled a length of slipmeknot rope – she recognized the branding. “Bend over with your ass facing me.”
There was a gleam of satisfaction, a sexual leer in his thick words. The man in the armor was turned on. Though nothing else pleased her, that did in a weird way. He wasn’t squeaky clean after all. Hypocrite.
With no real choice in this, Ember bent over, presenting her ass in his direction. She felt his hands there, heard a tear as he ripped the crotch open. Did he mean to rape her, here? So much for their serenity. Hands planted on her knees she waited, trembling with hatred as much as fear.
Something cold and hard touched her entrance and he began to work it into her, pushing slowly.
“You can keep this filthy knife of yours up here until we reach someone who can decide how else to punish you, whore. I see someone has fucked you recently. I smell him on you.”
She shook more, wishing she could turn and slash out his throat.
The last hard thrust made her wince but she said nothing. He ran rope between her legs, made her stand while he tied a rope belt that also ran between her legs, dragging upward between her pussy lips.
“There.” He patted her pussy. “It will stay there and remind you not to be bad. Your hands I will also require.” He talked as he tied a rope harness that wrapped around her chest, above and below her breasts, then he attached both wrists to it. As he worked, he lectured her about how good girls behaved. “You will be careful not to fall, yes?”
The false kindliness in his voice made her nauseous.
She grunted back. Her wrists were attached to her chest by lengths of rope. If she fell, she could throw her arms out to lessen the impact, but not very far. The hard feel of the data knife inside her reminded her of where it was and what he’d done.
“This is how we treat filthy whores.” A smaller section of rope hung from his hand and he made it swing then flicked it up to lash across her nipples. She snarled silently. “Onward. You walk in front of me. Whenever we pass through a safe area I will make sure to whip your bottom and your back until they are red. If you protest, I will whip your exposed breasts.”
Oh the hypocrisy.
She turned away and he chuckled.
“You killed six of my men. You’re lucky I let you live.”
If only she’d introduced that pet cataclysmic virus she had sitting on her knife.
There would be opportunities to run. There must be.
The one unexpected problem was that being naked and having that rope where it was, with the data knife handle inside her, and all these males watching her while he whipped her bottom, or even while she merely walked, it made her so very horny.
Impossible, as she’d told Hoss.
Every time they reached a whole building, stepped onto floor that was not going to cave in, the officer did what he’d promised – he whipped her with the rope. Pushed her against a wall, had her bend over, had her kneel and put her head to the floor. Every position known to mankind, when having sex.
Embarrassing.
Such a damn turn-on.
And each whip stroke across her ass cheeks made her wetter, made her want to touch herself and come. She swore silently until the officer ceased to whip her. Then she recovered, panting, and listened to him chastise her again using words from a forgotten language she vaguely recognized.
Meretricibus dantur mercedes eius contabescent in infernum.
The whipping grew more fervent when he said his crazy words at the same time.
Quae fuerint peccatores metes.
She bit back her yelps, her groans, her breathy sighs, when she could.
She was sure he noticed her wetness and the puffiness of her lips below. Something affected her that transcended fear.
Why? Who? She had to face the fact that Hoss was the main suspect, for she had no desire for these soldiers. It was Hoss she thought of with every beat of the rope across her skin. Sometimes the Xatar had her bend so he could beat her pussy. Agonizing, yet still the haze of lust arrived. It had to be Hoss. He’d done something to her, given her some drug.
Why? Just to mate her?
Ig appeared after a while, and she was so very thankful none of the Xatar saw him. She staggered onward, dying for release. Her moisture began to leak onto her red tights and turn their color darker. Her cunt juice as Hoss called it. Was it possible to die of shame or from not climaxing? She definitely had a blue pussy.
Chapter 17
No matter how fast he ran across fallen trunks, climbed walls, or traversed rickety obstacles in this forest of monstrous trees and decaying civilization, Hoss kept up with him. His own muscles felt tireless. Whatever neurosensory adjustments the monks had added, he was running on optimum fuel.
They saw the Xatar and Ember ahead, via a gap that went through a building and across a chasm. They halted to decide how to strike then kept going. They only needed the right moment.
With some patience and much stalking, the moment arrived.
The sledge gun could ram holes through most things, but the side effects of shrapnel and concussion meant anywhere near Ember was a no go, but taking down a bunch of Xatar who were ahead and another few behind where she walked was doable.
They paused on a rare open rooftop, looking directly down. He knew he could take the downward descent rapidly. Hoss, maybe too.
“Go.” He signaled to the kneeling half-orc.
“I know. Shush.” With the rectangular weapon aimed through a gap, a fracture at the edge of this roof, Hoss squeezed the trigger once, was rocked back by the enormous kick, adjusted his aim, and squeezed again.
Awesomeness in motion.
He’d never seen anyone handle such a big weapon so adroitly. It weighed more than he did, possibly, yet Hoss seemed to think it was a feather. A big feather that shot projectiles that...
Vaporized one end of a girder bridge and the other end too – trapping Ember and her six remaining escorts on the island of a support structure. A column beneath it ran down into the abyss. It held, though that’d been the one if. What if it was fragile and crumbled?
“Go!”
He leaped over the side, clawed cybernetic hand dragging down the building for balance, kicking off to avoid dangerous spots then grabbing and regaining position. Climbing, falling, mostly both at once. Tree branches whipped past. Animals scampered aside, erupted into flight.
A mere human could never have done this.
He couldn’t have a few days ago.
Maybe his dick had given him extra something?
The Xatar hadn’t seen them yet, but they were turning, looking up, then looking higher.
Hoss was following, and apart from the echoing rumble from the exploding shells and a few Xatar screams, he heard nothing undue. No orc yells. The orc was still with him.
A few Xatar raised their weapons and fired. The bolts zinged by, burning the air blue – close but not close enough.
The last twenty meters, he drew the pistol he’d reserved for close fighting and shot the one Xatar who’d locked eyes. Perfect aim while falli
ng at speed? Impossible.
But easy. He flipped outward and leaped the last distance to the end of the shattered girder, shot another warrior. Four left. One was spinning and aiming his arc rifle. Hoss arrived, thumping down at the far end. Now he had to take care not to shoot the idiot. As well as Ember, for she was smack in the middle...time thumped to a stop...and beautiful, and naked, with her shoulder-length curly red hair swinging in tiny flails as she whirled and saw him. Her wrists were tied and gods, she was mostly naked.
Hot. Naked. Breasts.
His new cock chose then to erect to life like a mammoth creature rising from the deep. The unexpected devotion of blood to cock was probably why he hung there, almost getting shot.
Luckily Hoss picked off his opponent, the force of the blast thrusting the Xatar into space, blood droplets raining.
Ember. Rescue the female.
A bolt flattened the air and skimmed past his left arm, tearing away a small piece of flesh.
Pain skittered it, roaring silently, blotting out thought and replacing mind with a ball of sheer rage. Veins burned. Muscles popped outward, creaked, realigned.
RAGE.
He cracked his right cybernetic arm across the next Xatar, batting him off the girder, screaming. He leaped onto the head of the next one, feet and hands grasping the helmet, his muscles crackling and humming as they moved, twisted, burst, engorged.
Glee surged, made him laugh as he yanked and tore.
Redness again, splattering.
Did he wrench off that one’s head?
Blood was everywhere. A remorseless transformation gripped him.
His vision darkened and his cock led him. He hurdled his way to her, killing relentlessly, as if plucking flowers, sending Xatars flying to their deaths, sometimes in pieces. As he ran he felt his back hunch, the distortion of his body.
He was no longer man, no longer cyborg.
He was a beast that knew nothing but red-raw rage and lust.
Before he reached her, he saw her fall. The girder under them was twisting and everyone and everything was going down, down.
Bouncing off the buildings and trees, he followed her twisting body into the chasm.
Catch her?
She fell slower than the others, somehow.
Catch her, he did.
Caught her, cradled her, clambered down and carried her into the inky depths beneath, where monsters lurked.
Somewhere here, water dripped. A place to clean the blood from the skin and fuck.
Chapter 18
Breath torn from her, arms flailing, falling into the chasm between buildings, Ember had prepared for death.
Ig had sacrificed himself on the fall. Appearing under her and pushing, he’d tried to save her. She’d heard the whirr of his little wings and maybe felt that other dimensional power being used to slow her descent. It was yet another impossible. She figured fate owed her anyway.
Then Baz, or whatever was this contorted monster he’d become, had wrenched her from the air. He tumbled down the building, slowing them, landing them both in a pile of rotting leaves and the gods knew what. He’d brought her deep into the under structure of this festering forest-city world, then torn or stripped the ropes from her. In shock that she lived, she’d watched him run off. Too late to beg that he stay.
The data knife had slipped from inside her and she didn’t know where it had fallen. It seemed so trivial now, in the face of everything that’d happened.
Here stank. Rotting plant or animal, rotting water for all she could tell. There was Xatar blood on her as well as some of the cyborg’s. In saving her, he’d hurt himself.
She was alive.
Ig was gone too. She thought he lived, though what he’d done must’ve strained his power to the limits. It could’ve killed him. She’d even checked under her butt to be sure she’d not squashed him. He healed better in his elsewhere space, so perhaps he was licking his wounds there and would return later.
Ig wasn’t immortal. How she knew that, she wasn’t sure. Her childhood mentor might’ve told her long ago.
Crouching, shivering, she looked about and saw nothing. At least that man had stopped screaming. A Xatar, hopefully. She’d seen Hoss fighting. The orc was strong, agile. He must have survived.
She believed that. She found each hand with the other, threaded her fingers together, gripped tight. The scratches and bruises on her body must number in the dozens yet nothing seemed broken.
Believe.
Hoss might’ve walked out on her, but she wanted him still, liked him so much his death would have her bawling. She’d asked him to leave though. And here he was saving her. Or trying to.
Please be alive, Hoss.
Dark here, so dark the drip of water consumed her senses.
The creak of long-dead, buried buildings. Dead people too, she guessed. Most things down here would be dead.
Must not panic. She wiped her eyes with her fingers, sniffled.
She was alive.
Two choices. Die in the dark or find the light.
Something rustled closer, breathed on her and snorted. A man’s nose touched her neck. She managed not to jerk.
“Baz? Baz, are you okay?” She knew his scent and recognized the cybernetic arm he’d slid across her back.
That scent weaved and ripped through her and hit home, energizing her desires.
She shuddered and curled forward over the aching part of her, groaning. It wasn’t just Hoss who aroused her. He hadn’t done this to her. Someone else then...
A chemical reaction. An aphrodisiac of some kind. A targeted one.
Fuck. She rocked, with her palm over her clit, fingers venturing lower.
Baz grunted, licked her neck then scooped her up, his arms firm and hard under her body. He began to run into the dark, as if he could see precisely where he was going. She clutched the hard shoulder muscle above his biceps, turned her head, and bit down onto his neck, squirming in his arms, whimpering.
The cyborg grunted and held her tighter, as if to be sure she stayed in place, in his arms.
Resist?
Not happening. She’d had enough of resisting today, after being made to walk naked before a squad of Xatar and whipped; after needing to come for hours, she’d had enough. Denial was no longer a choice. Ember snuggled in, somewhat desperate, holding the torn remains of his shirt and biting the back of her thumb.
He jogged onward.
Ahead, green light showed. Baz stopped and kissed her, full mouth on mouth, no delicacy, his roughness and bristly chin scraping new abrasions on her lips. This act shook her. She was snarled in lust and in thoughts of fucking to the point where nothing else mattered. When he paused to set her on her feet and slip fingers into her slit, she sighed and parted her legs, listening to the wet noises of him finger-fucking her, bracing her hands on his body.
Aphrodisiac.
“Fuck me,” she whispered, clenching, making small sounds that should bother her but didn’t. She didn’t care. She didn’t care if she begged and pleaded and brought herself down to the level of the gutter. She needed to be fucked by Baz or Hoss, or both, and the world could go obliterate itself.
But someone had done this. Someone set her mind on this one-track course.
Baz pushed her, bent her so she was on all fours, the rough ground under her palms. Without warning he shoved his cock into her but only entered to a depth of an inch or two. She squealed at the pain, gasped and grunted at the pleasure, clawed the floor. Anything inside her, in the state she was in, was heaven.
Eyes kept wide, she realized he was as big as Hoss. He fucked her wetly if shallowly, unable to enter deeper, then stopped and carried her to the center of the soft green light.
There was water here, a raised but heavy wooden floor that echoed under the cyborg’s heavy feet, and a large disc of mottled-green terraced metal set into the ground and surrounded by leaves and earth.
Far over, near a wall, a rectangular pool of water rippled and shone, dappl
ed by light and the rush of a narrow waterfall pouring from a window far above.
An ancient swimming pool washed clean by relentless wet seasons.
The coolness contrasted with the heat of her body and his. Her nostrils dilated at his scent.
Baz set her on her feet again in the middle of the disc then tore off the remains of his shirt. He sneaked his hand about her neck with thumb caressing her collar bone gently, but when she moved from his grasp, he snarled.
Such a primitive noise. It spiked a little fear into her, but she felt her clit pop higher. Nasty man.
Ember sucked in her bottom lip. Fascinated, she raised her hand and placed it on his wrist, let it slide down the muscles that definitely bulged larger and harder than she remembered. He was naked, not a scrap of clothes. Though his obviously cybernetic side gleamed with metal both his shoulders were so massive he looked top-heavy and his back bowed. Old blood stained his ribcage and dribbled from cuts on his arm and neck.
Touching him.
Her fingers splayed on his chest as it rose and fell. So firm, so warm. Sweat made her fingers slide, made her thoughts slip to bad, nasty, depraved places. She found his navel and circled it, played in the blood-hued slick sticking his hair to his skin.
Half of him cyborg, half man, and something else now too. He had the heft and presence of a formidable killing machine, yet he was gentle with her. Maybe gentle was the wrong word.
His mouth twisted and she swore as his eyes took on a menacing aura. She’d not be surprised to hear his arteries pumped metal and blood.
“What are you?”
Did he understand?
Her legs began to shake. If she said fuck me would that be disgusting?
She wanted to.
He leaned in, wrapping rope around her neck and knotting it but stopping short of strangling her, then he tied the loose end to a rusted link of metal set into the disc.
This was the rope he’d taken off her. As if she couldn’t undo a knot. Except...it was slipmeknot rope. Genetic ID. Whoever tied the knots commanded it. Though he’d torn it from her, she’d never have the strength.
Steel (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 2) Page 9
