“Wait.” He held his arm out straight, fingers spread wide, and whispered, “Can you manipulate screens? I want food arranged regularly for us both. I want fresh bed linen and anything else you can imagine us using. I need you to find where the king kept his gear for use during sex, that must’ve existed, judging from the artworks here. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir. I can. I will do this.”
“I have a list also. You can leave the residence to get whatever you can find, tonight.”
“Certainly, sir.”
He nodded then approached the cage where she slept.
She was as perfect a woman as ever. Curves and prettiness, and secret places where a man would always lust after seeing, touching, fucking. All would have been wonderful, if not for one terrible thing.
Ryke froze.
The mask covered her beautiful golden hair but it left the rest of her exposed.
Before her hand, almost touching her fingertips and overwhelming the brilliance of her gold fingernails, a fiery green disc danced.
This couldn’t be what it looked to be. Yet... He’d glimpsed a portal once and heard them described.
This was one, though small. He’d found his portal mage.
Careful not to wake her, he lowered himself until he was sitting on the floor, then he wrapped his hands about the back of his neck. Every possible pathway this might create in the future seemed to open up then slam back down, closing. Anything could happen.
What must he do?
He didn’t want to hand her over to Gyle.
And Ormrad too...that man was snarled up in this.
A week ago, his answer would’ve been automatic.
He could either betray her, or keep her, or he must betray the king.
Why though? How could this be? It was all too much for him to believe a coincidence. Did her vision have anything to do with this? Was being able to create portals somehow infectious?
He sat there thinking, rocking a little, staring.
After a while, the portal winked out.
He had to wake her but he wouldn’t tell her of this. There was no need for her to know. Yet.
Then he sneaked forward on his knees and unlocked the cage. The clicks and clinks of metal woke her.
This luscious body uncurling before him, stretching, reminded him of what they’d agreed. Since he didn’t need her to look for another talented person who could make portals being nice was no longer necessary.
“Greetings.” Finger hooked in one of the D rings at the side of the mask, he encouraged her to get onto her hands and knees. If she didn’t know what she could do, would that be to his advantage? It seemed so.
Aunt Mary could watch her when he wasn’t around. Tell him if any more of these appeared. But he needed her close to him as much as possible.
“Up, girl. From now on, you’re going to sleep with me.”
“Oh.”
No other protest came from her. The mask was clearly responsible for that. She became a cute little slave with it on – an effect he was more than thrilled with.
A pity this couldn’t be on her all day.
Ryke smiled. “Come out.”
With two fingers in that D ring, he led her from the cage, on hands and knees.
He would put the mask on her at night with the caps clipped over her eyes, until he found out if she only did this in her sleep...until he found out more about what happened above and knew what was going to happen at the Gathering.
Though he had no spies, no way to do this.
There had to be a way. He only needed to infiltrate the inner circle of Judge Ormrad and the king’s advisor. Simple. Simple as a Mekker living on the surface of Aerthe.
A vision shivered into his head – a man’s feet in soil, a wild wind sweeping past, whistling in his ears. Then the world pixelated and turned to dust.
Sure, and that was so promising. Ryke grimaced. He rushed this decision.
Gio was valuable to everyone. He must not rush.
“Look up.” He tugged the D ring. Being positioned on one knee before her put his crotch at her head level.
Circled by the anonymity of the black mask, her lips tantalized. The spikes around it threatened minor blunt trauma. Gio opened her mouth then licked and he glimpsed her tongue. Small, squirmy pink thing. He wanted to make her run it over his cock, wanted to feel that on him, to make her suck. He also wanted to fuck her on the spot.
“Mouth dry?”
She nodded.
There was a jug of water in here somewhere. He went and found it where it sat on a table, brought it back and fed her a cupful. The mechling would have better instructions if he left her like this again, alone and masked, caged.
Again, there was that jarring bounce from ruthless interrogator to this...a somewhat caring man. It wasn’t him, was it? Maybe years and years ago. Not now.
He needed to stay on track. This Gathering might be a disaster rolling toward the royal swathe and landship.
Anything might happen.
What if the Followers were correct?
What if. They offered a weird brand of hope for all Mekkers with their theories.
He’d never thought that before but the world was shifting.
Chapter 27
“After what I found out visiting the Above, I no longer need you to give me information about a portal mage. This means I no longer need to be nice.” He almost purred that out, his balls tightening as he thrilled at the prospect of being free to do what he wanted.
“Hear that? No more nice.” He tapped the mask where it was free of spikes.
Gio seemed to take it calmly. Her eyes were covered so he couldn’t judge from those, however her ass swayed. Her lips parted a tiny amount.
“I like how quiet you get when wearing this.” He stroked her skin below the mask, trailed fingers lightly down her upper spine, watching the small hairs rise in goosebumps. He smelled her, finding it brought him both lust and a renewed appreciation for being a man.
He could do what he liked.
So much from so little. It was the ownership of her he’d always wished.
“Your neck is still bare. That needs correcting.”
He was free to do what he wanted to her, again. He’d been able to do anything before, as her interrogator, but he’d had his special rules then. No longer.
He could keep her, until whatever calamity was coming befell this landship.
Something was coming. He felt it deep in his gut, a visceral fear.
Not yet.
This was now. Fear is the mind killer.
“What shall I do with you?”
Again her ass swayed, like a pet that was listening to its owner speak, or a woman that wanted fucking.
Getting into her head and finding out if she wanted this occurred to him, but if anything, he preferred to simply force her and ignore any of her needs. Even if by so doing he satisfied her? Because...he knew she’d previously enjoyed him doing that. What a fucking awful circle of needs. He forced and she loved it?
It should not be so. But it was.
“Perhaps,” he murmured, “I should do worse to you than ever. The mask draws me and yet I have seen you dislike it.” He played with her lips, circled her neck with his hand, felt her pulse there, her hot breaths on his hand when he slid a finger into that hole. Her teeth let him in.
She wouldn’t bite him.
The D ring wasn’t needed, he had her rapt attention.
He had her breathing like an overwrought little machine. Her mouth a small, soft, wet entrance with a soft wet tongue there, waiting.
The fuck with this, he wanted in.
“Here.” That one word was almost a growl, coming from deep in his chest, his animal self rising.
Here, come get mouth fucked. His cock was rigid enough that he needed to free it one-handed as he pulled her. He dragged her to the cage, made her stay on hands and knees with her side pressed along it, then he tied the D-ring of the mask to the cage so her mouth
was at precisely the right level for his dick.
This fucking was for him, not her. He could do what he liked, and he told her so as he stuck the head of his cock to her mouth, and then she was licking him, curling her tongue over him even as he urged her to do so. “That’s it, my slut, lick it, suck it. Let me see how you like it. Are you moaning?” And she was, as he thrust inside, the inches drowning in her mouth, in that hot hole.
The vibrations had him staring at this, the best vanishing act ever. His cock sank into her mouth over and over. Her moisture made for sloppy, slippery sounds. When he halted, balls touching her face, he reached over her back then down her ass, into her cleft, finding her cunt with his fingers. Everywhere there was thick coated and dripping; her cunt lips glided under his probing.
“Fucking wet, as I thought.”
Her moans grew louder, though she had trouble breathing past his cock.
He pulled out to the very tip to let her breathe then fucked her mouth again, forcefully, with his hands around the back of her head.
“You are,” he told her, enunciating every syllable, “my fuck hole from now on. I will use whichever hole I want to. Is that clear?”
This was not nice or caring, and he went to deliver a malevolent smile only to realize she couldn’t see it, and probably not just because he had her masked. He’d bet her eyes were shut.
Gio was wholeheartedly into what he was doing to her mouth and getting wetter than a rain storm on the surface of Aerthe. He shut his eyes and slid into her again, felt her splutter-choking and that almost sub-vocal hum on his dick as she voiced her pleasure. So, she liked being skull-fucked the way he liked doing it? This was not terrible, was it?
He looked down at his wriggly human and sighed. Then hard fucked her mouth for several strokes. He could cope. He might even make her come, afterward.
Except that Aunt Mary stalked in, using her-his legs properly for once, and announced a visitor, one Aunt M had already allowed into the residence.
“It’s Badh, sir.”
He could hear his brother coming, in the distance, boots on floor. What was it this mechling used to do? Clearly it wasn’t well versed in social etiquette.
Teaching, that was it.
“Ahh.” He slid out, unfucking Gio’s mouth and considered her, his captive. Why should he run about trying to hide this?
He needn’t. Badh could learn to be a little more polite and wait until called, or he could see this. Ryke tucked himself away but patted her head. “You can stay there a while, can’t you?”
She made an Mmm sound.
“Be good then. Don’t move while I get rid of my brother.
He watched her breathing go from overcome to something a little quieter then noted the string of drool dripping from her face. “Have you got a cloth to wipe her face, Aunt M?”
“Here.” The mech whipped something off a table and handed it to him.
He wiped her face then handed the cloth back, regarded her position again. Shit, Badh might take ages to do whatever it was he’d come here for.
So he released her from the cage.
“Come this way.”
At the sofa and he sat with her kneeling on the floor beside his knees. His hand rested on her head. Maybe he could’ve clothed her, but he had this compulsion to show his brother who was Gio’s master and lover.
Lover? Too far. She was his, and in no way was he hers.
By then Badh was in the doorway.
“What have you done to her?” he drawled.
“She’s mine. I do what I choose to.”
He grunted. “I see. Is this what you did to them above? The ones the king wanted questioned?”
“I did what the King’s Own Lawgiver must. Sometimes I did worse than make them naked and screw with their perception of the world.” He flicked the mask and thought about putting his hand over her mouth and suffocating her, just to show what he meant. “Mind-fucking my clients was a favorite. What are you here for?”
It took a moment for Badh to drag his gaze off Gio. There was enough raw intensity in Badh’s eyes to make him wonder if his brother wanted more of her too.
“Her, partly. To question her. And to discuss things of importance.”
“Then...” He patted her head. “Discuss. She can wait. She can hear and speak if need be.”
“After what she did, I feel uncomfortable seeing her like that.”
Did he now? He was tempted to have her present her ass to Badh for fucking, just to see how much truth there was in that statement.
Maybe, but no. Badh fucking her would be intolerable.
“I will let her speak if I think it’s needed.”
He patted her again.
Owning her was messing with his perceptions too. He watched his fingers comb through her hair that’d slipped from the back of the mask. Sharing a client had never been difficult prior to this, though he’d fucked none of them with his cock.
Chapter 28
“Say it. What do you want?”
Ryke’s demand was clear. She listened but did nothing, rapt in his hand in her hair, in his leg beside her.
“Ummm. Okay. What did you find out about our repairs, the status of the ship? I’ve been trying for weeks and have little from them.”
“Them? I saw Gyle...”
Gio let his voice fade, become background. She listened but barely knew the meaning.
If he’d only let her see, take off the caps on the mask, she knew she’d be thinking straighter, but she’d grown used to this. Nothing bad had happened; her immediate panic had settled and gone away. Though Ryke seemed to think the mask still scared her, it didn’t.
Not now anyway.
Instead it calmed her. He’d relegated her to the floor, to almost subhuman status. He’d mouth fucked her, but he’d not frightened her. She was turned on so much she feared not that he would do something awful to her but that he’d forget to fuck her.
The logic was bizarre. The throb of her heated pussy reminded her with every pulse of blood how good it would be to be filled.
Inside this mask, she owned a surreal fog. She existed as a thing, as his thing.
When he removed it, she’d be in the real world again.
Here was simpler.
And she loved his hand on her. This was a side of him she’d not encountered much before. He’d asked her why he was obsessed with her, had seemed worried. She didn’t know. Right now, she only wanted more.
Take off the mask and she’d be thinking the obsession his weakness, but...she nestled deeper into his hand. She would deal with that later. She didn’t love him, she wasn’t obsessed with him, he simply was...
He was her dominant. There. She’d said it to herself. It didn’t bind her to him with deep emotion. Except, she supposed, when he was gifting her with pain and pleasure, and then he was her beloved demon.
Then she felt and heard his fingers begin to unclip the caps, letting in blasts of light that made her squint and shut her eyes. She needed to pee, but the words they’d exchanged during the past few minutes ran into her head and deciphered themselves into sensible sentences.
She played them back to herself...
“Gyle said they had repair methods planned. No, I don’t know what they are. He didn’t say.”
“I don’t believe they are doing anything. How could they?”
“Maybe we will be borrowing materials and people off other ships at the Gathering?”
“Maybe. Do you think it’s that easy? I have people working at this nonstop and now we’ve been set back months. We needed all the cores. Now we have even less power, less speed, and so we get less raw materials and fewer new waik crystals.”
“I admit, I’ve lost faith with Above. There seem to be conspiracies within conspiracies, but I’m adrift. The king has never spoken directly to me, only to Gyle.”
“Which leaves you wide open to influence from others. This woman. I don’t know what she is supposed to be doing here but if it’s to help us �
�”
“No, and I’ve solved that. I don’t need her input anymore.”
“Then why are you here? Why is she?”
“Because...I think others, above, are planning something worse than we could imagine. Remember the assassination plot. I think something worse is going to occur.”
“Let me talk to her. Please.”
The last clip was undone, the eye caps came off, and she blinked into the room, her eyes flooded with light.
With all that was happening, she was feeling terribly disorientated, and not only because of this attachment to Ryke, this illogical, extreme, and probably self-destructive attachment. He was her addiction.
You could be addicted to alcohol and still regret it when sober.
She would, did.
“Gio.” Badh tilted his head. “Are you okay to talk?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded rusty. Her eyelids seemed sticky, as if she’d cried in her sleep. She must ignore that she was naked before these men and try to remember to do and say what was in her best interests.
Remember this, even if he had his hand on her still, as if to claim her. He’d said he wanted to put a new collar on her. It was a symbol to him...and not to her?
Of course.
He was a liability, like a lame leg caught in a trap. If the time came, she must steel herself and cut him away.
“What do you want to ask me?” She moved to cross her arms across her breasts to shield herself but Ryke tsked and softly said, “No.”
She put them back where they’d been, with her hands on her thighs, and tried to concentrate.
“Do you have anything more to add about this vision you had? I’m trying to understand you and you’ve said very little. Why did it happen?”
“Well, I’ve never experienced anything like it before, so I can’t really say. It frustrates me too, not understanding.”
“Okay.” He had his legs spread, in the way men liked to sit, with his forearms on his legs, wrists loose and hands dangling. Relaxed, if not for the frown developing. “Very well. Then brother, if you have no use for her except to fuck her, but don’t want to give her back to your friends above?” He tweaked an eyebrow upward. “We need to lock her away securely.”
Branded Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 3) Page 18
