by Sierra Dafoe
“Is this truly what you want, Kantou?”
He nodded, but didn’t raise his head. She stepped to him, caught his wrists, drew them away from his belt and placed her own hands there instead. Deftly, she loosened it and slid his pants downward, revealing that marvelously long penis, resting quietly against the hair of his groin.
Saliva flooded her mouth at the sight of it. She felt a corresponding spurt of wetness soak the lips of her sex. Running her tongue over her lips, she felt a strange, unfamiliar desire to take his cock in her mouth, taste the warm, silken length of it.
“Oh, Kantou,” she breathed, and took his cock in her hands, feeling it start to thicken against her palm.
But when she looked in his eyes, she saw only apprehension.
Soleyla yanked her hand back and stalked away. She grabbed up her sword-belt, buckling it around her waist, seething at the heat pulsing between her thighs. How could she feel such unbridled desire, and this man -- this slave! -- feel nothing?
No. That was unfair. She knew it. He wanted to give himself to her -- and was terrified of it at the same time.
Soleyla took a deep breath, checking her rage. She would accept no half-hearted submission. Nor would she blame him for a situation not of his making. She wanted him -- wanted him so badly she could taste it -- but she wanted him willing. More than willing. Eager. Aching to fulfill her every whim, as she ached to have him so…
She glanced back, saw him standing, a stricken look on his face. If she returned to him now, right now, there would be no drawing back. He would submit willingly, grateful for her forgiveness, thankful for whatever attentions she might choose to bestow…
Her own features felt cast of stone as she turned away. “Cover yourself, Kantou.” Her voice was harsh against the soft Antorean night. “Prepare my dinner. I’ll return for it later.”
Ignoring the soft, ragged sound of his sobs, she strode away into the darkness.
Chapter Five
Damn her mother!
Soleyla stomped loudly up the rise. It was ridiculous. Here she was, half a galaxy away from Argulus, and the woman was still controlling her life!
She climbed single-mindedly up the slope, feeling rage pulse like desire in her blood.
They’d never been close -- but still the revelation of her mother’s personality, written in scars across Kantou’s back, had shocked Soleyla to the core. She should have guessed -- she knew the brutality her mother was capable of, none better. It was Soleyla’s refusal to match that single-minded drive that had cost her Danel. Her mother had taken him -- sold him, most likely -- and when Soleyla had furiously demanded to know his fate, her mother had smiled coldly and refused to answer.
Gritting her teeth, Soleyla pressed on.
What was it going to take to break through the barrier her mother’s viciousness had erected inside Kantou? She had been patient with him, to a level unheard of with a slave. Now her entire body ached with an unslaked hunger, fierce and voracious. She didn’t dare return to the hollow where they had camped in this mood. One glance at his prone, sleeping body, and the beast within her would break free of the tenuous hold she still retained on it.
Cursing viciously, she clambered her way to the top of the ridge, breathing heavily as she looked out over the moon-flooded plain below -- and that was when a heavy hand closed around her throat.
“Do not reach for your weapon.”
She froze in consternation. The voice was deep, rumbling. A man. A spurt of disbelieving rage raced through her. No man had ever dared lay a hand on her except at her command.
A renegade slave? She’d heard stories of such things, but here, on Antoros? Soleyla shifted, planting her feet firmly on the loose shale. The hand moved, sliding down to grip her arm, and something cold and sharp pressed against her neck.
A knife.
“What do you want?” she demanded. She felt him move behind her, and realized from the angle of his arm that her head was barely level with his shoulder.
“I might,” he rumbled, “ask the same thing of you.”
What?
“Who are you? Release me this instant!”
The hand on her biceps tightened its grasp, pulling her against him. She could feel hard muscles against her back, could feel the warmth of him even through her leather shirt. He must be enormous.
“I think not, Guardian.” Soleyla stiffened at the title. He knew what she was, then -- this wasn’t an accidental meeting. His next words confirmed it. “It’s long I’ve been waiting to get my hands on one of you.”
He was in for a shock if he thought a mere knife at her throat could hold her. Every woman -- even the commonest citizen of the League -- was trained from childhood to develop her physical strength, and required to serve two years in the Guardians. Those who chose to make the military a career, as Soleyla had, spent six grueling years honing their fighting skills. More than once those skills had been all that stood between the League and destruction. The V’ranyii war, for example. A single man with a knife? Soleyla grinned into the night.
She let herself go limp against him, so that his right arm was now supporting her not-inconsiderable weight. The knife wavered at her throat. Quick as lightning, she tilted her chin skyward and allowed herself to collapse. The sharp edge nicked the point of her chin, drawing blood, but she slid under it, twisting out of his grasp even as she drew her sword. She brought it around in a vicious swipe --
-- and it clanged off steel.
“Did you really think I went unbladed, Guardian?”
The timbre of his deep, stern voice was doing odd things to her libido. He was no more than an outline against the star-strewn sky, as the moon casting its light over the plain below had not yet cleared the peak, but she could see he was as enormous as she’d guessed. He towered over her. But Soleyla had been trained since childhood to fight.
She feinted rapidly, and his sword was there to block hers. She attacked again -- and again he caught her blade on his own, easily, almost contemptuously. Her blood rose, a combination of rage and unassuaged sexual need. Screaming her fury, she whirled her blade above her head and sprang at him. He leaped back, lithe as a cat, and came in low.
Now it was she who fended off his attack, her sword dancing lightly in her grip, while he rained blows like hammer strokes down upon her defense. Damnation, but he was quick! Spinning to the right, she barely avoided a vicious slash from his blade.
Who was he? And what was he doing on this empty planet?
Unless -- and Soleyla paused, hearing her breath rasping in her throat -- it wasn’t so empty after all.
* * *
Kantou crouched by the fire, watching the flames dance mockingly before him. As the night cooled, he’d drawn on his shirt. He shivered now, lightly, and hugged himself.
What was wrong with him?
Oh, he knew, no one better, what had been done to him -- he could still feel the cutting fire of the lash across his back, testament to the lady Rachel’s fury. Yet he’d done everything she commanded, even servicing her other slaves under her watchful gaze. He’d done it without hesitation, and still she was not satisfied.
Just as her daughter, it seemed, was not satisfied to merely take him.
He remembered how Soleyla had held him with her will, ordering him to touch himself, making him tease himself to a point of bliss he’d never before known. Remembered, too, how she’d made even the burst of agony as he’d squeezed his balls at her command a part of that ecstasy, heightening it to delirium. Even now, as he hunkered by the fire, shivering, he could feel his cock hardening at the memory of her voice, whispering, commanding. Squeeze it harder. But slowly. Slowly, my beauty.
He knew what she wanted. She wanted the absolute surrender he’d given her that day, before he’d known who she was. She wanted him to trust her, as he’d hungered to do, to put himself utterly, without reservation, in her hands. More, she wanted him to want that, too.
Don’t you? Don’t you, Kantou? a small voice
inside him spoke, its tone as dry and mocking as the dancing flames.
He did. He wanted it so desperately it terrified him. He wanted to feel himself poised, as if on the edge of a knife, every nerve in his body thrumming with the pain of desire, racked by her demands to a fever pitch. God! He could not stop remembering the sound of her voice, controlling him, bending him to her wishes. He wanted to submit, gratefully, let her do to him whatever she desired, wanted her to fuck him in every way imaginable.
His lady. His…
Love?
It was an archaic word, one he’d only read in some old book. He’d never heard it spoken. But it was the only word he could think of that seemed to fit this strange hunger, this need to lay himself, body and mind and soul, in her hands, to open himself utterly to her desires.
For the first time, he wanted to be a slave. Soleyla’s slave. He wanted to cast aside his self-imposed isolation, to open himself, body and soul, to her. He wanted her to possess him, rule him…
Cherish him.
For all the fire in his loins at the memory of her voice, it was how she’d touched him afterward that undid him. Her hands gently stroking his hair, making him feel safe, protected. Valued.
You are more to me than just a pleasure-slave.
Kantou shuddered, feeling a deep, burning shame. How could he have frozen like that? Withdrawn on the deepest level even as he offered her his body? A half-surrender, a token. And she’d known it. She’d turned away from him, furious. Had left him here in the darkness alone, exiled from her warmth, face to face with his fears -- and desire.
Her mother had merely savaged his body. She could scar him, but never break him.
But Soleyla, he feared, could shatter his very soul.
A spasm of agony twisted his face. He cowered in the night, trapped between his longing and his fear, furious with himself, terrified that she would reject him, take him back to Merkun…
No. She wouldn’t do that. Amid all his uncertainties, the memory of her expression as she slapped the coins from Merkun’s palm was the one solid point he could cling to. It was that gesture which had allowed him to find the courage to follow her out of Merkun’s tent and into the sunlight -- and to here. Antoros. Somehow he’d trusted that she wouldn’t abandon him.
And this was how he repaid her, her kindness, her patience. A black welling of self-disgust drove him to his feet. Frightened but determined, he left the ring of firelight, following the clear scuffs of her boot-prints in the sandy dirt through the silent, moonlit night.
When he heard the faint, distant clash of steel on steel, somewhere over the crest of the ridge, he broke into a run.
Chapter Six
Soleyla cursed, struggling to keep her blade up. It was unthinkable! This man, this slave, was actually beating her, driving her back against the cliff that towered above the small, flat outcropping they fought upon. She cast about desperately as she fended off his sword-strokes, but could find no avenue of retreat.
Even as she struggled, sweating, to block yet another heavy thrust of his sword, a grudging admiration for his skill crept through her. Gods, what a man!
Then the moon cleared the tip of the peak and shone down onto the ridge, and Soleyla’s breath caught in her throat.
Piercing eyes burned into her own, sending a bolt of white-hot lust straight through her loins. In the half-light she couldn’t see their color, but they were clear and intense. Massive shoulders flexed easily, wielding a sword that looked well used and sharp. He was older than she, with a heavy, grim set to his jaw that seemed almost feminine in its ferocity. It spoke of responsibilities, hard decisions -- things that men never had to deal with. And he was most decidedly a man. His private parts were protected by a clout around his waist, but other than that he was utterly naked. His broad chest gleamed with sweat. The lower half of his belly was flat with muscle, dusted with dark hair…
Her eyes lingered a moment too long, and he used her inattention to slap her sword from her hand. Damn! Soleyla pressed herself flat against the rock, waiting stiffly for the killing blow.
It never came.
Instead, he tickled her throat with the point of his sword, using the flat of the blade to press her head back, exposing the nick she’d acquired when sliding free of his knife. He grunted, as if in satisfaction, and lowered his blade. He picked up her sword and flung it far into the darkness. She heard it rattle on stone and slide down the slope.
“Now,” he said, “let’s try this again. What are you doing here?”
Soleyla retreated into outraged formality. “I am a Guardian, dispatched by the League to secure this planet for future settlement.”
“I know that much. What are you doing here?”
She glared at him and stalked to a boulder. He watched her, eyes narrowed, ready to attack, but relaxed his stance when she sank down onto it, rubbing her sore shoulders. Three weeks spent hiking hadn’t given her much chance to keep up her swordplay.
“Planting relay markers,” she replied finally.
He squatted on his heels, resting his sword across his massive thighs. What a pleasure-slave he would make! Wisely, Soleyla kept that opinion to herself.
“And what is a relay-marker?”
Soleyla stared. “It’s a device… a transmitter. Who are you that you don’t know that?”
He grinned, his eyes flashing with an intricate combination of irony and rue. “I didn’t. Now I do. Who I am is unimportant.”
Soleyla rather doubted that, but she didn’t argue. Only the precariousness of her situation kept her from reveling in the sheer visual stimulation his body was providing. Or perhaps it was precisely that precariousness that was making her so keenly aware of his overwhelming maleness. She could smell the tangy, intoxicating scent of his sweat, could feel a surreptitious trickle of warmth run through her belly.
But then, she’d never been in a situation in the least like this. Pinned where she was by an armed male! It was ludicrous. But it was also, she admitted secretly, oddly arousing.
“The only problem, Guardian,” he continued, “is that this planet you’re preparing for settlement is already inhabited.”
A vague memory stirred in her mind, a terse sentence in the information packet she’d been handed on arrival. Valda had hustled her out of the base camp before she’d had a chance to read the half of it.
Evidence of native populace -- suppress or exterminate. And here, she surmised, was the native populace. Nice of Valda to warn her.
But sharing that particular command with this enormous, armed man was hardly likely to increase her chances of survival. Then again, if he’d merely meant to kill her, she’d be dead already. The realization rankled. He’d beaten her, damn it! A decorated captain of the elite League Guardians!
And the sight of him, hunkered before her, was arousing other emotions besides her ire.
“That’s what you are? A native?”
He inclined his head, assenting.
“I see. I wasn’t aware.” Which was only partially a lie. She’d forgotten all about that brief sentence -- until now.
“I didn’t think you were, or you wouldn’t have been climbing through the northern ranges alone. Your friends back there --” he nodded eastward, toward the distant base camp, “-- wouldn’t. They’ve learned better.”
“Oh?” Soleyla sat forward. “Then it wasn’t an oversight.” With a sickening rush of rage, she knew Valda had purposely sent her out here without warning her.
At her mother’s request. It had to be at her mother’s request. Automatically, Soleyla’s hand dropped to the hilt of her missing sword, and she cursed again.
The man followed her motion with a wry glance. “That wasn’t intended for me, I’m thinking.”
Soleyla shook her head, trying to clear it. Too much was happening, too quickly. She couldn’t assimilate it. “How many of you are there?”
He chuckled, long and low. “Come now, Guardian, you don’t really expect me to give you that informatio
n.”
No, she didn’t. “At least give me your name.”
“Give me yours.”
Fair enough. “Soleyla.”
He mouthed the syllables, his lips forming them silently as he stared down over the distant, moon-flooded plain. Soleyla shifted on the boulder, and she saw his muscles tense in readiness. She sat back, sighing. Escape would not be so easy as that.
His eyes flicked back to her, then returned to their surroundings. It was, she noticed belatedly, a breathtaking view. Moonlight spilled over the sharp, craggy mountains, giving them an eldritch beauty beneath the star-strewn sky. On the plain below, she noticed small points of light -- campfires, likely. Maybe a village. She nodded toward it. “That’s where you’re from?”
He didn’t reply. A fierce, passionate light glowed in his eyes, though, one she could hardly help understanding. “It’s a beautiful planet,” she said, meaning it.
“It’s ours.” His words were hard, uncompromising.
“They’ll kill you for it.”
His eyebrows shot up. “They?” Soleyla blushed, and was grateful for the darkness. He studied her a moment, then turned away.
“They already have,” he said, his voice a whisper in the night. It sent shivers up her, raising the hairs on the back of her neck. “Killed, and worse.”
“What could be worse than killing?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. She saw his face darken as he turned back toward her. His sword came up. Reflexively, she sprang up, backed away until she bumped against the cliff.
He approached, his head slung low, a murderous light in his eyes. “Tell me, Guardian, can you imagine what it’s like to be taken against your will?”
He towered over her, glaring down, the flat of his sword pressed across her chest. She could feel the cold steel even through her shirt, and wondered if he was aware he’d pressed it against her nipples.
In the shadow of the cliff, his face was a cipher. She couldn’t see his eyes as he hissed down at her.
“They ambushed us at Tinker’s Pass. Sixty of them, against a dozen of us. Eight fell under their swords -- and those eight were the lucky ones.”
