by Bevan Greer
Myla, that witch, must have known this would happen. He didn’t feel the great hatred toward the Fenturi that he once did, but he didn’t trust them all either. A lifetime of Zedrax’s lessons lingered in his tired mind. But having to accept the enemy blood inside him went a long way toward needing to accept the rest of the Fenturi.
He traced a finger over Dare’s cheekbone and wondered about her effect on him. He disregarded the simple notion of blood calling to blood. He’d been around a few Fenturi females before but had never felt such a stirring for any of them.
He tied up the pouch and tossed it to a table across the room. Then he rolled back to watch Dare some more. Her eyelids fluttered open, and he saw that the dilation of her pupils had grown, the black swallowing the deep blue of her eyes.
What had Myla said about the herbs? That under their influence, the Fenturi grew open to suggestion, less resistant?
“Dare.” Ren hesitated, aware of his own response to her slumberous gaze. “I want you to focus on me.” He was determined to get some answers while denying his dark desires.
“Mmm,” she murmured and reached to touch the side of his face. Having her hand on his skin gave him a jolt of fire in his belly, and he hastened to remove her fingers. Then she moved her hand and traced the line of his jaw down to his neck, stroking his collarbone with a delicate intimacy that threatened to shatter his control.
Ren clenched his jaw at the hot desire that coursed through his body. Dare smiled seductively and scooted closer to him.
“Stop,” Ren said, though his voice lacked conviction. “I want you to tell me about Bylar.”
At his words, her hand slowed, but instead of removing it, she slid her hand inside his shirt and teased his hard chest until he wanted to howl with pleasure.
“I don’t want to talk about Bylar. It hurts.” She frowned, but he refused to let it go.
“Tell me,” he said again, though softly, and felt something deep inside him shift when she opened her hand over his heart.
“My parents were killed there in a raid.” She leaned forward to place a soft kiss on his cheek, nearly killing him despite the pity that moved in his breast for the girl who’d lost her parents. “All I remember are visions of blood and death.”
“How—” His voice broke as she continued to pet him while she fixated her gaze on his lips. “How old were you when you left?”
“Five, I think. My mother’s guidecat shoved me on a shuttle that landed on Kre. That’s where Mra found me.” Dare feathered a kiss over his lips, lost to the herbs that fiddled with him as well.
“You have to stop touching me,” Ren pleaded while trying to process her words.
She pouted. “But I like touching you.”
“Tell me the truth when I talk to you,” Ren said again, her words breaking him more as surely as her touch had.
“But I am telling the truth.” She placed her lips over his, kissing him with an eager though inexperienced mouth.
Ren forgot everything but the feel of her, the taste of her. Finally giving in to his desire to touch her, Ren groaned and quickly had her underneath him on the bed, wrapped up in his touch.
He heard her sigh into his mouth and slanted his lips over hers, angling deeper even as her hot little hands ran over his back and down his body.
A glorious fire traced in her wake, making him aware of nothing but Dare’s spicy, addicting scent.
“What are you doing to me?” Ren rocked into hers, silently cursing yet thanking the fact that clothes remained to separate them. When he finally did take her, he didn’t want either of them to be under the influence of anything but the lust between them.
“I don’t know.” Dare had closed her eyes, lost in sensuality. She licked her lips and opened her eyes to stare at him, her eyes now more blue than black. Thank the stars.
“You make me want you,” she said in confusion. “A Bylaran leader and my captor, yet you make me ache deep inside?” Her voice rose in question.
“As you do me, Fenturi witch,” he admitted freely, his words a soft caress as his mind and body lost themselves in her confession. He kissed her with the intensity of his need. That he had before denied himself such was beyond comprehension, and he pressed harder against her, needing so much more.
“I want you. All of you.” He ripped her blouse off and groaned. She wore nothing underneath, her proud breasts upthrust and taut, begging for his touch. He kissed the ripe buds of her nipples and reveled in her answering desperation as she arched into him.
He suckled her, needing to feel, to taste her essence as she writhed against him.
“Ren, I need you. Please. More.” She moaned and dragged his head up to kiss him.
But as he angled for a better kiss, a wave of dizziness passed over him. He could have cursed his own weakness. The pouch that made Dare so biddable also lowered his own defenses.
He stilled as he realized he was perilously close to taking advantage of Dare, something he had sworn never to do to any woman. Something that would make him no better than Zedrax.
At reminders of his hated father, he tried to roll away from Dare, but she held him tight. So he rolled to his side, still hugging her, and closed his eyes, trying not to see what he could feel. Then the blasted female rolled him to his back and straddled him, her breasts free and directly in his line of sight.
“Ah, Goddess.” He breathed, in pain. “Dare, it’s a drug that’s making you do this.” Ren closed his eyes when she leaned over him. “You don’t want this,” he said, almost pleading, beyond his own will to control his desire. He had underestimated the root’s power, not to mention Dare’s effect.
“Yes, I do. I want you.” She licked her lips and kissed him. Ren kept his hands at his sides so that he wouldn’t touch her. His clenched the bed sheets so hard his nails ripped through the sheets as passion rode him hard.
“We have to stop,” he said thickly.
Then she ripped his shirt open. He blinked up at her in shock, but the feel of her hands on his bare skin made him lightheaded with lust. He fought hard to halt this before it got too late.
“Okay, we’ll stop,” Dare said with a glint in her eyes.
The drug seemed to be working too well, to Ren’s way of thinking. He didn’t move a muscle as she scooted aside and held her hands above his stomach.
“Dare, I can’t take much more. You have to stop before you…” He froze when she moved to the snap of his trousers. She had him unsnapped and exposed in seconds. And by the Dark World, he was so sensitized he swore he could feel her gaze on him like a living thing. Damn, but he ached.
“Oh, Ren, we can’t stop now,” she said breathlessly and looked into his eyes as her hand closed over him.
At her touch, he nearly shot off the bed. He groaned his denial even as he pressed up into her hand.
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” he gasped. She feels so good.
“So show me.” She leaned over to kiss him deeply. As her mouth settled over his, he thrust his tongue between her lips, the way he longed to follow with his body. In and out he plunged, mimicking the lovemaking he knew would happen.
As he did, he put his hand over hers, showing her what he liked. All too soon, she caught onto the movement. Before long she was taking him to new pleasures he had only before dreamed.
“Dare, I can’t…”
Her hand quickened. “Don’t think. Just feel.” She kissed along his jaw to his neck. Then her tongue thrust into his ear.
Beyond thought or denial, Ren pulsed in her hand and released with such ferocity he saw stars. Blue fire filled his world as feelings long since dead burst in his body. More than just a physical release, Dare had lifted something in him he hadn’t known weighted him down.
After some time when he could again think, he felt her lips moving softly over his. He kissed her back, trying to come to grips with what had just happened.
An innocent woman had made him lose all control, all thought, for the first time in his
life. And a Fenturi woman at that. But the pleasure coursing through his veins overwhelmed any caution he should have had, and he sighed in contented relief as his heartbeat steadied.
“Dare.” He saw her watching him with a catlike intensity, as if he were her prey and she’d been toying with him. “How did you do that?”
“Do what?” she asked, a coy grin on her face. This new side of her fascinated him. He removed his ripped shirt and cleaned himself, amazed anew at the response she’d wrought with her inexperienced hands.
He knew without asking that she’d never engaged in such. Her initial touch had been too hesitant, and that pleased him. That she might touch another male in such a way filled him with rage, and then he realized something else. She hadn’t felt what he just had. He owed her.
“You’ve never before made love, have you Dare?” He rolled her underneath him, staring down at her glowing body with pleasure. She had the most beautiful form, and her eyes…
“No, but I can tell I’m going to like it.”
“Yes, you are.” Ren felt lighter than he had in a long time. “But we’re not going to do that now. You see, when I’m finally inside you, I want you fully aware of what you’re doing. I can’t leave you feeling frustrated though, can I?”
“What?”
“It’s time for me to pleasure you,” Ren said as he tenderly removed the rest of Dare’s clothing. He paused as he looked down at her and wondered how anything so beautiful had gone so untouched all these years. “Magnificent,” he said on a breath and bent to take her nipple into his mouth.
He toyed with both peaks, running his hands over her body, coming close but never touching the hot, wet center of her.
“Do you know what you want?” He teased her body into a ball of need. “I’m going to give you just a taste.” He ran his hand over the dark curls at the apex of her thighs.
Then he slipped a finger inside of her and watched her eyes widen. He moved his lips down her body, nearing the musky source of her desire as his fingers continued to wring delight.
Then he found the hard nub of arousal at her center and he kissed her there, feeling his own desire fully rekindled as he tasted her essence. Dare moaned and jerked as he caressed her to a fiery heat.
How could he touch her in all the right places…? Dare’s thoughts fled as his tongue caused a lick of flame to suddenly catch her entire body. His finger felt like heaven as it moved in and out. But thoughts of another part of Ren inside of her filled her mind, and before long, the physical stimulation and fantasies mingled until she couldn’t tell reality from her own longings.
The feelings he wrought overwhelmed her, and Dare could deny him nothing. She moaned as her need grew. Soon, his touch became her center, and in a rush, she exploded into a mass of ecstasy and relief.
Blue Starfire pulsed around her, enveloping her in a cocoon of languor and satisfaction. But all she could see were Ren’s gleaming eyes staring up at her with male possessiveness.
“Oh yes.” She lay boneless, dimly aware of him moving back to lay beside her. She blinked up at him with a contented smile when he leaned down to kiss her.
She could taste herself on his lips and oddly found her scent on him arousing. Though he had taken her body to new heights, she had marked him as well.
“And it only gets better,” Ren whispered and kissed her again.
“It does?”
“It does. But now I think we both need some rest. It’s been a long day, and it’s bound to get longer once we reach Bylar,” he said, studying her intently.
Dare didn’t have the strength to protest the trip anymore, and her fears of Bylar faded under Ren’s warm, sheltering embrace.
***
Bylar
“They arrive soon, my lord. Another hour at the most.” Cyka nodded to the messenger who had delivered the news, and they watched as he left. “What do you make of it, King Zebram?” Cyka asked.
Zebram gave his advisor a ghost of a smile, the first positive emotion he’d shown in the last few days. “I take it that Garen’s most likely got his hands full with a spitting mad Fenturi.” At least the king saw the humor of the situation, though he had little else to laugh about.
Since he’d dropped the news to Thela about their pending nuptials, Cyka had noted that the woman was icy to Zebram’s every word and gesture. Myla had said to give the girl time, but that was one precious commodity they had little of. Though Myla had sent word to stop the rebellion, or at least slow it down, two Bylaran patrols had been fired upon, several men grievously injured.
The kingdom’s temper grew fraught with the Fenturi seeking to do them harm. Cyka knew if things didn’t soon calm, Zebram’s announcement to marry a full-blooded Fenturi would do nothing to create peace and everything to stir the Bylaran people to a greater rage.
“What do you think of my idea?” Zebram asked about his decision to marry Thela.
“I think, Zebram, that you truly want peace in the land. I just hope you don’t pay the price for it.”
Zebram sighed. “It’s that stubborn Fenturi. Why can she not see I’m not my father?”
Cyka studied his new king with fascination, still trying to put together this man with the young prince he’d advised for over twenty years.
Cyka had watched Zebram flourish under his mother and father’s love and had been impressed by the young royal’s intelligence and open-mindedness. Even at a young age, Zebram proved himself a superior listener. By his mid-teens, he had the young and old of the kingdom confiding in him.
Zedrax had finally done something right, treating his youngest son not as a soldier, but as a young boy and then a young man. The Queen had had much to do with Zebram’s progress, he knew. Cyka had always believed that compassion had to coexist in the will of a strong hand if a reliable, true leader were to emerge.
He’d always known that Zebram bore the Fenturi no ill will. In that area, Zebram and Zedrax had been exact opposites. But the old king had curiously never tried to bend Zebram to his cause. Rather, he ignored that difference in the lad and focused his anger and hostility on his eldest son, Garen.
Cyka stared at Zebram as he pondered what to do for his king. He touched his gray head and wondered how to best advise the young lord. What Zebram wanted he wanted—peace in Bylar for the first time since they’d arrived on the planet.
But now the young king had so much more to worry about. Not only did he fear for his planet, but the System that had flourished under Vinopol leadership of the Legion now lay threatened by the greatest foe known—the Ragil Horde.
Cyka knew Garen would soon arrive with the Mari, but from Castor’s brief message, he knew not to expect sudden miracles. Even now Garen stayed with the temperamental Fenturi to calm her heated emotions.
Ah, women and their unceasing plague upon mankind, he thought with wry amusement.
Zebram frowned as he looked in the direction of Thela’s quarters. The young woman had left the hall minutes earlier in a huff, upset and angry that Zebram had ordered her brother captured alive, but made no demands to leave him unharmed.
How could she not realize the rough position Zebram had to maintain?
“If you’ll excuse me for a few moments, I have several things I need to prepare before Garen’s arrival.” Cyka bowed.
“Oh, sure, Cyka. I’ll just sit here and wonder how to phrase my next threat to the Meklen rebels,” Zebram said with irritation. “Perhaps Koneru can help.” He motioned to his Rovi protector standing discreetly against the wall. Koneru’s gray skin blended with the stones of the palace, making him seem almost invisible.
Koneru grinned, and his white teeth gleamed. He blinked, and the gray film that had covered his eyes vanished as well, leaving them bright and white.
“Aye, Sire. I’ve run into a troublesome Meklen a time or two,” the large Rovi said as he moved silently toward Zebram. He held a Rovi axe in his large hands, and Cyka could just imagine the fate of the poor Meklen who had come up and lost against thi
s warrior.
“Perfect.” Cyka aimed a look at Koneru, who subtly nodded. He and the guard had discussed Zebram’s growing worries. They both loved and respected the young man and would do whatever needed to see him protected and happy. “I’ll be back shortly.”
Cyka left the king in good company and moved swiftly toward the Fenturi’s quarters. Not surprised to find Myla with her, he nodded respectfully to her and saw her smile back at him. He still couldn’t get over the fact that this woman, the healer of the village, was a Fenturi. But even more astounding was the fact that Zebram had known all along and had hidden her from his father, and all without Cyka’s knowledge.
He still didn’t know exactly how he felt about that, but he couldn’t fault Zebram’s reasoning. Had the woman been found with Zebram those many years ago, the boy had made sure Cyka knew nothing about it. Thus Cyka would not have been punished. He knew Zedrax would have demanded any who aided the Fenturi dead, with the sole exception of his youngest son.
“You have need of Thela.” Myla nodded. “Good. I’ll go talk to Zebram. He and I need to discuss the Mari for a bit. You stay here,” she said to Thela, shooting her a stern look before she left.
“Yes?” the lovely blonde asked. He could definitely see why Zebram would find it no great hardship to join with her. She had a grace and femininity about her that called to a man’s possessive instincts. Her blue eyes and golden skin fairly glowed with vibrant youth and an ardent nature.
The Fenturi woman stood tall, barely a head smaller than Zebram, and her young body bore the womanly fruits that would cause any male’s mouth to water.
But more than that, Cyka expected Zebram had been drawn to her inner strength, to the unbending integrity of the woman’s character. Cyka had been around Thela long enough the past month to see that while she had been born an enemy to the Bylaran people, her main concern was the welfare of her race.
