Mates of Zatari 01 Claiming His Mate

by Claire Conrad

  Octavia studied her hands in her lap and chuckled softly. “Why would you think that?”

  “She called you love.” The word was acid on my tongue. If Octavia was in love with that priestess, I would simply seduce my little captive, drown her in pleasure until she could think of no other. Want no other.

  Shaking my head in an attempt to clear it, I still sighed as Octavia laid my fears to rest.

  Octavia shook her head with a sad smile. “No. She’s my sister.”

  Fuck. I’d kidnapped the baby sister of the most powerful female on the planet? “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Her eyes rounded with incredulity. “You kidnapped me. After I risked my life to set you free. You are a man without honor. That’s why.”

  Dishonorable? Had she just called me dishonorable?

  After the day I’d had, with my cock still hard and my anger a barely banked fire, that was the last straw.

  I flew the rest of the way to my hidden cave and pulled the cruiser into the darkness below the surface of the mountain where I knew no sensor could find us, either on land or from Lunar One. She fidgeted as we came to a stop, uncertain of what fate awaited her.

  The first order of business was a long, hard spanking. I was going to take care of her disrespectful mouth and turn her bottom a nice shade of pink, and then I would seduce her until she begged me to let her take care of my rock-hard cock.

  * * *

  Octavia

  I regretted the words the moment they flew from my mouth. Markus’s broad shoulders tightened, his spine straightened, and he clenched his jaw for the remainder of our flight. I wondered where he was taking me, but since there was nothing I could do about it, I would simply have to wait until we landed somewhere to make my escape.

  He directed the cruiser into the shadows of a large mountain cave and shut down the flight engines. He didn’t remove the key from the control panel, but it didn’t matter. I was no pilot. I’d as likely crash into the side of a mountain as fly a straight line. No, my only hope was to escape him on foot. To do that, I needed to be on solid ground.

  I studied the clean line of his jaw as he maneuvered the ship. He was so confident in every movement, so controlled. I admired the deep line of muscles flexing in his forearms and the dark flow of his hair. His face was classically lined, like the Greek gods in the ancient texts we’d managed to preserve. Something simmered inside him, and it called me like a moth to a flame. That something I couldn’t describe, but it felt like sex and power and darkness.

  He stood, towering over me in the small cockpit, and held out his hand.

  He didn’t say a word and I watched him. His breathing was even, his gaze heated, but not wild. His patience won me over in the end, for he stood a long while as I made up my mind.

  I placed my hand in his and suppressed a shiver as he helped me to my feet and led me down the short hallway to another room. The doors onboard were small, and he had to duck his head to enter. His massive shoulders filled the entryway and I could not see where he took me until I had already stepped inside.

  The sleeping chamber. A bed big enough to hold both of us was to my right. A tiny bathing chamber and toilet were to the left. Ahead was a desk and monitors for connecting to the data networks that constantly streamed all over the planet.

  I pulled back, trying to change direction, to go back into the corridor, but his grip was firm and he shook his head. “You are mine now, Octavia. I want to make this very clear to you. You are mine. Do you understand?”

  The deep timbre of his voice rolled through me and my body trembled in response. I shook my head. No. I didn’t understand. “I’m your enemy. Just let me go.”

  “No. I want to keep you.” He pulled me closer and I had no chance of fighting him. The top of my head barely reached his shoulder. Markus was a prince and a master of the mind. He was faster, stronger, and could wield the power of his mind as his ultimate weapon. I wasn’t leaving this room unless he allowed it, and that thought made something tight and fearful in my chest loosen and flood with heat. The voice I’d tried to ignore before roared back to life in the back of my mind. He was going to do whatever he wanted to me, and I had no choice but to accept it. To submit. To belong to him.

  And with that realization, my guilt and doubts faded away.

  Mine. He was mine.

  “Why? Why me?”

  He wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me close until my breasts were crushed to his hard chest and his cock pressed into my abdomen, a reminder of his torment. “I don’t know.”

  That was not the answer I’d wanted and I tried to pull away. I was drowning in lust, had been since I first saw him, yet he did not feel the same. I wanted him to be as mindless in this as I was, his body raging like mine… until he couldn’t think. “Let me go.”

  “No. You are mine. And since you are mine, I will not allow disrespect. Also know that I will tolerate no foul language to pass your perfect lips.” He lowered his head, his lips so close to mine that I could feel the heat of his breath as he waited for me to respond.

  “Fuck you, Markus. I’m no man’s property.”

  He closed the distance between us, the soft touch of his lips on mine electric. I’d never been kissed, and when he pulled away, I leaned forward, hungry for more. I opened my eyes to find his gaze thoughtful as he studied me. I blushed. He was calling me his. And even as I tried to deny it, here I was acting like a mindless animal. All I could think about was kissing him again.

  His thumb brushed over my bottom lip. “You are mine. And you will learn to obey me.”

  Before my muddled mind could process his words I found myself over his lap, my stomach pressed to his hard thighs and my head hanging down so that my long hair brushed the floor. He lifted my robe and ripped my undergarments from my body as I kicked and fought. But he was too strong; one solid arm across my back was all he needed to hold me in place with my bare bottom on display.

  His hot palm settled on my left cheek and I squirmed, equally angered by his ridiculous actions and aroused by his touch. “Let me go!”

  “You called me a man without honor, Octavia. That will earn you ten swats of my hand. But you also said fuck, and unless you’re begging me to fuck your hot, wet pussy, you will never use that word. Do you understand?”

  “Let me go!” I struggled, pushing against the floor with the arm not trapped to my side against him.

  Smack!

  The hard flat of his hand struck my bare ass and I yelped. That fucking hurt!

  “Stop it!” I kicked.

  Smack!

  “No!” Enraged, I tried to bite his leg, but at the first graze of my teeth on his flesh his rough hand was in my hair, lifting my head back at a painful angle. The arm was gone from my back, but his fingers tangled in my hair in an unbreakable and unforgiving hold as he gently lifted my head.

  “Bad girl, Octavia. You don’t bite your master.”

  Chapter Five

  Octavia

  “You’re not my master!” Twisting and turning, I tried everything to break his hold, but he was immovable, so strong and calm, like stone encasing my will. Even as I struggled, my pussy grew wet and I became overly aware of the way he smelled. The way his hard thighs felt beneath me.

  I wanted him to do it, to strike fire in my flesh, to make me burn.

  “You have earned twenty swats on your thighs for trying to bite me.”

  Three more hard spanks landed.

  “You’re—”

  Smack!

  “—not—”

  Smack!

  “—my—”

  Smack!

  “—master!”

  Smack!

  That was ten. I knew, because I’d been counting. Tears welled in my eyes and I fought them as he began to spank my bare thighs. That hurt worse, and I did feel badly for trying to bite him. But this? A spanking? I was a full grown woman, not a child.

  I laughed, but the hysterical sound was more wail than amusement.
I’d done far worse things in my life. Like free dangerous and valuable royal prisoners from under my sister’s nose. Like betray my people. Betray my family.

  I let the tears flow as he punished me. But soon the pain blurred into a steady haze of heat, the individual spanks obscured by the flood of liquid fire rolling through my body. He held me there, my back arched, my head lifted high by a painful grip in my hair, and he dealt twenty sharp blows to my thighs.

  When he was done, he held me perfectly still in the silence of the room stretched across his lap like a pagan offering to the gods. “Are you finished, Octavia?”

  Was I finished? I was aroused, hot, and filled with lustful thoughts of him throwing me down on the floor and taking me from behind. I was no frightened virgin. I always drank the healer’s brew to ensure I would not carry a child, but I’d ridden a breeder’s cock. My pussy had been stretched. I was no innocent, but I’d never been kissed. And suddenly all I could think about was the taste of his lips on mine, the scent of his skin, the heat of his body. Was I finished? No. I wanted more. I needed to burn. And if I was going to trust him with everything, I needed to know he would never back down, never surrender. “Fuck you.”

  He didn’t react other than to strike my bare bottom again and again until I knew I would be sore for days.

  When he stopped the second time, my tears were gone, and so was my fire. I felt empty. Numb. But my fear was gone, along with my guilt. I was empty except for the warm sting coming from my bottom. He ran his palm softly over my throbbing cheeks and I lay limp in his lap, unwilling to fight.

  “Are you finished?”

  “Yes.” I was done, the stinging in my ass blended with the soft strokes of his palm over the hypersensitive flesh made me grit my teeth as my pussy clenched. The spanking had wrung me out, but had also filled me with a strange, euphoric heat. For the first time in forever, my mind was empty of worry, of stress. Under his command, I knew I didn’t need to do anything but feel. Nothing bad could touch me now. Nothing could hurt me here. Markus was powerful, and seemed determined to take care of me.

  “Yes, sir.” He petted my ass a bit harder, his fingers sliding down to probe my pussy, and I gasped at the gentle touch, my body going from languid to needy in the span of a single heartbeat. My pussy ached with every stroke of his hand, ached for more. Harder. Deeper. Just more.

  I didn’t understand what he wanted, my mind too focused on the wet glide of his fingers over my swollen core. Why had he called me a sir?

  “Octavia? What do you call me when you are like this?”

  “What?” Two fingers slid inside my wet folds and I bit my lip to hold back a soft, greedy moan. I was not successful and the wanton sound made his grip tighten in my hair. Being touched by a man was better than I’d imagined. I wanted more. I wanted his tongue in my mouth and his cock in my pussy, I wanted…

  “You are mine, Octavia. When we are alone, you will call me sir.”

  I’d call him anything he wanted me to, as long as he didn’t stop touching me. “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Markus

  I had become little more than a mindless animal. I could hold no thought in my mind but taking her. No logic but the pleasure of pumping into her. No restraint against the need to bury myself deeply inside of her over and over.

  Watching with rapt attention, I slid two fingers inside her wet core, holding her bottom open wide so I could stare as my thick digits disappeared inside her hot, pink center. Her pussy was swollen and coated with glistening welcome. Heat unlike any other surrounded my probing fingers and my entire body clenched with need. The scent of her arousal teased me, loosed instincts so old I had no hope of combatting them. Her surrender sealed her fate.

  Mine. She was mine.

  No longer a man, I was a beast. I knew the precise moment she realized it, felt the shiver race along her overheated skin. Aye, I was an animal set to devour her. The bubbling sensation in my veins intensified as my cock swelled in answer to my need. It would be so easy to turn her away from me on her hands and knees, to lift her ass in the air and fill her until she whimpered and begged for more.

  The thought made my balls ache, but the musky scent of her arousal, the petal-soft skin on her well-spanked ass, and the wet heat of her pussy around my fingers fed something dark within me, and I was not yet ready to stop touching her, to starve my need to dominate her when I had a warm, willing female sprawled over my knees.

  She was mine, completely under my control. The power was addictive. The trust she gave me wrapped around my heart and squeezed like barbed vines. Pain. Sweet pain.

  Lust. Desire. Control. I needed to break through her barriers, turn her into a mindless creature who would experience nothing but pleasure. I needed to tame her completely, make sure she knew exactly who she belonged to now.

  The dark red of her robes bunched just above her waist, a perfect frame for her fair skin, the ripe curves of her hips and ass. Her bottom was still hot and I leaned down to kiss her there. Anticipation held me in place as I filled her with two fingers, worked them inside her deeper than they’d been before, wiggling and curving them against the tight walls of her core until she dropped her head toward the floor with a moan.

  “Who is your master?” I demanded. “Who makes your body sing, your heart beat? Who protects you now?”

  “You.”

  I loved to hear the guttural, needy ache in her voice, but she forgot herself. I smacked her bottom hard enough to sting. I expected a protest. Instead, her pussy clamped down on my fingers as she jerked in my hold. “Who is your master?”

  “You, sir.” She was panting now and I bent low again, nipping at the rounded curves of her bottom with gentle bites as I fucked her with my fingers, careful to avoid her clit. I did not want her to come, not yet, not until she begged.

  “Do you want to go back, Octavia? Do you want me to stop touching you?”

  Silence, tense and heavy, stretched between us as I pulled my fingers out of her body, slid them back in, my pace so slow I knew she would feel every movement, focus on the smallest change. But I would not yield, not on this.

  I would never force her to fuck me. She was mine. My body knew the truth, as did my soul. She was my Fated Mate as I was hers. But she was my enemy and not familiar with the ways of my people. She had to admit her need, our connection. She must give herself to me.

  If my instincts were true, she would feel our connection as well. She could no more walk away than I could let her go.

  “No.” Her voice slid inside my head, lower. My mate. Her smell, of rare jasmine and feminine arousal, filled my lungs. My blood sang, lust rose in a cloud around me, drove me to claim her.

  “No, what?”

  “No, sir. I don’t want to leave.” She wiggled her hips, trying to push back, force my fingers deeper inside her hot pussy. “And I don’t want to stop.”

  I used both hands to draw the fabric of her dress up over her shoulders and head. She lifted her arms to help me, but when I reached her wrists I stopped, using the fabric to bind her wrists.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Exactly what you need me to do.” I checked the bindings, made sure they weren’t too tight before lifting her off my lap. She weighed nothing and I marveled at how I could be so drawn to such a small female. But drawn to her I was. I could not stop myself from lifting my fingers to my mouth and sucking her sweet juices from them as she watched. Her scent, her musk on my tongue made my head buzz with obsession. I needed more.

  With a grunt of impatience, I pulled the covering from my body and pulled her toward me until her bottom rested at the very edge of the bed. I spread her legs wide and lifted them to my shoulders, studying the view from the front.

  Octavia had lowered her bound hands to her chest, hiding from me. I tsked as I reached for them, lifting them high above her head. “Leave them up until I tell you otherwise, mate.”

  She didn’t answer, but nodded and licked her lips. Those lips were so clos
e.

  Our gazes locked for a moment but she could no longer hide her thoughts from me. The longer I spent with her, the more I sensed her mind. The injections her people had given me were wearing off and her desire vibrated on the edge of my awareness like a plucked string next to my cock, shaking it, making me burn.

  Her gaze darted to my lips and I knew she wanted me to kiss her again. But I was not going to give her exactly what she wanted.

  I kissed her cheek instead and pushed her legs wide until I stood naked, my hips cradled between her thighs, the tip of my cock touching her wet core. Moving her feet to rest on the bed, I worked my way down her body to suckle at her breasts. The lobes were nicely rounded, a perfect handful.

  She moaned as I pulled the nipples deeply into my mouth, swirling the taut peaks with my tongue, biting so she’d feel a slight sting.

  Her hips bucked as she tried to take me inside her and I marveled as her legs dropped so that her thighs were completely flat on the bed, her pussy more open than any I’d ever seen.

  Gods help me. It was a good thing I hadn’t known she was so flexible.

  Sliding lower, I rubbed her sensitive core with every inch of my body as I passed until my mouth found her sweet entrance. I plunged my tongue deep and she bucked up off the bed.

  As if trying to protect her core, her legs lifted to wrap around my head like a vise. But this limited my movement and I wanted to taste her fully, to hold her open as I thrust deep.

  “Open your legs for your master. Give your pussy to me. It’s mine. I want it wide open and waiting for me. I’ll fill it with my fingers, or my tongue, or my cock. Whatever I want.”

  I could feel her shock at my words, her puzzlement and her lust, but her legs dropped back to the bed and I placed my palms on her inner thighs, holding her open. Reaching into a drawer near the bed, I pulled a rope free and quickly tied her down, loops of rope holding her knees bent, her thighs open and flat to the bed. She could not move, could not escape, her pussy on perfect display as I walked around her and secured her wrists to the top of the bed as well.