Savage Desire (The Infinite City Book 4)

by Tiffany Roberts

That usually meant remote shocks on par with those delivered by stun batons.

  Yuri and Thargen’s lack of collars supported Taeraal’s claim that he and his crew were smugglers rather than slavers; if they had decided to take Thargen and Yuri at the last moment, it stood to reason that they simply hadn’t had any spare collars on hand.

  Fuck reason, Rage growled in the back of his mind. We can break these restraints. Free us. Kill them all.

  Klagar’s balls, you’re back already? Guess the tranqs are finally out of my system.

  Who was he fooling? Rage was always with Thargen. Even when he quieted it, even when he buried it deep, it was always there—and it always would be.

  He turned his mind away from Rage; there were plenty of other things to focus on. Like just how much his arms were killing him. That was unfortunate—he would much rather have had them killing the slavers, or smugglers, or whatever the fuck they were. There were all those aches to occupy his attention, too, like the hint of a sting lingering on his left wrist. That one was probably the result of his ID chip having been removed, just the same as Yuri’s.

  So much for Arc being able to track me by my chip.

  So this Taeraal was stupid, but not clueless. That was good to know.

  It would’ve been easy to focus on Yuri, too. Her little body fit against him perfectly. Her skin was warm and soft, and her black hair tickled his chest and teased his abdomen whenever she moved her head. But there were only two paths his thoughts could take right now if he focused on her too much—and each led to Rage in its own way.

  Firstly, there was the fact that they were both naked. He’d been painfully attracted to her even before he’d seen her bare body, and that attraction had only deepened by an impossible degree despite the current circumstances.

  She was…delectable.

  Her hand had relaxed while she slept against him, allowing him a glimpse of her breast with its bronze nipple. Her feminine curves seemed to have been shaped perfectly for his hands, her skin beckoned the touch of his tongue, and she’d been pressed against his throbbing cock the whole time they’d been sitting here.

  His erection hadn’t wavered for even one damned second, and he wondered how there was any blood left for his brain to produce a single coherent thought. It hurt, and even if he couldn’t put his hands on her, it would only take a slight change of her position to give him what he so desperately needed.

  Maybe restraints are a good idea. Maybe…maybe they could make it possible.

  He clenched his jaw and forced himself to take another slow breath. That was a dangerous path for his mind to wander, and it would drive him mad if he dwelled there too long.

  These restraints will not hold you, his Rage said, helpful as ever.

  But that interjection highlighted the only other path Thargen’s thoughts could follow, a path of fury. He’d only known Yuri for a day—or two or three, depending on how long they’d been in this cage—but he knew she was a good person, knew she was genuine and kind. That she was an innocent. Her only crime had been to defend herself from an aggressor—not a crime at all, by the standards of most people. She didn’t deserve any of this. She shouldn’t have been sitting here, locked up like an animal, in a cold cell, forced to snuggle against a half-mad vorgal to keep warm.

  The anger that this situation instilled in Thargen went well beyond Rage. There was fire in it, yes, a whole fucking inferno, but it also had a hard, icy edge. He couldn’t claim to know much about justice or the law, but he did know about revenge—and he’d always been good at killing people who needed killing.

  Somewhere aboard this ship was a whole crew of assholes who needed killing. Just the thought of them and the ugly orange accents on their clothing poured magma into his blood and threatened to make his breathing ragged, and what would that accomplish? He could break the manacles. Great.

  Then what?

  He couldn’t break down the cell door. He knew just enough to understand that these cages were reinforced tristeel, and the bulky latches on their doors looked a hell of a lot like maglocks. Maybe Arcanthus could’ve managed it with his cybernetic limbs, but even that was doubtful.

  As much as Thargen usually tried to roll with the situation, this feeling of impotence, of helplessness, would only enhance his Rage and make him throw away any opportunities to escape that might later arise.

  Need to maintain my outward calm. For her.

  So what was he to do, then? He wasn’t going to turn his attention toward the other captives. That would just result in ceaseless speculation about who they were, why they were here, what their lives had been like before. And if they were staring at Yuri, like Iljibi had been, that meant more people on Thargen’s eventual kill list, which was only fun if his enemies put up a decent fight while he pummeled them into a gooey, unidentifiable mass.

  By the looks of them, none of these prisoners could provide any challenge—except maybe the azhera in the cage at the end of the walkway, but he’d been sleeping so long that he might as well have been in hibernation.

  Thargen was suffering from another discomfort that he hadn’t let himself dwell on for long, exasperated by Yuri being pressed against his cock—not the ache in his balls, but in his bladder. He had to piss something fierce. His raging hard-on only made that pressure so much worse.

  Yeah, thinking about that will sure help. The fuck is wrong with you, Thargen?

  His lips curled into a small smile. His friends would’ve offered quite a few entertaining answers to that question, were he with them. He hadn’t really spent much time apart from them over the last several years; those excursions to local bars had rarely kept him away from his adopted home for more than a single night. He missed the banter, missed the good-natured insults, missed little Leah’s giggles and smiles.

  But I have Yuri now.

  She grounded him, and her sense of humor was different from what he’d grown accustomed to—it was goofy, lighthearted, flirtatious, and so, so warm. That was refreshing. Though she’d delivered an impressive slap to Mortannis at the bar, she clearly wasn’t a fighter, but she harbored a warrior’s spirit in her heart. Thargen admired her inner strength—it didn’t require physical strength to fuel it, and that seemed to make it all the more special. He’d had honest, heartfelt conversations with Urgand and Shay, but talking to Yuri was so easy, so natural, and felt so good.

  She felt good.

  Fuck!

  He gritted his teeth; he could feel seed seeping from the tip of his cock, marking her skin.

  Marking her as his.

  The mechanical whir of the chamber door sliding open shattered the silence. Yuri jolted awake with a gasp, pushing herself up straight by thrusting her elbow against his shaft and shoving hard.

  Thargen grunted and curled slightly inward, arms straining reflexively to reach for his cock and ease the new ache.

  “I’m so sorry!” Yuri as she turned to him, eyes rounded. She reached toward his shaft as though she meant to soothe it but hesitated before making contact. She placed a hand on his chest instead—giving him a full view of hers.

  “I’m good,” he groaned, eyes fixed on her full, pert breasts. The touch of her elbow had been the perfect blend of pleasure and pain; it had brought him to the verge of exploding. And his current view seemed like it’d be enough to push him over that edge without the need for another touch.

  Brows drawn down in concern and confusion, Yuri followed Thargen’s gaze with her own. She sucked in a sharp breath and crossed her arms over her chest, skin flushing pink.

  Under different circumstances, Thargen would’ve taken those tempting nipples into his mouth, would’ve laved them with his tongue, would’ve sucked them hard—and maybe would’ve even asked her to slap his cock a time or two. But this wasn’t the best place, and it definitely wasn’t the right time.

  Thargen took another steadying breath and focused past those desires.

  He lifted his gaze to look toward the front of the room. Someone had entered
and was moving from cage to cage, but the bars from the neighboring cages prevented Thargen from getting a good look at the newcomer until they’d moved closer.

  It was Firios, the volturian from Starlight Trance.

  Rage stirred along the edges of Thargen’s consciousness, slithering like a serpent, searching out the breach through which it could enter. He’d only had a chance to hit Firios once from what he could remember, and it had been done blindly. That wasn’t nearly enough.

  As Firios drew closer still, his task became apparent—he was carrying a bucket in one hand, into which he dipped the other as he stopped at each cage, taking out one clear, gelatinous water cube and a single beige meal bar. Thargen watched the volturian toss the cube and the bar into a cell across the walkway and to the left.

  The male groalthuun inside reached forward with a trembling hand to snatch up the rations before retreating to the rear of his cage.

  Carrying himself with a disinterested air, Firios stepped to the next cage. The female volturian within stepped forward, standing straight and seemingly unconcerned with her nakedness. Her red qal markings shimmered faintly on her dusky gray skin. They were the same red as Firios’s qal, and their patterns were similar.

  “You are a disgrace to our qalar,” she said in the smooth, flowing Volturian language.

  Firios lowered his hand into the bucket. Maintaining that indifferent manner, he tossed a meal bar at the female’s feet before reaching into the container to produce a water cube. He threw that higher; it struck the female’s chest with a dull thwap and fell to the floor.

  “The qalar can go fuck itself,” he replied in the same tongue, somehow making the words sound dignified and graceful.

  Fucking volturians.

  The female was unfazed. “I will see that you face justice on Korous.”

  “The only thing you are likely to see is your new owner’s cock just before he thrusts it into your mouth to shut you up.”

  Expression unchanging, she leaned forward and spit at the male’s feet. “I do not accept your disgrace, traitor. You are disowned.”

  “Spare me your sanctimonious whining. It would serve you better to turn your efforts toward making peace with your situation, because it will only worsen from here.” Firios turned away from the female and stepped up to Thargen and Yuri’s cell.

  Fixing a cold glare on Thargen, the volturian dipped his hand into the bucket and produced two water cubes. He angled his hand to let the cubes slide off. They landed at the very front of the cell, barely inside the bars.

  “I gotta take a piss,” Thargen said as the volturian reached into his bucket again.

  “I doubt you let anything stop you before. Is there a problem now?”

  “Guess I didn’t hit you hard enough the first time, huh?”

  “The only time.” Firios dropped a pair of meal bars into the cage. “There is a hole in the corner. Piss away.”

  “Oh, my God,” Yuri whispered in horror.

  Firios turned away to toss meager rations into the remaining cages. As soon as he was done, he walked to the door and exited the chamber.

  Yuri looked at Thargen with a frown before she stood up and crept to the front of the cell, giving him a lovely view of her ass. She crouched, collected the meal bars and water cubes, and returned to her place beside Thargen, all while keeping one arm banded across her breasts.

  Her eyes flitted from Thargen to that arm clamped over her chest. That enticing blush hadn’t faded from her skin; if anything, it deepened further now. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? Being concerned about modesty in a place like this when everyone else is…as naked as I am.”

  Thargen offered her as gentle a smile as he could. “Not stupid. You’re taking what control you can, that’s all.”

  She nodded and hesitantly lowered her arm from her breasts, using that hand to wipe the water cubes clean. “I’ll, uh, hold these if you want to…pee.”

  The sound of his own chuckling was all that snapped Thargen’s attention away from her chest.

  “Yeah. Before I embarrass myself, I guess.” He forced himself to rise, pausing when he was up on one knee to meet her gaze. “So you know, you have nothing to be embarrassed about. I would tell you to cover up, but that’s only because none of them deserve to see you.”

  Though a glimmer of shyness remained in her eyes, she smirked. “Oh, but you do?”

  “Fuck yeah, I do,” he replied as he climbed to his feet. The motion reminded him how stiff his legs had become while sitting with her and introduced a new ache at the base of his spine. He scanned the floor until he found the hole Firios had mentioned—it was in the corner to Thargen’s right, no wider than his hand.

  Thargen stepped over to the hole. He shifted his gaze from it to his still erect cock, flexed his hands, which were locked securely behind his back, and frowned.

  “This should be fun,” he muttered.

  If he let loose now, he’d just piss all over the wall, and he wasn’t going to do that—at least not in Yuri’s presence. And he’d be damned if he was going to ask for her help; as much as he wanted her hand on his shaft, this was not how he wanted it to happen.

  He lowered himself onto his knees and bent forward, pressing his head to the wall. Slowly, and not without a few frustrated grunts and muttered curses, he shifted his knees back, simultaneously angling his pelvis forward to direct his cock toward the hole as best he could. His abdomen burned with exertion, forced to support more and more of his weight at this unfavorable angle. Pressure and heat built in his face as his position grew increasingly precarious, and he was soon forced to bury his chin against his chest just to see where he was aiming.

  Finally, the head of his cock was pointed at the hole in the ground; if his angle were any lower, he might as well have been lying on the fucking floor.

  A soft, muffled sound came from behind him—something suspiciously reminiscent of a giggle.

  “I know you’re not laughing at me,” he grated. His words were followed by a drawn out, grateful moan as he finally let it all out. His eyelids flutter shut. This wasn’t full relief—it’d take far more than a piss for that—but it was a hell of a lot better than a few moments before.

  “I’m not. Swear,” Yuri said, though the amusement in her voice suggested otherwise. “You’re, uh…surprisingly flexible. For such a big guy, I mean.”

  “This is at least a little bit your fault.” Despite her teasing, his flow continued unbroken. Were he not in such an uncomfortable, ultimately unsustainable position, he might’ve found the duration impressive. But it was difficult to appreciate the possibly record-breaking piss while his muscles were burning, and his scalp was being ground between his skull and the wall.

  Iljibi laughed. “You not the only one she making suffer, vorgal.”

  “If you show her your dick again, cren,” Thargen growled, “I am going to tear it off and shove it down your throat.”

  “Sorry. Iljibi will go get dressed.”

  “Fuck your sarcasm. Now shut up, I’m busy.”

  It might’ve been ten seconds or twenty minutes later when Thargen finally finished. Placing that much more strain on his muscles, he rocked his hips from side to side to shake away the last few drops.

  “You want Iljibi to give it a few taps for good measure, vorgal?” the Iljibi asked.

  Clenching his jaw, Thargen shifted his knees forward and straightened. He opened his eyes as he stood up. “If you hadn’t treated this terran the way you did, you and me might’ve got on all right. But now you’re on the fucking list.”

  “You want to fuck Iljibi?” the cren laughed. “Not interested, vorgal.”

  Thargen walked back to Yuri and sat beside her. She was facing the wall again, legs drawn up with knees close, and had her head bowed as though to hide her smile. Thargen couldn’t blame her for her amusement.

  “Did, uh…everything come out okay?” she asked.

  “You tell me. You were watching.”

  Her eyes shot up to
his. “I was not!”

  Thargen grinned and leaned his shoulder against the wall. “Maybe not the whole time, but I know you were watching my ass flex. We already know our neighbor was transfixed by it.”

  “He’s just a nasty pervert. I was trying to give you some privacy.” With her cheeks flushed red, Yuri edged closer to Thargen and raised one of the meal bars to his mouth. “Here.”

  “You wash your hands?” he asked, brows falling low.

  “Yep, with fancy soap and everything. Now eat.”

  “Guess my business did take a while. You could’ve skinned and roasted a whole glehorn while I was over there pis—”

  Yuri shoved the end of the bar into his mouth.

  Thargen snorted and bit the bar in half. It was oddly tasteless and dusty, but he supposed it was at least on the same level as some of the food he’d been forced to eat on the front lines back in the day.

  She lowered the remainder of the bar and stretched out her legs, waiting as he chewed. When he swallowed, it felt like a fistful of dirt tumbling down his throat to pile in his gut, and it only made him hungrier—for anything but the rest of that unidentifiable meal bar. He opened his mouth dutifully and leaned his head toward her.

  Yuri smiled and held the bar up again. Thargen extended his tongue and swept the whole bar into his mouth, getting the faintest hint of salty and sweet from her skin; that sample of her was the best thing he’d tasted since the birthday cake.

  “Best to eat crap like this quick,” he said as he chewed. “Longer you take, the worse it tastes.”

  She gave her own bar, which lay on the floor beside her, a disappointed glance. “Guess we’re lucky they’re feeding us at all.”

  He choked down the food in his mouth. “That’s the spirit, terran. Look at the good. Another positive is that you get to stare at me as much as you want.”

  She chuckled, plucked a water cube from her other hand, and raised it to his lips. “I’d say that’s the best thing about this.”

  Thargen dipped his eyes, letting them linger on her body—particularly her navel piercing. “Second best.”

  He sucked the water cube into his mouth. It was cold, rubbery, and had a very faint chemical taste, but he was grateful for it as the gelatinous, slowly melting outer layer released water that washed away the lingering taste of the meal bar.