Yuri laughed. “Of course not. But I didn’t mean that he’s literally an angel, just that he watches out for you.”
“Yeah, he does. You said you have a brother on Arthos, right? You and him do the same for each other?”
Her smile faded at the mention of her brother, who was undoubtedly worried sick right now and wondering if she was even alive. “Yeah, we do. Takashi and I immigrated to Arthos together two years ago. We live together in Niharin Sector, not far from Starlight Trance. He’s…uh, well, he’s a dancer in another fancy club. Not exactly something I would have chosen for him, but it wasn’t my choice to make, and he seems to enjoy it.”
Thargen’s eyes rounded, and his grin widened. “When you say he’s a dancer…”
Yuri chuckled. “He likes to show it all off—and I mean all of it. Not that I want to picture that.”
Thargen laughed that deep, booming laugh she hadn’t heard from him in what felt like days. “That’s great. So many assholes in Arthos are after terrans, I’m glad one figured out how to make a living off it without getting his ass captured.” His expression sobered, and he straightened a little. “I just insulted us, didn’t I?”
“Maybe. What’s so special about humans, anyway? I mean, there are so many other species that are more…beautiful than us.”
“More beautiful than who? Terrans as a race, or you specifically? Cause if you mean the second, I’m calling—what’s that word? Bullshit?”
Yuri smiled as a pleasurable warmth flooded her chest. “I meant as a race.” She leaned toward him. “You think I’m beautiful?”
The hungry light in his eyes was all the answer she would’ve needed, even if he hadn’t spoken again. “Of-fucking-course I do, Yuri. And all you gotta do is look at me and to know I have particularly high standards.”
As though of their own accord, her eyes dipped to his cock, which was standing at full attention. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she ran her gaze along his pierced shaft, and the warmth in her chest rekindled the heat in her core.
When his cock twitched, and a bit of seed oozed from its tip, Yuri’s sex clenched.
She tightened her hold on her legs and squeezed her thighs together. She wanted more than anything to reach out and wrap her fingers around his shaft, to find out if it felt as hard as it looked, to brush her thumb—or better yet, her tongue—over the head and taste his flavor.
Yuri had never, ever wanted anyone like she wanted him.
“Fuck, zoani,” Thargen said thickly, “keep looking at me like that and—”
The door to the chamber opened with a hydraulic hiss. Thargen snapped his mouth shut and twisted to look toward the entryway.
It felt like it was time for their second daily water cube, but it was impossible to accurately keep track of such things—and Yuri doubted the smugglers kept a regular schedule when it came to tending to their cargo.
But it wasn’t Firios who stepped through the open doorway; it was the towering, four-armed onigox who’d grabbed Yuri in Starlight Trance and started this whole ordeal—Mortannis. The door slammed down behind him with a resounding metallic clang that seemed somehow more ominous than it had any time before.
Oh, God, what now?
Thargen curled his torso forward slightly and stood up, releasing an undeniably frustrated huff through his nostrils. Yuri caught that primal glint in his eyes just before he turned to face the walkway, his head angled toward Mortannis.
She scrambled to her feet, crossed her arms over her chest, and stood beside Thargen, leaning forward to peer down the walkway. She could already feel his body heat rising.
Mortannis turned and opened some sort of panel beside the door; his bulky body blocked it from Yuri’s view. A moment later, there was a machine-like whir underfoot, strong enough to vibrate through her feet and up her legs. She placed a hand on Thargen’s arm to steady herself. His muscles were coiled steel, his skin taut and hot.
Yuri looked down to see the floor change—thin strips along the edges of the walkway sank down and split apart, opening long lines of tiny drainage slits. When the floor under her feet suddenly moved, Yuri’s heart skipped a beat. She spun around and leapt back, pressing herself against the front of the cage.
A section of the cage floor dropped a few centimeters and slid out of sight, leaving a grating with hundreds of tiny holes behind. It was dark beneath that grating—like she was looking straight into the void.
The onigox laughed. “Smells like shit in here. But don’t worry. I’m going to fix that.”
Thargen released a low growl. He was in the same position as before, attention pinned on the onigox; he’d not so much as flinched when the floor changed. Swallowing thickly, Yuri willed her breathing to steady and stepped forward, away from the cold bars. The floor felt strange now. The holes were too small for even her little toe to fit through, but they were so numerous that she swore she could feel every one of them on the soles of her feet.
She turned to look toward the chamber’s entrance again.
Mortannis grabbed something in the wall and pulled. Yuri only recognized it for what it was when he turned, aimed the object at the first cell, and opened the nozzle.
A powerful stream of water sprayed from the hose in the onigox’s hold, splashing off the bars and creating an impossibly loud noise that almost completely drowned out the muffled cry from the cage’s occupant. Mortannis grinned and laughed again.
After twenty or thirty seconds, he turned closed the nozzle and sidestepped to the next cage. His grin didn’t waver as he turned on the water again, and his laughter was a little stronger this time.
“Guess it doesn’t matter whether you’ve been bathing with your tongue, does it, azhera?” he called to the cage’s occupant—a female azhera who Yuri had only been able to glimpse a couple times so far. Mortannis turned off the hose and leaned forward, his grin stretching somehow wider.
From somewhere inside the cage, the azhera growled—but the sound faded into a desperate whimper.
Thargen stepped forward, pressing his forehead against the bars. “Pissed because you didn’t have anyone to lick your wounds?”
“Thargen, what are you doing?” Yuri whispered, brows furrowing.
Mortannis turned and walked toward their cage, his footfalls heavy upon the metal floor; Yuri could hear his size and strength in every step. In Starlight Trance, Thargen had caught the onigox off guard, but he’d still handled the bigger alien like that size difference was meaningless.
Now, Thargen was restrained and caged. The situation was about as uneven as it could’ve been.
The onigox stopped in front of Thargen and glared down at the vorgal. His skin, which was a vibrant red, was marred by several blotchy purple bruises on his face, and several paler lines marked the cuts Thargen had opened on his cheek and temple with the shot glass. One side of his face still had a swollen, uneven look to it.
“You say something, vorgal?” Mortannis asked.
“If you can’t hear me, why don’t you open the cage? I’ll get real close and whisper it in your ear.”
Mortannis bent closer to the bars, placing his face nearly on level with Thargen’s. “Sounds like you need to cool off.”
Before Thargen could respond, Mortannis opened the hose nozzle. The jet of water struck Thargen in the face. Despite his size and strength, he was blasted away from the bars, backpedaling until he struck the back wall.
Yuri gasped. The water spraying off him and hitting the bars and wall filled the air with mist that obscured her vision. The droplets that hit her skin were frigid, and some still held enough force to sting. She threw up her arms to shield herself as best she could.
Thargen roared. Muscles bulging, he leaned into that relentless stream and walked forward one hard-fought step at a time.
The sound created by the water’s impact was almost deafening, but Yuri swore she heard Mortannis laughing just outside the cage.
The jet of water intensified suddenly, growing
impossibly louder. Thargen crashed back into the wall again, losing every centimeter he’d battled to gain in an instant, and slipped. He crashed heavily to the floor.
All at once, the spray stopped. The gentle sound of runoff flowing through the grating and dripping to some unseen part of the ship below was surreal after all that noise. Thargen grunted and heaved himself into a sitting position. Water streamed over his skin from head to toe, and huge patches of his face, chest, and shoulders were darker than normal, as though irritated or bruised. When he released a huff, it sent a spray of droplets from his lips.
“See, doing better already,” Mortannis said with a chuckle. “And don’t think I forgot about you, little ji’tas.”
Yuri looked at Mortannis, and eyes widening a split second before the water hit her. A scream tore from her throat; the impact was like being hit by a train, like being struck by lightning, like being drenched in liquid nitrogen. It knocked her off her feet as though she were an insect being swatted aside, and the continued pressure quickly slid her back until she struck the wall. The pain of her shoulder striking solid metal was nothing compared to the agony of that water.
And now she was pinned between that hard, unmoving metal and that punishing, forceful stream of water. It was at once burning and freezing, sending a numbing sting across her flesh. Sputtering and choking, she turned her face toward the wall; the water blasting her was too strong, knocking her arms and knees aside when she tried to shield herself with them. No place was left untouched.
Her world was water—its force, its sting, its icy chill, its consuming roar. There was nothing else.
Not until she heard him.
Thargen’s roar was a direct challenge to that water, just as primal and elemental but infinitely more furious. She felt it even through the pain and cold, felt it resonate in her bones, in her heart. That sound should have been terrifying—it was the call of a beast, a force of nature that knew only how to destroy.
And then the jet of water broke. Thargen’s body fell over hers, covering her completely and blanketing her with a heat that was scalding in contrast to the iciness of her skin. Yuri coughed, trying to clear her airway. Outside, she was freezing and numb, but her lungs and throat were ablaze and raw.
Thargen was heavy, almost too heavy; but his crushing weight was a welcome change. His muscles strained around her, and his ragged breaths were audible even over the water, each of them run through with a snarl, grunt, or growl. Every sound he made was brimming with pain and rage.
The flow of water ceased abruptly, and Mortannis’s laughter boomed in the relative silence that followed. “Brought low by a little water. Not so tough now, are you, vorgal?”
His heavy steps moved away, and the water came on again, just as loud as before. Iljibi cried out, but his voice was drowned out as water filled his mouth, turning words into gurgles.
Still coughing, Yuri squeezed her eyes tighter shut, wishing she could block out sound just as easily. Mortannis moved from cell to cell, cackling at the screams, whimpers, and sputters of the captives as he hosed them down. Shivers wracked her body, and her teeth chattered. The numbness was fading, allowing the chill to intensify and the stinging sensation to spread across her skin from head to toe, both far worse in the places she’d been directly hit by the water.
Thargen shifted his position, easing much of his weight off her.
Yuri turned her face; her forehead touched Thargen’s chin. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. The muscles of his jaw were bunched, his lips were peeled-back, and his golden eyes blazed with barely contained fury. His nostrils flared with a harsh exhalation.
With a trembling hand, she reached up and cupped Thargen’s jaw. “C-Calm. S-S-Stay calm.”
He leaned his face into her touch, and his chest swelled with a deep, shaky breath. His skin was even hotter now, and she could feel his rapid, steady pulse through her palm. For some time, he remained like that—on his knees, leaned toward her but not on her, with her hand on his face. Breathing and seething in silence.
“Not time yet,” he finally said through clenched teeth, lips barely moving as he spoke.
Yuri reached up with her free hand to brush Thargen’s dripping braids out of his face. She looked into his eyes for a moment before she slipped her arms around him and pulled him closer, burying her face against his throat and closing her eyes, desperate to shut out everything outside their cell—the water, the onigox’s laughter, the soft cries of the kaital in the neighboring cage.
He shifted, settling a little more of his weight on her as he stretched his legs out and pressed them along hers, further enveloping Yuri in his heat and solidness. She breathed in his scent deeply as she stroked a hand up and down his wet back. Slowly, her shivers subsided.
It wasn’t until long after Mortannis had left the room that Thargen relaxed—though she could only consider him relaxed compared to the peak of his earlier agitation. He was still a bow string ready to snap, and Yuri could sense the fury brimming just beneath the surface, could sense his need for release.
Handcuffed or not, she knew Thargen would’ve ripped the onigox to shreds had the cage door been open.
“I’m with you, Yuri,” he rumbled.
His words caught her off guard; it was as though he’d been reading her thoughts and sought to put her at ease.
Yuri’s chest constricted with near overwhelming emotion, and she brushed her lips against his neck. “Stay with me.”
He groaned. “It’ll take a fuck of a lot more than four arms and a hose to pry me away, zoani.”
Eight
Had five days gone by, or six? Had they even been days at all? There was no way to tell how much time passed during the cycle of dark and light the smugglers had maintained throughout Thargen and Yuri’s captivity—no way to tell with any certainty, at least. Every lost moment, every unaccounted for second, pushed Thargen closer to his limit.
Whether he tracked it or not, time bolstered his Rage.
It didn’t matter if the day-night cycle on the ship were comparable to those in Arthos; he knew days had gone by. He couldn’t track the time, but he couldn’t ignore it, either.
The passing minutes lined up like soldiers preparing for muster, the hours like armored regiments, and the days built up like intergalactic fleets amassing for invasion. Now they were all standing against him, staring him down, their target locked—the tenuous mental barrier keeping his Rage contained. They meant to unleash that Rage, the legacy of his people, and let it run wild in this three-by-three-meter cage.
His skin itched, stretched taut over swollen muscles that twitched with unspent energy, and his breaths were thick and scratchy. His shoulders screamed with discomfort, and his wrists stung where his flesh had been rubbed raw by his manacles. Rage dulled all the other aches and pains he should’ve felt to the point of making them unnoticeable.
Even now, he couldn’t regret having embraced Rage in order to better serve his species. Regrets were pointless—especially when he’d forgotten so much.
He paced in the tiny confines of the cell, moving faster and faster, mindful only of his Rage—and of Yuri. It didn’t matter if his chest felt near to bursting or if his head seemed about to split open. It didn’t matter if his mind was being seized by the overwhelming need to damage, destroy, and kill.
Or fuck.
His eyes fell on Yuri. Small, defenseless, delicate. Beautiful. His erection throbbed in time with his pounding heart.
No.
He tore his gaze away from her and continued moving. Yuri was his center, his balance. The only thing keeping him grounded. She would not become a target for his Rage. He would hold it in for her sake, protect her as best he could…even if it meant protecting her from himself.
And it was only for her sake that he resisted the urge to slam his head into the bars, to shout and growl, to break his bindings and force the smugglers to come deal with him. That would only bring suffering and pain—because they wouldn’t open the cage
door. They didn’t have to, not until they reached their destination. And when Thargen couldn’t break free of the cell, couldn’t unleash his fury on his captors, what would he do?
No matter how hard he fought it, he’d eventually turn to Yuri. And that would be worse than anything she’d been forced to endure thus far.
Fight, not fuck. Fight, fight, fight.
Fight what? The fucking cage?
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
No, damn it! This is not the fucking cage!
A growl tore up from his chest, and his lips peeled back around his clenched teeth. He needed to punch something, anything, but his arms were restricted, and it wasn’t time to break them free. What good would it have done him, anyway? His body would break before the cage’s reinforced bars.
He swung his gaze around the chamber, but he didn’t allow it to land on any of the other captives—not even Iljibi, who would’ve made a perfect outlet for his Rage. A shouting match was not what Thargen needed right now; he needed action. The cren was especially aware that he was safe in his cage, and he’d grown quite adept at getting under Thargen’s skin. Provoking Iljibi would only be a roundabout way for Thargen to provoke himself.
Fuck.
Back home, Thargen had always had ways to release his Rage before it reached this point. Sure, that had sometimes resulted in broken exercise equipment, holes in walls that weren’t meant to have holes, or strangers knocked on their asses out on the streets, but at least he’d vented his Rage before it reached the murderous peak to which it was currently rocketing. He’d always spared the people he cared about from having to deal with the truth of what he was.
Rage had been a part of him before his head injury; afterward, it had become him.
Thargen heard the whoosh of the chamber door sliding up, felt the subtle breeze on his skin as fresher air swept in, smelled the difference almost immediately—though he’d largely blocked it out, this chamber reeked of body odor, piss, and shit.
Savage Desire (The Infinite City Book 4) Page 11
