by Jaide Fox
The path opened up into a series of round pools fed by a sprinkling fountain. In the rim of the pools glowed lights that alternated in color, from red to purple, to blue and white and every color in between.
Kittana sat on the edge of one of the pools and dipped her hand in the water, surprised to find it warm. “Are these for swimming?” she asked, glancing up at him.
Navarre stood beside her, looking down at her. “These are some of the many lovers’ pools in the area. They say if you make love in the waters of Antares, you bind your love to you forever and always.”
She smiled. “That’s silly.” She met his eyes, seeing desire slant his lids. “Would you like to give it a try?” she asked, feeling breathless and nervous all of a sudden.
He said nothing, merely pulled the edges of her gown apart, allowing it to drop around her waist. He divested himself of his loincloth, showing his rock hard erection already standing at attention. Bending down, he scooped her up into his arms and crossed over into the pool.
Water lapped around his hips. He sat down in the water on a bench beneath, taking her there with him.
The warmth of the water seeped into her bones, heating her from the outside in, but just looking at the expression on Navarre’s face was enough to send her blood roaring into an inferno.
Wrapping his hands around her back, she reveled in the feel of his rough callouses caressing her skin in concentric circles. He crushed her against his chest, flattening her breasts against the hard planes and making her nipples tighten into hard, achy peaks. She moaned, tipping her head up, expectant of his kiss.
His head descended, mouth hungry, slanting over hers and she ceased breathing. Blood rushed through her veins, throbbing in secret places. Hot and hungry, he devoured her with his mouth. This was tenderness for Navarre. As tender as he’d ever managed in her experience. She loved the wildness of him, the savageness that always hovered beneath the surface. He excited her with the edge of danger.
His tongue tangled with hers and she moaned into his mouth. She felt the bite of his fingers as he tangled a hand in her hair, trapping her against his desperate kiss.
She wrapped her hands around his chest, rubbing herself against him, eager for more.
Breaking from her mouth, he nibbled a path down her chin to her ear, whispering hot, sweet nothings into her ear that she couldn’t understand. His breath sent shivers down her spine. She trembled, wanting more.
“Please, Navarre. Don’t tease me so,” she begged on a gasp when he bent and caught one of her nipples in his mouth.
His teeth dragged against her small nipple, distending her flesh and making it harden into an achy peak. She caught the crown of his head, digging her fingers into his scalp as she trapped him against her needy breast. He groaned at the prick of her nails and moved to her other breast, heightening sensation with his mouth.
Her cunt felt saturated, and not just by the water they sat in. She felt fingers of liquid move over her skin and loved the sensation.
Slowly, he shifted and moved between her legs, pressing tight against her groin, bending her backwards against the lip of the pool. Light scattered across ripples in the water, reflecting on their skin as the light shifted in color.
And then his cock was there, where she wanted it the most. Where she needed it the most. The thick head seemed wider than ever before, like a fist probing through the petals of her sex. She’d always marveled at his ability to shift the parts of his body into anything that he wished. It’d brought her much pleasure in the past, and she anticipated it would continue bringing her many orgasms into the future.
“I want you inside me,” she said breathily, urging him with the thrust of her hips and gratified to hear his moan equal her desire.
“I’ll give you everything you want,” he promised, his voice a deep, rich baritone that had the nerves along her backbone writhing in heat.
He glided against her wet pussy, becoming a push as the thick head wedged inside her hole. Slowly, as if pained by the movement, he forged a path inside her tight, slick channel.
She gasped, wrapping her legs around his hips, pulling him in. His groans made her wetter, hotter for him. When he sank to the hilt deep within her, she cried out, clinging to his arms as he settled in the deepest part of her and slowly withdrew. Ridges of muscle clung hungrily to his cock, urging him to stay inside.
A moan tore from her throat. Her blood seemed to pool in her center and spread through her lower limbs, increasing the heat and friction of their bodies as he stroked her in the erotic waters.
He drove her to heights she’d never reached before, and she loved it. Her body trembled, her pussy quaked with the force of his thrusts.
His face hovered inches from her own, and she tipped her mouth up to kiss him greedily. Tension mounted his body, tightening the muscles of his arms and legs, his hips. She felt it in the depths of her core, felt his flesh grow more rigid and harder. Her cunt grasped him, tight as a fist.
“I’ll take you in ways you’ve never dreamed, love,” he murmured against her mouth.
She shuddered at the words, clung to him tighter, harder. “I’ve always been ready, Navarre. Nothing you could do could ever scare me away.”
“No other woman could satisfy my urges the way you do,” he growled, nipping her lips, driving into her harder and faster, his tempo increasing the pressure driving her needs higher and higher.
Kittana moaned in excitement. Her hands clenched around his thick biceps, her fingers clawed his flesh, urging him on. He wrapped around the small of her back, drawing her tight against him and she practically sobbed against his neck. She barely recognized the sounds emanating from her throat. She felt like a wounded animal, clinging to the life only he could give her.
Muscles contracting, her womb spasmed, fighting to reach the orgasm that hovered just beyond her reach. Navarre groaned and jerked. She felt the hot wash of his seed inside her, felt him fill every inch of her hollow with the thick hardness of his flesh as he exploded with orgasm deep within her womb. It sent her over the edge, and she was crying out with his brutal desire.
Reason seared from her mind, swallowed by ecstasy.
Her body tightened at his hoarse shout of release. Her pussy quaked, attaining the pinnacle of release as it rippled through muscle and tissue with forceful convulsions. She screamed his name, barely aware of herself anymore, wanting and needing him like life itself.
“Kittana, Kittana,” he mumbled, over and over again, his breath ragged in her hair, desperate and vulnerable. She loved that he showed her his weakness, only her.
She felt tears on her face, realized she’d begun weeping at some point. Kittana kissed him, returning the love she’d always had for him. “Let us put the past behind us, Navarre. I’ll do anything you ask of me if you will but forgive me. You have only to ask.”
He met her eyes, his gaze vulnerable and haunted. Words caught in his throat. He visibly swallowed, his adam’s apple rising and lowering with the effort. “I’ve always loved you, Kittana. Why do you think I could hate you with such passion? You stole more than riches from me. Those can be replaced. I could never replace my heart. I thought I died those years ago. You’ve brought me back to life, Kittana. If you break it again, I will never survive.”
Kittana cupped his jaw. “I’m am yours, Navarre. Forever and always. Your slave, your mate, your woman. If you will have me.”
He smiled that rare smile that made her feel so wicked inside. “I think you have my answer.”
The End
Pleasure Masters Book Three
MASTERED
Copyright January 2014 by Jaide Fox
Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright January 2014
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter One
Orcha Elmris felt something cold and wet on her arms a
nd back, seeping through the mattress. A nagging breeze made the dampness chill enough to penetrate her slumber, pulling her out of bizarre dreams and back into consciousness.
She wondered at first if she’d managed to wet the bed in a fever induced haze. She’d been sick for weeks, so it wouldn’t surprise her that she had. But why wouldn’t Kon wake her up? He’d just gotten home after a month long tour of duty.
The disturbing thought was enough to fully rouse her from her dreams. She struggled to open her eyes, but they were welded shut by a sticky substance. Orcha wiggled her eyes and eyebrows, attempting unsuccessfully to open them. Giving up, she finally lifted her hand to pry her lids open.
The muscles of her arm burned as if she’d been swimming for hours. Even her fingers felt arthritic and swollen. Lifting her arm was an effort. Coming out of the drug-like sleep, she realized more than her arm hurt. Every single muscle in her body felt as if it had been lit on fire and left to smolder like a pile of embers.
“Damn,” she said, groaning as she forced her eyes open with her fingers and looked at her hand to see what she’d wiped away.
Blood.
A wave of dizziness made her head spin. She struggled to sit up in the bed and saw blood all around her. All over her naked skin, the sheets, the pillows—the walls.
The last thing she remembered was crawling on top of Kon and making love…. She’d still felt sick, but she’d missed him so much she’d fought through the sickness to love him.
“K-Kon?” she choked, slowly turning her head to look at his spot in the bed.
What she saw instead of her sleeping lover ripped a hole in her heart. She covered her blood stained hands over her mouth, gagging and then screaming uncontrollably. Screams rent her throat, making it raw, making her chest heave and her guts squeeze in a vice. Adrenaline surged inside her as the true horror of what happened unfolded in her mind and the change began taking hold of her once more. Her fingertips split as claws replaced nails and fur pushed through her bloodied skin….
***
“Get up. You’re being transferred,” the guard said as the large iron door slammed open on its hinges.
The masculine voice and metal striking metal broke through the haze holding Orcha in a fog. She shuddered.
Grateful to be awakened from her nightmare, she lifted her head from the cold concrete floor she lay on in an effort to escape the excruciating heat radiating through the thick walls of the jungle prison.
Orcha wiped the ever present sweat from her face, feeling the grit of dirt take its place. She blinked blearily at the dark figure standing in the door, trying to make sense of what he was saying. She wasn’t supposed to be freed. Her crimes dictated she spend the rest of her natural life on the jungle prison planet. Life and a day. Life and a day. She’d repeated it over and over again in her mind. There’d been no point in scratching out the days as they passed on the walls. She would be here forever.
“Huh?” she asked, struggling with the nightmarish dregs that dulled her mind and body.
She hadn’t had a peaceful night’s rest since she’d murdered Kon while making love. Guilt was worse than death, worse than imprisonment—for her mind and soul was tortured nightly with the deeds she’d done while in a shifted stupor.
Transfer? What was the guard talking about? She shouldn’t be getting a transfer anywhere except straight to hell.
Was she going to a different cellblock? A different prison? There was nothing on this planet but the singular, massive prison and impenetrable jungle that coated every surface except the waters. The air pad built on the tallest tower to accept supplies and transfers of the guards and prisoners once a month was the only place a ship could land.
Orcha had given up on the thought of ever getting out. She knew that if boredom didn’t kill her, eventually some rabid, bloodsucking insect would come through the window and give her something she’d be unable to heal. If she was lucky.
She suspected, however, that the lupine virus she’d been infected with would supersede all others. Even with an inhibitor tattoo on the base of her spine that kept her from shifting into a monster, she hadn’t maintained a bruise or scratch since she’d gotten the virus. She also knew that she couldn’t kill herself. She’d tried. She’d tried so many times…
“Come on. The ship’s docked and ready to leave. You’re the only holdup,” the guard said, standing impatiently in the door.
“What?” she croaked and tried to moisten her lips with a sandpaper tongue. Her only source of water in the cell came from the rain that sloshed through the skylight multiple times a day. A slash of light cut through the dimness of her cell from the skylight twenty feet above.
A drink would be nice. It might wake her up too.
His sigh of irritation pierced her brain fog. “Get up and come with me. Transfer ship is waiting.”
Orcha struggled to her feet, feeling stiff and weary. She stumbled to the guard. “How? Why?”
The guard snickered and looked at her like she was stupid. “You’re being transferred to Antares as a ShadeShifter mate.”
Orcha stopped in the door, but the guard grabbed her and engaged the laser collar around her throat. If she ran more than five feet from the trigger, a laser would go off and temporarily disable her. She’d hoped it would cut her head off, but they knew better than to put something like that on her. They meant for her to suffer her guilt for as long as possible.
The guard hauled her along the corridor. “Don’t I have a choice?” she croaked, tripping along beside him.
“Since when do prisoners get to decide anything?”
He was right. Since she’d been sentenced for the murder of her lover, all power of individual freedom had been stripped. Her life would never be her own.
One prison was as the same as any other. It didn’t matter what they did to her. She knew she was damned, for she could never forgive herself for what she’d done. She was trapped in the guilt of her actions for eternity. Orcha asked no more questions as she was dragged down the corridor to the waiting spaceship. A slave to a ShadeShifter was no more than what she deserved.
Maybe she’d get lucky and he’d put her out of her misery.
Chapter Two
Planet Antares
In the Coliseum of Thunder, the morphing ShadeShifters--gladiatorial executioners of the most heinous criminals from the Federation of Galaxies--fought with one another for one purpose: the winners of the games would be entitled to their choice of a captive female harvested from prisons throughout the Federation. Most of the women faced life imprisonment or death, making a pairing with the renowned shifters the easier choice to make.
Given the fact that none of the shifters on Antares were mated because of their brutish ways and aberrant sexual appetites, most were ready to rend life and limb to achieve their goal.
Fortunately, they kept their heads about them despite the berserker virus that threatened to take hold of their minds any time they lost control. Inhibitor tattoos glowed as they morphed forms, reigning in the violence that simmered beneath the surface of them all.
Blood scented the air, mingling with dirt and sweat in a perfume he’d grown accustomed to living for years as a gladiator on the alien planet.
With the trials of the ShadeShifters complete, Torin Athun compelled his body to return to his original shape. He did so with little effort, and felt the inhibitor tattoos etched on his arms, back, and legs itching as they glowed to control his residual aggression.
Behind him, medics tended to those in need, scrambling from one wounded warrior to the next, for though they had great shifting capability, his kind lacked the gift of rapid healing. Nanos were deployed via injection for the most serious of wounds, and the Antarians had no need to fear that any of their beloved gladiators would be lost this day.
For Torin, the dream of a mate who could give him children neared.
Tension made his guts tighten in knots. The feeling was one he normally experienced just before battle.
>
Today he would meet a woman to love him.
The thought made his guts threaten to empty on the ground.
The desire for babes and a mate was one he’d never shared with anyone. It was one thing to talk of your kills or wounds, battle scars and the like, but to reminisce on female companionship and the desire to see an infant in your woman’s arms…? Talk like that could only be considered weak. He couldn’t recall hearing any of the others wish for heirs.
Perhaps that loner attitude had been the downfall of their race…
He heaved for breath, taking in the exultation of the crowd and ignoring the scrapes and bruises he’d endured while a medic dabbed the scratches to stop the thin rivulets of blood making his long black hair cling to his face and shoulders. The medic swiped a cloth to remove the sweat on his skin. He shrugged the medic off as the master of the games took the stage and waved expansive hands to the crowd.
