The Hand of Vengeance

by Renee Rose

  She made her rounds, checking on the scores of patients in the tents. She’d just stopped to see how an eight-year-old girl fared from her laser burn when the ships with the new patients arrived.

  Though she’d been exhausted only a moment before, adrenaline kicked in as she jogged forward and started giving orders. The clinic had limited supplies, and she’d run out of all the basics like oral and topical antibiotics. Some local women had brought her jars of unguents, which she’d been loath to use, but Dasha had held each one, examining them with her extrasensory perception and deemed them to be useful. So now she carried a tin of salve in her pocket for wounds, and jars of tea to give patients orally. She felt like an old witch doctor, rather than a highly trained surgeon.

  But, in this instance, she handled the bloodier cases, stitching and rebuilding flesh while Dasha set bones and bandaged wounds. It relaxed her to have her colleague by her side again.

  Four hours later, sometime in the middle of the night, she caught sight of Blade hobbling as he carried yet another injured person into her clinic.

  “What happened to your foot?” she demanded.

  He played deaf, turning his back and limping away without even acknowledging her question.

  Her lip curled as she watched his retreating back, but she didn’t have time to chase him down. Later, she’d make sure to examine his injury.

  Later ended up being the following day. She’d slept a few hours and had checked on Black, who had regained consciousness briefly enough for them to verify her brain functions all remained intact. Dasha put her back to sleep to help her body recover and to keep her from experiencing the post-operative pain.

  Hurrying down the hall, she bumped into Blade, who looked as if he’d never slept. “Let me take a look at that foot of yours,” she said.

  He started to pull his ignoring her trick again, so she caught his forearm.

  He whirled, his onyx eyes narrowed. “Get off me, woman,” he growled.

  Her fingers opened reflexively; her breath caught in her chest. She’d forgotten how terrifying he looked when provoked. He was no different from the huge dog at his feet.

  Blade’s face softened, probably because her face showed genuine fear. He pointed toward the clinic. “You have more pressing injuries to attend to.” Without waiting for her reply, he made his way out of the building, still limping.

  “He doesn’t like to be touched,” Alyx said, throwing her a sympathetic look.

  She looked down the hall and caught Blade’s black gaze. He’d stopped and turned at the door. They both stood motionless, eyes locked for what seemed like minutes but was probably only a few seconds. Then he broke the gaze and exited.

  “Have you heard the story about why he’s called Vengeance?” Alyx asked.

  “Tell me.”

  “He was a slave. Well, anyone can see that.” The boy touched the place on his neck where his own slave markings were found. “He was born into slavery. He and his sister were separated from their parents as children and forced to work in the mines. When he was sixteen, the mine foremen took turns publicly raping his older sister. They ended up unintentionally killing her, which was probably merciful because she would probably have suffered a slow, painful death or had permanent disfigurement from their attack. Vengeance saw the whole thing, and he went nuts. He killed every one of them with his bare hands and freed all the slaves. They destroyed the mine. Bombed the entire settlement, destroyed all the equipment.

  “After that, he dismantled settlement after settlement, setting our people free. I was nine when he brought down the Sheenaw who owned me.”

  The blood must have drained from her face because she felt cold. “Sheenaw ran your mine?” She hadn’t realized Treedle had brought other life-forms in to manage the mines. She’d assumed all the foremen were human. Sheenaw were notoriously cruel, blunt beings from a hardscrabble planet without resources. They knew hard work. They also probably knew how to exact it from humans. In terrible ways.

  The boy shuddered. “Yes. Most of the mining foremen are Sheenaw.”

  No wonder the kid worshipped Blade.

  “Sounds like Blade is quite a hero.”

  Alyx nodded solemnly. “He’s a celebrity to our people. The Republicans have been hunting him. He’s their most wanted, but they’ve never even come close to finding him.”

  Lara’s stomach turned hearing Blade’s horrific story. No wonder he seemed so hardened. Her heart ached for him—for his sixteen year old self who had suffered so greatly and snapped.

  “So he doesn’t like to be touched now,” the boy said, as if all that led to this one simple fact about the warrior.

  She blinked back tears for him. “I don’t blame him,” she said. But it made her even more resolved to care for his injury, whatever it might be. He deserved that much.

  ~~*~~

  “Blade, may I see you for a moment?” His petite surgeon cornered him, her forehead a wrinkle of concern. She looked tired but no less beautiful, cornflower blue eyes standing out against her pale skin and hair.

  He grunted in response and followed her into her exam room, the pain in his foot a dull roar.

  She closed the door behind them. “What happened to your foot?”

  He rolled his eyes and reached for the door handle, but she placed her body in front of it.

  She drew herself up to her full height—five foot three, tops—and fixed him with an authoritative stare, which he found really fucking hot. Her arms folded across her chest, she lifted her chin. “I have tended to my other patients. It’s your turn now. Let me have a look.”

  “I can’t show you—I don’t even think I can get the boot off. It was crushed by a rock when I was pulling people out of the rubble.”

  Damned if the sexy little minx didn’t snatch a dagger from his belt and kneel at his feet to cut it off. His cock twitched for her. He didn’t know which part he liked better, the boldness, or the kneeling. Or maybe both together.

  His foot had shattered. He’d known that the moment the damn rock fell on it. The thing had been two feet in diameter and must’ve weighed two hundred fifty pounds.

  Lara cut the nuk-skin boot from his foot with an expert hand. The thick leather fell away, revealing a blue and purple appendage that hardly resembled a foot. The bones were bent at grotesque angles, the flesh swollen like a balloon.

  He would’ve preferred not seeing it. The pain had been bad enough he’d thrown up several times since the injury and hadn’t slept at all.

  His little doctor closed her eyes and sighed. “This will require major reconstructive surgery. You should have let me see to it immediately. The fact you’ve been walking around on it makes me question how it’s possible that you—”

  “No, thank you.” The thought of having anyone touch it made him want to puke again. He reached for the door and pulled it open, but not before he caught her look of frustrated fury. He appreciated her instinct to help, but he’d tough it out. The bones would heal eventually. They might not be straight, but they would knit nonetheless.

  “Dammit, Blade. Don’t you dare walk away from me!”

  She was sexy when she was mad. He really loved when she got feisty. Still, he ignored her. He made it four steps down the hall when he heard her feet dashing behind him. She grabbed his elbow, probably intending to turn him, but he was determined to walk away. Ignoring her, he pulled her full weight along with him as he continued down the hall.

  “Blade.” She vaulted onto his back with her arms around his neck.

  The full body contact scrambled his already sleep-deprived brain. Fuck. Yes. His body responded of its own accord, misconstruing her attack as some kind of sex game.

  In a flash, he rotated her body to his front and pinned her against the wall. Her soft breasts flattened against the pressure of his ribs, the nipples hardened points. Before he could stop himself, he caught her lips in a bruising kiss, punishing her mouth with his own, claiming her, invading with his tongue. Hard and demanding
, he tore at her lips.

  She accepted his discipline, tightening her arms around his neck and kissing back. Their tongues dueled, and lust exploded within him.

  Oh hell. The throbbing bulge in his pants shoved directly against the heat of her core, and he rocked against her. Only thin fabric kept him from plunging into her without mercy. He sucked down her neck until he reached the graceful curve of her collarbone.

  When he came up for breath, he growled, “Why the fuck do you care?”

  What he saw in her eyes shocked him. Genuine pain.

  “You do,” he murmured with wonder.

  A muscle in his face twitched, and a shudder ran through him. Could she care? Could she possibly care about a former slave? A Jeselian rebel, as coarse and unsophisticated as she was refined? He traced her eyebrow with his thumb, still holding her pinned between his body and the wall. She was so damn beautiful, all delicate-boned and smooth-skinned. The opposite of his blunt features and darker coloring.

  He returned to kissing her, slower this time but still open-mouthed, still with passion, dragging his lips across her face, consuming her. “I can’t understand why.” He eased back from the wall, wrapping one arm under her hips to hold her up.

  “Put me down,” she whispered but didn’t sound very convincing.

  He carried her down the hall.

  “You shouldn’t be putting any weight on that foot, much less adding mine.”

  His blood roared with dark need. Nothing in the world could pry her from his arms. He nipped at her neck. “You should’ve thought of that before you jumped on my back.”

  “Are you going to let me operate?”

  He carried her across the threshold of her room and shut the door. “You’ll have to earn it.” He dropped her onto her feet and yanked off her top. Reaching behind her back, he fumbled with her bra hooks then simply rent the damn fabric in half. Some measure of self-censuring returned because he opened his mouth to apologize, but she just gave a husky laugh which sent him right back over the edge.

  She toed her shoes off and shed her own pants.

  He groaned when she dropped to her knees and reached for his belt buckle, need for her and her alone so strong now. His head spun as he watched her deft fingers loosen his belt and unbutton his trousers, freeing his length.

  Her eyes widened at his size, but she didn’t balk. Instead, she licked her lips, looking at his cock greedily right before she took him into her mouth.

  He jerked at the incredible sensation of her moist heat, nearly coming undone at being engulfed in her mouth. The head of his cock rubbed the inside of her cheek and she fisted him and squeezed hard, sliding her hand in concert with her lips, making it feel like the entirety of his cock was in her mouth, swallowed in the depths of pure heaven.

  “Lara.” His voice sounded low and guttural. He caressed the back of her neck, overcome with wonder.

  She sucked and slurped, licked under the rim of the head of his cock then took him deep into her throat.

  He wound his fingers in her hair, and tightened them as control spun away with each gasping breath. Somehow, he managed to stop her before he came.

  Pulling her to her feet, he shoved her gently toward the bed. “Get on your hands and knees.”

  Nothing in the world could be more beautiful than the sight she made. Hair mussed, cheeks flushed, his woman—yes his woman because he could think of her no other way—crawled up onto the bed. He drank in the picture—her naked body so petite and perfectly proportioned. She spread her knees and presented her ass to him, the pink heart of her glistening pussy gloriously beckoning.

  He crawled up behind her. He wondered, briefly, if he should find a prophylactic, but remembered that women on Earth took a shot every few years to control their cycles completely, only going off hormones when they were ready to bear children. He found the thought disappointing. The idea of giving Dr. Lara Simmons his child violently appealed to him.

  He rubbed the head of his cock over her pussy, and it slid easily between her plump folds, so wet and ready for him. “Oh yes God,” he breathed. She felt so. Damn. Good. He gripped her hips, pulling her gorgeous ass roughly against his loins. “Oh, hell, yes.”

  “Yes,” she gasped, and it was all the encouragement he needed.

  He slammed his hips against the soft cushion of her ass, pumping into her with rough abandon.

  Her moans grew louder, the pitch more desperate. Somehow, through the haze, he had enough wherewithal to reach around the front of her and rub her swollen clit.

  She bucked, her muscles clamping down on his cock.

  “Do that again,” he said hoarsely. He flicked her clit, pinched it. She gave a wanton cry, and her knees slid out from under her as her cunt gripped his cock in spasms of release. He followed her hips down to the bed and stayed buried inside her as she came, his own orgasm following right on the tail of hers and seeming to last forever.

  ~~*~~

  Lara sighed as Blade dropped down on top of her, holding his weight on his forearms. Despite the fact they’d both come, he hadn’t stopped the onslaught, biting at the back of her neck, sucking, kissing. Still moving his enormous cock inside her with slow rocks of his pelvis.

  “Lara.” His voice sounded hoarse, threaded with need. There was a questioning in it—almost a pleading. Her body re-ignited in response.

  “Blade.” She whispered his name like an answer to his question.

  He eased out of her and dropped to his side, rolling her back against his front. It wasn’t typical spooning, though. His aim clearly wasn’t for a cuddle. Searing hot hands traveled over the front of her body, squeezing her breasts, palming her belly. His breath came hot in her ear; his teeth claimed her shoulder. He cupped her mons, dipping two thick fingers inside her sopping channel.

  She wanted to tell him it was too soon—she’d just come and was hardly ready to climax again, but his fingers tormented her. The heel of his hand undulated over her clit as he plunged his digits into her, driving her mad with need.

  “Stop,” she croaked. “I...I can’t—”

  He didn’t stop, but his lips were at her ear as he fucked her even harder with his fingers. “You want me to stop?”

  “Yes—no! God, no. Wait. Please.” Her brain had scrambled. She heard the babble coming from her lips but hardly knew she was speaking. Lights exploded behind her eyes, and her hips thrust so far forward she arched like a bow to meet his thrusting hand.

  Her muscles clamped down on his fingers, squeezing, wringing her out as pulse after pulse of pleasure washed over her until it seemed nothing was left. She floated, drifting in and out of consciousness. It probably only lasted a minute or two. Or maybe ten. She couldn’t be sure.

  Blade pulled his fingers from her and pushed her back to her belly. She sank into the mattress, her limbs heavy and boneless. She didn’t even protest when Blade parted the cheeks of her ass and dragged his tongue up the length of her perineum to her anus.

  She meant to protest. Or at least ask him what the hell he was doing. But no sound came out of her. No movement either. She lay there passively allowing him to touch her in the most intimate and embarrassing of places.

  He rimmed her while stroking her swollen slit once more.

  Holy hell, this man took no prisoners in bed, did he? Had he started this way, she probably would have run for the hills. But now, flattened by two orgasms, with bliss still coursing through her, she simply parted her legs to give him better access.

  He shifted over her. Dear God, was he really going to—? He parted her cheeks again and pressed the head of his cock against her back entrance. It felt moist, as if he’d used ample saliva to lubricate.

  Something deep in her belly fluttered— a little fear but not enough to make her protest. Her sphincter squeezed, but he waited, not pressing forward, not backing away. The moment the tight ring of muscle relaxed, he thrust.

  It burned at the entrance, but the intrusion also felt delicious. And wrong. And so delicious. He s
tayed buried in her, as if he knew she was an anal virgin and he needed to give her time to get used to having him inside her this way.

  She quivered, inside and out.

  He lowered himself onto his forearms, his hard muscles at her back. One hand slid under her hips and he found her clit. He worked it slowly, stroking lightly as he rocked his pelvis against her ass. Each stroke sent flames of fresh desire scorching through her—too intense for her to relax into them but too wonderful to protest.

  The stimulation on her clit was so feathery-light that it wrenched her focus from her ass, forcing her to concentrate on the sweet sensation.

  “I’ve wanted to do this since that first time I took you over my knee.”

  The reminder of his high-handedness should’ve killed the mood, but it didn’t. And she probably shouldn’t take it as a compliment. But she’d never felt so desirable in her life. She’d never been the object of someone’s lust, especially not of the intense, animalistic passion he’d unleashed.

  She wanted more of it. She wanted him to take her harder, faster. She pushed her ass up to meet his slow thrusts.

  He groaned and shoved in deeper, timing his thrusts with pinches of her clit.

  She bit the sheet on the bed, muffling her own cries, tears of need welling up in her throat.

  His movements grew erratic, and he choked on a breath, burying his cock so deep inside her, she thought he’d split her in two. He jerked. The hard muscles of his thighs squeezed and pressed her thighs together and down. The hot stream of his cum filled her ass just like he’d filled her vaginal cavity before.

  And she did weep. Only a few sobs of release, but it was weeping, nonetheless. Real tears wet her cheeks. She felt well-used in every sense of the word. Forever ruined, even. Because she was pretty sure no man could ever compete with that performance. The euphoria sent her floating on a cloud high above the bed.