by Anya Bast
Rue grasped her wrists and held them down. “I trusted your word,” he said close to her ear.
She struggled to breathe under both his weight and the sensation of his hard, naked body against hers. “I’m a captive, Rue. You must expect I’ll break it to escape.”
He nuzzled her ear. “I judged from your body’s reaction to me that you would not try. I did not expect you to want to escape.”
She laughed, short and bitter. “You’re so goddess-bedamned arrogant.” But even now fissures of pleasure were crumbling her resolve. The man performed powerful magic on her she didn’t understand. “Well, at least it’s nice to know I can surprise you.”
“There are Sudhraian soldiers out there, woman,” he growled angrily. “What do you think they’d do with a beautiful, barefoot Nordanese woman? Do you have a death wish?”
She grimaced. “No. I have a sword.”
“That would mean nothing, you little fool.” He parted her thighs with his knee and settled himself between them, pressing his chest against her back. She gasped as he bit her on her throat, not hard enough to break the skin. Still, it was a blatant symbol of his dominance over her.
“Mine,” he growled in her ear. “You’re mine. I staked a claim over your body and made it so.”
“Not yours, Rue,” she yelled. “My body is my own. Mine. I choose whom I give it to and when.”
“Yes,” he purred, nipping at her earlobe. “But you choose me. You want to be mine. Even now, your body readies itself for my attention.”
She closed her eyes in defeat. Moisture coursed out of her sex and coated her tender folds. Her clit pulsed to life at the shift of his skin against hers, at his warm breath on her ear and throat, at his silky, slightly angry, and very aroused voice purring over her.
He brought her wrists together over her head and held them in one of his broad hands. The other he slipped down to her anus and circled it, drawing a low moan from her throat. With a pace slow enough to make her insane, he coated her anus with the moisture from her pussy.
“I’m going to show you just how much you are mine,” he threatened. He slipped a finger in her nether hole and she moved, gasping. His hold tightened on her wrists and she stilled. He slipped another within her. “I’m going to take you here.” He thrust his fingers in and out of her and her clit throbbed, plumping with excitement.
“You like that don’t you?” he asked.
She bit her lip and said nothing.
“Tell me. Tell me you like it, Lilane.”
She nodded her head, her cheeks flaming. The unnaturalness of the act, the sheer forbidden quality of it—may the Goddess help her—aroused her. “I want more, Rue,” she breathed. “More.”
He removed his fingers, released her wrists and pulled her hips up so she was on all fours. He set his cock to her nether entrance. “Do you want this?”
“Yes, yes, I want that.”
He pushed the head of his shaft very slowly into her and she sucked in a breath. Her fingers curled into the grass beneath her. “I want this, too, Lilane,” he groaned. “Are you all right? Can you take more?”
She nodded her head. It hurt, burned, but the pleasure that came with the sensation drowned out the discomfort.
He pushed into her inch-by-inch, slowly, carefully, and she dilated to take him. When the entire length of him was within her, he pulled out and thrust back in.
Lilane tossed her head and keened her pleasure.
Gently he pushed her head down to the grass, so her rear was completely exposed, offered totally to him. “So hot, so tight, so sweet,” Rue groaned. He shafted her slow, driving her insane.
Her climax built as he worked in and out of her. Her anal muscles fought to hold him as he slipped in and out of her faster now. He slipped both hands down to her sex. Two fingers slipped into her pussy and her hips bucked at the incredible sensation of his pistoning cock within her rear and his fingers within her vagina. He added to the mix a seductive massage of her clit and she was gone.
She broke apart beneath him crying out his name as powerful climatic waves shook her. She clawed the ground, unable to retain any kind of dignity at the force of the sexual spell he wove over her.
Behind her Rue broke as well. He called out her name as his own climax wracked his body.
He came down over her, freeing himself from her and pulling her close. “You’re mine, Lilane, mine,” he crooned over and over.
Exhausted, defeated, sated, and pleasured like she’d never been pleasured, she relaxed against him. “Yours,” she conceded.
Chapter Four
Rue lifted Lilane onto his horse. He’d manacled her wrists again since he didn’t trust her not to try and escape. This close to Sudhra it would be very dangerous for her to be alone and unprotected, especially now.
He’d taken to the air yesterday to scout the area while she slept. The Sudhraian troops were moving out, as he’d thought they would, but lone soldiers and mercenaries still roamed the area. It made travel dangerous for him, even more dangerous with Lilane with him. So he’d dressed her strategically this morning. He’d play a slaver, she his slave.
He’d prefer not to have to engage the ruse, however. He could fight a few men intent on taking Lilane for their own—but not an army. He hoped it wouldn’t come down to that because he’d only let her be taken over his cold, dead body.
He wasn’t dead now, however, and he definitely wasn’t cold. His gaze roved over her hungrily. The thin linen shift he’d dressed her in showed her hard ruby-red nipples thrusting up toward the material and the outline of her eager little breasts. The shift came to her mid thigh the way she sat on the horse, and he…and his cock…were rigidly aware she wore no undergarment beneath it. When shifted the right way, he glimpsed the full, pouting lips of her bare, silky smooth pussy. He couldn’t get his fill of her, and that alone made what he suspected about Lilane even more perplexing.
He mounted behind her and took up the reins, leading her horse behind them. “How’s your sweet little behind this morning?” he whispered in her ear.
She shifted on the blanket he’d laid on the horse’s back to cushion her. “Sore,” she groused.
“Was it worth it?”
She grunted. “I wouldn’t tell you if it had been.”
He smiled as he eased the horse onto the road that led straight into Sudhra. He’d plaited her long, thick hair that morning and had taken great pleasure in the act. Her silky locks had slipped through his fingers as he’d twisted and turned the sections to create the lovely weave she now wore down her back.
Rue loved women. He always had. He worshipped them, really, which was one of the things his countrymen had never understood about him. He’d taken a gentle hand with his students in Sudhra, lavished them with careful attention and gentleness. He did not often think back on that time now. It was a dark spot of blood on his past. A part of his life he’d love to erase.
“What did you do in Sudhra?” asked Lilane. “I mean, before you began aiding the Nordanese?”
Her question jerked him from the reverie he’d slipped into. Great Anot! Could she read his mind? “Uh, I was a sort of teacher.”
“Really? What did you teach?”
He could answer her without really answering her. Tell the truth without telling all of the truth. “I taught swordplay, hand-to-hand combat, and other things.”
She nodded. “That makes sense. You’re wickedly skillful with a blade.”
“I am a leader of my people, the Aviat. In Sudhra they live secretly, blending in as normal inhabitants. I learned to use the skills bequeathed to me naturally as Aviat to my best advantage. I went very high in the Supreme Priest’s Court.” The Supreme Priest was ruler of all Sudhra. All other petty priests answered to him.
Lilane shivered delicately. “Really? The Supreme Priest’s Court? I…think I don’t want to hear this.”
He rubbed her upper arms with the palms of his hands. “Lilane, my allegiance lies elsewhere now. Do you u
nderstand? Lord Marken is one of the most powerful leaders in Nordan and he has offered my people protection and sanctuary, a place where they can live out of the shadows and not fear the hunters who decimated our population for our wings. This is something Sudhra, because of its culture, can never offer us. This means much to me, very much. Marken has my unquestioning loyalty because of this. In any case, I broke with the philosophies of Sudhra long ago, if I was ever truly aligned with them.”
“Do you promise?” she asked in a small voice.
“Yes. I would like to see Sudhra beaten by Nordan. My country grows arrogant and careless. Sudhra’s leaders believe that because Nordan worships a female deity that they are weak. They are wrong and they will pay for that presumption. They are paying even now—”
She twisted around in the saddle to look at him. “What news do you have?” she asked excitedly.
“There is a band of Aviat scouts, working for the Lords of Nordan. They report that Nordan has made great gains in pushing the Sudhraians back toward the border, but have not managed to cross into Sudhra yet. Many lives have been lost so far.”
Lilane turned back to face ahead. “Many more will be lost before this is through.”
“Aye.” He sighed.
“What brought you to Nordan in the first place?”
He shrugged. “A woman. Someone I thought to be one of ours, an Aviat. We are rare. To find a full-blooded Aviat is like finding a rare jewel.”
“Ah. It is the woman Raven you speak of. Talyn, the Captain of Lord Marken’s Guard has claimed her for his monogamous mate. The lorddom was astir with that news when I was there.”
“Yes, she’s the one.” Rue had thought to make Raven his woman, but it had turned out well in the end. Raven had a far stronger bond to Talyn than to himself. “I went looking for one full-blood and found two instead.” Talyn had turned out to be pureblooded Aviat and he’d sired at least one half-Aviat in Marken’s Lorddom, maybe more.
“I saw them fly together once, Talyn and Raven, when they were in my village. It was an incredible sight. One I will never forget.” Lilane’s voice had taken on a quality of awe. “They jumped off a cliff and I thought for certain they would plunge to their deaths. Then their wings emerged and they soared over us.” She sighed.
“And what of you, Lilane? What did you do before Gadstone Village was attacked?”
“Me? I was making wedding preparations.”
Rue was instantly sorry he’d asked.
“But, as I said, Dal and I weren’t a love match, not a romantic love match anyway,” she continued. “At least not on my part. He’d been my best friend from childhood and defended me from the slavers that would make runs over the Sudhraian-Nordanese border from time to time. He taught me how to fight and protect myself. When he was grown, he became the village blacksmith and made me the sword I fight with now. But he never made my pulse race or my heart pound not like….” she trailed off.
A twinge of jealousy of the man she spoke of speared his stomach. “Like who, Lilane?” he pressed.
She shook her head. “No one. I misspoke.”
His lips twisted. “Right. So did Dal take your maidenhead?”
“What a question!”
“Well?”
“Yes, he took it, tenderly, kindly. He was very gentle for such a bear of a man.”
“Not like me.”
“Definitely not like you, Rue. He was a great gentle, cuddly bear. You are a lean wolf who snaps if you don’t do his bidding.”
Rue leaned forward and nuzzled her ear. “But you like it when I snap sometimes.”
She shivered. “Maybe. Dal loved me very much, though I could not return anything but the love of friendship for him. Bears can love deeply. Wolves…I think not. I think they stalk and go in for the kill only. They ravage their prey.”
“Untrue and unfair. Wolves mate for life.”
She twisted around to look at him again, her head cocked to the side and a playful smile around her lips. “So, have you ever loved, dark lord?”
She didn’t know how close she hit home by calling him dark lord. Her comment gave him pause. He hesitated before answering and she shifted forward again. “I did love, long ago. But it is not something I care to discuss because the story ends tragically.” Steel threaded his words. He had not meant to sound so harsh. But Sania was not a topic open for discussion. The wounds were closed now. No sense in reopening them.
“I understand the pain in your voice because it mirrors my own,” she replied softly. “We won’t talk of it then.”
He forced levity into his voice. “So, do you desire love?”
“No,” she answered quickly. “Not love. It hurts too badly when it’s taken away. I want your cock, Rue. Only that.”
His arms tightened around her at the raw emotion in her voice. “Perhaps together we can find a way to salve each other’s wounds, Lilane. I want to remove those manacles.” And chase the shadows from your eyes, he finished in his mind.
She sighed. “I cannot run now anyway, Rue. We are over the border and in Sudhra. I leave your protection and it is death or slavery for me.”
“I would like to know you stayed with me because you wanted to, not out of fear. However, if it is fear that keeps you by my side, I will accept it.”
He worked the manacles to release them. Just as soon as they were off, five mounted Sudhraian soldiers, dressed in Sudhraian red and gold, picked their way out of the woods to their left, stopped and regarded them.
Rue stilled, watching them. Lilane reached over his thigh to touch her sword in its sheath that he’d attached to the saddle. “Easy, Lilane,” he murmured. “We don’t know what they want yet.”
“It better not be me,” she murmured back.
One of them, a heavy-set dark-haired man, and probably their highest-ranking officer, approached astride his horse. “Halt, traveler. State your name and your business in Sudhra.”
“My name is Rue d’Ange, formerly of the Supreme Priestdom, but more recently of Kappan.
“The Rue d’Ange?”
Rue nodded.
“I have heard of you. You’re recently estranged from the Supreme, are you not? A mercenary now, I heard.”
“I am. My blade is for sale to the highest bidder, and so is my information. I have such information I’m carrying from Nordan. I mean to travel to the Supreme and present it in the hopes I may once again attain my place in his court.”
Lilane stiffened at his words. Rue wanted to tell her it was only a ruse, but that would have to wait.
The soldier turned his gaze on Lilane and it flared with sexual interest. “Who is she?”
“She is a new slave. I am training her.”
A smile curved the man’s lips. “What a hardship that must be. I bet she’s a spitfire between the sheets. Look how she meets my eyes with such boldness and enmity.”
Lilane cursed under her breath and turned her head immediately, averting her eyes, as a proper Sudhraian woman should.
“She’s Nordanese and in need of much training yet, and punishment.” He cupped one of her breasts and rubbed the nipple back and forth through the fabric until he heard her sharp intake of air and the nipple hardened to a solid point.
He slipped his other hand down and lifted the edge of the shift so the soldiers could see her shaved pussy. He slipped a finger into her passage and slowly thrust in and out.
Lilane squirmed and let out a low, angry sound, but moisture from her arousal soaked his hand all the same.
The soldiers all moved closer, their hungry gazes eating her up from the tips of her bare feet to the top of her head.
“Punishment,” he purred near Lilane’s ear, “must be swift and memorable,” he said loud enough for the soldiers to hear. “The slave must know her master possesses her body completely and totally, and commands her pleasure at his own. Whenever, wherever, and in front of whomever, he chooses.”
He added a finger to the first and used his thumb to brush over he
r clit. She grasped his thighs and bore down. He could tell she was fighting a moan. “Let it go, love,” he whispered. “Let the soldiers have their show and be left with no doubt you are my slave.”
“Damn you, Rue,” she grit out.
He twisted his fingers within her to rub at the bundle of nerve endings deep within her. He knew well that would drive her over the edge.
She moaned, long and low, and he smiled.
“She is magnificent,” said one of the soldiers. His eyes glazed over in lust. “I want her.”
Rue knew well the chance he took by dangling such a luscious prize in front of them. However, it was more important he and Lilane keep up the pretense of slave trainer and student. In addition, the commander of these men knew him, and therefore knew enough not to cross him.
Anyway, it excited him to bring Lilane to orgasm in front of these men. His cock was hard yet again from feeling her under his fingers and shift and sigh against him as she fought the climax that swiftly overtook her body.
He massaged her clit with his free hand, and kept up the incessant thrusting of his fingers within her. “Come for me, Lilane,” he commanded harshly. “Let it go.”
She tensed and then cried out. The muscles of her passage pulsed around his fingers and her hips bucked. The air filled with the sweet perfume of her release.
Before Lilane had even come down from her climatic high, a solider reached out and touched her bare thigh. “Let us have a taste, Master R—”
Rue had his sword drawn and at the man’s throat before he could finish his sentence. “Remove your hand from my property,” he ordered in a steely voice.
The man carefully removed his hand from Lilane’s leg.
“She’s mine,” Rue stated unequivocally. “And not ready for another’s touch,” he added hastily.
The commander reined his horse around to stand beside the interloper. “Back off. There are camp whores you can ease yourself within. Lea ve Sword Master Rue’s woman alone.” He glanced at Rue and grinned. “Anyway, don’t you know who he is, Falk? He’d take your head off in a fair fight any day, soldier.”
