by Meg Harris
He buried his face in the mattress and let her stroke him, reveling in the sensations. It felt shockingly good. He’d never realized his skin was so sensitive there. Her fingers trailed down to the back of his thighs, and he moaned softly, his voice muffled against the covers. Despite everything they’d done, his cock began to swell.
“Turn over,” she whispered at last, and he rolled back over. Her eyes drifted down his abdomen, to where his erection lay, fully engorged, and her fingers followed, encircling him, stroking gently. An ache began to build in him.
An ache that wouldn’t be assuaged until he was inside her.
He met her eyes and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper.
“You promised.”
“Yes,” she agreed softly. “I promised to fuck you until you begged for mercy.”
At the reminder, he jerked in her hand again, and she laughed softly, then took his penis and guided it inside her body.
He tilted back his head, gasping, moaning, as at last she took him deep inside herself, burying his cock to the hilt. She was still wet, still fiery hot, and if she hadn’t taken the edge off his lust earlier he would have climaxed instantly. As it was, he knew he wouldn’t last long. Nothing that felt this good could last long, or he’d die of it.
She rode him, slowly, moving up and down in a steady, easy rhythm that brought him unbelievably intense pleasure. Her body clasped his with each stroke, squeezing him tightly, engulfing him in her moisture. Deep groans of pleasure resonated in his chest with every gliding movement she made. He felt his erection twitching and knew he was going to come any minute.
And then she leaned forward and opened her mouth.
Simultaneously fascinated and repelled, he watched as her slender, deadly fangs neared his chest. A drop of venom slid from a hollow fang and dripped onto his shoulder, and he quivered, knowing with mingled dread and anticipation that she was about to mark him.
From this moment on, he would be hers.
When her needle-sharp fangs were mere centimeters away from his shoulder, the ship suddenly shuddered, then listed violently. Everything turned end over end, and they both went flying off the bed, wrenched apart by the impact. Barrak slammed hard into a table, and then he knew nothing else.
Chapter Seven
The insistent lurching of the deck finally roused Barrak. He opened his eyes, found himself on the floor, and scrambled to his knees, wincing.
He had no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious, but he suspected it had only been a few moments. His head hurt like hell, and the lust that had totally consumed him had dissipated, whether because of the pain or because of the adrenaline that flowed through his system he wasn’t certain. But he was damned lucky. She hadn’t succeeded in marking him.
He looked around. None of the furniture had moved despite the nausea-inducing movement of the ship—it was secured to the floor for precisely that reason. A few meters away he saw Tiryl sprawled facedown on the luxurious crimson-and-gold carpeting. He was relieved to see the faint movement of her torso as she breathed. Her naked, curvaceous ass was a beautiful sight, and he felt an unwanted stab of lust, which he tamped down firmly.
Uncertain if his wobbly legs would support him enough to stand, he moved toward her on his knees. Pausing next to her, he jostled her with his leg.
“Tiryl. Wake up.”
At first there was no response, but when he pushed her harder, she twitched, then opened her eyes and tried to lift her head.
“What happened?” she asked in a foggy voice.
“I am not certain. Either your ship struck something, or it was attacked.”
She turned her head and looked at him for a long moment, clearly struggling to remember what had happened. Suddenly anger leaped into her eyes. “The Starburst,” she snapped. “We have been betrayed.”
She tried to jerk upright, then yelped with pain and collapsed back to the carpet.
“You are hurt,” he said, not with a great deal of sympathy.
She winced. “My leg. I think it’s broken.” She spoke to the air. “Tiryl to bridge.”
There was no response.
Evidently communications were out. Realizing for the first time that she was helpless to prevent him from escaping, Barrak struggled to his feet. He looked around for her discarded pile of clothing. Finding it, he saw the small controller that controlled the magnetic seal on his manacles. He sat down with his back to it and groped awkwardly until he had it in his fingers, then pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth, despite the pain she was obviously suffering. “It is keyed to my genetic code, my pet. It will not work for you.”
The woman who had touched him with the gentle hands of a lover had disappeared, replaced by the cold, aloof Leader. They were back to the status of pet and master, and the moment of tenderness between them was gone, shattered forever.
“Fine,” he said coolly. Clutching the small device in his hands, he stood up, walked over to her, then sat down with his back to her and put it where she could reach it. “Release my bonds.”
Her smile was almost a sneer. “Surely you realize I will not release you?”
“I suppose you would rather lie helplessly on the floor until whoever fired at your vessel comes to find you?”
He knew he’d scored a hit when the confidence in her eyes flickered. “This may not have been an attack.”
“Perhaps not. But it seems very likely. At any rate, do you want to lie in your quarters in pain until your crew finds you? It may be hours, if the ship is badly damaged.”
“I will not let you go,” she said softly.
He closed his eyes for a moment, irritated by her stubborn determination to think of him as her property. The ship shuddered again, probably as the result of weapons fire, and he knew he was running out of time.
“Where is your leg broken?”
She sighed. “My thigh, I believe.”
“Very well.” He moved toward her leg, hating what he had to do. He forced himself to think of his crew. They needed him to be strong.
Reaching behind him, he placed his hands on her thigh and squeezed hard.
She gave a shriek of pain, and he released her. Gasping, she snarled, “What the hell are you doing?”
“I am encouraging you to remove my bonds.”
“I told you, I will never let you go!”
He squeezed again, longer and harder this time, gritting his teeth against his unwanted sympathy, until he heard her sobbing with pain. He released her again.
“Press the button,” he said.
He heard a bitter stream of invective in the Zytellian language, but her hand reached out and pushed the button. His manacles dropped to the floor.
For the first time in days, he was free. But he still had to figure out how to get out of this spacecraft, and quite likely past a second hostile ship.
He quickly outlined a sketchy plan in his mind. His first objective was to free his crew, his second to find his cruiser and get the hell out of here.
Rising to his feet, he looked around for weapons. A brief rummage through a drawer near her bed yielded a rather fierce-looking sidearm with a belt and holster. Strapping it to his bare waist, he headed for the door.
And stopped.
He turned and stared down at her. He ought to loathe her. He did loathe her, damn it. And yet he could barely stand the thought of never seeing her again.
Slowly, he bent and scooped her up into his arms, trying to keep her leg as immobile as possible. She hissed with pain and demanded, “What are you doing?”
Heading for the door, he shrugged. “I’ve decided to keep you.”
* * * * *
The corridors were deserted. He guessed all personnel were either in their quarters, or on the bridge. Barrak found his male crew on the prison level, all in individual cells. They were all naked, but appeared unharmed. Whether or not they’d been marked, he couldn’t tell. He h
oped to hell not, otherwise they might betray him to the Zytellians. Praying they had been left alone by their captors, he gave them the weapon and gave them orders to head for the Heron and secure it, then to wait fifteen ghon.
He kept Tiryl with him, knowing his crew couldn’t be trusted with her. They were professional, military men, but professionalism meant nothing against her pheromones, as he had learned to his own sorrow.
As they disappeared down the corridor, he looked down at her. “What have you done with the rest of my crew?”
“They are in the guest quarters,” she said dully. “Deck eight.”
He hoped she was telling the truth, and not sending him into a trap. All the fight seemed to have drained out of her, but that could very well be an act. He found a service elevator and pressed the symbol that represented eight. To his relief, it worked. It would have been impossible for him to climb a ladder while holding her, at least not without hurting her badly.
The doors opened. He peered out carefully, saw no one, and stepped out into the corridor. “Where are they?” he asked softly.
She pointed, and he went in the direction she indicated. Before long he had located the eleven female members of his crew. They were all fully dressed in stark Zytellian garments. He was disappointed, although not particularly surprised, to find that Zytellian hospitality hadn’t extended to letting them have weapons.
They followed him down the corridor. The elevator doors slid open, revealing a surprised-looking Zytellian warrior. She recovered from her surprise almost instantly and drew her sidearm.
“Stop,” Barrak snapped, and put his big hand at Tiryl’s throat. “If you try to stop us, I will break your Leader’s neck.”
The woman faltered, then lowered her sidearm.
Barrak nodded to one of his crew. “Take her weapon.”
His crewmember relieved the Zytellian of her weapon, then struck her over the head with the butt of the weapon. The woman crumpled to the floor, and they heaved her into the corridor and stepped into the elevator.
Things were looking up, Barrak thought. He’d found his crew, all alive and apparently unharmed, he had a hostage and now they had a gun. They were still vastly outnumbered, but he felt a great deal more confident with a weapon.
“Where is the hanger?” he demanded.
“Deck eighteen,” Tiryl said softly.
As they stepped out onto deck eighteen, Barrak was surprised to see quite a few dead bodies of Zytellains littering the corridor. Most of them had died of knife wounds or ray burns. It was another confirmation that the ship was under attack. And it looked as though the Zytellians were faring badly in the battle.
Not that he gave a fuck what happened to the Zytellians. But he did hope their unknown enemy wouldn’t blow up the ship until he and his crew were clear.
In the hanger, they found the Heron and all scrambled up the ramp, which closed behind them. Barrak went straight to the bridge, Tiryl still in his arms. “Have you found the code to open the hanger doors?”
Ama shook his head. “No, sir.”
Barrak decided not to waste precious time trying to force that information out of Tiryl. It wasn’t really necessary. “Blast them open, then.”
Ama lifted his eyebrows and looked at Tiryl. “Uh, sir, are we leaving with a…passenger?”
“She is the Zytellian Leader,” Barrak said shortly. “The Zytellians will not blow us up if they know she is aboard. I took her because she is a valuable hostage.”
Ama gave him a dubious look that said clearly, Are you certain that’s why you really took her? but he opened fire on the hanger doors without further argument. They burst open, and the Heron launched into space as gracefully as her namesake might take flight from the shores of a lake.
“The Zytellian flagship appears to be dead in space,” Ama reported as they cleared the ship. “The other ship is similar in design and appears to be Zytellian as well. The lettering on the side spells out the Zytellian word for Starburst. But the flagship was very definitely attacked. It is badly damaged.”
“Interesting,” Barrak said. “A coup d’etat, Tiryl?”
“I don’t know. I should have been on the bridge.”
He heard the self-loathing in her tone and felt an unwanted stab of empathy for her. He knew well enough how he would despise himself, had his ship been attacked and disabled while he dallied in bed. “It appears that you should have been,” he agreed.
“Sir!” Ama said sharply. “The Starburst is turning toward us!”
If that monstrosity fired on them they’d be space dust. “Let me speak with its captain,” Barrak said quickly.
The screen flickered, and the other vessel’s captain appeared. It was very definitely not Zytellian. Green-skinned, scaly, and very small, it glared at him belligerently. Its words were oddly accented, high-pitched to the point of squeakiness, but barely understandable. “Are you Zytellian?”
“No,” Barrak said tersely. “I and my crew were prisoners aboard the flagship, and we took advantage of the confusion to escape. We are Terran. I am Prince Barrak of Terra. You can check the registry of our ship if you like, and check the records to confirm my identity.”
The small alien nodded off-screen, and Barrak waited patiently. At last the scaly head nodded in his direction. “You have our permission to leave. We have no quarrel with you and your people. But tell me, is the woman in your arms human?”
“No,” Barrak said. “She is the Zytellian Leader, Tiryl, and I am taking her to Terra to answer for her crimes against me and my crew.”
“She has committed crimes against my people as well. She sent this ship to suppress our uprising on Yawta III. We seized the ship and used it against her, with the complicity of a Zytellian on the Dominant.”
“Jaya,” Tiryl whispered. “Damn her.”
The green alien’s mouth moved in a way that might have been a smile. “Yes, Jaya. She is the one who betrayed you.”
“I hope you kill her,” Tiryl said harshly.
“I’m afraid we won’t,” the alien said in his sibilant voice. “We owe her our gratitude. She is returning to Yawta III with us. We will destroy the Dominant.”
A spasm of anguish crossed Tiryl’s face, but Barrak couldn’t mourn over the demise of the Zytellian flagship. He hoped that its destruction would be a serious blow to the Zytellian navy. “Well done,” he said, nodding. “We will see that Tiryl pays for her crimes. Good luck to you and your people. May you win your freedom from Zytellian oppression.”
“And may you keep yours, Terran.”
The Yawtan broke the contact. A moment later a green light lanced out from the Starburst, and the Dominant exploded into a million pieces. Barrak heard the small, agonized noise of pain Tiryl made, but he refused to feel sorry for her.
He tried not to think about the people who had been on board that ship, but it was difficult. Aboard such a vast ship there must have been a crew of at least a thousand, quite likely more. But he reminded himself every one of those women had been more than willing to conquer the people of Terra. The only innocents on board had been the harem men. He hoped to hell there hadn’t been too many of them on board.
With the destruction of the flagship and the capture of the Zytellian Leader, he hoped Terra would be safe. He had fulfilled his mission, although certainly not in precisely the way he’d planned.
He nodded to Ama. “Let’s go home.”
* * * * *
“The woman is dangerous. I’d rather you had brought a rattlesnake on board.”
Ama stalked across the conference room, clearly agitated. Barrak listened to his friend and first officer vent, having learned to respect the man’s instincts long ago.
“I had to bring her,” he said calmly. “Had I left her behind, we would almost certainly have been captured. I was able to use her as a hostage to force a Zytellian to relinquish her weapon.”
“Fine,” Ama said shortly. “Now she is nothing but a liability. I respectfully suggest we throw
her out the nearest airlock.”
Barrak was shocked by his officer’s vehemence. “We are not barbarians that murder in cold blood, Ama. We are civilized people. At any rate, we are still in Zytellian space. We may yet need her as a hostage.”
“Are you sure it’s not that you need her?” Ama demanded.
Barrak lifted his eyebrows. “Ama, did the Zytellians harm you?”
“No,” Ama said. “As far as I’ve been able to determine, they left all the men alone. Except you.”
Barrak felt his cheeks redden. “What makes you think they tried to retrain me?”
“It’s the way you look at her,” Ama said angrily.
“The Zytellians have powerful pheromones, Ama. Believe me, if you get near one your eyes will glaze over too.”
“Do you think I don’t know that? Everyone knows what the Zytellians can do to men. But they kept you alone, separated from the rest of us, and you are a prince. It makes sense that they would try to influence you. Tell me, my Prince, did she mark you?”
The memory of being inside her, of her sharp fangs centimeters from his shoulder, sent a sharp pang of longing through Barrak. “No,” he said shortly. “She tried to retrain me, but she did not succeed.”
Ama pointed a finger at him. “She will, Barrak. You had her placed in your quarters. Do you think you will continue to resist her?”
“I had her placed in my quarters,” Barrak said, “because they are the one place on the ship where she is safe. No one can get in there but me.”
Ama drew himself up with dignity and spoke formally. “You don’t trust us, Prince?”
“It is not a matter of trust.” Barrak got up and stalked restlessly across the room. “Believe me, Ama, all your willpower, all your self-control is utterly useless against a Zytellian woman. If a man goes near her, he will succumb.”
“Then you must promise to stay away from her as well,” Ama said. “Let one of the women tend her.”
Barrak leaned his forehead against the cool metal of the wall. The thought of not seeing her again made the sharp ache in his gut intensify. He had to see her again. To finish what they had started. Not the marking, of course, but he wanted to be inside her again, to climax inside her, with an intensity that cut like a knife edge.
