by Anthology
Raeder retrieved a tube of lubricant from underneath the edge of the sleeping pallet. His cock stood full and proud, pressing and throbbing against his abdomen in eagerness. He squeezed lubricant onto it, coated it until it was slick—ready—and then he kneed Haven’s thighs apart, forced a pillow under Haven’s buttocks before coming down on top him.
They both groaned at the contact, at the exquisite feel of cock against cock, chest against chest. Raeder claimed Haven’s lips. He thrust his tongue into Haven’s mouth, shared the taste of sex and submission as he lifted, guided his cock to the tight pucker of Haven’s anus and forged inside.
Raeder’s heart thrilled to the sounds of Haven’s pleasure, the moans that were close to being whimpers. His thrusts were shallow but they conveyed the rawness of his emotion, the possessiveness and love that overwhelmed him any time he was intimate with Haven. And Haven responded by raking his fingernails down Raeder’s back in a signal that he wanted harder, deeper, faster—the blend of pain and pleasure only Raeder could give him.
There was no fighting the primitive response that rose with Haven’s urging. Raeder fucked in and out of Haven, loving the feel of Haven’s cock trapped between them, hard again from the exquisite agony and unbearable pleasure of their desire.
Raeder’s breath grew ragged, tortured. His testicles pulled tight against his body, but he hung on to his control, didn’t give in to his own release until Haven arched, cried out as ropy jets of semen escaped to coat chests and abdomens in a celebration of passion.
* * * * *
Aria Cajelais braced herself when her father entered the ramshackle cabin. Her fingers tightened on the small paring knife as waves of his emotion reached her along with the smell of liquor and sweat and mine dust.
She erected what mental blocks she could, but in close confines it was harder to escape the empathic gift she kept secret for fear of the consequences in revealing it. When he crossed his arms over his chest, making the muscles on his arms stand out in brutal relief, Aria tensed out of habit even though her father radiated nervous excitement and giddy expectancy instead of anger.
“We’ve got company coming,” he said.
The four words were enough to make bile rise in her throat and fear settle in her belly. Her heart rate sped up and she wanted to escape the tiny shack, to run and keep running until she found a safe place. But there was no safe place for a lone female, not on the mining world of Iyon. The only roles allowed a grown woman not living in the home of a male family member were that of wife or prostitute.
She dropped the shields protecting her from the full impact of her father’s emotions so she could measure what he was feeling against the other times he’d announced a visitor. Her heart stuttered when she was buffeted by waves of greed along with the stirrings of sexual anticipation.
Aria slammed the mental barrier back in place, a cold clamminess settling over her skin. “Who’s coming?” she asked, the words faint, pathetically weak to her own ears.
“Lodur Marr.”
The whore-master.
This time Aria couldn’t suppress a shudder. Had her father decided to sell her into prostitution? Or did he plan to trade her for one of the women no longer generating enough money to satisfy Lodur?
Aria’s chest tightened, trapping her breath and squeezing her heart in a painful fist. In her mind’s eye she saw the brothel at the edge of the mining town, its windows barred to prevent the females trapped there from leaving.
The women who entered it were rarely seen again outside the brothel. It was rumored that some of the prostitutes died at the hands of the men who visited the house, and those who were used up, broken by the life they’d been forced into, were sold to men living in remote locations or to the savages who populated the desert planet of Adjara.
Another shudder passed through Aria. For the last month her father had brought more and more men home. He’d paraded her before them and at first she’d thought he was looking to collect a bride-price for her. But instead he’d plied his guests with cheap corn liquor then coaxed them into rolling the dice and spending the night gambling.
They’d all been rough, brutish men and the thought of becoming their property, of yielding her body to them whenever they desired her was terrifying. Aria knew she’d die under the onslaught of their violent emotions, if not from their fists. Each of them was so far removed from the man she fantasized about, the husband who would love and protect her, that she’d been forced to use her body, flashing skin and cleavage so they became distracted, foolish in their betting.
Her father’s sly grins sickened her, revealed his game. But what choice did she have except to play the part he’d assigned her when time after time it was her he bet when a losing streak wiped out his coins?
Aria swallowed, forced herself to say, “Why is he coming here?”
Lodur had a brothel full of women to service him. He had a houseful of servants to see to his comfort.
Her father’s gloating laugh was enough to make nausea pass through her in waves. He said, “Lodur thought he was being clever, coming to the mine and just happening to stop near the scales where my haul for the day was being weighed. He started talking to the foremen about some girl he heard singing in the capital city, and how he had a hankering to experience it again.
“Well, the foreman points to me and says, ‘Don’t know about singing, but he’s got a daughter whose flute playing is beautiful enough to make a groan man cry.’ So Lodur turns and I can see it in his eyes, he’s already heard about you, only it ain’t your flute-playing he’s after. He wants to see what you look like.
“Well, girl, he’s going to see all right, and lose some coin for the privilege. He thinks he’s smarter than me. He thinks he can come into my home and cheat me rather than offering a fair price to turn my daughter into one of his fancy whores.”
Aria’s father rubbed his hands together. “When he leaves here tonight, he’s going to be in my debt. Now hurry up and finish getting dinner ready, then put your entertaining clothes on.”
Chapter Two
Raeder idly raked his fingers through Haven’s long hair, the strokes gliding over a smoothly muscled back and lean buttocks, then up an arm covered with the exotic tattoos proclaiming Haven’s lineage and personal feats.
“Do you think they’ll reward us with a third?” Raeder asked, the restlessness no longer riding him though the ache for a female to complete their union and give them children did.
Haven leaned back far enough so his eyes could meet Raeder’s. Tenderness filled him at the vulnerability he read in Raeder’s face, the hope and longing he heard in Raeder’s voice. Raeder liked to think it was his superiority on the game field during the tribe gathering and his prowess in bed that led to their bonding, but it was the softness and uncertainty well hidden beneath a shell of fierce dominance and masculine confidence that had completely ensnared Haven.
“We’ll gain a third when the time is right,” Haven said, tracing the tattoos along Raeder’s shoulder with his finger before sliding down a muscled chest and finding a tiny nipple.
He brushed the pad of his thumb over it gently, slowly, loving the way Raeder’s eyes closed and his cock hardened again. Raeder’s desire for a female was no greater than his, but it had to be the right one.
“If we’re not named this time then it means the woman who’s a perfect fit for us has yet to be found,” Haven said. “Wouldn’t you rather wait?”
Raeder’s eyes opened. They were as black as his hair, but they held the truth of his heart. “No more pleasure workers. I’d rather never experience a woman’s cunt again than see you taking a stranger neither of us cares about.”
Haven nodded. He found only emptiness in the memory of the paid-for sex and practiced, professional responses of the females who made their fortunes on the pleasure planet of Z’nyia. “I feel the same. The scouts will eventually find a female for us. Until then, we have each other.”
He rubbed Raeder’s nipple wit
h his thumb then took it between his fingers, squeezed until Raeder’s buttocks clenched and his cock was fully engorged, eager.
“When she’s given to us to claim,” Raeder said, “we won’t return to Adjara without her.”
“She won’t stand a chance against the two of us.”
Haven smiled as he remembered being on the receiving end of Raeder’s single-minded pursuit and steely determination. He knew the length of his hair and his quieter demeanor led those who didn’t know him to think he was submissive to Raeder, a wife in everything but gender.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Raeder might ultimately be more dominant, but the balance of power could shift in a heartbeat or with a touch.
Haven let his hand trail downward to grasp their cocks in a fisted sheath. He reveled in the way Raeder’s face flushed with hunger and heat.
Need rose. Sharp and painful.
He leaned in and claimed Raeder’s lips. Lured Raeder’s tongue into his mouth and sucked in the same ruthless rhythm as his hand worked their cocks.
Lust built and skin slickened. Hips jerked, faster and faster, until with shouts of pleasure they came, their semen mixing on chests and bellies as the scent of sex covered them like a blanket.
For long moments they lay together on the sleeping mat, both of them breathing hard. But finally they rose, shared the tiny rock-floored shower stall and the small amount of sun-warmed water that could be spared for bathing, then dressed.
They both froze when a knock sounded on the other side of the entrance flap. Gray eyes met pitch-black ones, mirrored the same emotion. Hope.
“Enter,” Raeder said.
One of the youngsters who served the council as a messenger stepped inside with a rolled parchment in his hand. He handed it to Haven, who was closest, then left.
With slightly shaking hands, Haven unrolled it. “Aria Cajelais,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper, his heart filling with joy as her name settled into his soul. “Her gift is music. She plays the flute.”
“Where is she?”
“Iyon.”
“Let’s go claim her.”
* * * * *
Aria fought the fear making her thoughts race like a rabbit being pursued by hounds. Sweat darkened the underarms of her father’s shirt in wide patterns. His face was ruddy, his nose swollen from drink, and his eyes held the desperate edge of a man down to his last few coins as he chased Lady Luck.
“Shall we play again?” Lodur Marr asked, indicating the dice on the table between the two men.
Fat, be-ringed fingers reached over and caressed the bone-white cubes. His gaze flicked to where Aria stood wearing a skimpy dress no woman would be seen out in public in. His attention lingered on her chest, as if he imagined the snake-eyed pair of dice he fondled represented nipple-peaked breasts.
I can’t let him take me, she thought, knowing in another roll her father’s coin would be spent and he would bet her future, her life, in an attempt to recover his losses and make a killing.
“Shall we play again?” Lodur repeated, a snail-slick tongue sliding from the cavern of his mouth to lick plump, repulsive lips.
Aria couldn’t suppress a shiver of pure revulsion. His greedy lust had battered at her mental shields since the moment he arrived.
Nausea rose, clearing her head of panic and giving her an excuse to leave the shack. “I need to step out back,” she murmured, the polite way of indicating she intended to go to the privy.
Her father’s head jerked up, a vicious scowl on his face, but Aria turned away quickly. A lump formed in her throat at the sight of her flute on the kitchen counter where she’d set it down when her father brought out his dice and ordered her to stop playing and to serve their guest the corn liquor.
The flute was the only thing of value she owned. She ached to retrieve it from the counter, to feel the comfort of wood made smooth by the caress of her fingers but gathering it would alert her father and Lodur to her intention to flee the fate waiting for her with the roll of a dice.
The immodest nature of the dress she’d been forced to wear and the chill outside gave her an excuse to slip on her heaviest cloak, a patchwork of dark fabric salvaged from discarded clothing and what she’d been able to acquire from the rag seller. Her heartbeat sounded like thunder in her ears as she opened the door and stepped outside.
She hesitated, allowing her eyes to adjust to a night revealed in the light of coldly glittering stars and by the muted blue of the pleasure planet, Z’nyia, and its orange-yellow moon-planet, Adjara.
Aria shivered at the sight of Adjara. But the nightmare tales of the savages calling it home and leaving only to acquire women for breeding were less terrifying than the future waiting for her if she didn’t escape.
Icy fear slid down her spine when her gaze settled for a moment on Lodur’s ox-driven carriage, its windows barred just as his brothel was. Her only chance was to get to the stream. The bloodhounds he was sure to use would find her if she tried to hide in one of the abandoned mine shafts or in someone’s outbuilding.
Aria stepped away from the door. Despair filled her when two figures immediately emerged from behind the carriage, the silver glint of their whip handles and truncheons proclaiming they were Lodur’s guards. She ducked her head and headed for the outhouse, hoping they’d assume no woman would be so foolish as to stray far from her home at night, and would stay with the carriage long enough for her to get a head start.
She lowered her mental shields and concentrated, felt traces of the guards’ emotions along with their eyes on her back. The distance spared her from the worst of their predatory anticipation, but she felt their intention to enjoy Lodur’s newest prostitute.
No! She refused to accept that as her fate. As soon as she passed from their sight, she began running.
A shout sounded almost immediately, spurring her on. Heavy footsteps raced after her.
She stumbled on rock and loose dirt, hindered by the thin-soled shoes and long cape. But she kept running, thought only of escape despite the hopelessness of it.
Aria felt her pursuers’ emotions before she felt their hands, the steely fingers grabbing her hair and arms, sending pain wrenching through her as they ended her flight to freedom. The cape fell away as they dragged her back to the cabin. And though she knew it was useless, she fought, hating the feel of their hands on her skin.
The sounds coming from her mouth were primitive, feral, and grew more so when Lodur and her father emerged from the cabin. She knew by their expressions and the emotions swamping her that the dice game was concluded—and she was the loser.
Lodur pulled a syringe from the pocket of his elaborately stitched overcoat. “A pity I have to do his. In the old days the sight of a female struggling as she was taken into the brothel was good for business. But now with some of the town leaders taking up the new religion and turning into rabid dogs over the evils of prostitution, I don’t need the trouble.”
His lips curved into a spit-slick smile. “You’ll learn soon enough that plenty of men prefer their women unwilling.”
He jabbed the syringe into Aria’s shoulder. “Put her in the carriage,” he said, before great waves of darkness pulled her under.
The muscles on Raeder’s arms bunched and rippled underneath Haven’s staying hand. “Just a few minutes more,” Haven said, his own fury pushing at his control, urging him to take his hand from Raeder’s arm so they could attack the men who were unaware of being watched.
Raeder’s hand balled into a fist. His slight nod indicated his agreement to waiting until Aria was clear of the impending fight.
A shudder passed through Haven at how close they’d come to beginning their life with Aria in a nightmare. They’d arrived just in time to hear the whore-master’s words, but if they’d delayed leaving Adjara for even a few minutes, they would have been too late to save their third from being taken to the brothel and raped.
He was grateful the remoteness of the mining community with its
scarcity of good building spots meant shacks were far apart. There was little chance of being seen or identified as Adjaran when they attacked and took Aria away with them—to Z’nyia, where they’d spend time getting acquainted before returning to Adjara and presenting her to the tribe as their third.
“They’ve earned their deaths tonight,” Raeder said, his voice a savage growl.
“But not by our hands if it can be avoided. Justice and retribution aren’t why we’re here. There will be trouble for our joining if we kill them unnecessarily.”
Raeder’s fist clenched and unclenched. He pulled away from Haven’s restraining hand and took his weapon from its holster.
Haven breathed a sigh of relief when Raeder didn’t adjust the setting from stun to kill. He slid his own gun out as one of the guards opened the carriage door. The other scooped Aria into his arms then climbed inside with her.
“Let’s go,” Raeder whispered, the tilt of his head and their years of working together all that was needed to indicate what would come next.
They moved through darkness, remaining concealed with the ease of hunters who’d learned the art of it on a desert planet where stealth and quickness of action meant the difference between eating and not eating.
The guard emerged from the carriage just as Haven was within firing range. He pulled the trigger, the primitive weapons at the waists of the two guards no match for the stunners, though neither guard, nor the two men who stood discussing the play of dice, knew what struck them as they tumbled into unconsciousness.
Chapter Three
Possessiveness. Lust. Tender concern. The emotions pressed in on Aria and swamped her in their intensity. Sensation bombarded her—the pleasant sting of freshly washed skin, the scent of flowers, the feel of bedding so soft she wanted to luxuriate in it, the hot touch of masculine hands and silky hair.
Her body tightened with need, feeding on the desire so easily breaching her mental barriers to find an answering swell of hunger at her core. Fingers traced her eyebrows, her nose and lips, stroked over her forehead in a gentle caress that made her whimper as she struggled to shed the cloying confusion and darkness that held her in its grip.
