Seer

by Raven Dark

  “Leave us, all of you. There’s a last order of business to take care of.”

  The men dispersed, disappearing into the woods before I could look at anyone and see what they might have been thinking. Doc’s arm was tight around Diamond’s shoulder, and he was whispering something fiercely in her ear.

  I had a feeling Diamond wouldn’t get a lot of sleep tonight.

  Emmy sniffled, and Doc wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumb before drawing her in too. Both women put their heads on his shoulders and they vanished into the shadows.

  Once everyone was gone, and before I could ask him what could possibly be left to deal with, Sheriff spun me around to face him. His eyes were pure, savage lust.

  “On your knees,” he growled.

  I had my answer.

  Chapter 6

  Conquered

  Sheriff didn’t give me a chance to obey. Perhaps he thought I’d try to escape his intentions, that I’d see what he wanted now as a final humiliation that, after all he and his men had already done, was just too much for me. Or perhaps he was so overcome with his own need that he didn’t want to wait for me to follow his direction. Whatever the case, his hand gripped my shoulder almost painfully, shoving me to my knees in front of him.

  It wouldn’t have mattered. I wouldn’t have tried to escape.

  I wished I could have said I wanted to, but I was reasonably sure my knees would have folded under me without his help, and not just because my legs were too weak to hold me up. His command seemed to take over my mind and body, to possess it so that all I could do was obey.

  Not only was my sex soaked and aching for release to the point of crazed lust, but my brain seemed to be floating in a strange, dreamy daze, my thoughts sluggish. An urge to please him took over, so intense it made my hands shake. A need for absolution, I realized, as if satisfying him would somehow serve as a final act of justice, wiping away the last of my guilt.

  With my face at the level of his crotch, the huge bulge in his pants filled my vision. The firelight from the torch allowed me to plainly see the steely ridge of his cock jabbing at his leathers, as if it wanted to punch a hole through them. My mouth watered until I swallowed, my breathing raspy in the night.

  “Take out my dick and suck it, slave. I want to see your mouth eating my cock.” His voice was a demon’s rumble in the darkness. The sound made my nipples hurt all over again, slicking my sex further.

  Trembling with both lust and trepidation, I clumsily undid his belt and fumbled his cock free. That silver ring piercing the tip flashed, and before I could fully get my hand around him, he gripped my jaw with one hand, his shaft in the other, and pushed himself in, almost to the hilt.

  That sense of rightness seized me by the short hairs. I let out the most humiliating, needy moan, the sound muffled with my mouth full of his cock.

  “Fuck, look at you, eating it up.” His voice was gruff. “So hungry for me, I love it. My favorite way to see your mouth, filled with your master’s dick.” He thrust to the back of my throat, trapping my head with his palm until my eyes watered.

  My gag reflex went into overdrive. I’d meant to push him back, but instead, I suppressed the urge to gag, gripping his hips, holding onto him like a lifeline, as though he could somehow save me from myself.

  Sheriff withdrew just before the pressure of him became too much, withdrawing until only the head of his cock was between my lips. He fisted my hair, and his breathing huffed, brutal and animalistic. His muscles tensed around me with the effort of his restraint.

  He was on a knife’s edge of control. A surge of unwilling power flooded me like sick poison, knowing I’d taken him to that edge. I pushed the surge down, latching onto a tiny flicker of anger with myself for wanting him like this. Letting that anger keep me from teetering over the edge of my own need that had suddenly become an abyss.

  It didn’t work.

  “Don’t stop. Show me how sorry you are for what you’ve done.”

  As soon as he spoke, I was lost. I was sorry. So sorry, to the depths of my soul. I swallowed him, running my mouth up and down him the way both he and Steel had taught me. Each time I went back up, I swirled my tongue around the head of his cock. My tongue caught his metal cock ring, flicking it. The length of him jerked in response. I looked up to watch his head fall back. His hand gripped my hair tighter, and he hummed in his throat.

  The desire in that sound seized my control. I licked and sucked him, bobbing my head up and down. His breathing quickened.

  With a grunt, he trapped my head, thrusting in and out. I whimpered, and his control snapped. Sheriff fucked my mouth greedily, pushing my head into his crotch.

  The world fell away until there was only him. His pleasure, his need.

  He sped up, shoving to the back of my throat again. His muscles tensed, his breaths ragged. He was getting close.

  I thought he’d come down my throat. Instead, he pulled out. Before I could wonder why, he yanked me by that leash and pulled me to my feet. He grabbed my throat, and the world became a blur as he rushed me to the nearest tree and shoved my back against the trunk.

  I swallowed hard, my throat working against his palm. His eyes were pools of blue-black fire above mine. His fingers squeezed just enough for my breath to catch. I panted up at him, never having felt so helpless as I did now.

  “I’m sorry, Master.” I whispered.

  He put his nose in my hair, inhaling deeply. His nose ran over my temple, his breath hot in my ear. “Shut up.”

  My sex hummed at the threat there.

  “I think that sweet little mouth of yours has landed you in enough trouble already, Little Spy.” He inhaled my scent again. “Shit. You piss me the fuck off.”

  Our chests rose and fell against each other, heavy and hard.

  His throat worked on a swallow.

  At last, he drew back. His breathing had slowed, and while his eyes still blazed, he didn’t look on the verge of tearing me apart. “Give me your wrists.”

  My eyes widened. What did he mean to do now? I held up my wrists for him.

  Sheriff pulled the loop of the leash from around my wrist, stretched the loop wider, and slipped it over both of my wrists before pulling it taut. Trapping both of my wrists together. Then he shoved me over to a low-hanging branch, took the loop at his end from around his wrist, and tossed the long slack of the rope up over the branch.

  My eyes followed the swinging rope and my mouth dropped open. The branch was about two feet above my head, and as thick as Sheriff’s arm. He wound the rope around it and yanked it tight, forcing my arms above my head, but not enough to put strain on my arms or shoulders.

  Without a word, Sheriff tied the rope in a complex knot, the kind that allowed him to pull it free with a tug at a moment’s notice.

  Awareness of my vulnerability went straight to my clit. I was immobilized and helpless, leaving my body completely open to him. My breasts were lifted, peaked nipples pointing straight at him, with nothing to hide my sex from his possessive gaze.

  A first real bite of fear pierced the drugging lust. The last time he’d tied me like this, to the posts of his bed, he’d belted my ass. Surely he didn’t mean to do that now. Every inch of my ass burned from the punishment I’d already received. If he whipped me again, with that switch or his belt…

  But Sheriff made no move to get the switch, wherever it had gone. He didn’t pull his belt from his still-open pants. Instead, he stepped back and looked over his handiwork, one fist pulling his thick cock in long, slow strokes.

  Unable to think of anything appropriate to say to break the silence or ease my own anxiety, I licked my lips and tried to steady my breathing.

  “Are you afraid, slave?”

  There was no use in lying. “Yes, Master.” I was, but only partly. Excitement mixed with the chill in my blood, making my skin tingle.

  “Good girl.”

  His hands slid slowly around my waist, his palms heating my skin even more than it alread
y was. “Do you have any idea how badly I want you right now, hero? Do you know what I want to do to you?”

  I wanted to rebuff him for calling me that; to me, that name was worse than Little Spy, serving as a constant reminder of something he saw as a failing in me.

  When I didn’t speak, he dropped his hands, but only long enough to prowl behind me. Then his palms glided over my hips, just as slow, just as possessive. One of his hands pushed my hair over my shoulder, exposing one side of my neck.

  “I asked you a question, hero.” He punctuated the last word with a single searing stroke of his tongue along the shell of my ear.

  Any answer I gave would only play into his hands. And yet if I didn’t answer…

  “I. I deserve whatever you do to me, Master. I know that.”

  “Damn right you do.” He stalked around in front of me again.

  Without the slightest change in his expression, he grabbed my legs and wrapped them around his hips in one movement. The head of his cock pressed against my eager core.

  His hips rocked, and I groaned.

  So did he.

  Then he drove into me in one swift, savage thrust.

  I cried out, arching my back and tossing my head. Sheriff grabbed the back of my head and slammed his lips onto mine.

  His lips pried mine apart, his tongue bullying mine on another groan. His fingers raked down my back, making me shudder and whimper into his mouth.

  He wasn’t a General now. He was a conqueror, a man who cared nothing for my pleasure and took only for himself. He plunged in and out of me, each thrust stretching my core and hitting my clit until I nearly came apart.

  When he broke the kiss, his expression was dark and brutal.

  “You’re all mine, woman. That’s never going to change. You will love me, Setora, and you will tell me so, even if I have to tie you up and fuck you like this every night until you do.”

  But even as he spoke, his tone offered nothing, no compassion, no give and take. That should have made me hate him, but the raw possession in his words only made me hotter.

  He gave me half a dozen sharp thrusts. White lights blazed across my vision, and I screamed, coming hard. One more thrust, and he roared into the night.

  Sheriff held me to him, sheathed inside me for a long moment while his chest rose and fell on ragged breaths.

  I kept my eyes on his, refusing to look away from the dark promise of forever in those indigo depths. Letting him know I could take whatever he gave me in the days to come, even if I could never offer more. My heart belonged to the Four as a whole. To the Legion, to this life. He owned my body. But my heart? Would it ever be his?

  * * *

  It took me a few minutes to come down from the high of my release.

  Sheriff pulled out and let my legs slide down until I was on my feet. He had me lean into him as he did up his pants. Then he untied me, slowly lowering my arms.

  Through the haze of euphoria, I was only half aware of what he did. That he’d carefully lowered my aching arms until they were looped around his neck, or that he’d left the leash wrapped around both of my wrists. That he had the other end of the leash somewhere as he lifted me easily into his arms, or that his strong grip held me against his warmth, one arm around my back, the other under my knees. The heat of my orgasm still flooded me, making my head light so there was nothing I could do but put my head on his shoulder. My sex still clenched long after I’d plummeted over the edge.

  He said nothing as he carried me, naked and shaking, through the woods as if I weighed nothing. Just as well, because I couldn’t have formed a coherent thought if my life depended on it. I couldn’t have done so anymore than I could have walked back to camp on my own.

  I did, however, have the presence of mind to wish I’d hated being close to him. It made no sense, but his carrying me, his holding me close, made me feel protected and cared for.

  I was his, and right then, all I could feel for that was grateful.

  Darkness still blanketed the forest by the time we arrived back at the camp. I was dimly aware of the firelight, of the sound of voices, but I only half registered them. Sheriff carried me through the camp, past the fire. People probably saw me, but I couldn’t have said who had been there, nor could I bring myself to care.

  Inside the hollow of his tree, Sheriff lowered me to my feet. He did so with a care and gentleness that, in contrast to his savagery earlier, left my mind reeling. The firelight from two torches at the entrance to his bedchamber cast the room in a soft, comfortable glow. The quiet murmur of voices from around the campfire was soothing, adding to the sense of safety and security that wrapped around me.

  I also had the fleeting thought that Sheriff smelled fantastic, like hot male and clean sweat, and passion with a hint of some kind of spice.

  He turned me carefully to face him, keeping me against him as he cradled my head in his hands. His lips pressed to my forehead.

  “You did good, sweetheart.”

  The words slid through my orgasm-addled brain, sinking in, their warmth going straight to my heart. I thought I nodded.

  He must have set me on my feet only for a moment, because the next thing I knew, he was lowering me to the soft furs of his bed, arranging me so that my head rested on a roll of more furs that served as a pillow.

  His fingers trailed over my belly. “Cold?” His voice was throaty.

  I nodded. My eyes slid closed.

  “We’ll take care of that. But first…”

  The warmth of his touch disappeared for a moment before I heard him moving around the hollow. The sound of liquid being poured reached my ears, soothing me.

  In the next instant, he tugged me until I sat upright, and I opened my eyes as his hand rested on my back. He held a tin mug of water up for me. “Drink this.”

  He guided the mug to my lips and slowly poured the cool liquid in, letting me drink. The water felt fabulous on my parched throat.

  “Slowly. Drink slowly.”

  When I’d had my fill, he set the mug down, then laid me back and rolled me gently onto my stomach.

  The warmth of the thick furs chased away the last of the chill. I wanted to sink into the bedding, to sleep for days and never move again.

  The quiet sound of a stopper being pulled out of a bottle barely registered through the daze.

  Behind me, there was a slicking sound, and a moment later, the General’s palms covered my ass, rubbing something cool slowly over the tortured skin. Whatever he was using, it soothed the welts I knew must have been left behind, the burn and sting from the implements he and his men had used on me.

  A moan of pleasure left me. I heard his smile when he spoke.

  “Good?”

  I nodded. He must have realized I was too tired to form words, because he didn’t press me. Instead, his hands worked slowly over my back and arms, rubbing in the last of whatever balm he was using into the skin and working out the strain in my muscles with his fingers.

  When he was done, I heard him get up and move around some more. The light from the torches dimmed as if he’d extinguished one. Then he was beside me again.

  Sheriff covered us both with a warm blanket and turned me over, pulling me into him so that I lay with my head on his chest. His strong arms closed around me, one big hand over my hip, the other splayed across my back.

  I nuzzled into his neck without thinking.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll talk about this…feeling…of yours,” he murmured, his fingers tracing the Legion’s tattoo on my back without seeing it, as if he knew the design he’d put there by heart.

  I mumbled something I didn’t remember.

  Again, his lips pressed warmly to my forehead. “Sleep, my Little Spy. My little hero. Tomorrow will be a long day for you.”

  If I’d said anything before the darkness of sleep found me, I didn’t remember it.

  Chapter 7

  Epiphany

  Someone was screaming.

  I sat bolt upright in bed, my breathing
harsh in the near-darkness of a tree hollow.

  The screaming had stopped. It took me a moment to realize the sound had been coming from my own throat. I dropped my hand and looked at it. I’d been rubbing my neck.

  Or clawing at it.

  “Kitten. You all right?”

  Hawk’s voice. He rushed into the tree, kneeling beside me on the bed of furs.

  “Master,” I panted.

  Voices outside the tree reached my ears, talking over each other, worried.

  “You were screaming, Kitten. Are you all right?” he repeated. His hand was on my chin, making me look at him. His yellow eyes glittered in the light that filled the hollow from a single torch at the entrance. The grey light of early morning shone through the opening in the tree.

  I made myself nod. “I’m okay, Master.”

  Was I? Half-formed memories of something frightening gnawed at my thoughts. A dream, but where the images of the dream should have been, there was only darkness. Whatever I’d seen was now beyond my reach.

  Hawk scowled at my reply, his eyes searching mine. “Dreaming again?”

  I nodded.

  “What was it? Steel?”

  “No.” Why I said that, I didn’t know, but somehow I knew Steel hadn’t been in my dream this time. But who had? That face he’d turned into last time, the face whose features I could never see?

  I shuddered.

  “What did you dream, Kitten?”

  “I don’t remember, Master.”

  It was the truth, but I couldn’t decide if I was grateful for that fact or if it terrified me.

  Hawk’s scowl deepened, his eyes watching me closely. His fingers tightened on my chin, his lips turning up in a slight smile. “Are you lying to me?”

  “No, Master. I’m not.”

  He looked like he was about to say something, but Doc entered, looking at us.

  “Setora. You wanna come and see Steel?”