Five
A planet rotation had passed, the sun had set, and Dita hadn’t yet returned to the Refuge. Kralj refused to lurk by the gates like some lovelorn youngster. That role was reserved for Hulagu, his unwanted protégé, the boy having found his gerel, his fated mate, the lucky bastard.
Contrary to what his beast believed, Kralj had no fated mate. He stalked through the settlement, his entire being concealed in shadow. Storms raged inside him and around him.
Residents hurried out of his way.
Dita, that damn female, should be dead. His beast had never tasted a being and not killed him or her. Yet it refused to harm his tiny tormenter, sipping her blood rather than devouring her flesh.
Hunting with Dita would change that. He’d planned the rest cycle carefully. When the sun rose, there would be only one body to impale upon a stake—hers.
His world would then return to normal.
There would be no teasing, no tempting, no breaking of his rules. He wouldn’t need Dita to absorb his powers because he’d have them under control.
No one would touch him and he’d touch no one. The shadow around Kralj thickened. He’d be alone once more, the first, last, only of his kind.
That wasn’t what he wanted but that was what had to be.
He prowled around the Refuge, causing residents to flee, scurrying out of his path. They were all scared of him. As they should be.
Only one small reality-challenged brunette dared to cross him.
Kralj smelled her delicious scent and his mood lightened. “How did you enter the Refuge?” There had been no witnesses. Their thoughts would have warned him.
“Don’t worry.” She exited the darkness and skipped along beside him, a big smile on her beautiful face. “I didn’t mess up your pretty walls.” She tilted her head, gazing at him. “Did you do that for me?”
He had every crack in his walls sealed, including the structure-compromising one he had added when she’d wrapped her lips around his cock, taking him into her hot mouth.
Those repairs had been completed for her, to prevent the tiny assassin from climbing his walls. It hadn’t stopped her. “Stay by my side.”
He wanted to keep her in his sightlines at all times. Kralj told himself that precaution was for the safety of the residents. His beast had other reasons for wanting her close.
“Relax, handsome. The clones are safe from me this rest cycle.” She slid one of her hands over his right arm and his inner animal howled with happiness. “I keep my promises.”
Could he keep his promise to himself? She was as unique as he was, the only being he’d met whom he couldn’t control.
But he had to kill her.
Rules had to be followed. When they weren’t, when the monstrous side of him roamed free, unencumbered by any restraints, innocent beings died.
“Look at us.” She squeezed his arm. “We look almost normal, like a regular courting couple.”
“We’re not a couple.” And they were far from normal.
Mate, his beast rumbled.
Prey, he corrected. She had to be killed.
Oblivious to his dark thoughts, Dita hummed happily, extracted two daggers from her torso sheaths, spun them in her hands. The blades didn’t reflect any of the pathway’s lights.
“They’re specially crafted.” Her eyes glowed. “I can make some for you if you’d like.”
He’d like to have something of hers. He’d like that too much.
“I don’t need them.” Kralj had a collection of weapons. Some weapons had been given to him as gifts, tokens of gratitude for his protection. Some weapons he had crafted for himself. The Refuge was home to some of the best weapons designers in the universe.
“That’s true.” She nodded. “You don’t need them. Those fangs of yours can shred a being in mere moments.”
That would have appalled a normal female. She laughed, the sound like music dancing on the breeze.
He wanted her again, still, always.
“Tell me about our target.” Dita bounced on the balls of her feet, her excitement palpable. “Which one of your rules did he break?”
“Our prey is female and she hasn’t broken any rules yet.” He stopped at the corner the breeding females frequented, slipping into a dark alcove.
Sari half-heartedly gestured to passersby, flashing her breasts at them. This would be her last planet rotation in the Refuge. She planned to kill herself, to put an end to the guilt she was feeling, the nightmares she experienced about the female she had sent to her death.
Kralj would intervene before that task was undertaken and evict her. The thrill of the chase combined with the thwarted kill would frustrate his beast. Normally, he’d pair an eviction with another hunt. This rest cycle, that prey would be Dita.
She sheathed one of her daggers. “But our target will break a rule?” Dita pressed against his side, her eyes bright with curiosity.
He felt her warmth to his bones. “If I don’t stop her, she will.”
“You know that for certain?” She skimmed her knuckles over his thigh, a light, teasing caress. “She could change her mind.”
“She won’t.” Kralj could detect the difference between a passing thought and a set intention. “But I’ll wait and watch. I won’t take action until she does.”
“We’ll wait and watch.” Dita snuggled closer to him, her blade in her hand, the combination of soft female and deadly weapon arousing him. “We won’t take action until she does.”
Kralj fought against touching her and lost. He wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her to him.
“This is nice.” Dita’s sigh contained pure happiness, a happiness he also experienced. “Why do you view them as prey, not targets?”
He’d never been asked that question. No one dared to ask him much of anything. “I’m part beast, part monster.”
His little assassin knew of his beast side. She’d seen him kill, had witnessed how he’d ripped out a prey’s throat, feasted on his flesh.
Yet she had chosen to be with him, had negotiated for the privilege.
He stroked her side, savoring her closeness, her slight curves.
“I’m a monster also.” Her dark brown curls rubbed against his leather coat. “I refer to them as targets.”
She thought his beast was his monster. She didn’t understand they were different entities, his beast the less deadly of the two.
“You’re not part Beta Taurian Shadow Beast.” He doubted she’d heard of the creature. Few beings had.
“A Beta Taurian Shadow Beast, huh?” Dita gazed at him with more respect. “I’ve studied them.” She surprised him with that revelation. “That explains your fangs, your control of the darkness around you, your speed, strength, lust for blood. They’re savage creatures, some of the fiercest predators in the universe.” Only she would say that with approval. She was an unnatural female. “They’re not very clever, though. That’s their one weakness. You, however, have intelligence to spare.”
“My humanoid side compensates for the beast’s lack of intelligence.” He was the total killing package.
“Your brain is more than humanoid.”
“My brain is enhanced.” He accessed areas of it normal humanoids didn’t and the Humanoid Alliance had amplified all of his brain activity.
That created problems. His predecessors, able to control their surroundings from inside their chambers, refused to leave them. They wouldn’t hunt the Humanoid Alliance appointed prey. Part beast, he didn’t have that issue. His savage side lived for the hunt.
“You’re more than humanoid.” Dita wiggled, brushing her ass against his already hard cock. “I’m less than human.” Her laughter held little humor. “We make a great team, you and I.”
“We’re not a team.” He had to kill her.
Action on the corner thankfully diverted Dita. Sari had attracted a customer, a small, slight human male. He wasn’t the being the breeding female was waiting for, the being with the gun she’d arranged to purchase, Sari’s thoughts told Kralj. But to not service him would draw Yorick’s attention and she wished to avoid her handler.
Sari led the male by the hand into the alleyway, easing his nervousness with overblown flattery. She didn’t stutter once.
Dita raised her eyebrows, silently asking if the breeding female was their prey.
Kralj nodded and followed the pair, his tread soundless, his face and body masked by the shadow he controlled. Dita wasn’t content to merely walk beside him. She crawled up walls, leapt across rooftops, silent and quick, her antics vastly entertaining his beast.
The little assassin was skilled, almost his match for stealth. Only her delectable scent gave her away, tickling his nostrils, coiling in his lungs.
The breeding female and her customer finally found a place meeting the shy male’s approval. Sari dropped to her knees, unfastening his ass coverings. The scent of face fucking filled the air.
Kralj’s gaze drifted upward. As Dita watched the couple, she glided her hands over her body, touching herself through her skin-tight garment.
Fuck. She was a temptress.
It would be a long rest cycle.
* * *
By the time, the Palavian weapons dealer contacted Sari, Kralj’s control was stretched to the breaking point. He silently trailed them, moving through the maze of darkened pathways, and he tried to ignore the female on the rooftop above him.
That was an impossible task. Dita had partially unfastened her body covering, revealing the valley between her high, firm breasts. He wanted to lick that pale skin, sink his fangs into her curves, peel the rest of the garment from her form.
Prey. She was prey, he reminded himself, returning his attention to Sari.
“Do you have the gun?” The breeding female whispered to the Palavian. Say no. Say no. Say no. Her thoughts repeated the answer she truly desired.
Dita could be right. Sari could change her mind.
“You owe me one last payment.” The Palavian grabbed the breeding female, turned her around, bent her over.
Fear flickered in Sari’s brain, there one moment, banished the next. This is the Refuge. She clung to that fact. He can’t kill me. He can only hurt me.
This was why he couldn’t break the rules, not even for Dita. Other beings relied upon them being upheld.
“You’re a take-command male.” Sari grabbed the wall. “I love it.”
She lied. She hated it.
The Palavian yanked up the strip of fabric covering Sari’s ass, unfastened his ass coverings, kicked her legs farther apart, and started rutting into her, uncaring of the breeding female’s pleasure.
Sari grunted, repeating curse words over and over in her brain.
Kralj had used the little assassin as roughly as the Palavian used Sari, ravishing Dita’s mouth, forcing her to take him, uncaring of her satisfaction.
Had she felt the same disgust toward him, toward the act?
He glanced upward. The damn female hung off the edge of a roof, the strength in her lithe body reassuring him.
If she had hated their encounter, she would have fought him. She wouldn’t have moaned around his cock, her blue eyes dark with passion.
The grunting grew louder. The Palavian’s pace became frenzied.
Kralj’s beast clawed at his insides. It didn’t care about hunting, about killing. It wanted to breed with its mate, to create baby monsters.
That wouldn’t, couldn’t happen. Kralj would kill every being on the planet before he allowed that.
The Palavian pushed his hips forward and groaned his release, his ass cheeks clenching. He stayed like that for a moment.
“You’re a good fuck, Sari.” The male slapped the female’s ass. “I’d do business with you again.” He stepped back, tucked his limp cock into his ass coverings, fastened the garment. “The gun is loaded but if you need more ammunition, I’m your male.”
She wouldn’t need more ammunition. It would only take one projectile to end her lifespan.
Not that Kralj would allow that.
Sari straightened, pushed her ass covering back into place. Cum dripped down her leg. “I’ll keep that in mind.” The breeding female accepted the gun with trembling fingers.
“You do that.” The Palavian squeezed her right breast and strolled away, not asking why she needed the gun. The male didn’t care. She was a replaceable female.
Dita, in contrast, wasn’t replaceable. Kralj had lived many human lifespans. He knew that.
He didn’t know if he could destroy her. Did he have that strength?
Sari, the breeding female, was struggling with her willpower also. She sank to her knees and stared at the gun, her thoughts churning with second, third, seventh thoughts.
Many moments passed.
Too many for his impatient little assassin. Dita swung off the edge of the roof, somersaulted in the air and landed on Kralj’s shoulders, her leather-clad pussy pressing against the back of his neck, the aroma of her arousal teasing his nostrils.
A sense of rightness layered over Kralj like a warm covering cloth.
“I recognize that look in her eyes.” Dita leaned over him. “I’ve seen it in the beaten, the battered, the hopeless. There’s no victim, is there? She plans to kill herself.”
Kralj didn’t answer.
Being a clever female, his little assassin didn’t require confirmation. “She should be sent to a medic. She shouldn’t be killed.”
“We’re evicting her from the Refuge.” We. That word sounded good on his tongue.
Dita’s hands slid down his chest, under his jacket, her palms rough and warm and wonderful against his bare skin. “Will that help her?”
“Helping her isn’t my responsibility.” The delay between the suicide attempt and the eviction might cause Sari to rethink her decision. Her despair could morph into anger. She might rediscover the will to live.
Or she might not. Kralj touched his scarred face. Once she was outside the Refuge’s walls, she wasn’t his concern.
Sari lifted the gun.
“We should stop her.” Dita lunged forward.
“No.” Kralj strapped his arms around her legs, securing her in place. “That’s not our task.”
It might be someone else’s role. Two beings ran toward them, their treads heavy, their voices and laughter becoming louder with each step.
Kralj inwardly groaned as he recognized the individuals. Hulagu, his would-be protégé, had a history of showing up where he shouldn’t be, adding complications to otherwise straightforward scenarios. He would prefer the young warrior remain far away from Dita.
“I’m hunting you.” Hulagu made enough noise during his so-called hunt to wake a corpse. “You can’t escape me.”
“I will escape you, future warlord.” Azalea teased. “I’m leaving the settlement soon. Who will you hunt then?”
“I’ll hunt you, always you.” The Chamele warrior-in-training reached out to her. “You’re not leaving me.” He tugged on her flight suit.
Azalea squealed, ran faster. Hulagu caught her and swung her around to face him, pressing her shoulders against the side of a domicile. Light shone down on the young female’s face.
“No.” Sari gasped. “It can’t be you. You’re dead.”
The resemblance between Azalea and the girl whose death Sari had caused was slight. They had the same colored eyes and hair. But Sari saw what she wanted to see—a chance to redeem herself, to right past wrongs.
“Hulagu.” Azalea pushed against his chest. “Stop it. We’re not alone.”
The young male turned quickly, claws extending from his hands.
“You’re not her.” Sari dropped her gun, metal clattering against stone. “You look the same but your voice is different.”
“Are you hurt?” Azalea walked around Hulagu, approaching the breeding female without caution, no concerns or fear in her innocent heart. “Why are you sitting on the pathway?”
“I was about to…” Sari glanced at the gun. “And you arrived, stopping me. You resemble her. That can’t be a coincidence.” She stared at the young female, her eyes wide. “It has to be destiny. This is my opportunity to make amends.”
A sense of purpose had banished the breeding female’s despair. She wouldn’t attempt to kill herself, not this planet rotation.
He was no longer needed. Expanding his shadow to include the little assassin on his shoulders, Kralj strode toward the settlement’s gates.
“Where are we going?” Dita whispered.
“The hunt is over.”
“Will there be another hunt?” She slid down his back, rubbing her curves over his muscle, leaving a trail of friction and heat. “I want to kill with you.”
He wanted that too. “There won’t be another hunt.” Kralj denied both himself and her.
“Are you certain?” Dita moved beside him. “There must be one more tar…prey we can pursue.” She used his word and that pleased him. “Someone skilled, violent, fast. I like it when they run.”
His beast liked that also.
“And I love watching you eat what you kill. That makes me so hot.” She danced around him, touching him, caressing him, teasing him. “Don’t you want to feed?”
He did want to feed and she knew that. His little assassin was deliberately provoking him.
She was fearless and clearly disturbed and that made him harder than he’d ever been, his balls aching with need.
Kralj increased his pace, forcing her to jog beside him.
His balls would have to suffer because he wouldn’t take her, wouldn’t fuck any part of her, not again. It didn’t matter how much he wanted her.
Residents rushed out of his way, their minds blank with terror.
He told himself the lack of fucking was a punishment, that he didn’t deserve the pleasure of being inside her.
The truth was, he sensed, if he found release in Dita one more time, he wouldn’t do the right thing, wouldn’t kill her when she broke his rules.
He didn’t know if he was strong enough to do that now.
“Don’t pursue the clone targets, little one.” He told her again, hoping she’d listen.
“I’ve never not eliminated a target.” She flitted around him, her booted feet making no sound on the stone pathway.
“I’ve never warned my prey.” He spotted Orol lurking in the shadows. “There’s a first time for everything.”
“We could hunt one of your males.” Dita spotted his second-in-command also. “Without killing them, of course. They might enjoy the exercise.”
I like this female. Orol’s unspoken admiration irked Kralj. I see why the boss is enamored with her.
He wasn’t enamored with her. Kralj curled back his lips, baring his teeth at the male. But she was his. No other male should be looking at her.
Orol raised his palms and hastily backed away from them.
“If you don’t want to hunt, we could find other things to do.” She clasped one of Kralj’s hands and swung his arm. “There’s no need for our courting encounter to end.”
There was every need for it to end. “We’re not on a courting encounter.” Kralj gazed pointedly down at their linked fingers. He was the ruler of the Refuge, a primitive being and she was treating him like a play friend.
“Oh, I think we are.” She grinned, not releasing his hand.
He tugged it out of her grip. “Beings don’t hunt while on courting encounters.” That was a guess. He’d never been on one.
“Don’t they?” She tilted her head to the side. “The Chamele boy was chasing the settler girl. They appeared to be on a courting encounter.”
“They’re not monsters.” Hulagu didn’t have to kill Azalea. “And their hunts don’t end with death.”
“Ours didn’t end with death either.” Dita sounded as disappointed as he was about that. “Though our next one could end that way.”
“There will be no next one.”
They reached the main entrance to the Refuge. Kralj should push her through the open gates, close them behind her, locking her out of his settlement and out of his soul.
He couldn’t do it.
“I know what we could do.” Dita stepped toward him, leaning her body against his, and his beast panted, salivating over her touch. “We could fuck.”
All parts of him liked that idea. His cock pushed against his leather ass coverings. “We’re not fucking, as you so crudely put it.” If he fucked her again, their connection would tighten and that would make killing her much more difficult. “Our garments remain on.”
“But—”
“I have to complete a perimeter check.” Kralj tightened his grip on her hand and continued moving south, forcing her to join him.
He’d expel her from the settlement before the sun rose. A few more moments with her wouldn’t change anything.
They walked. She talked, telling him about the targets she’d hunted, giving him every gory detail about each kill; her stories stimulating his brain, enthralling his beast; her voice swirling around him, warm and deep and soothing.
He overheard every spoken word and every thought of every being within his telepathic range. Listening to her shouldn’t have been much different.
But it was. She was unlike any being he’d ever encountered, surprising and fascinating him. He didn’t want her to stop talking, to stop sharing her stories.
They passed more of his males. That wasn’t a coincidence. They were curious about Dita, all of them viewing her as his female.
That misconception would be corrected when he killed her.
The perimeter check was completed too quickly for Kralj’s liking. He wasn’t yet ready to let her go. Instead, he led her to the top of one of the newly repaired walls.
He sat on the stone, drawing her downward, positioning her between his legs. She leaned back, resting her head on his shoulder, her slender hands on his.
She was so small, so feminine, so right, leather-encased passion, heavily-armed softness. He breathed in her distinctive fragrance, ran his hands over her arms, chest, hips, exploring her form, learning it.
“You can feed from me, if you’d like.” She offered him her fragile neck.
He’d like that. Too much. “You’ve seen me feed.”
“I have.” Dita shuddered, the musk of her arousal fogging his enhanced brain. “You’re magnificent.”
Only the deluded female in his arms would think so. “I’d rip you apart.”
Her slender shoulders rose and fell. “Assassins have short lifespans. I accepted that a long time ago.”
Kralj didn’t want to talk about her acceptance of her death. His beast, agitated by the topic, paced inside him, testing his restraints, growling with discontentment.
“Don’t feel any guilt over what you have to do, handsome.” She stroked his fingers. “You’ve been upfront about your rules. I’m choosing to break them. I know the consequences and I welcome them, more now than I did when we first met.” She massaged his knuckles, round and round, rubbing warmth into his joints. “I don’t want to return to the smothering solitude.”
He didn’t want to return to the smothering solitude either but rebellion was contagious. If he allowed Dita to break the rules, others would do the same.
Anarchy would reign. His monstrous humanoid side wouldn’t respond well to that. It would feel threatened, would take drastic methods to protect itself.
Beings, many of them, would die. He couldn’t risk that, even for her.
Not that she’d asked for leniency. She embraced her fate, his damn fearless female.
Kralj nuzzled against her cheek, her skin smooth, perfect. “Wait until your targets leave the Refuge and then kill them.”
“You can read their thoughts.” She explored his wrists, was unable to circle them with her fingers. “Do they plan to leave the Refuge soon?”
“No,” he admitted. The clones knew she was waiting for them, had decided to stay in the settlement for solar cycles if that was necessary. “It would take something extreme to drive them out.”
“Hmmm…” Dita skimmed her fingers along his forearms, pushing the sleeves of his coat higher and higher.
Silence stretched.
“Tell me the story about tonight’s prey,” his little assassin demanded, the abrupt change of subject challenging Kralj’s bemused brain. “Whom did the settler girl remind her of and why did she want to end her lifespan?”
“I don’t talk about the residents.” He kept their secrets.
“You’re an honorable male.” The admiration in Dita’s voice warmed him. “I’ll tell you what I know.”
She relayed her theories, based on her skills of observation. There was very little she hadn’t uncovered. She had noted the smallest of details, combining them to fill in the being’s background.
“Sari is a survivor.” Dita concluded. “Her will to live is strong. Her reason for dying would have to be stronger.”
For all of his mind-reading abilities, he hadn’t considered that angle. Kralj found himself asking for her impressions of Orol, Balvan, other members of his team, and he wondered what she thought about him. What did she see that no one else did?
They talked and touched. Dita’s words slowed. The silences between her comments and questions grew longer. Her body became more and more still. Her eyelids lowered. Her breathing leveled.
His little assassin slept, her face soft, her body vulnerable.
She was relying on him to protect her.
He would. Kralj closed his eyes. He continued to monitor his surroundings, the thoughts, the voices, the movements, but all of that activity faded to the back of his mind. Dita was his focus, her scent, her softness, her warmth. There was a bond between them, a trust.
Dita trusted him to tell the truth, to deal with her honestly and he trusted her to do the same. She understood him, his role in the Refuge, his need to kill, his loneliness.
He’d never had that connection with another being.
She was special. She was rare. And in this moment, she was his.
Kralj’s lips curled upward as he drifted into the blackness.