Seven
Kralj stomped along pathways, his female slung over his right shoulder. He was angry with himself, with his beast, and with her.
Not because she’d killed one of his targets. That had been his decision. He could have prevented the clone’s death, deflecting both of the daggers but he didn’t. The male had dared to threaten his female. He had to die.
Kralj took full responsibility for that death, which was why, he rationalized, she remained alive. Her survival had nothing to do with his beast insisting she was his mate or how she touched him or her ability to absorb his powers.
His anger stemmed from his loss of control over his beast. It had refused to punish her and, even more alarmingly, it had refused to pull out while they were breeding.
Coming inside a female was too risky. They could have made a new little monster, something he’d vowed never to do.
One of his kind in the universe was too much.
It wouldn’t happen again. He’d made her his slave, would ensure she behaved. She wouldn’t entice his monster into madness a second time. He’d restrain her, restrain the creature inside him, restrain himself.
Kralj marched through the settlement, ensuring residents saw them. They’d know whom she belonged to and wouldn’t threaten her again.
It should stem rebellion. The word of the clone’s death had already started to spread, the surviving males voicing their outrage. Residents would realize she was acting with his approval. She was a part of him. They should fear her as they feared him.
He carried her into the beverage outlet. Although the sun had recently risen, the gaming and beverage chamber was crowded, every chair occupied. Bleary-eyed patrons rolled numbered stones and groped laughing breeding females. Workers poured fermented beverages into containers, serving them.
Beings stopped and stared at him as he stood on the threshold, their eyes wide with curiosity. He never brought females back to the structure he considered his domicile.
Her name is Dita. He broadcast telepathically to every being in the structure. And she’s mine. He slapped her bare ass and she jerked, the scent of her arousal strengthening. No one touches her.
He has a female?
If the freak can get a female, there’s hope for me.
Who is she?
Nice ass.
Where did she come from?
Why is she covered in blood?
Did he eat her too?
How can she tolerate looking at him?
How much is he paying her? The comments and questions were thought but not spoken.
Kralj ignored them all and strode through the space to his private chambers. Beings stepped to the side, not meeting his gaze, allowing him to pass.
He pushed through the doors to his chambers and continued walking. The first chamber was utilized for business. It was often frequented by guests.
“Wow.” Dita pushed herself upward, her body quivering with excitement. “You have some nice toys.”
Ancient weapons decorated the walls. He thought his unnatural female would like that.
“Can I—”
“No.” He denied her request before she voiced it. “You’ll have to earn that right.”
Once she learned to follow his rules and the furor over the killing had dissipated, they would hunt with those weapons.
At the moment, it was too dangerous. If they hunted now, too many eyes would watch them. His beast had also not yet learned control.
Kralj walked with her through his sleeping chamber to the cleansing space and lowered her until her bare feet touched the tiled floor. He placed his body between her and the door. “Relieve yourself.”
Her face turned red under the layer of dried blood. “That’s not necessary.”
Was his little assassin embarrassed?
“You will be bound to the sleeping support for an entire shift.” He crossed his arms before him. “It’s necessary.”
Dita mimicked his pose, folding her arms under her pert breasts. Her nipples were taut, begging to be covered by his hands. “Turn around.”
“Impertinent slaves get their asses reddened.” If he turned around, she’d attempt to escape.
Her eyes glowed with excitement. His female liked being spanked.
And he liked spanking her. Too much.
“Please turn around, master.” She tried again.
“No.” He wasn’t relenting.
“I didn’t intend to kill him.” Dita scowled at him, looking more adorable than fierce. “My goal was to maim, which is allowable.” She held up one finger. “But I can’t not kill.” She muttered. “I’m too damn good.”
She had planned to obey him. That eroded more of his anger. “Nothing you say will change your fate, little one.”
He was keeping her in his chambers, where he could watch over her, protect her.
“This is humiliating.” She looked away from him as she tended to her needs.
“You’ve endured worse.”
“I have.” Her slender shoulders straightened. They were scarred, as was much of the rest of her body, but her marks were dainty and pink, not ghastly and grotesque like his were. “Why didn’t you kill me?”
“Why did you plan to maim, not kill your targets?” he countered, unwilling to share his reasons for sparing her. “Your vow was to end their lives.”
“I haven’t upheld that vow.” Dita’s eyes sparked with fire.
“You killed one of them, the leader. You’ll have to console yourself with that.”
“You know I can’t.”
He did know that, which was why he had to restrain her. She would throw the entire settlement into chaos with her determination to keep her vows.
He admired that. If it were his vow, he would do the same.
Kralj waited.
Dita completed what she had to do and stood defiantly in front of him. “What humiliation is next, master?” Her sarcastic tone was accompanied with an eye roll.
She would show him respect soon. He would make that his personal mission.
“I’m restraining you.” He hefted her over his shoulder. She could walk. She wasn’t fast enough to evade him. But he liked carrying her.
He transferred her to his sleeping chamber.
“There’s no need to restrain me.” Her chest heaved against him. “I won’t leave these chambers. I give you my word.”
“Hmmm…” He set her on the sleeping support, searched through the compartments hidden in the walls, found four restraints.
“I keep my word.” His little assassin grew more agitated. “I didn’t promise to stay with you while you slept.”
That had bothered him—waking up alone. Kralj extended one of her arms.
“Kralj—”
“This is happening.” He was blunt with her. “Accept it.”
Dita met his gaze. Whatever she saw there must have convinced her. She became deathly still, her body stiff.
“Relax.” She inhaled deeply, held her breath for three of his heartbeats, exhaled. “You can do this.” He tied her wrist to the sleeping support. “You’re strong.”
Her words were for herself. She was trying to convince herself she could endure the restraints. That was how much having her movements restricted bothered his tough tiny female.
He pushed back his guilt and grasped her other wrist.
“I was wrong. I can’t do this.” Dita tugged, pulled as he restrained that arm too. “Let me go.” She fought him, unable to match his strength. “I have to be free.”
“Be still.” He cautioned. She would hurt herself.
“Can’t.” She twisted. “Don’t do this to me, master. Please. I beg you.”
Kralj’s misgivings increased. Her panic was genuine.
“Calm yourself, little one.” He caught her flailing ankles and held them still. “This is for your protection.”
“For my protection?” Dita panted. “The males will seek revenge and I’ll be restrained, unable to defend myself.”
They would seek revenge. They planned it as she spoke. Kralj heard their thoughts. “You’re mine to defend.” He bound her legs, spreading them wide. “I won’t allow them to hurt you.” Her fear was in her mind only, he told his conscience. There was no real threat.
“You won’t be here. That’s why you’re restraining me.”
“I hear everything, know everything within the settlement.” He loomed over her. “If they take one step toward this structure, I’ll be aware of it.”
“But—”
“Do you doubt your master, slave?” He boomed.
She froze, her eyes widening, but she didn’t say anything.
Because she didn’t lie and she did doubt him, he realized. As he doubted her. Kralj sighed and sat on the sleeping support beside her. “If I release you, how do I know you’ll be here when I return?”
“I gave you my word.” She looked hurt.
“You gave the survivors your word that you’d kill their tormentors.” He pointed out. “Those two vows conflict.”
“Killing them can wait.” She glanced to the right, away from him.
She was hiding something. He yearned to be able to read her mind. “Killing them can wait until when?”
“Until they leave the settlement.” Her gaze returned to his. “They’ll leave. They’ll no longer feel protected here.”
The damn female was right. He had allowed one of their brothers to be killed. The clones wouldn’t feel protected in the settlement. “Was that your plan?” Had she played him?
“My revised plan was to torture them until they couldn’t tolerate the pain and left.” Dita admitted, a tinge of shame clinging to her words.
She must have known he wouldn’t approve of her revised plan either. Dita was cunning and ruthless and she was now restricted to his sleeping chambers.
Both his monstrous humanoid side and his beast reveled in that last fact.
Kralj retrieved a cleaning cloth, ran it over her arms, her chest, her hips, removing the blood of their prey, caring for the female with whom he’d aligned, considering his next move. He wouldn’t sway her with restraints and threats.
“I’ll inform you when your prey leaves the settlement.” He didn’t say he’d set her free because he might have to kill her. Kralj skimmed the cloth over her scarred stomach. She could be carrying a monster. “Until then, you’ll obey me. You’ll give your vows to me precedence over any others.”
Dita gazed at him, her forehead furrowed with thought lines. “What are my targets thinking right now?”
She still didn’t trust him. Kralj gritted his teeth, unaccustomed to any being doubting his word. “Todt-932, the clone now in charge, is thinking his time has come. He’ll be a more powerful leader than his brother ever was. Todt-933, the weakest one, is telling three of his cronies how he’ll make you beg for mercy. You’ll plead to take his cock up your ass.”
She winced.
“They’re both positioned at the walls, near the gate.” They wouldn’t touch her. He’d keep her safe. “They fear me.”
But they grew bolder and more vocal with every passing moment. If they didn’t relent soon, Kralj would have to deal with them.
“Agree to obey me until they leave the settlement and I’ll free you.” That was his compromise.
“Hmmm…” She tilted her head, gazing at him.
Kralj cleaned her restrained form as she pondered his offer. Dita was lean muscle and slender curves, pale skin and pink scars. He snapped the cleaning cloth, refreshing it, and slid the soft fabric between her thighs.
She quivered, bowing her slender form toward him. He glided the cleaning cloth over her feminine folds, circled her clit, polishing the tiny button, and she moaned, her lips parted enticingly.
His little assassin wasn’t thinking of threats now. She was placing her pleasure in his hands, trusting him with her release.
His beast prowled inside him, growling, wanting to mount her. Kralj ignored it. That part of him had to learn control.
This encounter was for his mate alone. It was a reward for enduring the restraints, a thank you for the pleasure she’d given him, the sexual release, the companionship, the understanding.
Kralj discarded the cleaning cloth, stroked and teased her with his fingers, escalating her passions. Her scent flavored the air. Her wetness coated his skin. He feathered her folds, tapped her clit, pushed into her entrance with two of his fingers.
His nanohumanics bubbled inside her, telling any being with enhanced senses who owned her. The mark on her neck had healed but he knew it had been there, could still taste her blood on his tongue.
She was his. He strummed her pussy, wielding her body like a weapon against her, stripping her control strand by strand. All the time, he gazed into her eyes, reading what she liked, didn’t like, learning her form.
Kralj added a finger, stretching her tight. Dita panted, rocking her hips. He pumped harder, faster, pushing her toward fulfillment.
“Kralj.” There was nothing more erotic than his name on her lush lips.
She called for him again and again. The muscles in her legs flexed. Tremors rolled over her, building, building.
He smacked the heel of his hand against her clit and she broke, thrusting upward, screaming her satisfaction, her mouth open, her eyes dazed.
She was glorious, splendid in her bliss. Kralj brushed his fingertips over the long thick scar on her stomach. She trembled under his hands, murmuring his name.
He’d done that, given her that joy, made her delirious with bliss. After a lifespan of being a weapon, of bringing death and destruction to beings, he found the power he had over her wondrous, a gift from the often cruel universe.
“You’re more than an assassin, little one.” He told her softly.
“I’m a monster.” Dita smiled at him.
She was a miracle, her soul serene, her thoughts unreadable, her acceptance of the bloodier side of his personality just as much of an anomaly.
“You’re my slave.” Kralj cupped her breasts. They were firm yet soft, like the female they belonged to. “I will use you well, all of you, your brain and your body.”
Once she learned to follow his rules, she would help him rule the Refuge. They’d make decisions together, deal with the administration while the sun was high in the sky, hunt after dark, doling justice to the deviant.
They’d return here, to his sleeping chambers and she’d feed his sexual hungers. They’d fuck until he was sated, until he no longer felt out of control around her.
He could then do what he had to do—either kill her if she carried his monster or let her go, allowing her to hunt the clones, to keep her vow to the survivors.
Mate, his beast grumbled, unhappy with his plan.
“You’ll tell me when my targets leave the settlement?” Dita wiggled, pulling on her restraints.
“I said I would.” He frowned, displeased that she continued to focus on that task.
“Then I promise to obey you.” Dita dipped her head as though she was deeding him a favor, not the other way around. “I won’t leave our chambers without your permission. I won’t hunt unless you’ve authorized it.” She paused. “Master.”
The subservience was an afterthought but she was trying.
Kralj focused on that small win. “You learned how to be a great assassin.” That reminder was for both of them. “You’ll soon earn the right to hunt.”
He released her restraints.
They had left red strips on her wrists and ankles. He bent his head and gently licked each section of abused skin, one by one, healing Dita with his nanohumanics, easing the pain he’d inadvertently caused her. She tasted like salt and desire.
Her fingers and toes curled. “And how do I earn the right to hunt?”
“You earn that through obedience.” Kralj drew her closer to him, savoring the feel of her, the way her slight curves folded into his muscle, her scent. “Control. Submission.” He brushed the curls away from her beautiful face. “Learning to maim, not always kill.”
Dita smiled at his weak attempt at a joke. “I do need to learn that. The other things, not so much.” She shrugged, the movement brushing her breasts against his chest. “But I’ll play along, master.” Her eyes danced with humor. “It’ll be fun.”
It wasn’t a game, not for him, not for his monster. Kralj required the framework of control, the restraint of his rules.
Even now, the need to take her, to possess her, to fill her with his essence drummed at him. The beast inside him swatted at its confines.
He had to put distance between them.
Kralj reluctantly released Dita and stood. “I’ll return to you at the end of this shift.” When his beast was properly subdued.
“I’ll stay in this chamber.” She said that as though there was a possibility she wouldn’t be here when he returned. “Master.” She followed him to the threshold.
“You won’t make this easy for me, will you?” He cupped her chin.
“Easy is for weak warriors.” Her lips curled upward. “Not for monsters like us.”
“You should respect me.” Kralj skimmed his lips over hers, tasting her smile.
“I always respect you,” she whispered, opening to him. His beast howled, wanting more, more, more.
He couldn’t indulge it, couldn’t lose himself in her again. Kralj pulled away from her, from that temptation, turned, and departed. Although he didn’t look back, he felt her presence behind him.
He couldn’t read her mind but they were connected.
That link would eventually be severed – either with her leaving or with her death. Fuck. He hoped she wasn’t pregnant. He didn’t know if he had the strength to kill her.
Orol waited for him outside his private chambers, the winged male leaning against the wall, one booted foot crossed in front of the other. His thoughts told Kralj he wanted to ask about Dita, about the corpse on the pathway, about the unrest rippling through the settlement.
He said nothing, which was wise. Kralj didn’t plan to talk about any of that. His second-in-command followed him as he walked through the beverage outlet, pausing as he dealt with more minor issues.
They exited the structure, strolled aimlessly around the Refuge.
Zeb, the leader of the settlers, preached in front of the market. He told residents they were doomed to an afterlife of nothingness, his tirades on violence and the carrying of weapons annoying all but two of the passersby.
Azalea, the young settler female, was more confused than irritated. She had been taught to abhor violence yet lusted after Hulagu, Kralj’s unwanted protégé.
Sari, the breeding female, was too focused on Azalea to be annoyed by the settler leader’s speeches. She was certain her destiny was to protect the girl, to make amends for the death she’d caused, but she didn’t know how to do that.
Kralj sympathized with her situation. He wanted his world to go back to normal and didn’t know how to accomplish that either.
“Dita changes nothing.” He addressed one of Orol’s unspoken concerns. “You remain my second-in-command.”
“She’s a female.” Orol raised his eyebrows. “Females tend to change everything.”
“She won’t.” His relationship with Dita wouldn’t affect his routine within the settlement. “She’ll obey me.”
“I hope, for your sake, she doesn’t,” the winged male muttered. “You need some disruption in your lifespan.”
No, he didn’t need that. Disruption resulted in death.
Orol didn’t understand that because he didn’t know the full extent of Kralj’s powers. The male hadn’t seen the carnage he could cause with one lapse of control.
If Kralj had his way, he never would.
He walked away, not addressing Orol’s comments.