Nine
He was a monster.
Kralj lurked outside the cleansing chamber, waiting for Dita to emerge.
She’d told him she couldn’t become pregnant. Multiple times. He hadn’t heard her. Accustomed to intercepting every being’s private thoughts, he’d forgotten how to listen.
His little assassin had been forced to share her horrific past. He had pushed her too far.
Moments passed. She didn’t exit from the cleansing chamber.
Because he’d hurt her, not physically but emotionally. His fearless little assassin had cried during the sharing, every teardrop puncturing a hole in his heart.
He also hadn’t sexually satisfied her.
Fuck. He hadn’t even fed her.
Kralj scowled, his self-directed anger escalating with each passing moment. She’d allowed him to feed from her multiple times, offering him her pale neck, her mouth-watering blood.
He hadn’t appeased her hunger once.
He looked at the entrance to the cleansing chamber. She gave no indication she was emerging from the space soon.
He had time to rectify one of his errors. Kralj quickly dressed and stalked out of his private chambers.
The chatter stopped as soon as he entered the main public chamber. Gazes fixed on him. He heard everything, could read their thoughts, knew he was the focus of the chatter. The beings, both guests and workers, speculated on his relationship with Dita.
They didn’t know he’d fucked it up.
Kralj approached the long horizontal support in the center of the chamber. Radnik, a newer member of his team, tended the area, serving the patrons seated along it.
One beverage, three nourishment bars. He pushed that thought into the male’s mind.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit. He’s talking to me. Beads of sweat formed on Radnik’s forehead. “W-w-what type of beverage would you like, sir?”
Beverages came in varieties. Kralj studied the display of beverage containers behind the horizontal support. Not needing to drink anything other than blood, he had forgotten that. “Palavian Ale.” That was the outlet’s bestselling beverage.
I thought he was ordering for his female but he can’t be. Radnik hustled to fill a container with the liquid. That’s a beverage males drink to impress other males. It’s harsh and bitter. I’d rather drink my own piss than Palavian Ale. He set the container in front of Kralj.
Kralj passed it to the male on his right. “Drink this.”
The male gulped the beverage, his hands shaking.
Dita deserved the best. “I want a container of Dracheon Mist.” That was the most expensive beverage.
Must be nice to be the Ruler. Radnik filled another container. I’d have to work for a solar cycle to afford this. “Is there a specific flavor of nourishment bars you’d prefer, sir?”
Fuck. Those came in different varieties also. Kralj frowned. “Give me an assortment that complements the Dracheon Mist.”
He looks angry. I’m taking too long. Radnik selected three bars. He’s going to terminate my role or worse. He swallowed hard, placing the bars carefully in front of Kralj. Much worse.
Kralj’s lips flattened. Everyone feared him, everyone except Dita. “Thank you.”
He grasped the beverage container and the nourishment bars and headed back to the privacy of his own chambers. Beings whispered, guessing correctly that he was feeding his female. They feared her also, feared the changes they were certain she’d bring. Females didn’t like violence, didn’t like rough warriors, they chattered.
They didn’t know Dita. Kralj pushed through the doors. Her scent washed over him. It felt like…acceptance. He breathed deeply, walked into the sleeping chamber.
She wasn’t there.
She must still be in the cleansing chamber. Relieved, Kralj set the beverage on a horizontal support, the one she had claimed. “Are you hungry, little one?”
She didn’t answer.
Which wasn’t like his tiny assassin. She didn’t hesitate to talk back. He palmed a nourishment bar, entered the cleansing chamber.
It was empty. She was gone.
His beast roared, anger sweeping over him, fury at her for leaving him and at him for giving her permission. She had asked if she could leave the chamber. She hadn’t specified which chamber.
He would lock her inside his private chambers permanently. But first, he’d hunt his damn female down and redden her ass until she couldn’t sit.
Kralj scanned the thoughts of every being in the settlement. No one had seen her.
His little assassin was good, too good for his comfort.
He rushed through the structure he considered his domicile, following her scent, his beast excited by the chase. Some of his panic subsided. Tracking her wasn’t a challenge. She hadn’t much of a head start on him.
Kralj sped along pathways. Despite her single-minded focus on killing her targets, she hadn’t returned to the clones’ domicile. That surprised him. He had thought that would have been the first place she’d visit.
His height-loving female had also restricted herself to the ground level, keeping her booted feet planted on the pathways. She hadn’t climbed any walls, hadn’t jumped from rooftop to rooftop, recklessly risking her lifespan as she was prone to do.
Dita must have known he’d hunt her down yet she made no attempt to cover her tracks, to evade him. And she wasn’t trying to leave the Refuge. Her meandering path circled the center of the settlement, far from the walls.
She must be taking a walk, clearing her head. The knot in the pit of Kralj’s stomach unraveled.
As the gap between them narrowed, he calmed more and more. When he spotted Dita, his little assassin crouching in a dark alleyway, he didn’t pounce on her as his beast yearned to do. He didn’t pull her to him and kiss her pain away, assuring her she was everything any male could ever want in a female. He didn’t fuck her against the wall until she came three times, making up for his previous neglect.
Instead, Kralj slipped into the shadows behind her and waited, acutely aware of his little assassin. Her black body covering stretched over her shapely ass. The brown curls at her nape made his fingers twitch.
He wanted to touch her. Badly.
“You gave me permission to leave the chamber.” She lowered her voice so only he could hear her.
“I did give you permission.” He unwrapped a nourishment bar and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” She bit into it and chewed, watching the action in the alleyway.
He followed her gaze.
Sari, the breeding female, was warning Azalea, the young settler female, about the dangers of wandering the settlement alone. The older female didn’t realize Hulagu, the Chamele boy, was standing less then an arm’s length away from the girl, concealed from view.
Although Sari’s action sprang from a sense of duty, not love, she was behaving as Kralj imagined a parent would.
Was that why Dita was drawn to them? Did she think he longed for a miniature version of his monstrous self, a being doomed to inflict pain on others, on him or herself, destined to kill, to always be alone? “Normal beings might want children.”
She tensed, the muscles in her arms and legs flexing tight.
“But I’m not normal, little one.”
“You might not want them now.” Dita tossed the half-eaten nourishment bar to the side, discarding his peace offering. “But you will. All beings do.”
“I’m not all beings.” His stance on children would never change. “I won’t bring another monster like me into this universe. I escaped the Humanoid Alliance to prevent that.”
“That was the action they pushed you too far on?” She looked over her shoulder, her expression openly skeptical.
Soon, horror would darken those big blue eyes.
“They added a human female to my holding chamber.” He recalled the female’s face, her scent, the sharp, cutting thoughts radiating from her. She had been terrified. The guards had abused her sexually, physically, emotionally before giving her to him. They had taunted her, telling her he would treat her even worse. “They wanted me to fuck her, to impregnate her. I refused.”
“Your beast wasn’t interested in her.” Dita straightened.
“No parts of me were interested in her, not in that way.” The female hadn’t been Dita. “And I had already decided I would be the only one of my kind. I knew what I could do, would never wish that ability on another being.” He stepped closer to his little assassin. “The female was my companion for sixty-two planet rotations. We didn’t touch.” She couldn’t bear that. “But we talked.” Eventually, she lost her fear, grew to trust him.
“You loved her.” Dita leaned against him.
He strapped his arms around her and considered her comment carefully. “I cared for her.” His fondness for the female was a pale, watered-down version of the feelings he experienced with Dita. “Then they took her away.”
“Those bastards.” She reacted as though the punishment had been hers, as though she had personally felt his pain, his grief, his anger. “Did they artificially inseminate her?”
“That had been attempted previously. The monstrous part of me wouldn’t allow it.” He’d killed everyone involved. “The Humanoid Alliance tried another tactic. They refused to feed me until I agreed to fuck her.”
“You didn’t agree.” Dita placed her hands over his, the action comforting him.
“I was prepared to starve to death.” He’d foolishly thought only he would be affected by his rebellion. “They waited until I was ravenous, until I was out of my enhanced mind with hunger and then they reintroduced the female to my holding chamber.”
Dita turned to face him, her eyes wide. “They forced you to kill your companion.” There was sympathy in her voice.
He wasn’t worthy of her understanding, didn’t comprehend how she could offer it to him. He’d killed a being he should have protected. “She trusted me.”
The human guards had brutally ravaged the female while she was parted from him. She had approached him with no hesitation, relief in her eyes, viewing him as a friend.
And he had eaten her, ripped out her throat, devoured her until there was nothing left except picked clean bones.
He was a monster. “I misjudged my enemy, lost control over my beast, waited too long to escape, put—”
“Stop.” Dita touched his face. That contact, one only his fearless little assassin would dare to initiate, brought him back to the present, back to her. “You can’t change the past, handsome.”
She didn’t tell him he wasn’t responsible, that he hadn’t caused the female’s death, and he valued that honesty. Kralj pressed his scarred cheek into her palm. He valued her. “It might have been our future. If you had become pregnant, I would have killed you.”
“No, you wouldn’t have.” Her lips curled upward into a hint of a smile. “You would have thought about it and you might have tried to do it but you wouldn’t have killed me.”
She was right. He couldn’t kill her.
“And I can’t become pregnant.” She searched his eyes. “I’m less of a female.”
“You’re not less of anything. You’re everything a monster like me could want in a female.” He held her gaze, allowing his lust, admiration, possessiveness to show. “You’re meant to be mine, little one. Never doubt that.”
They stared at each other for several heartbeats.
Dita’s gaze lowered. “I’m yours until my targets leave the Refuge.” She turned toward the two females.
Kralj allowed her to emotionally retreat, content to have her physically near him. She watched Sari and Azalea as they interacted. He held Dita, wondering what she was thinking. It was a unique experience for him. With any other female, he’d know.
His little assassin, however, wasn’t any other female. He’d told her he ate a friend and she accepted that, continued to care for him, a monster.
Sari’s handler, Yorick, a male with monstrous proclivities, entered the alleyway, looking for a female to verbally and physically abuse, that need filling his thoughts.
“Go quickly.” Sari pushed Azalea frantically away from her. “Return to your domicile.”
The girl took one look at Yorick and scurried out of sight. Hulagu followed her, his body placed between the girl and the handler.
“Is this why your earnings have been low?” Yorick glowered at Sari. “You’ve been hiding in alleyways, chatting to friends?”
“My earnings will soon be zero. I’m leaving the Refuge.” Sari straightened. “When the settlers depart, I’m going with them.”
“You’re not going anywhere.” The handler’s laughter was edged with cruelty. “I own you. You’ll work for me until you’re dead.”
“I’m not a slave.” The breeding female knew Yorick couldn’t kill her, trusted Kralj to stop that from occurring. She was prepared to tolerate a beating to earn her freedom. “I can leave if I wish to leave.”
They argued. The handler yelled at Sari. She held her ground.
Dita stiffened more and more, her body shaking with, Kralj suspected, anger. His little assassin cared too much about the breeding female, about him, about everyone.
Yorick smacked Sari in the face, bloodying her bottom lip, the scent exciting Kralj’s beast. The breeding female tried to defend herself. She had no physical skills, was at the mercy of the larger male.
She wasn’t the only being in danger.
The clones were rallying their cronies, trying to incite a mass rebellion. Only the perception that Kralj controlled Dita was stemming their efforts. If residents knew she was walking freely around the settlement, they would rise up, demand he kill her.
“We should return to the beverage outlet.” He nudged her forward. They’d reconciled their differences. Yorick and Sari’s situation wasn’t any of their concern. “It isn’t safe.”
“It’s never safe, not for me.” Dita said that casually as though she were commenting on the weather. “And it’s certainly not safe for the defenseless.”
“The weak will always be victims.” Kralj couldn’t stop that. It required all of his efforts to prevent Refuge inhabitants from killing each other.
“Being defenseless isn’t the same as being weak.” Dita gazed at Sari. “A weak female would back down. It takes strength to risk her handler’s fury, to fight for her freedom.”
“She’ll lose that fight.” But the female would survive. The beings in more grave danger had a greater claim on his protection. “I can’t save every being.” He touched the scar on his face.
“I thought you were all powerful.”
“I’m not.” Kralj tightened his hold on her. He’d told her part of the story. He should tell her the rest. “After I’d killed the female, I decided it was time to escape the Humanoid Alliance.”
“They’d pushed you too far.” His little assassin paid attention, remembering what he’d told her.
“They would have tried more extreme methods to make me procreate and I couldn’t allow that.” They might have been successful, might have created another monster like him. “I attempted to free all of the modified humanoids in the structure.” He’d killed their Humanoid Alliance keepers en masse but opening each holding chamber had to be done manually. “It took too long. The Humanoid Alliance had the structure rigged to explode, using detonators they could control while residing a safe distance away. They couldn’t risk the enemy finding us, using us as weapons against them.”
“They blew you up.”
“Using Erinomean Green Fire.” It had engulfed him, burning him to the bone. The pain had been excruciating. Only his rapid healing abilities had saved him. “I barely survived.”
“But you did survive. You lived through what would have killed any other being.” She reached back and placed one of her hands on his scarred cheek, her palm cool, soothing against his marred skin.
He needed that connection, needed her. “It taught me a humbling lesson—my powers have limits. I can’t protect everyone.”
“I’m not asking you to extend your territory or to leave the Refuge. She’s within your walls.” Dita tilted her head toward the breeding female. Yorick continued to beat Sari, the female’s defenses ineffective. “And she needs your help.”
He valued his own freedom and wanted to help Sari. But he had set the rules. Maiming was acceptable. Killing wasn’t.
“The residents of the Refuge are brutish beings.” They were the scum of the universe and he was their King. “Violence is how they respond to disagreements. If I intervened in every scuffle, that’s all I would be doing.”
Dita squared her shoulders. “If you won’t intervene, I will.” She walked toward the two beings, her ass swaying, her head held high.
“No killing.” Kralj allowed her to go, silently granting her permission to do what she felt necessary. He could monitor their surroundings from where he was. If anyone, the clones, Yorick, an unknown being attacked, he was prepared to act, to protect her.
“She’s not your slave. You can’t force her to do your bidding.” Dita told the handler, his little assassin looking for a fight.
“Stay out of this, slut.” Yorick responded.
Kralj’s beast growled, not liking the male’s tone.
“Your name is Sari, right?” Dita asked the female.
Sari’s head dipped. “You shouldn’t—”
“Stop talking to her.” Yorick glared at Dita. “This is none of your concern.”
Dita ignored him. “You’re living in the Refuge, Sari.” Her tone turned brusque. “Do you know what that means?”
“I can’t be killed,” the female murmured.
“It means you’re surrounded by brutish beings.” Dita paraphrased what Kralj had said. Although she constantly rebelled, she did listen to him. “Violence is the response to every disagreement. Not reasoning. Not words. Violence.”
“Fuck you.” Yorick approached her, his chest puffed out.
Dita’s tiny fist whipped outward. Skin smacked skin. Cartilage crunched. Yorick howled, holding his nose. Blood streamed down his face.
Kralj’s beast roared his approval. His mate was a force.
“See.” Dita waved at the male. “That is how you respond.”
Sari gazed at her handler, her expression a mixture of horror and awe.
“You’ll pay for that, slut.” Yorick ran at Dita.
Dita spun, lowering, her left leg extending, tripping the male. He fell. She treated him to a barrage of lightning-fast kicks, knocking his head back again and again.
“Little one,” Kralj growled. She’d kill him if she continued.
Dita stopped, her bottom lip curling with disappointment. “No killing.” She glanced at Kralj. He nodded, confirming that rule. “Only maiming.” She rested her hands on her shapely hips and gazed at the other female. “Make a fist.”
Sari looked at Dita, at the male on the ground, and back at her. She tentatively raised her hands, making what Kralj assumed the female thought were fists.
He shook his head. If she hit anyone with those hands, she’d hurt herself more than her opponent.
Dita winced. “Let’s start again. Hold out your hands flat, palms down, fingers together, thumbs relaxed.” She demonstrated. The female mimicked the position. “Curl your fingers. That’s it.” Sari glowed under Dita’s approval. “Fold your thumbs downward. They should fall across your index and middle fingers.”
The female followed the instructions.
Dita examined her fists. “Move your thumbs lower on your fingers.” The female adjusted her thumbs. “That’s perfect.”
Yorick struggled to his feet, his big body swaying. “You’re going to pay for that, slut.”
“You’re interrupting our lesson.” She glowered at him.
“Fuck you.” He rushed toward Dita.
“Wrong answer.” She bent her knees, making herself smaller than she already was. Yorick, bigger, taller, missed her, his arms swinging over her head. She didn’t miss him. Dita pummeled his crotch with her fists. She punched him once, twice, three times before he fell, clutching his groin, his screams high-pitched, his face an interesting shade of red.
Kralj’s balls ached merely from viewing that takedown.
“Stay down.” She waggled her finger at the unconscious male. “He shouldn’t interrupt us again.” Dita turned back to her student. “You know bodies better than most beings in the Refuge.” She panted a bit, her eyes sparkling with excitement. His little assassin liked to fight. “Use that expertise against your opponents. Target their sensitive spots.”
“I don’t know about having expertise but that is a sensitive spot.” Sari smiled, the movement reopening the cut on her bottom lip.
“It is.” Dita laughed. “Show me your fists.” The female raised her hands. “Impressive. Let’s teach you how to use them.”
Kralj leaned against a domicile and watched as his female demonstrated how to punch an opponent. Sari mimicked the motion. Dita corrected her. Eventually the older female grew comfortable and they sparred playfully, Sari’s confidence blossoming under the instruction. Yorick remained down, sprawled face first on the pathway stone.
The male wouldn’t stay like that forever. Kralj preferred that both of the females be far away from Yorick when he regained consciousness.
“Little one,” he murmured.
“I have to go.” Dita smiled at the female. “Continue to train. Ask the girl you were speaking with, Azalea, to assist you.” She jogged to Kralj’s side, her expression triumphant. “Now, Sari has a chance of survival.” She grasped his hand.
He savored that renewed connection. “She has a better chance.” Kralj led Dita through the maze of shadows, directing her back to his lair. “I’m revoking my permission to leave the chamber.”
“I figured you would.” She swung his arm. “Master.”
He stifled a sigh. She was untrainable. “You were patient with the female.”
“I treated her the way I wished others had treated me.” Dita skipped along beside him. “My training was…harsh.”
“It was effective.” His training was harsh also. “You didn’t kill the male.”
“I didn’t kill Sari either.” She beamed at him, her beautiful face glowing.
His lips twitched. “Was that a possibility?”
“There was a very good possibility of that happening.” Her head bobbed, her brown curls rearranging around her face. “Killing quickly is automatic for me. It’s an assassin thing—get in and get out as fast and as quietly as possible.” Her lips twisted. “It feels wrong, unnatural to fight and not kill my opponents. I don’t know how Refuge residents do it.”
They weren’t monsters, not like Dita, not like him. “Don’t fight others when I’m not near.” He’d prevent her from killing them.
“Yes, master.” She jauntily saluted him.
She was impossible. He shook his head. “We should stop talking.”
They were nearing the beverage outlet. Beings could be listening to them.
Dita leaned closer to him, entrancing his beast with her softness, her scent, her warmth. “You should carry me,” she whispered. “Master.” The title lost some of its significance when she added it as an afterthought. “It’ll reinforce the message that you own me.”
He gazed at her, not-at-all-fooled by her submissive act. “You like being carried.” And he liked carrying her. Kralj swung her over his shoulder and slapped her body covering-clad ass.
“I love it.” She sighed happily, wiggling. “I love heights.”
“That’s because you’re small.” It was a struggle to keep his tone stern. “I should be punishing you, not rewarding you.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk?” She told him pertly.
He spanked her ass hard, reprimanding her for that comment. She moaned, the musk of her arousal swirling around him, taunting the primal part of him.
“Control yourself.” He told both Dita and his beast.
Her body shook. He was a monster, ruled the Refuge, could kill a being with one thought and the damn female was laughing at him. She was fearless.
Kralj kicked the beverage outlet doors and strode inside the structure, carrying Dita like the spoils of war. Beings stared at them.
Let them look.
She was his.