Her captor’s words shivered through her.

Want? All she wanted was for this to be over quickly.

He was so much bigger than Hollisworth. Without an ounce of softness or mercy. He was going to rip her apart. Hurt her worse than she’d ever been hurt.

She wanted to be strong. To remember she was now Ava Davies, a competent scientist. A person of worth and intellect.

But humiliating arousal, pain, and the sharp tang of fear battered at her ability to stand tall. The best pieces of herself slipping away until they were nothing but a fuzzy memory and all that was left was the breeder she’d once been, a body driven by the primal instinct to spread and submit.

Would she even be well enough after this encounter to contemplate escape? Often after Hollisworth, she’d been bruised for several rotations.

One challenge at a time, she reminded herself.

She could survive anything if it meant escaping before Hollisworth got hold of her.

Another lick of fire seared her core and she stumbled to stay upright. “It’s growing stronger.”

Lips flattening, her captor tugged at the leather strap around his torso, his weapons clattering to the ground as the harness fell away. Leaving his torso bare, only lengths of smooth, slick chiseled skin and thick muscle. Even without the arsenal, he was pure strength and power. A honed, mouthwatering weapon.

And he was about to be unleashed on her.

Her breathing hitched.

“Come.” He beckoned her forward.

He held all the power. Like with Hollisworth, there was nothing she could refuse. Nothing she could deny him. Not if she wanted to live. Not if she wanted to have the strength to escape.

From the depths of her soul, the woman she’d started to become screamed out in rage and pain.

Trembling, she forced her boots forward.

She stopped when she stood a hair’s breadth away—and had to look up and up.

Her breathing picked up another notch.

Bared to his gaze, defenseless, her breasts went tight and hard, despite the thickening, cloying heat of the cave.

“No pain. No humiliation.” Without warning, he sank to his knees.

She stuttered back a step. Unsure.

Hollisworth would never have placed himself on his knees before her.

“So pretty.” Hands wrapping around her hips, her captor spoke in the same gruff, coaxing tone he might have used with a skittish kitashi.

She swallowed hard. Even on his knees, he was so big, so commanding.

“No pain. No humiliation.” He said it again, each puff of air from his lungs blowing across her nipples, tightening them to hard buds.

Then, ever so slowly, he reached out, as if he feared she might bolt, sliding his finger over the red lines at her wrist, toying with the sensitive skin. “So soft.”

The deliberate gentleness of his touch floored her.

“Do you like the way that feels?”

Uncertainty roiled through her. “I-I don’t know.”

“Let’s see if we can make it more clear to you.”

She shivered, unable to look away as his rough fingertips dragged along the exposed skin of her arms, across her collarbone, to the fluttering pulse at the base of her throat. And then, Janus help her, down to the underside of her breast.

Teasing. Heightening. Making her skin come alive. Making it hurt so good.

Her eyes fluttered shut. She’d had no idea.

Then, the rough threads of the fabric that had once bound her to him grazed her nipple and a sound emerged, one she’d never heard herself make before.

Her eyes flew wide.

“You like that?” Satisfaction danced in his gaze.

But she had no answer, her head falling back as he wrapped the tie around the sensitive peak and squeezed gently.

Oh God, she’d never experienced anything like this.

Her gaze latched on the flickering starlight above. Beautiful. Full of possibilities.

“Have you ever had your pussy licked, captive?”

Her gaze flew to him.

He was staring up at her, his usually arctic eyes blazing with heat, molten silver.

“That’s…that’s not necessary. Only—”

He cut her off, the tie around her nipple tightening ever so slightly, sending another rush of heat to her core. “I didn’t ask if it was necessary.”

Silence vibrated between them.

The tidal wave of sensations threatened to swallow her whole. She didn’t understand any of this. Didn’t know how to brace herself against this kind of subtle attack. How to stay prepared for the pain she knew was coming.

“N-no,” she confessed. “I haven’t, but—”

The warm, wet heat of his mouth against her belly clogged the words in her throat. Changed them to a needy moan. Sent shivers coursing up her spine.

“My Gods,” she gasped. What was he doing to her?

On a growl, his lips glided down her belly. Across her belly button. Her hip bones. Making her burn. Tremble. Shake. And never once with pain.

She’d had no idea it could feel this way to be touched. No idea her body could come alive like this.

She swayed closer.

“Lie down on your back. Spread your legs.”

His rough demand shocked her out of her daze, sending fear spiking through her.

She’d known the pleasure couldn’t last, but still… For those brief few moments, she’d almost…almost done exactly as he’d boasted—she’d almost wanted.

Before she could comply, his hands wrapped around her thighs and her back, pulling her downward.

Giving in, she let herself be drawn down to the hard red clay. His strength and mastery so great she landed lightly as he guided her into position, first her ass and then her elbows sliding along the ground as he lay her back, her legs spread to accommodate his wide shoulders as he loomed between her thighs.

She trapped the protest in her throat, the exposure of her most vulnerable part to his gaze, slick and wet and needy, reminding her again just how powerless she was.

To be taken. In the dirt. Like the animal she’d been turned into.

You will obey. You will submit.

Hands bunching into fists, she turned her head to the side. Waited for the pain.

“Eyes on me.” Her captor’s rough command cut through her fear. His nose rubbing against her sensitive inner thigh as he inhaled deep. “That scent…so good. So sweet.”

Shock trembled through her. Was he actually about to—

Warm, wet heat closed over her core and she arced upward on a scream of shock—and pleasure. Her eyes rolling back as his tongue licked her slit and the sensitive nub at the top. Nor did he stop. Sucking. Lapping. Working her clit as she gasped and writhed and, Janus help her, spread her legs wider. Wanting more.

Never had anyone touched her like this. Hollisworth had always waited until she was writhing on the ground in agony and then he simply spread her legs, drove inside whatever hole he wanted, and took his pleasure…reveling in her pain…until he decided he was done. Until he deigned to end her suffering by coming in his vessel’s pussy.

But this…this was the opposite of pain. The opposite of humiliation.

Near mindless, she ground her hips upward, trying to get closer to her captor’s mouth, indifferent to the hard ground and the red clay streaking her skin, her flesh tingling with need as his tongue kept up its perfect, commanding rhythm. Driving her need higher. Pulling every muscle tight.

Too tight.

Something was happening…

“Wait. I—.”

“Let it happen.” Large palms pressed down on her hips, keeping her spread, as his tongue moved faster. Harder.

Her chest heaved, her breasts bouncing as she tried to catch her breath. “P-please.” Something was building inside her. Something tightening every nerve. Making her feel as if she might fracture apart. Something that had her wanting to spread her legs wider, tear at his hair, claw her nails down his back.

And then suddenly the rough fabric of the binds was between her thighs as well, working her slit and the sensitive rosebud, making her shudder, making her moan.

“That’s right.” His coaxing words rumbled against her clit, an anchor in the storm of pleasure. “Feel what it’s like to really want. What it’s like to need.”

She did. She wanted his tongue to never stop. Wanted the friction of the tether never to end. She wanted the rough brush of his stubbled jaw against her thighs to go on forever. She wanted to rush toward wherever he was sending her. Even if it spelled her end.

“Oh, Janus. Yes.”

His pace sped up. “This is what you’re meant to feel.”

Her pleasure spiraled higher.

“Come for me,” his graveled command rumbled across her clit. “Come on my tongue.”

Back bowing, sensation like she’d never known slammed through her. Wave after wave, sending her back arching, ripping her apart, sending her soaring to the stars, freer than she’d ever been—until, finally, rung out, she floated back into herself, the pieces of her uniting once more, even as it put her back together again, a different woman.

She hadn’t known.

Her captor rose above her, the streaks of red clay across his face only making him look more barbaric and fierce as he sat back on his heels and, jerking aside the thin scrap of cloth that covered him, slid his hands beneath her ass and yanked her upward, lifting until her thighs straddled his forearms.

Something thick and hard pushed up against her center.

Out of habit, she braced herself.

“No pain, remember?” His voice was a rough growl.

Eyes she hadn’t even realized she’d shut tight, reopened. “No pain,” she repeated. And this time she was excited to see if he would prove truthful in this as well.

“You ready?” His stare was hard. On edge.

Wonder that he asked shivered through her. “Yes.”

“You’re so fucking tight.” His thick shaft pressed into her opening. “I’m going to work myself in as slowly as you can take.”

A moan escaped.

He was so fierce, so brutal, and yet…and yet he filled her so slowly. Carefully. Reverently. As if she mattered.

Stretching her bit by bit, one hand opening her thighs wide while the other held her hands above her head, keeping her still and spread.

A mix of savage dominance and careful handling.

Consistent with the man himself.

“Dragath hells, you feel so good,” he rasped. “So wet and tight.”

She grew wetter.

“Squeezing my cock,” he growled. “Making me feel so good.”

Hollisworth had never praised her. Never taken his time. Never made it feel like this.

“Do you like the way that feels?”

“Y-yes.” For once, she told the truth.

The friction of his cock gliding against her sensitive tissue made her breath hitch, her nipples tighten, need spiking higher, as her hips shifted and she tried, unsuccessfully, to bring him deeper.

“Patience.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “It will be all the sweeter for it.”

She bit back another moan, realizing he would be as meticulous and controlling in this as he was with everything else.

But, by Gods, he was right.

She was so full.

Claimed.

Taken.

And yet there was no agony.

Only a desperate instinct to move, to urge him to thrust hard and fast.

“Gods, after so much ugliness.” He growled. “Legs spread, my cock deep inside you. Your cheeks flushed with need. Too fucking beautiful.”

Her chest skittered, his words warming her even more.

She’d never imagined it could be like this…that two people could share such bliss. Especially a non-Council brute and a broken, runaway breeder like her.

At the reminder of who they still were, who they’d always be, her euphoria lessened.

Then, he thrust deep.

All thought scattered.

“Yes.” Muscles drawing tight, her back bowed upward, her hips angling higher, pulling him deeper. This moment was about the present. Nothing else.

“Now you know.” Chest heaving, he drove forward again, pistoning his hips as he slid her up and down his thick cock.

“Yes.” Such arrogance, but she couldn’t find the energy to mind. Could do little more than moan and lift her hips to his. Lost to the haze of pure sensation. Slave to the pleasure winding through her. Because he was right. Now, thanks to him, she did know.

They were enemies, but in a few short moments he showed her more pleasure than one of her own kind ever had.

“Remember who’s inside you,” he demanded. “Remember who’s taking you now.”

“Yes.” She screamed. Not a monster. Simply a man. With hopes and dreams and a desperate need to survive, just like her.

Her pussy clenched tighter.

There could be no mistake. No question. Hollisworth had never filled her like this. Made her feel like this.

“Tell me.” He thrust again, giving her no quarter.

“My…my captor,” she moaned.

“Say my name.”

“Valdus. Hunter Valdus. Only you.”

His control broke. Letting out a roar, he slammed deep. Harder. Faster. His biceps bulging as he drew her upper body to him, nipping and sucking and licking her breasts, the hollow of collarbone, her neck, her lips.

His fierceness would have terrified her—if she wasn’t lost as well.

As if she’d become someone else, she met him with her own fury, her hands latching round his thick neck while her teeth sank into his bottom lip, her tongue tangling with his, lost to the wild, raw bliss as he fucked her hard, their hips slamming together, their chests heaving as one.

Just when she thought she couldn’t take it another moment. That she would drown on the storm of sensation and never surface, he took control once more.

“Come for me again,” he commanded. “You want my sperm? Then coat my cock with your sweet juices, too.”

And she, who’d never wanted to obey again, gladly submitted, wave after wave of pleasure ripping through her as she shattered. The roar of sensation even more intense than the last, her mouth falling open as pleasure slammed through her and she called out her captor’s name over and over—

Until an unfamiliar, mocking voice intruded, cutting off her own. “A wildcat, eh? With some spirit left in her still? Good. I can’t wait to make Hollisworth’s whore scream so loud he hears it back home.”