Seven
“We’re not fucking.” Realizing her mistake, Rhea backed away from Orol, her captor, now her Master. The metal around her neck, wrists, ankles reminded her of his physical ownership of her.
She told herself she was doing this for her sister and that was part of it but only a part. Being under his control aroused her.
She’d lived her lifespan fearing she’d say the wrong thing and reveal her parents’ double life. That had happened. They’d died because of her.
With Orol dictating her actions and her speech, she could relax. She didn’t have to second-guess every word, every movement. That responsibility was now his.
But she wouldn’t make it easy for him. Her pride wouldn’t allow that.
“Stay still, slave.” His voice snapped with authority and she stopped moving, her heart beating wildly. “I am your Master. I decide if we mate or not.”
“Yes, Master.” She bowed her head.
Orol approached her, the bulge in his ass coverings pronounced, pressing against the leather. “What did I say about lowering your gaze?” He cupped her chin, lifting it. A smile slowly spread across his handsome face. “I see the need in your eyes, slave. I smell it in the air.”
Only the knowledge that he was as turned on as she was eased her mortification.
“Lift your garment,” he commanded. “Your Master wants to see the pussy he owns.”
Her hands shook with anticipation as she complied. Cool air swept over her hips, her thighs, her ass. She was exposed to his view.
“Very nice.” Orol unabashedly gazed at her.
Rhea had always tried to remain unseen. Being naked with him, with Queen, with Pretty, with the huge males surrounding the perimeter of the chamber, had been a challenge at first. She expected them to ridicule her for her slender figure, her lack of curves.
They hadn’t. Because she was attractive. The way Orol looked at her, as he did now, his eyes glowing with desire, his body hard, attested to that. He could have any female he wanted and he wanted her.
She had foolishly allowed the rude comments from Marowit, from the other males on her backward planet, to shape her view of herself. That view had been wrong. She had been wrong.
Could she be wrong about other things also? She trembled as Orol slid his hand between her thighs. Could there be beings in this universe she could trust?
Her newly acquired Master rubbed his fingers over her pussy lips, caressing her back and forth, back and forth. He was risking his life to save her sister. Queen liked him, trusted him.
“You’re wet for me, slave.” He withdrew his hand, showed her the juices glistening on his skin. “Why would you deny yourself?”
“Our mission is to retrieve my sister, not fuck.” She paused. “Master.”
“Mating is necessary for our mission.” He licked the wetness off his fingers. “Fighters mate with their slaves in public at the battles. I warned you about that. You’ll be on display, Tiny Warrior.”
The thought of other males watching them fuck, witnessing Orol’s need for her made Rhea’s nipples tighten even more. “You’ll be on display also, Master.” She glanced at the ridge in his ass coverings.
“Free me.” He pushed his hips forward. “You can use your hands.”
“Can I?” The naughty female in her couldn’t resist running her fingers over his length, feeling his tip through the tight leather. “That’s generous of you, Master.” She palmed his balls, teasing him.
His wings snapped open. “I’m too generous.” His head tilted back. “Complete your task, slave.”
“My Master is in a bad way.” She slipped her fingers underneath the waistband of his ass coverings, slid her skin over his. His abs flexed. “We can’t have that, Master.”
Rhea leisurely unfastened the garment, skimming her hand over his unrelenting cock, freeing it. He must be in agony. He’d been in that state since her slave lessons began.
Orol wanted her, hadn’t tried to hide that from his friend, from Pretty, from the males stationed around the chamber. Rhea stroked his shaft, learning the shape of him. “A good slave should be familiar with her Master’s body.”
He caught her wrists, pulled her hands away from him. “A good slave should wait for permission before touching her Master.” Orol clicked her wrist restraints together, tapped his ring against the sensor pad on one of them.
The restraints fused. She couldn’t part them. “Master?”
“I want you too much.” He lifted her into the air, his strength making her pussy drip. “Hook your arms over my head and wrap your legs around me.”
She did as she was told, opening herself completely to him. He rubbed her along his cock, wetting his flesh, branding himself with her scent, the pressure stimulating. Her toes curled in the flimsy footwear.
“I’ll use you roughly, slave.” His words held a hint of apology. “I’m a fighter, a being who kills as a pastime. It is expected.”
He’d be playing a part. Rhea knew all about pretending to be someone one wasn’t.
“I can take anything you give me, Master.” She was small but she was tough.
“Others will want to mate with you.” He raised her above his tip. “I won’t allow them to touch you.” He pushed inside her and she bit back a moan, the fullness exquisite. “You’re mine.”
He drove her down on him, the action surprising a yip from her lips. His eyes gleamed with triumph. The blasted male wanted her to make noise.
He’d have to be satisfied with that victory. Rhea clamped her mouth shut. She wasn’t making another sound during the rest of the encounter.
“You’ll scream for me.” He grinned, his white teeth flashing in his golden face. “I’ll make that my personal mission.” He lifted her.
“Slaves submit.” A tremor of delight shook her. “They don’t scream with pleasure.”
“You will.” Orol dropped her and she gritted her teeth, the bliss intense. He lifted and released her, lifted and released her, his pace fast, forceful.
She held on to him, her hands linked at his nape. A true slave would allow her body to be used. She’d have no choice.
Rhea might be Orol’s captive, outgunned and outpowered, but she was not his slave. That was an act, one she would discard during their fuck.
She undulated against him, tempting him with her form, kicked her heels against his ass, using him as he used her. Her gaze locked with his. She didn’t bow her head as Queen had told her an obedient slave would do. Rhea dared to look at her Master.
He looked back at her, those keen eyes of his fixed on her face, compounding the link between them. It scared her how quickly she was becoming accustomed to him being there, beside her, inside her, her form molding to his.
Orol flapped his wings while he ravished her again and again. His booted feet left the floor. They were rutting in the air, the wind he manufactured swirling around them.
She tilted her head back, overwhelmed by everything. The ends of her hair brushed against his hands. He shuddered and slammed her down on him, smacking her flesh against his base.
His fingertips dug into her ass, his bruising grip adding a stimulating pain to her pleasure. It was savage, primal, and Rhea rejoiced in the experience, her pussy constricting around his shaft, her body trembling more and more.
“Ask for what you need, slave.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
“Never.” She flung that challenge at him, knowing he would respond, needing him to do that. Passion was stripping her bare, edging her bliss with agony.
They battled. Orol advanced, waging an all-senses attack. Rhea clung to her defenses, to a willpower honed over solar cycles, a restraint crafted from the keeping of secrets.
“Say the words.” He drove her down on him, shaking her.
“No.” She heard the plea in that one-word answer.
He must have heard it also. Orol captured her lips, mashing his flesh against hers, filling her mouth with his tongue as he filled her pussy with his cock. She gasped. Their bodies crashed together, a bone-jarring sexual bombardment no being could withstand, and her walls toppled.
She screamed down his throat, writhed against him as hot cum spurted from his tip, his nanohumanics finishing her completely, pounding her to dust. They spun in the air, ecstasy flowing over her, hot, wet, wonderful.
He twined his tongue around hers as though trying to soothe her, kneaded her ass with his fingers, held her to his shuddering muscles. As her tremors eased, they floated downward.
Orol’s boots connected with the floor. He wrapped his wings around her and leaned his forehead against hers. His chest rose and fell. His cock remained inside her pussy. His hands remained under her, supporting her weight.
He held her. She pressed her body against his.
Moments passed.
“You screamed.” Orol’s tone was smug.
“Did you hear a scream?” She arched her eyebrows. “I didn’t.”
He chuckled. “I have enhanced hearing, Tiny Warrior. It was muffled by my tongue in your defiant mouth but I detected it.”
He would detect it. Her lips twisted. He was the most observant being she’d ever encountered, seeing through her lies and her silences.
“Are there any more preparations we need to complete for our mission?” She changed the subject.
“No.” He lifted her higher. His cock slipped from her pussy and she regretted that loss immediately. Rhea removed her hands from around his neck. He lowered her, sliding her along his fit physique, his muscles firm, his feathers soft against her ass and back.
“I don’t trust you.” She had to say those words for herself.
He was the enemy. Rhea pulled against her wrist restraints, couldn’t break them. He had all of her weapons, was stronger than she was, faster, in control, and he had vowed to deliver her and her sister to his boss, whoever that truly was.
She couldn’t forget that.
“Continue to fight me, Rhea.” Orol tapped his ring against her restraints and they released. “That will make my victory even sweeter.”
“You won’t be celebrating any victories.” She thought about that statement. “Except in the fighting rings.” The possibility that he might lose scared her. She told herself it was because that would put her sister in peril but she suspected her worry was more complex than that. “I can carry my long gun until we reach the site.”
“We’ll land out of view of the guards.” He tucked his cock into his ass coverings and fastened the garment. “And walk the rest of the way.” He handed her the long gun.
Rhea slung it over her right shoulder, the tension easing from her shoulders. She felt more in control when she was armed.
It would be challenging to give her gun back. She patted the smaller guns holstered to his chest. “I’ll have access to these.” She reminded herself.
“Only in an emergency.” He covered her hands and squeezed. “You might not trust anything else I say, but trust that I will protect you.”
She trusted that he would try. “Your mission is to bring me and my sister back alive.”
“I’ve never failed to complete a mission.” He looked through Queen’s small container, wrapped a couple of long gold metal chains around his left forearm.
Rhea’s lips flattened. Those were for her, his slave. This assignment would be her most challenging yet. She would have to submit to him completely, be put on display, have her body used whenever he deemed it necessary.
Her thoughts shifted to her sister. She would have to look at the one being she had left, the being she had loved since the moment she was born, and reveal no emotion. Paloma would likely be put on display also, wearing next to nothing, the target of leering males.
“I’ve protected Paloma my entire lifespan.” Needing Orol’s help, she had to share her fears. “When I see her—” Her voice broke.
“You’ll do nothing.” His voice was firm. “That is the best way to protect her. She will be the prize. The organizers will have a team of males protecting her. She will be in no danger.”
“She’ll be in no physical danger.” But the situation would traumatize her highly emotional sister. “Being put on display, looked at like an object, will change her forever.” Rhea shuddered.
He studied her for one long moment as though debating a point with himself. “She won’t remember any of it.”
How could her sister not remember any of the ordeal? Rhea met his gaze. Unless… “She’ll be unconscious?”
“She’ll be conscious.” He tilted his head to the right and then to the left. “Sort of. They’ll inject her with psychotropics.”
“That’s worse.” Her sister could suffer from permanent brain damage.
“As far as the medics at the Pleasure Domicile can determine, the psychotropics have no long-term effects.” Orol eased her concerns. “There will merely be a blank space in her memory from the time she’s injected to the time it wears off, usually a planet rotation or two after the fights.”
“Paloma will be more susceptible to memory manipulation than the average being.” Rhea admitted. “She refuses to accept anything unpleasant. She…she insists our parents are in a Humanoid Alliance prison.”
“The Humanoid Alliance execute spies. They don’t imprison them.”
“I know.” She looked away from Orol. “I saw them die.” She would never forget that moment, the resignation in her parents’ faces, the sound of the guns firing, the scent of residue and blood in the air.
Orol folded his wings around her, drawing her to his warm form. “Your sister denies it, forcing you to grieve for them alone.”
“Yes.” It was one more secret added to her hoard.
He stroked her hair, sliding his palms down her back, the movement soothing. “Your sister won’t remember this portion of your lifespans either.”
“It’ll be another thing only I know.” Another secret to hide forever. She rested her head on his shoulder. “I will always be surrounded by lies. That’s my punishment.”
“For making the mistake that killed your parents.”
She lifted her head and met his gaze, her body stiffening. “How did you know that?”
“She would have to lie,” he recited. “The lives of her parents, her sister would depend on it. If she made a mistake…”
Those were her words. Rhea relaxed. “I lowered my guard around the wrong male. I didn’t tell him much.” She had told Orol much more. “But he was like you. He paid attention and that was enough to condemn them.”
“He was like me?” Orol gripped her shoulders, his clasp almost painfully tight. “You view us as being the same—me and the male who betrayed you? Is that what you think?”
She gulped. His face was scarily hard.
“Was he your mate?” Orol’s eyes blazed. “Did he share his lifeblood with you, save your life, protect you? Would he have killed for you, died for you?”
She shook her head, stunned by the vehemence in his voice.
“Then he was not like me.” Orol pulled her to him, pressing her face against his heaving chest. “Never compare me to that unworthy male again.”
His body shook. That was how strongly he felt about the subject. Rhea wrapped her arms around his waist, not knowing what to say.
Time elapsed. His breathing leveled.
The urge to say something didn’t pass. “Paloma doesn’t know I was responsible for our parents’ deaths. She’s…spirited and I couldn’t risk her becoming angry with me, storming off. That would have put her in danger.”
“Who have you told?”
“You.” Rhea murmured against his leather chest covering. “Only you.”
She was trusting him not to use that information against her, against Paloma. It was foolish of her. He was destined to betray her, had vowed to deliver her and her sister to the being he worked for. But she couldn’t resist confiding in him.
“Thank you.” He kissed her forehead. “And you won’t always be surrounded by lies. I know about your mistake. I know about your parents. And I’ll know about this portion of your lifespan.” He rubbed her back. “You can talk to me.”
That was tempting, too tempting. “You’re my captor.” She tried to step back.
He wouldn’t allow her, holding her tight to him. “I’m much more than that. Deep down, you realize that.”
She wiggled. “I trust those feelings less than I trust you.”
“You don’t trust anything or anyone, not even yourself.” Orol chuckled and the knot in the pit of Rhea’s stomach unraveled. He was no longer upset with her. “Don’t ever change, Rhea.”
“I don’t plan to change.” Twisting away from him, she finally freed herself, probably because he let her go. “Are we completing this mission or not?” She glared at him, hiding her weakness for him under harsher feelings.
“I’m ready for our mission but I question that you are.” He grasped her right hand. “A slave makes no demands of her Master.”
“'You can speak freely but whisper.' Those were the words of my Master.” And she had never spoken louder than a whisper, not once during their emotional conversation.
“Your Master is regretting giving his slave that treat.” He tugged her toward the doors. “This is a serious game, Tiny Warrior. Misbehave in public and I will be forced to discipline you.”
If that reprimand was another spanking, she might not mind…except that could put her sister’s life in danger. “I would never jeopardize the mission, Master.”
“See that you don’t.” He hefted her over his shoulder and slapped her ass, that treatment stirring needs that should have been sated.
Her sister might survive the mission with her emotions intact but Rhea wouldn’t. She’d told him more than she should, cared for him more than was wise.
She suspected his betrayal would break her.