Thirteen
All we have is our honor.
Honor was why Kralj had told Dita about Todt-933, the third clone. Honor and his yearning to be completely truthful with her, the one being in the universe who accepted him, understood him, cared for him.
Now, that she knew, she’d leave him. As she said, she had no choice.
“Then go,” he said gruffly, his monstrous heart aching. It was best that she left now, before that pain grew, before he lost himself in her completely.
He had suffered when he’d killed the female the Humanoid Alliance had chosen for him and that female had been a mere companion. Dita’s parting might tear him into pieces.
“Do you want me to go?” His little assassin tilted her head to the side, her dark curls caressing her face.
His fingers twitched. He yearned to touch that softness, to capture those wayward strands, hold her to him. Forever.
Because, no, he didn’t want her to go.
Kralj didn’t say that. Even monsters had pride.
“Take the females with you.” He’d seen the affection in her eyes as she coached them. It would hurt her if he killed them. “It’s too dangerous for them here.”
“The settlers are departing soon.” And that saddened her. The settlers were transient residents and his damn female had grown attached to Azalea, one of those beings.
“All of the females will go also.” He wouldn’t harm the beings she cared for.
“You’re evicting all of the females?” Dita studied him. “Why? They haven’t broken any of your rules.”
He said nothing. She was an intelligent being. She knew the answer to her question.
“You won’t harm them, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Dita said that with a certainty he didn’t share. Her fingers clasped his.
“I could harm them.” He never wanted to hurt her in that way.
“You won’t.” She was the most stubborn being he knew.
“I could. Easily.” Kralj grasped her waist, lifted her until she was eye level. She didn’t protest, didn’t struggle, confident he wouldn’t drop her, or injure her in any way. He would never betray that trust. “If I lose control, they’re all dead.”
Dita met his gaze directly, not at all intimidated. “You won’t harm them. You haven’t lost control since you built the Refuge. Even during the confrontation with the mob, you didn’t fully let go.”
His grip on her tightened. “You know why I didn’t fully let go.”
Only she had held him back, her gentle hands, her murmured words.
Dita curled her fingers over his shoulders. “If I promised to return to you, would you allow them to stay?”
His heart leapt. Would she do that?
Then he remembered what she was, what she could be facing in the desert. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” She hunted violent males. They could harm her.
That thought made his beast howl. She belonged to him, was his to protect.
Dita opened her mouth.
“I’m not a monster you can play with, little one.” Kralj needed to be inside her, to assure himself she was alive, healthy, his. He slung her over his shoulder. The impact made her gasp, temporarily silencing her. He stalked forward.
The females Dita had been training parted, scattering like prey before a great predator. They trusted his little assassin but didn’t feel that same way about him.
That was wise. They shouldn’t trust him.
He suspected Dita’s departure would put every life within the Refuge in danger. The grief of losing her would override all of his restraints, freeing his beast and his monster.
Kralj pushed the doors to the beverage outlet open with his mind, stomped through the public chambers. Patrons rushed out of their way, their thoughts a roar in his mind.
The males feared him even more now, believed him to be the monster he always knew he was. That revelation should have prompted a mass exodus from the Refuge.
But humans and humanoids were illogical. His violent display had reassured residents he could protect them. He could enforce the rules he’d crafted.
Dita had been labeled his pet, a harmless female they might cultivate to sway his decisions. They didn’t yet realize she was a monster in her own right, small, delicate, beautiful, deadly.
In more ways than one. She could be responsible for their lives ending.
The turmoil inside him grew, his beast snarling, the darker, more vicious part of him testing its limits, pushing at his control.
Kralj carried her through the public chamber. His staff correctly read his mood. They didn’t stop him, didn’t ask the questions running through their minds.
Once he’d entered their private space, the doors closing behind them, Kralj tugged off Dita’s boots. They dropped to the floor with a thunk. Her feet curled. He grasped her ankles, folded her legs into two, bent his head and licked her dainty arches, laving the skin with the flat of his tongue.
“I’m dirty.” Her fingers clutched his coat.
“I don’t clean my prey before I eat them.” He wasn’t that civilized. “And you’re delicious.” His beast reveled in the taste of her. “I’ll lick you all over before the end of the rest cycle.”
“Then I get to do the same.” She tried to push his coat over his shoulders, was unable to achieve her goal. “Fair is fair.”
“I’m not a fair male.” Kralj cuffed her wiggling ass. “I’m the Ruler of the Refuge.” He lowered her, sliding her curves over his muscle, the friction warming him, the contact hardening his cock. “And you will obey me.”
“Or what?” Dita lifted her chin, not at all afraid of him. “What will you do?”
She placed her hand on his scarred cheek and he shuddered, feeling the touch in his heart.
“I’ve shown you what I can do.” And she continued to care for him. Kralj turned her away from him, not wanting her to see the emotion on his face, the possibility he’d lose that caring ripping at him.
He pulled her body covering over her shoulders, peeling the skin-tight garment away from her toned form. Her back and shoulders were crisscrossed with pink scars. He mouthed over each one, testaments to her strength, her survival.
She trembled, her softness vibrating against his lips. “I like what you can do.” Her voice lowered, the sound reaching out to him. “I want to touch you too.”
“No.” And he shouldn’t be touching her, not this way, with tenderness, with caring.
She was leaving him. Perhaps not this planet rotation, but soon.
Kralj picked her up and tossed her onto the sleeping support. She laughed, his damn female, bouncing, her curves jiggling enticingly. Nothing fazed her.
“On your hands and knees,” he ordered. His beast wanted her, clawing at his insides. He’d give it this fuck, take her as an animal would.
“Handsome?” Dita looked over her shoulder, her cheeks flushed with excitement.
“Face the wall.” He was taking command of this encounter, of the feelings churning inside him. He would wrangle them back under control, put them and her back in their proper place.
It would hurt less when she left him.
Maybe then no one would have to die.
“But—” She continued to battle him.
He would show her who was master. Kralj smacked her ass. Hard. With both hands, his palms stinging from the contact.
She sucked in her breath and obeyed him. The scent of her arousal hung heavily in the air. His little assassin liked her reprimand. She was a perverse being.
A fellow monster.
“Widen your stance.” He unfastened his ass coverings, freeing his rigid cock.
She complied. Wetness sparkled on her inner thighs. Her pink pussy lips glistened.
Kralj tugged his ass coverings to his knees, left on his long coat, didn’t remove his boots. He wanted to send his body and her a message—she was a female to be used, not a being to care for.
Because he already cared. Too much.
He dragged her to the edge of the sleeping support. She hissed but didn’t fight him.
He stroked her pussy once, twice, unable to stop himself from touching her, needing to feel her wetness, to confirm she desired him. Dita moaned, soaking his fingers with her juices.
He wanted that wet heat around his cock. Kralj gripped her hips, securing her slight form, positioned himself at her entrance, and thrust hard.
She screamed, clenching him as he surged inside her, the tightness shredding his resolve.
Mate! His beast wouldn’t allow him to lie to himself, not while he was buried balls deep in the female he was destined to claim.
That frustrated and angered him. He was in control, not his beast, not the monstrous side of him, even now rattling its cage.
Kralj didn’t wait for her to adjust to his size. He withdrew to his tip, thrust even deeper, shaking her, shaking the sleeping support.
Again and again, he took her, setting a punishing tempo, losing more of his control with each drive forward. Energy escaped him. Air swirled around them faster and faster.
“Me.” Dita panted. “Focus on me.”
He didn’t want to rely on her but had no choice. Kralj sank his fingers into her decadent curls and pulled her head back. If he didn’t pour his power into his little assassin, beings would die.
After she left him, he would never touch another being. He could never risk losing control like this. She was the only being who could handle him, who could please him.
He punished her for that also, riding her hard, spanking her reddened ass with his hips, slapping his base against her pussy lips. His damn female called for more, pushing back against him, breeding with him as aggressively as he bred with her.
Fuck. She was amazing. Sweat beaded on her back, her hair grew damp.
Kralj struggled for several moments more before admitting defeat. He was a powerful being, perhaps the most powerful being in the universe, and she could take everything he gave her. There was no fighting her, no way to conquer the feelings inside him. They were too intense and she was too enthralling.
Kralj folded his body over hers, regretting his decision to wear his coat, wanting more skin-on-skin contact yet not willing to break for the heartbeat it would take to strip naked. His balls pulsed with need. His muscles pulled tight.
Dita was close to fulfilment also, her pussy constricting around his cock, her breathing fast and shallow. He reached around her form, found her clit, circled it with his fingers. A hurting sound came from deep in her throat.
Tension shifted from his shoulders to his groin, flowing down his spine. His concerns dissolved, the imbalance between them righted. She might have captured him but he had captured her also. They were both enslaved by their passion, their need, their caring.
“Kralj.” Dita undulated under him.
“Little one.” He dragged his lips over her neck. A vein pulsed, tempting him. Hers was the sweetest blood he’d ever tasted, as rare and as delicate as a desert rain. He teased her with his fangs.
“Yes.” She pushed against him. “Feed on me.”
He wanted to feed, oh, how he wanted to feed. But he resisted, toying with her skin, fucking her with everything he had, determined to remain in control.
Dita allowed that for one, two, three thrusts and then reared back, impaling her neck on his fangs. The pain broke her. She screamed, clutching his cock, severing his grip on reality.
He roared, driving into her. Cum jetted from his tip and her blood filled his mouth, the dual delights sweeping away his restraint as though it were no barrier at all. The shield on the wall dented, the clang loud in his ears. Air beat against the reinforced wall.
Dita writhed, bucked, twisted. He held her to him as he gave her all of him, his cum, his power, his heart. They were hers for now, forever. In return, she gave him pleasure unlike any he’d ever known. It pounded at him. Kralj took as much as he could, reveling in the bliss, shuddered and collapsed, flattening his little female.
She murmured a protest. He rolled with her, keeping their physical connection, not wanting to let her go. Ever.
“You’re not leaving me.” He had decided that.
“I might not have to.” Her voice was drowsy.
He wouldn’t allow them to part ways with him. Kralj licked the wound on her neck, healing it with his nanohumanics. He was keeping her.
Moments passed.
Kralj explored his female, his mate. He mouthed over the puncture marks on her pale skin, skimmed his fingers over her collarbone, along the sides of her breasts, stroking her still form, noting every curve, every scar, capturing that information, storing it in his enhanced brain.
If she escaped him, he would track her. He might not be able to read her thoughts but he knew her, knew her physique, her scent, the sound of her breathing, the way her unique mind worked.
The pinkness on her neck faded and his beast rumbled with dissatisfaction. It liked having that physical proof of its claim.
“Kralj?” Dita stiffened, her muscles flexing against him.
“What do you need, little one?” Anything she asked for, he’d supply.
“I need information.” She turned within the circle of his arms.
His cock slipped from her body, the chamber air cool compared to the heat of her pussy.
She gazed at him, thought lines etched between her eyebrows. “How many males did he take with him?”
Kralj didn’t ask whom she was referring to. He knew she was thinking of Todt-933, the clone, her last remaining target. “He took two males with him.” Those two males were weak, had little skill with weapons. Todt-932, his brother, had kept his best warriors by his side. “He was ordered to meet with a merc on the other side of the planet.”
“Beings will tell him what happened here.”
Kralj dipped his head. “Four males have already left the Refuge, determined to find him.”
Dita pressed her lips together. Was she considering leaving the Refuge, leaving him?
He curved his palms over her bare ass, holding her to him.
“I doubt Todt-933 will make a side trip to torment the survivors.” His little assassin took her responsibilities as seriously as he did. “The males will find him…eventually. Then he’ll want revenge.”
Todt-933 would seek vengeance. He was hotheaded, the most emotional of the three clones, and he’d been fixated on Dita, on inflicting violence on her.
Kralj pressed his little assassin’s body to his. He would protect her from the clone and from anyone else meaning her harm.
“Todt-933 will come back here.” Dita gazed up at him, her beautiful blue eyes ensnaring him. “You’ll sense him before he reaches the walls.”
“I’ll sense him.” Kralj confirmed, understanding his clever female’s plan. “You’ll have time to prepare.”
She would fight the clone outside the settlement, within his territory. He would ensure the male didn’t hurt her.
She’d leave the Refuge but not him.
The knot in the base of his neck unraveled.
“I don’t need much time to prepare. I’m already familiar with the terrain around the walls.” Her smile lit her face. “I studied it for planet rotations before you spotted me.”
Her teasing had little effect on him. She was staying. That was all that mattered to him. “Then you wait.”
“We wait here.” Dita spread the flaps of his coat open, rested her chin on his bare chest. His stomach fluttered, the contact feeling right. “I’ll help you control your monster. There’s no need to expel the females from the Refuge.”
“Is that why you devised this plan?” Kralj frowned, her words irking him. “You’re protecting the females?”
“No.” She cupped his scarred cheek. “I devised this plan because I selfishly want more time with you.” His little assassin brushed his marred skin with her fingertips.
Kralj gazed at her, his eyelids partially lowered, her caresses calming him, soothing him, reassuring him. “You’ll have more time with me.”
He would do everything possible to ensure she stayed with him. He’d give her what she wanted, what she needed, cherishing her, caring for her.
She’d never consider leaving him.