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  Her tongue swirled over the stretched skin of his cockhead, tracing tiny lines across its hot surface, flicking at the sensitive glands just below its distended rim. Her fingertips found his thighs and slid up their bunched length, teasing the soft hairs on his balls with a feather-light stroke before slipping around to grasp his ass cheeks.

  He opened his eyes and gazed down at her, fisting his hands on his hips, forcing his body to be still. No matter how much he longed for every exquisite, dangerous second of her touch, he needed to convey the impression of a slave master, not a man ruled by a heart that should know better.

  Her head dipped forward, her teeth nipping ever so gently at the very tip of his cock. Her fingers caressed his ass, kept his hips motionless as her tongue painted his cock with long, wet strokes—head to base, base to head. His blood sang in his ears and his pulse quickened, more so when she closed her lips over that bulbous, throbbing head and took it into her mouth. She sucked lightly, the pressure sending shooting ribbons of tension down his shaft into his balls. A low groan sounded in his throat and he pulled in a short breath through his teeth.

  Control. Control.

  Her tongue worked the underside of his cock, lathered it, teased it. Her head bobbed, drawing her lips up and down his turgid length, drawing another groan from deep within his chest. A movement in the room caught his pleasure-fogged attention and he flicked his gaze to the Archeron. The Master Slaver stared at them, the snug material of his leather breeches tented at the crotch, his right hand cupping at the bulge beneath. But his eyes, glowing orange with hunger, still revealed his wariness. Either he knew who they were, or he suspected they weren’t who they pretended to—

  Jaienna’s fingers slipped from Tornada’s ass and cupped his balls and the disturbing thought vanished from his mind to be replaced by utter sexual fervor so intense his eyes closed and his muscles coiled. Her tongue curled around his cock, her teeth scraped its sides. Pain threaded through pleasure and he let out a raw moan. By Aop, her mouth was better than the Ninth Heaven!

  He thrust his hips forward, shoving his cock deeper, feeling its swollen head ram the back of Jaienna’s throat. The tip of her tongue flicked at the swell of his sac, sending a wild wave of wet heat into his groin and up his spine. He ground his teeth, determined to hold off the inevitable. If this was the last time he drew breath, he wanted it to last.

  “Very good,” the Archeron murmured, voice oily with appreciation and approval. “Very good.”

  Tornada tuned him out; drew to his mind a room scented with fine incense and decorated with even finer silks and satins. He no longer stood in the seedy viewing room of a Cluster-Fuck Barge, but the master suite of his family’s primary castle. He no longer feared for his life from the woman at his feet, but feared for the day she would leave him, claimed by time and old-age, gone to the Nine Heavens after decades of contented, blissful life together.

  Jaienna’s fingers slipped from his balls, worked their smooth way past his perineum to the clenching hole of his anus. One firm fingertip pressed at that puckered hole and Tornada bucked, ramming his cock deeper into her mouth. She knew exactly what to do to make him boil with scalding pleasure. She always did. Her finger pressed harder to his ass, penetrating ever so slightly the gripping circle of muscle even as her mouth continued to pull and suck at his cock.

  “Aop!” The cry burst from his lips, hoarse and savage. He grabbed at her hair, tangled his fingers in the cool, thick strands, a lifeline he knew she would both enjoy and despise. Unable to control himself, he fucked her mouth, plunging into the hot, wet well in wild thrusts, his aching, heavy balls slapping against her chin, his body burning with the need to erupt.

  A moan sounded in the room, a vibration filled his balls. He opened his eyes and, blood like electricity, dropped his gaze to Jaienna.

  She sucked at his cock, her lips glistening with moisture, her own eyes closed—the perfect picture of an obedient slave. But it was the expression on her face that made Tornada’s heart pound. Ecstasy. Another moan tickled his ears, another tiny wave of vibrations rippled his balls. Euphoria flooded through Tornada. Jaienna was enjoying what he’d ordered her to do! For three moon-cycles they’d devoured each other’s bodies in lustful hunger. Just as she knew him, so too, he knew her. The expression that softened her face could not be created, no matter how important for deception.

  She wanted to give him pleasure. Drew her own from his.

  The thought sent a surge of absolute hope to the very center of Tornada’s being. Not for his survival, but for a future he longed for with all his heart. His balls rose up, grew tight and heavy. Jaienna’s mouth slid up and down his shaft in rapid strokes, as if she could feel the wild rhythm of his heart and wanted to match its beat. Her finger pushed at his anus again, harder, harder. He felt her first knuckle stretch the clenching opening, felt her tongue caress his shaft, felt a mounting pressure of scalding tension rip through his body, from his cock to his balls to his chest and then his orgasm smashed over him, consumed him, and he threw back his head and cried her name. “Jaienna!”

  Liquid heat charged through his limbs up his spine. He gripped at Jaienna’s hair and held her head still, pounding into her taking mouth in wild, erratic thrusts. His skin felt on fire, his breath like flames. His hips bucked convulsively, his thighs trembled. The finger in his ass wriggled, sending fresh waves of pure pleasure into his groin, pleasure sucked eagerly through his cock by Jaienna’s mouth. His seed burst from him in unending wads of thick fluid and she took it all, swallowed each spurt, her soft moans feeding each ejaculate until his head swam and his heart constricted. By Aop, she was draining him of everything he had.

  And then he felt it.

  The softest tickle in his mind. Like a feather of sound. A whispering kiss of words…

  Tell me your heart.

  He hissed in a wild breath and then the words faded. As if they’d never been there.

  He bucked his hips, his balls still full of liquid release, his cock still thick and swollen and spurting. Oh, when he finished, when Jaienna’s lips had slipped from his length… The things he would tell her. Things he’d wanted to say since they first met. Things he’d kept locked in his heart…

  He dropped his head and gazed at her; found two shining green eyes gazing back. Her lips slid up his shaft, down, up, her rhythm decreasing with the slowing thrusts of his hips. The finger in his ass slowly withdrew, a shard of concentrated pleasure spearing into his being as it popped free of the clenching ring of muscle. He sucked in a ragged breath, staring into Jaienna’s eyes. Waiting.

  He needed to tell her something. He must tell her something. Now. It was imperative. Vital.

  Her mouth slid one more time up and down his shaft and then she released him, his cock slipping free of her lips.

  She settled back onto her heels, the glorious swell of her breasts heaving with each shallow breath she pulled, her eyes studying him with an ambiguous, almost haunted light. “Tell me,” she whispered, the words not quite inaudible.

  Heart thumping, blood roaring, Tornada dropped to his knees before her and took her hands in his, staring into her face, his chest aching. “I love you,” he said simply. “Irretrievably. Unconditionally. Without end. I exist to make you happy. To see you smile. To give you pleasure. I have been stripped of everything I ever held important—my title, my heritage, my station—but I do not care because I love you. For every moment of pain I gave you, I wish it ten-fold back. For every moment of joy I gave you, I wish it ten-fold again. You are my past, my present. I curse the day you were no longer my future. The biggest mistake of my life was to lose you. Without you I am less. Without you I am just an empty shell. Without you I am—”

  “What the fuck is this?”

  The words punched into Tornada’s feverish mind like an eo-blast. He started, fixing Jaienna with a wide stare. Fuck. What did she make me do?

  Jerking his gaze away from her stunned and tormented eyes, he turned to the Archeron slave mas
ter standing beside him, scales shimmering black.

  He leapt to his feet, hot aggression ripping into his limbs. Change of plans, Raq.

  “What is this?” the Archeron demanded, enraged. “What type of slave master—”

  Jaienna leapt to her feet, her sublime body coiled, nothing like the submissive slave anymore. She lashed out, smashing the Master Slaver in the jaw with a bone-shattering punch. His head flung to the side, giving Tornada enough time to drop into a crouch and smash his fist up into the scale-plated stomach. The slaver doubled over, shock and fury in his eyes, his breath bursting from him in a violent whoosh. Jaienna spun around him, snatched at his arms and snapped them up behind his head, locking her fingers at the base of his skull and jerking him into a brutal upright position, his booted feet scraping and skidding on the floor.

  “What the fuck is this?” he screeched, bucking in her hold.

  Tornada stepped forward, the intoxicating pull of physical aggression dampening the demanding itch in his mind to tell Jaienna something. He hadn’t finished. Whatever she’d told him to do, he hadn’t—

  “What the fuck are you doing?” the Archeron spat, scales blacker than black.

  “This,” Tornada snarled, and smashed his fist into the Master Slaver’s stomach.

  The Archeron’s breath gushed from him, but Jaienna reefed him into a severe arc, yanking him upright again.

  Tornada clenched his jaw, stepping even closer to the slaver, letting all his hate, contempt and disdain for the slave trade and its despicable masters burn in his stare. “Now, my loathsome friend,” he stated, his voice dripping with deadly promise. “You will tell me exactly where Hrung Crortek is, or my very talented ‘slave’ here will demonstrate just how talented she really is and there will be nothing you can do to stop whatever she suggests.” He let a menacing, bleak grin stretch his lips. “One way or the other, you are going to die today. How can depend on you, or her…” He cocked an eyebrow. “And trust me when I say, you don’t want to leave your fate up to her. She knows how to be nasty, and I know how she feels about slavers.”

  * * * *

  A thick gray fog shrouded the room. Odorless. Tasteless. It pressed upon him, weightless yet suffocating, trying to steal his breath. He shifted slightly, squinting into the gray nothingness and a burning pain, like a vortex of crushing fire, erupted in his head.

  He gasped, every muscle in his body tensing, his eyes squeezing shut.

  “Shhh,” a soft feminine voice hushed. Warm breath feathered his forehead and he felt gentle fingers brush a strand of hair behind his ear. “I’m here.”

  He swallowed, his throat coarse and stripped of moisture. “Who are you?” he croaked, turning to the voice and the warmth. “Where am I?”

  “You’re on Ii’olia,” the voice answered, worry and relief in the whispered words.

  Tight anger ripped through him and he blindly reached for his blaster, his hand smacking against his thigh. His naked thigh. He tried to sit up, but the agony in his head and a firm, warm hand on his chest kept him prone. “Who are you?” he repeated through clenched teeth. “Tell me.”

  The hand on his chest smoothed across to his right pec, long fingers brushing over his nipple, before feathering down over his stomach, across his hip and back to his chest again—an intimate caress that sent his skin afire and his anger on edge. “It’s me,” the voice whispered, the fingers resting lightly over his heart. “It’s Bhelais.” A soft pause followed, and then: “I’m taking care of you… Jak.”

  Chapter 2

  Jak Thorson’s eyes snapped open. Ice ripping through his veins, he stared up at Jaienna Ti’s sister. Sons of Urik, he still couldn’t see! Nothing but gray fog clouded his vision.

  “Bhelais,” he growled, squirming on the hard surface beneath him. A bed? The floor?

  “Be calm, Jak,” Bhelais’ soft voice ordered, her long fingers stroking across his nipple. Tight heat radiated out from the contact, making Jak’s cock twitch. “You need to relax. Your wound—”

  In an abrupt violent crash of color, images and sound, the last moments Jak remembered before the gray fog hit him: Bhel straddling his hips, her gloriously naked body undulating with pleasure as he thrust up into her tight sex; the sudden appearance of Hrung Crortek and two fully-armed Boaronian bodyguards in their quarters aboard the Ry’l space-station; the brutal attack on himself and Bhel; finding Zeric and Jaienna in the service level of the space-station; Jaienna’s terror at seeing her sister in Crortek’s control; Crortek’s command; his de-atomizer in Bhelais’ hand; her deception…

  White agony flared in Jak’s head and he flinched away from Bhelais’ soft touch, scrabbling backward into an upright position. He stared sightlessly, muscles tense, gut churning. “You shot me.”

  A heavy silence filled the air.

  Anger rolled through Jak. “You deceived your sister. You gave her and my partner up to the most sadistic crime lord in the Boundaries, and then you shot me. Point-blank in the head with Crortek’s de-atomizer.”

  He heard her shift slightly. “Yes.”

  “For a Bliss hit? Or for Crortek?”

  Another pause. Then: “Both.”

  He closed his sightless eyes, his chest heavy. “Everything I’d done for you. Every moment I spent trying to help you…” He shook his head, ignoring the explosive pain that came with the harsh movement. “And all along you were still Crortek’s faithful slave.”

  “Yes,” Bhelais murmured.

  Jak heard her get to her feet, the soft sounds telling him they were bare. An image of her beautiful perfection filled his head and he grit his teeth. “I fell in love with you, Bhel.”

  “I told you not to.”

  The sorrow in her voice made his throat squeeze. “You also told me to fuck you. Repeatedly.”

  “Which you did. But why? For me, or for you?”

  Opening his unseeing eyes, he glared at her. “I did it to keep you alive! To drain your system of Bliss. You know what would have happened to you if I hadn’t.”

  “A Blissful death.”

  Jak did not miss the bitter irony in Bhelais’ voice. Bliss was an insidious drug and once it was in your system it demanded more. Death from a Bliss withdrawal was not only painful, but also protracted and hideous. One hit was enough to put the user’s body into a heightened state of sexual urges. A state that left one hungry and aroused. The only way to survive a Bliss withdrawal was constant sex until the user’s body began to replace the Bliss created oxytocin with its own. An act that, depending on how long someone had been addicted to the aphrodisiac, could last for weeks. It sounded like sheer joy in theory, but in actuality… His cock twitched at the disturbing memory of his and Bhel’s wild, feverous couplings. “What about Zeric?” he demanded, forcing the memory aside. “Jaienna? Where are they?”

  Silence answered him. Thick and uncomfortable. His gut clenched. Zeric Arctos had been his Boundary Guardian partner for five Unified orbits. They were like brothers. The Terran knew everything about him and he knew everything about Zeric, including the beast lurking in his blood that transformed him into a creature unlike any Jak—or anyone else in the Boundaries—had seen before; a creature Zeric called a werewolf and considered a curse.

  Jak had seen the creature in full incarnation and it was a terrifying sight to behold. Only two people were safe from the werewolf. He and Jaienna Ti. And it seemed from Bhelais’ silence, Jaienna was dead.

  He frowned, a wave of cold anger rolling over him. “How could you let Crortek kill your own sister, Bhel?”

  The sound of feet shuffling tickled Jak’s ear. “He didn’t kill her,” Bhelais answered, and again, that bitter sorrow etched her voice. “She left. She translocated off Ry’l with Intel-Patrol Agent, Raq Tornada.” She paused, and Jak suddenly felt an overpowering sense of foreboding twisting through his veins. “Her ex-lover.”

  Jak’s throat and chest clenched. Jaienna deserting Zeric made no sense. None at all. But then, neither did—

 
“You shot me in the head with a de-atomizer,” he said, leveling a blind stare at Bhelais, the pain in his forehead now an inferno of agony. “Why am I still alive?”

  “Enough questions, Jak.” Bhel’s warm breath caressed his neck and her fingertips fluttered over his chest. “You need to rest.”

  He reached for her wrists, sightlessly snaring them in a firm grip, swallowing back the grief of Zeric’s death and Jaienna’s desertion. “I need to know why I’m alive, Bhel.”

  She didn’t answer. Silence filled the room. The pulse in her wrist leapt into frantic flight under his fingers.

  “Why am I still alive, Bhelais?” he asked again. Harder. More forceful.

  “Because I changed the setting on Crortek’s gun before I shot you.”

  “Why?”

  That silence again.

  “Why, Bhel?”

  “I couldn’t kill you.”

  A heavy beat thumped in Jak’s chest. “Because…”

  “Because you were right when you said killing you would hurt me more than you.” Her breath hitched and the pulse in her wrist beat harder. “Because the thought of you dead hurt more than Crortek’s punishment ever could.”

  Jak’s throat grew tight. “Because…” he repeated, wanting her to say three simple words.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she twisted her wrists free of his hold and traced the intricate scars on his cheekbones marking his Master-Pleasurer status with the tips of her fingers. Soft fingertips followed by even softer lips. Lips that knew his body well. Lips that knew how to make his body respond.

  Which it did.

  Immediately and powerfully.

  Hot blood surged to his cock, inflamed by the memory of Bhelais’ taste. Her lips parted over his, her tongue flicking out to tease the tiny dip at the corners of his mouth—first one side, then the other. Opening his mouth to hers, he tilted his head back… and felt the soft malleable metal Guardian prohibitor collar locked loosely around his neck.

  He recoiled, snatching at both her wrists. “Why am I collared, Bhel?” he ground out, his body aching with lust, desire and denial. “Am I a prisoner?”