Captured Rapture: 3 (Mercy) Page 3

  I punched him.

  Smashed my fist against his chiseled jaw, to be precise. I don’t know why, but when an Urid’ii pro brings you to a screaming orgasm on a public thoroughfare and then claims you’re in a friggin’ mating cycle, what else can you do?

  Especially when your stomach twisted more with each incomprehensible word?

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” I snarled (yes, I seemed to be snarling a lot, I realize that).

  The Urid’ii smiled, rubbing at his jaw. “I’m sure you’ll find out.” He lowered his head closer to mine. “If you’re prepared to burn.”

  Now that made less sense than everything else he’d said. I glared at him one last time and turned away, my unexpected-name-screeching orgasm now just a distant memory.

  Clearly, I was screwed. Masturbating in the shower hadn’t fixed my problem, oral sex with an Urid’ii pro hadn’t fixed my problem, and now here I was, wondering what in all the hells a Wyvernian could be and why a cheap hooker on a space station thought I was one.

  The only options I had left, it seemed, were…

  A) Find an Ezelian dream invader and pay him to remove the lunatic on the moon from my subconscious (risky and probably a little extreme).

  B) Find a real Slessorian and blow my entire credit balance on sex so good, I wouldn’t even know who I was afterward, let alone what a Wyvernian was or who Torr could be (tempting, but very, very expensive).

  C) Go back to the moon and kill Torr (again, tempting, but not so painful on the credit balance).

  Or D) Go back to the moon and throw myself at Torr’s feet, begging him to do to me everything he promised he would (fuck, that was even more tempting, but insane and stupid as well).

  None of these options would help me discover why the Urid’ii pro reckoned I was in a mating cycle. Or tell me how I’d find the answer if I was “prepared to burn”. And they sure wouldn’t help me track down the spice dealer Fraz and I were supposed to be arresting.

  As I said, clearly screwed.

  Think, think, think.

  I turned my attention to the stream of pedestrians filling Blowjob Alley. “Excuse me,” I said, stepping into the path of one particularly officious-looking Antillan decked out in a medico’s uniform. I gave her a friendly, apologetic smile. “Can you tell me what a Wyvernian is?”

  The blood drained from the Antillan’s face and she gasped, spinning on her heel and hurrying back in the direction she’d come from.

  I cocked an eyebrow. Huh. Not the reaction I’d expected.

  Stopping another passerby, this one dressed in a merchant’s garb, I posed the same question.

  Another gasp, this one accompanied by a strange flurry of hands over his chest. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think the Maylarian had suddenly found religion. I watched him scurry away into the crowd, and I frowned. This was getting ridiculous.

  Patience running thin, I whipped out my right hand and snatched the upper arm of the closest life form, jerking them before me.

  The life form was one of the Echo brothers. “Hey,” he protested, tugging at my grip. “Do you know who I am?”

  I glared at him. “By the mediocrity in your eyes, I’d say the fifth.”

  He blinked, a look of absolute indignation flashing across his face.

  There were ten Echo brothers on Port Mercy. Ten-tuplets (is that even a word?). All from the same litter. Each tried their best to set themselves apart from their brothers. To a cop’s trained eye, each failed. From what I’d observed in my sixty-one days on the station, each thought he was better than his siblings. This one, going by his righteous anger, more so than the others.

  “How dare y—”

  I cut him off with a low growl. “Tell me what a Wyvernian is, or I will throw you into the nearest sex cubicle, chain you buck naked over a whipping stool with a rose in your mouth and inform the reporter from the Watcher you have a secret you want to share.”

  His face went white, though from my promise or the word “Wyvernian”, I wasn’t sure. Didn’t care either. As long as I got my answer.

  His mouth worked silently for a few seconds, making him look like a drowning fish, and then he licked his lips and stammered something I was pretty damn certain I’d misheard.

  “Say that again,” I snapped, sinking my fingers into the underside of his arm.

  “Dra-dra-dragon shifter,” he sputtered, trying to escape my grip.

  My eyebrows shot up my forehead.

  Dragon shifter? Surely he was kidding? Dragon shifters were a myth. The product of a deep-space explorer’s mind gone mad from too much time in…well, deep, deep space.

  What, like the deep, deep space found around Mercy?

  I didn’t like that. Didn’t like the twisting knot in my gut either. Or the way my chest felt heavy and my throat grew tight.

  Dragon shifter.

  I shook my head, turning my gaping stare into a glowering glare. “Don’t joke with me, Echo, or you’ll find yourself floating in space without a helmet.”

  Echo shook his head, the color still not returning to his face. “No one on Port Mercy would joke about the Wyvernian.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “So you’re telling me dragon shifters exist.”

  He shook his head again, and I felt positive his eyeballs were going to bounce right out of their sockets. “No, no, no,” he gushed. “The GU destroyed them all over three centuries ago.”

  “So what’s with the abject terror?”

  He swallowed, his Adam’s apple jerking up and down. “The Wyvernian swore bloody vengeance for their genocide.” His stare flicked nervously toward the thin stretch of viewing glass running the length of the wall opposite Blowjob Alley. “There’s a story about Mercy’s second moon being haunted by the last of the Wyvernian.”

  I couldn’t help myself, I burst out laughing. “Ghost stories? Everyone’s been pissing their pants over a ghost story?”

  Echo shook his head again, this time with such vehemence I felt my shoulder joint shudder. “Laugh all you want, but trust me when I say that destroying the Wyvernian is the only good thing the GU has ever done.”

  He tugged against my grip on his arm, eyes still nervous, agitated, and I let him go. He ran away from me. I kid you not. He bolted, leaving me standing in the middle of the thoroughfare with a bemused smile playing on my lips.

  I snorted. Dragon shifters. Ghosts. Shyte. What millennium was I living in? And yet the twisting knot in the pit of my belly was still there. Not just there, but tighter. Bigger.

  I dragged my hands through my hair, chewing on my lip. Ridiculous. The whole thing was ridiculous.

  You are Wyvernian. If you’re prepared to burn.

  The Urid’ii’s words came back to me and I spun on my heel. I needed more answers, and so far the male hooker had been the only one willing to stand still long enough to give them.

  Trouble was, the Urid’ii’s booth now stood empty.

  Where the fuck had he gone?

  Mine to claim. Mine to fuck. Mine to—

  Torr’s thoughts whispered through my head, each syllable flaying my sanity further. My pussy began to throb, my pulse quickened. I curled my fingers into my palms, turning my hands into hard fists.

  Mine to claim. Mine to fuck. Mine to—

  My stare slid to the viewing glass running high along the corridor’s length and I studied the small red moon orbiting Mercy.

  Wyvernian. Prepared to burn. Mating cycle.

  The lunatic who haunted my dreams, my waking thoughts, was on that moon. A lunatic weirdo who made me hornier than anyone I’d ever met. An insane man I swore I would never go near again.

  Mine to claim. Mine to fuck. Mine to—

  The tension in my gut twisted some more and my sex felt heavy. Wet with a need I couldn’t deny.

  The ghost of the last Wyvernian…

  I thought of Echo’s hurried statement and ground my teeth. Someone was messing with me, of that I had little doubt, but I needed answers.
Whoever Torr was, whatever he was, he had those answers.

  Mine to claim.

  Wyvernian. Prepared to burn.

  I stared at the small moon and drew a deep breath, pussy damp, chest tight. Something inside me had been…I don’t know. Awakened? Something I hadn’t realized was there until the second Torr’s lips crushed mine. Something eager for an existence I couldn’t fathom.

  Wyvernian.

  I needed to know what that something was, and why it was drawn to Torr. I needed to see him again.

  The realization should have made me angry. Instead, I felt a pulling sensation in the center of my being—an eager insistence not only in my sex, but in my soul.

  Shyte, I can’t believe I’m admitting this. I really can’t. But the second I accepted I was going back to the moon, every molecule in my body seemed to…seemed to…

  Ah fuck. Every molecule in my body seemed to ignite with a smoldering heat. As if readying for the inferno to come.

  And I knew then, even if I wasn’t prepared to burn, my body was.

  Which really, really pissed me off.

  Stupid bloody body.

  * * * * *

  I didn’t alert Fraz to my plan. What would I say? “Heya, partner. I’m heading back to the moon, ’cause you were right. I really did have a sexual experience while off my jet cycle and now I can’t get the lunatic who almost made me come with just a kiss outta my head, and some male hooker on Blowjob Alley tells me I’m an extinct dragon shifter in a mating cycle and I think I need to find the lunatic again so I can burn up.”

  Yeah, like that would go down well.

  I hurried about our rented apartment, shoving my various knives and weapons into their holsters and sheaths. My body might be happy I was going back to the deranged weirdo, but I wasn’t going in unarmed.

  And the second he takes one look at you, the second he touches you, you’re going to forget all those weapons.

  No, I wouldn’t. I wasn’t letting Torr touch me. Not until I had some answers.

  Wait, wait, what in all the levels of hell was I saying? I wasn’t letting the madman touch me, period. It was too dangerous.

  Slinging my pack over my shoulder, I snatched one of Fraz’s nastier blades from under his pillow and left. I’d make amends to my partner later for taking his favorite weapon. Right now, I had a lunatic to interrogate.

  A lunatic who wanted to claim me as his destiny.

  Chapter Four

  I pushed my jet cycle to its limits. I had no real idea where I would find Torr, but I figured where he crashed me to the ground was a good place to start.

  Find Torr? You won’t need to find Torr. He will find you.

  The knot in the pit of my belly was now so intricate I wondered if it would ever untangle. I tried to muster my previous, angry bravado—shyte, I was a cop, for fuck’s sake. What was I doing being apprehensive about an interrogation? But my angry bravado wasn’t playing ball. My chest was tight, my breathing shallow, my nipples hard and, just for fun, my pussy clenched. Oh man, I was in trouble.

  The moon’s surface blurred beneath me, a dull, rusty-red carpet of coarse grit and rocks. Not the typical home of a dragon shapeshifter ghost, if I were to believe Echo brother number-whatever.

  Wyvernian.

  The name whispered through my head and I squeezed the throttle of my jet cycle, spurring it forward even faster. An itch began at the base of my spine. A hot itch I recognized all too well.

  Torr had found me.

  I resisted the urge to throttle back. In fact, if my jet cycle were capable of warp speeds, I would have knocked it up a notch. Something told me Torr would still be able to keep up. The heat between my thighs growing wetter, I fixed my stare hard on the horizon. I wanted him to come after me. I wanted him to hunt me.

  I wanted him to—

  Claim you. Fuck you. Possess you.

  The thoughts exploded in my mind, a silent roar of incomparable command and power. I hissed in a sharp breath, fighting to keep control of my jet cycle, and if I didn’t know any better I would have sworn blind I was close to orgasming that very second. My knuckles popped as I banked to the left, my body screaming from the G-forces I was torturing it with.

  The itch tickling the base of my spine spread. Up my back. My scalp prickled, the wild wind tugging my hair doing nothing to lessen the sensation. My nipples pinched into hard tips.

  Claim you.

  The silent roar smashed into me and I gasped, the throb between my thighs a constricting tension.

  Fuck you.

  My cunt squeezed tight. I gasped again.

  Possess you.

  My head swam as the orgasm I shouldn’t have been experiencing rocked through my body. I sucked in another breath, the feel of my vest against my hard nipples torturous bliss, the thrumming vibration of my jet cycle between my legs blissful torture. I cried out, once, the same name I’d cried with every release I’d experienced in my dreams, and was suddenly snatched from my transport. Lifted from its seat and carried straight up.

  Fast. So fast, my swimming head spun.

  And everything I saw turned to black.

  * * * * *

  Let me make this very clear. I’m not afraid of heights. I don’t pass out under extreme Gs. Excessive speed does not worry me.

  What I hate, with a passion, is being trapped in the dark.

  Too many hours spent confined to Galactic Union-approved “timeout rooms” while growing up, I guess. Too many hours punished for my “disrespectful insubordination and naughtiness” by those who ran the GU orphanages. So when I opened my eyes and saw nothing but darkness, well…I kinda freaked out.

  And in freaking out, I realized I was naked. And chained. Which of course made me freak out even more.

  “Let me go, you crazy grutt-fucking bastard!” I screeched, thrashing against the io-cuffed chains stretching my arms above my head and my legs wide. “Turn on the fucking lights and let me—”

  The inky, suffocating darkness disappeared in an instant, replaced by a flickering yellow glow that should have hurt my light-deprived eyes. Should have.

  Instead, my eyes adapted immediately and I saw the bane of my existence—naked from the waist up, leaning against a wall that looked as if it were carved from granite, his muscled arms crossed over a chest that seemed carved from the same. Gray eyes never left my face. “Are you ready to burn, Rai’nia?”

  Apparently, and without prior discussion with me, my body had decided it was, because the moment his deep, rumbling voice caressed my ears, my heart leapt into frantic flight, my mouth went dry and my sex contracted with eager greed. “Let me go,” I demanded through gritted teeth, rattling the chains that held me captive in the middle of the cavernous space.

  My captor chuckled and the arrogant sound made my already heavy sex weep. “I can smell your desire from here, Raina Mynn. It pools between your legs and wets your thighs.” His nostrils flared, the only movement he’d made since the warm yellow light replaced the dark. “It calls to my tongue. Whets my appetite for your heat.”

  I wanted to say something menacing, dangerous. Something so threatening, Torr would flinch and realize how monumentally erroneous chaining me up was. Instead, all I could do was think about his tongue lapping at my sodden folds. A low moan sounded in my throat.

  The corner of Torr’s mouth curled into a crooked grin, and I moaned again. That grin was the definition of menacing and dangerous, and it made my heart thump hard and—God, help me—my pussy throb harder. “How did I get here?” I managed to croak. There seemed to be a swarm of butterflies attacking my core.

  Torr’s grin stretched a little wider. “I brought you here.”

  “How?” I was asking lame questions, I know. I should have been demanding he release me, but my head just didn’t want to work.

  “I lifted you from your transport.”

  I didn’t want to ask how again. I suspected what Torr’s answer might be.

  Torr cocked one dark eyebrow. “Astute,�
�� he murmured.

  I ground my teeth. He was in my head again. Reading my thoughts. “Stop doing that.”

  He chuckled, unfolding his arms as he began to walk toward me. No, walk isn’t the correct word. Stalk? No, that’s not right either. He moved toward me with such confident certainty and conviction, such obvious purpose and intent, every nerve ending in my body began to tingle.

  “I cannot stop doing ‘that’, Raina Mynn,” he said, his stare locked on mine. “The second your flesh touched mine, our minds recognized each other.” He stopped but a mere inch before me and looked down into my face. “I can hear your very soul.” He lifted his right hand and skimmed it down the length of my torso, from the side of my left breast to the curve of my hip. “And you can hear mine.”

  I glared at him, determined to regain some ground. Hard when you’re chained spread-eagle and as naked as the day you were born, I know, but I’ve never been a quitter. “I can’t hear diddly-squat.”

  His answering laugh set my nerves on edge. And made my pulse quicken. “Oh, Rai’nia.” He brushed the back of his knuckles against the side of my breast and I practically had to bite my lip to stop myself whimpering with pleasure. What the hell was wrong with me? “I know you have heard my soul. Your body tells me it is so.”

  He moved closer. So close his hard, broad chest brushed the tips of my nipples, and I sank my teeth into my lip again. Gods, even this barely-there contact made me want to moan.

  He stared at my face, his eyes unblinking, his massive body as still as a statue, and brushed his knuckles along the curve of my breast again.

  Mine to claim.

  The thought slammed through my head. Powerful and undeniable.

  Torr’s thought. The same arousing, terrifying thought I’d been hearing since escaping him before.

  I gasped, my nipples pinching hard, and Torr’s crooked grin disappeared. “Finish it,” he said, his voice a low rumble of barely restrained hunger.

  I shook my head. I wouldn’t. If I did, it meant he was right, and if he was right, it meant I was—

  “Finish it,” he ordered on a growl.