The Sun Sword Read online

  His woman.

  Yes, his woman. His.

  Tearing her mouth from his, she gave him her neck, wanting to feel his lips and teeth scoring the sensitive flesh there. He complied, raining a scalding trail of wild kisses up to the little dip behind her ear, down to the curve of her shoulder and back to her jaw again, sending a ripple of concentrated delight through her.

  “By the gods, I should not crave you like this,” he murmured against her cheek, his voice tortured. “This is not what the Old Seer foresaw.”

  Who gives a fuck what some old bloke saw? Kala wanted to say, but the words wouldn’t come, asphyxiated by the exquisite pleasure consuming her. She closed her eyes, whimpering as Torin’s lips returned to her ear. He traced the shallow inner shell with the tip of his tongue, the wet caress making her pussy constrict and the pit of her belly twist. She arched her back again, pressing her sex to his rock-hard cock, thrusting her breasts forward. Please, she wanted to beg. Please take me.

  As if hearing her unspoken plea, Torin pressed her against the side of the skip and spread his legs enough to support her weight. Staring into her eyes, nostrils flaring, he slid his hands from her arse, raking them over her hips, up her ribcage to the swell of her breasts. “Syunna, forgive me,” he whispered on a hoarse breath, before hooking his fingers beneath the edge of her vest and yanking the snakeskin apart.

  Her breasts tumbled free, only to be claimed immediately by his strong hands.

  He captured her nipples between his fingers, pinched them with a gentle force that mocked the inferno in his eyes.

  “Yes!” Kala moaned, liquid electricity shooting through her core. She bucked, the raw pleasure from Torin’s touch flooding her pussy with tight heat.

  “Syunna, Kala, you are beautiful.” He yanked her farther up his body, the sodden junction of her thighs sliding up the flatness of his abdomen until, with a groan both angry and desperate, he closed his lips around one peaked nipple and sucked on it. Hard.

  Ribbons of pure ecstasy knotted in her core. She cried out, arching her spine more, holding his head still. Her sex constricted, flooded with moisture. He growled around her nipple and bit down on it with his teeth, his thumb and forefinger treating the puckered tip of her other breast with equal ferocity. Kala gasped, something molten and heavy building between her legs. The soles of her feet tingled. Her heart hammered.

  Christ, what was happening?

  Torin suckled harder, teasing with tongue and teeth and lips, the rhythm of his mouth in perfect harmony with the increasing flutters in her cunt. She threw back her head, staring with blank wonder and terror at the grey metal ceiling. The tension mounting in her very centre grew tighter. Her sex constricted, pulsing in erratic waves. Each throb made her gasp, as if something beyond her understanding tried to render her defenseless. Unmade. She sucked in a swift breath, the constricting throb radiating through her body. Consuming her. God, what was happening? Oh, God, what was Torin doing to her?

  She squirmed in his hold, the squeezing heat building, growing heavier, tighter. She fisted his hair, rolled her eyes, her breath rapid, shallow. The pressure in her centre spread, grew thicker. Came in mounting waves of liquid fire.

  Oh…oh…what…what…

  Torin tore his left hand from her breast and, with a groan that was more a guttural growl, he plunged it between their bodies, sinking his finger into her folds in one fluid move.

  He scissored them inside her sex, wriggled them deeper, his mouth still sucking on her breast, his tongue still lathing her nipple.

  “Oh, oh.” Her strangled gasp ripped from her raw throat. She writhed in his arms, blank stare fixed on the bay’s ceiling, her teeth pulling at her bottom lip. Control. She was losing—

  “Fuck,” Torin ground against her breast, cupping it with savage fingers. “I want you, Kala. I want you so fucking much I am in agony.” He shoved his hips higher, the thick length of his erection grinding high against her inner thigh a testament to his words. “I want…I want…” His mouth scored a fierce path to her other breast and he took her nipple with his lips and teeth, suckling so hard, shooting tendrils of pain laced through her pleasure.

  She whimpered, the pain unlike any she knew—wicked and intoxicating and potent. She wanted to experience it again. She wanted him to stop. To let her catch her breath. To regain control. She wanted to lose control. She wanted…

  Torin mauled her breast with his hand and sucked her nipple again, his feral groan vibrating through his chest into the pit of her belly.

  Oh…oh…

  Her pussy throbbed, heavy with incomprehensible heat.

  Oh, God, what is…

  Torin drove his fingers deeper, burying them into that heavy, gripping heat. Stroked the inner walls of her sex with unrelenting force.

  She bucked against him, the tiny button hidden in her folds grinding against the base knuckle of his fingers. Liquid electricity shot through her. Her pulse pounded in her neck and she whimpered again, closing her eyes. Christ, she felt like she was going to—

  Torin’s mouth tore from her breast and, his chest having, he gazed into her eyes. “What have you done to me, Kala? Gods, I’ve never hungered for something as much as I…”

  He didn’t finish and she couldn’t blame him. How could she when she was incapable of speech herself? Incapable of understanding what was happening to her, let alone Torin?

  Another raw groan rumbled in his chest and he dropped his head to her breast again, closing his lips around her aching nipple and suckling once more.

  She arched her back, the brief moment of damned, torturous respite over, her body burning hotter with every drawing sensation Torin’s mouth wrought on her breast. With every plunging thrust of his fingers.

  He shifted his hand—barely a fraction—and new pleasure rushed through her as he pressed his fingertips to the inside wall of her sex. Hot pleasure. Wet pleasure.

  “Oh, Kala,” he moaned against her breast. “You are so tight. So tight and so fucking wet.” He shoved his fingers higher, deeper into her folds and bit down on her nipple.

  Clamping, contracting tension detonated through Kala’s centre. She screamed, the exquisite, terrifying sensation taking possession of every muscle of her body. She thrashed in Torin’s embrace, unable to think, to control herself. Waves of choking pleasure crashed over her, tore through her. She cried out, control deserting her. Each shudder, each contraction of her sex around Torin’s penetrating fingers crashed through her like an exploding star, stealing her ability to exist.

  Pleasure claimed her. Terror following instantly. She couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t control it. It felt so good but she was drowning in it, losing control. Losing her.

  It’s too much. Too much. Oh, God, it feels so good, so…

  The shudders grew faster, stronger, the heavy tension tighter. She rolled her head, unable to comprehend what was happening to her. Her breath grew shorter, her pulse pounding, her body fighting the raw, wild sensations consuming it.

  Too much, I can’t, I can’t, stop, stop.

  She writhed in Torin’s hold, against his thrusting fingers, the crotch of her trousers sodden with moisture, her sex thick with pulsing pressure. She couldn’t control herself. She couldn’t control her body. She couldn’t…she couldn’t…

  Oh, God, it’s too much, it’s too much, I can’t, I can’t, I—

  “Can’t, no, no, stop, stop, stop!”

  Her cry ripped from her throat, loud and rent with fear.

  And Torin stiffened, his head jerking from her breast, his fingers stilling in her sex.

  He stared at her, stunned disbelief flooding his face before, with a snarl of absolute disgust, he threw her out of his arms and stormed from the shuttle bay. Without a word or backward glance.

  Kala stared at the gaping doorway, her body still claimed by the shudders of her overwhelming pleasure. She slumped against the skip’s metal hull. Its icy surface scalded her flushed flesh, but she didn’t care. She welcomed the physi
cal pain. It was something she understood, something she knew.

  Her heart pounded with cruel force, crushed by Torin’s brutal desertion and yet still beating. Still keeping her alive.

  He’d left her. Torin had left her. The only man to ever give her pleasure, the only man she ever wanted to do so and he’d walked way from her.

  She fell to her knees, her stare locked on the empty shuttle bay door, her breath caught in her throat. God, he’d left her alone. What did she do now?

  ***

  What in the name of Syunna are you doing?

  Torin stormed through his ship, barely controlling the urge to smash his fists against the metal walls. He headed for the cockpit, his body so charged with disgusted loathing he felt like someone had stuck a blade into his gut. By the gods, he was a monster.

  Torin Kerridon, last command warrior of the Sol Order. Keeper of the Sun Sword’s truth.

  Rapist.

  He drove his blunt nails into his palms and slammed open the cockpit door, punching a sequence into the navi-comp and dropping into the captain’s chair.

  Rapist.

  The heinous word rolled through his head like diseased fog, sickening him. He ground his teeth, his gut churning. The one thing he’d sworn to Kala before taking her from Earth, the one thing he’d promised—never to stick his dick between her legs—and he’d come so close to destroying that oath.

  He stared out at the never-ending blackness of deep space, Kala’s cries reverberating through his head, an endless loop he couldn’t silence or ignore. He’d thought them cries of pleasure. He’d thought them the sounds of her release. His blood had been roaring in his ears, his own pleasure so absolute at finally being with her the way he’d longed to for so long he’d been deafened to her terror.

  Can’t, no, no, stop, stop, stop!

  Kala screamed in his head again and he let out a choked sob, dropping his face into his hands.

  Syunna, what had he done?

  You know what you’ve done. You lost control. Forgot who you are. Forgot who she is. The question is what are you going to do now?

  What did he do now?

  Leave her alone. Let her have some space.

  Let her climb aboard the skip and leave.

  He let out a sharp growl, slamming his fist onto the control deck. By the gods, he couldn’t let her do that. He couldn’t let her leave.

  Why? Because you haven’t had your fill of her yet?

  Contemptuous disgust coated his mouth at the vile question and he shook his head. No. Because she was the One Who Burns. The fate of mankind rested on her tiny body. In her hands, the Sun Sword would end the rise of malevolence destroying the known universes. In her hands, the Immortals’ blade would bring light where there was only dark.

  What does that mean? You have spent the entire thirty-four years of your life believing an ambiguous notion told by an old man who claimed to see it in the stars. Every aspect of who you are has been built around a prophecy that makes no gods-cursed sense. What if the whole thing is a lie? What if the Sun Sword doesn’t exist at all? What if—

  Torin smashed his fists onto the control deck again, his snarl of furious frustration gouging at his throat. No. He could not believe that. The Sol were older than any other warriors in the known universes. They were the guardians and protectors of the known universes’ one true weapon. They were selected at birth, trained from that moment. They were the most feared and hunted soldiers to live. Men selected by the Oracle for their infinite, violent rage, a furious power controlled and contained by disciplined faith. If the Sun Sword and the prophecy were all a fabrication then what was the meaning of his own existence?

  “You, Torin Kerridon, are the last of the Sol now. All your brother warriors have been butchered.” The Old Seer’s voice echoed through his head, a blunt declaration from a decade ago. His jaw bunched and his fists squeezed tighter. “It is your task and your task alone to find and ready the One Who Burns. No one else must do this. If you do not, the False Fire will prevail. If you do not, all will be lost.”

  The Old Seer had never questioned the prophecy. No matter how cruel and demanding and ambiguous the words that came to him in his visions, the old man had remained true.

  “As you must, Kerridon.”

  Opening his eyes, Torin stared out the cockpit viewscreen. If he was to question his belief now, did he do so solely because of his dangerous desire for Kala Rei? He’d never questioned his role in the prophecy before—he’d seen too many predicted events unfold, too many brutal deaths and travesties committed in the name of the Sun Sword. He existed for one thing and one thing only—to see the ultimate weapon in the hands of the ultimate warrior. Did he turn his back on that existence now? In the hands of the False Fire—the one the Old Seer foretold would hunger the sword with murderous intent—the Immortal’s blade was an instrument of death. Did he deny everything he knew and pray the prophecy was nothing but a lie?

  Life. Death.

  The beginning of the future or the end of existence.

  All hanging in the balance because he couldn’t keep his desire for Kala Rei under cursed control.

  He dragged his hands through his hair, the dull ache in his knuckles telling him he’d hit the control deck harder than he should. “Good,” he snarled, shifting in his seat as he adjusted the co-ordinates of Helios Blade’s trajectory. Pain was good. He deserved to feel it.

  Pushing himself from his chair, he activated the auto-pilot and left the cockpit, heading for the training room.

  He needed to feel pain. More pain.

  A lot of pain.

  ***

  Zroya strode across the marbled centre court of the Solaris Nuns’ compound on P’helios Prime, the squirming weight he dragged behind him impeding his speed not one micro-second.

  “Let me go, you fuck!” the weight screamed, scratching at his wrist with torn, ragged, blood-seeping fingernails. “Let me go, let me go, let me go!”

  “Hush,” he soothed over his shoulder. He tightened his grip on the female’s long dark hair, his gaze never wavering from his master standing motionless on the temple steps.

  The prophet’s white eyes were closed, his leathery face slack and reposed.

  “Let me go!” the Solaris slut pretending to be the One Who Burns screeched. She thrashed, her broken legs flopping uselessly against the smooth marble floor.

  Zroya curled his lip. The False Fire had tried to defend herself against his unexpected attack by kicking him. Kicking him. Striking out at his groin with her feet when he’d wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed.

  He’d punished her for her stupidity, of course, smashing his fist to her nose, shattering both her knees with his heels. The squeals of her pain flooded his groin with hot lust and he’d almost mounted her there and then. But for his master waiting in the temple.

  There were preparations to be made before he could subjugate the False Fire. Rituals to perform. After those rituals, however…

  A tight spasm shot through Zroya’s cock. “Then we shall have our fun, False Fire.”

  “Let me go, you dumb fuck!” the writhing, scratching, thrashing female screeched, clawing at his wrist. “I’m not—”

  “Hush,” he said again, snapping his arm forward. “Your language is unacceptable.”

  The female screamed, her hands scrambling at his fist in her hair.

  “Hush or I shall bite the tongue from your mouth.”

  His blunt promise shut her up. “That is better.” Who would have thought a nun would be so troublesome? He chuckled, walking faster, his gaze still locked on his master. Who would have thought the False Fire would be a Solaris Nun? It was an entirely entertaining revelation, however. He’d never fucked a virgin before, let alone one sanctified by the old gods. “Behave yourself and all will be well.”

  Sniveling sobs followed his lie, the futile struggles ceasing. He nodded. “Much better.”

  He strode the remaining distance to the temple in silence, his body
already prepared for what was to come. Once the Sun Sword was his, well…if the female wanted to scream again, he would not stop her.

  “Master.” He reached the temple steps and dropped to his knee, dragging the False Fire’s face down to the cold marble floor by his foot. “She refuses to give me the Sun Sword or reveal its location.”

  The prophet, the wise one who had found him as a starving child in the sinful streets of Cortallia, selling his body and mouth to depraved men with depraved hands for a scrap of something to eat, lifted his face to the bruised-purple sky. “She refuses because she does not know.”

  As always, the stripped-rawness of his master’s voice sent ribbons of bliss through Zroya’s being, despite his unexpected statement. “She does not know?” He turned his head to stare at the female shaking with silent sobs on the floor beside him.

  “I told you I—” she began to shriek, bulging eyes streaming blood and tears.

  He slammed her face against the marble and she stopped.

  “I have seen her.”

  His master’s calm statement struck Zroya hard and he jerked his stare up. “Seen?”

  The prophet tilted his head to the side, long white hair sliding over his thin shoulder, the stone beads threaded in its strands clattering together in a soft tinkle. “She is on a ship. Within its belly.” He rolled his neck, returning his unseeing eyes to Zroya’s face. “She is…” a small smile played with the corners of his mouth and Zroya barely suppressed his rapturous cringe. When his master smiled, pain ensued. White, cleansing pain. “She is angry.”

  Snapping to his feet, Zroya gazed into the prophet’s face. “Where?”

  His master’s eyelids fluttered and he stroked the rotting rabbits on his belt, the clotting blood sticking to the tips of his fingers. “Close.”