Claimed Possession (The Machinery of Desire Book 2) Page 19

  “In,” he grated. “If you come, I get to lead you naked, down the tower.”

  She gulped, feeling the expansion of a pulsing need. “Fuck you,” she grated out.

  His cock had apparently taken up residence. That he held her so tightly...magnificence incarnate.

  Her spine bowed and she gasped as he withdrew and fucked his cock into her again. The clit string pulled taut. She hissed then sobbed, feeling him coax two fingers into her ass in lieu of his thumb.

  His hand left her breast and found her jaw. Fingers were pushed into her mouth, hooking back the corner of her lips.

  Gulping, she resisted for a fragment of a moment before the completeness of his mastery spun her mind. Eyes sightless, raw arousal swept in, as he took every part of her.

  Sliding out his fingers, gripping her ass to guide himself, he pressed cock to her asshole then was in her, almost...inside.

  “No,” she croaked, thighs stiffening. With her arms caught at her back, her fingers could only scratch at the inside of the mittens. His hold on her mouth muffled her tongue.

  “Yes.” He grunted, shoved a little more and that immense thickness slid, pushed on her, pressing relentlessly despite her babbled protests. She squealed as the head popped past the ring of muscle.

  Already stretched, her opening widened as his cock squeezed inward.

  “Oh. Oh, fff –”

  Pleasure...not pleasure. Deep, deeper, deepest.

  Her bound hands were squashed between his chest and her back. Only by barring his arm across her front did he keep her from collapsing. The rhythm of their fucking was punctuated by guttural noises choked past the thickness of his fingers.

  Moisture slicked the inside of her thighs; drips hit her ankle. The drag and ram of cock devoured her then fed her without consent into the maelstrom of an orgasm where she jerked and moaned, crying out as her clit was punished, as her ass was, as he took her how he wanted.

  At the end, he lowered her until she lay on her side. She struggled for breath, her mittened hands at her back, and her still in the haze of orgasmic aftershocks.

  “Guess you’re going nude today. Not a surprise.” He plucked off the clothespin.

  She barely winced.

  Awareness surfaced. The world shifted into focus.

  Directly before her was a hole in the floor that punched through to the rubble-strewn level beneath.

  Sawyer’s threat might’ve bothered her if it wasn’t for the black, foot-thick tubular creature rolling and slithering past yards below her face.

  Her muffled squeaky “Snake” warning was punctuated by several shots from a long gun fired only inches away. Her ears rang. Sawyer had seen the animal too.

  “Big one.” He grunted. “I think I killed it.”

  By the time he had her climbing down through that hole, and they’d waited a long while before doing that, the snake had stopped moving. Some mystifying and rhythmic crunching concerned her.

  Eating noises?

  Sawyer dropped to the lower floor beside her as she put her foot down. He rose upright; She stayed crouched. With no weapon and no clothes, apart from collar and cuffs – he’d removed the chains – she’d rather let him be the bigger target for whatever was eating the snake.

  Blood oozed from three distinct holes in the snake’s head where rows of tiny antennae still twitched like a bed of weeds moved by a rush of wind. It was further along the carcass that drew her to freeze and stare. A gaping hole had been ripped about midway along the snake, and something moved.

  Sawyer raised his gun but she hissed out a “Wait! I think I know.” The color had given them away. Orange-pink fur.

  It had to be...

  She padded forward, Sawyer beside her with the barrel of the gun leading the way.

  The floor here was fairly intact, and beneath the dust was a polished cream surface.

  A bloody patch a yard wide made her stop. Little legs and pieces of skin, one almost-intact jagg hatchling body, and the red paw prints leading toward the wide gash in the snake told her the answer.

  “You know what this is?” Sawyer whispered.

  “Uh-huh.” She did and she was hoping beyond reason that this animal would be hers to command.

  When only a stride and a half away from the gash, she saw there were two at least. Two? Often the jaggs were down to one by the carnivorous stage. Only their backs were visible. Antlers waved and one of them twisted and jumped into the air as if in fright. It landed with two pairs of legs in the hole in the snake, the other two pairs outside. It stared then opened its mouth, revealing multiple rows of bloodied triangular teeth.

  Ari crouched. “Get low or you might frighten it.”

  “Me? Frighten that? Is it a land shark?”

  “It’s a jagg in the carnivorous phase.”

  “Wait. What? Can’t be true. That’s the size of a Labrador and Keera said she’d seen you with a swarm. Swarm means many. This is two.”

  The second of the jaggs had raised its head and was staring also.

  “My, my, Sawyer. You can count.”

  “Don’t get snarky.” His hand landed on her collar and he levered her back. She had to meet his eyes. “Why are you so keen on these?”

  From the sound, her jagg was padding toward them. “Look out.” She grinned. “They don’t like it when their bonded person is manhandled.” She clicked with her tongue and a second later the waist-high jagg had lolloped forward and was waiting, growling.

  Sawyer narrowed his eyes. “What’d you do?”

  “I fed them blood, when they were small. It bonds them. Now they will like me. Let me go before it bites you. The teeth are sharp and tend to get stuck on bones.” She grinned.

  “You sneaky little...”

  A second jagg arrived and nudged his arm. The head appeared beneath his arm, the jagg switching its antlers back and forth, flowing them where its gaze landed. Her then him. Him, her. Him.

  A second later it pounced on Sawyer, knocking him onto his back. He slid a foot and it jumped, straddling him with its many legs, then...it unrolled a long fat tongue and licked him from chest to forehead.

  Spluttering, he sat up on his elbows. A second later, he smiled. “It likes me.”

  “Impossible.” Scowling, she looked at the jagg that’d waited beside her, only to receive a sloppy lick of her own. Strands of jagg slobber wet her cheek. It licked her again and stuck a paw on her side, flattening her. Luckily the claws were retracted.

  Same treatment Sawyer was getting. She clicked. Oh no... Oh yes.

  “You fed one some blood too, didn’t you, that night?”

  “When? Ahhh, then?” He chuckled. “Not intentionally, no. Looks like you need to fill me in on jagg biology. I thought they had hooves? And they’ve gone from toy size to dog size?”

  She sighed and raised herself on her elbow, grimacing as she suffered more licks from her bonded jagg.

  “Hooves are only at the end stage. These have fought and won, and consumed their sisters. They will grow more slowly from now on, until they reach the adult, omnivorous stage.”

  “So it will it follow me?”

  She frowned.

  To his death, unless he handed it on with a blood offering. They made good hunting companions, good guard creatures. There went an advantage she might’ve had. If only...

  The Scavs would make her give hers up to them. Sadly. This one had such pretty red eyes.

  Though it’d left morsels of shredded and bloody snake on her skin. She flicked them off. Ick.

  If only she could’ve disarmed Sawyer here. A growling jagg, her snatching away his gun...

  Not to be. Too hopeful anyway. Trying to wrestle his gun off him would’ve ended badly without an enormous amount of luck.

  Luck... Once they reached the bottom and met the Scavs, her fate could easily be fearful.

  With a hand on his jagg, Sawyer swung himself to his feet. “We should name these. Mine is Arthur. Yours can be Martha.”

  “These
are girl names?”

  “They’re both female?”

  “Yes,” she replied. They always were at this point.

  “Yes. I swear that Martha and Arthur are girl names.”

  “Okay.” She shrugged. They sounded like flippant childish names, and carnivorous jaggs were anything but childish. What did it matter anyway? “Sawyer, will I be safe at the bottom?”

  “Yes. Your punishment is done.”

  She locked gazes with the man. He meant it, but was he correct? She could feel her nipples standing up, and it wasn’t from cold or from arousal. Sawyer was scary. Zarr was unpredictable and dire. She’d known this was a risk all along. Damn JI and his newly grown morals.

  She stared at her hand. The blood on her fingers could easily be blood from her decapitated body.

  The one moment of relief came when his jagg vomited a fur ball of half-digested flesh and bones all over Sawyer’s boots. She laughed, back of her hand to her mouth. The man would learn.

  Chapter 26

  Though he allowed her hands to be free so she could descend the tower, when they reached the bottom, he put the mittens on again and placed a leash on Ari’s collar. Hours of climbing had sapped her to the point of an exhaustion so great her legs would barely move.

  Being led across to the encampment of the Scavs, naked and leashed, wasn’t that new. That this came after she tried to escape and failed, yes, new. She hated the failure and that Sawyer was probably preening in his mind. Putting mittens on her meant she couldn’t do any sort of work. They’d be taken off eventually. He would let his guard down again.

  She only had to survive and lie low. Surviving this day was the main problem.

  Fatigue wracked every muscle; even her eyes seemed tired, her head. She wanted to lie down and curl up and weep.

  They approached Zarr, who’d apparently decided a flat sheet of rock and some rubble to either side made a throne with armrests. A large sword rested to one side of his faux throne, an orange long gun to the other.

  “Show me how you punished her, Saw! Where is the blood, the bruises?”

  “I punished her as I saw fit. Stay,” he said in a quiet aside to her. “In fact, I want you to kneel. It’ll look better.”

  She kneeled on the gravel-strewn crooked pavers. Zarr had no doubt positioned himself just so. The pavers were mostly vanished, eaten by landslides and weather and catastrophe, but those that remained led in a makeshift path to his makeshift throne.

  They were three yards from where he sat, scowling. Scavs gathered at the sides, both sitting and standing. More were arriving.

  One long gun was carried in Sawyer’s right hand and the other gun, Keera’s, was slung over his shoulder with a rope strap.

  “Though a little scratched, her tits, her face, her front look perfectly normal. I hope her back is fit only for spitting on? Show. Turn her.” Zarr made a circle in the air with his finger.

  “No, Zarr. I caught her. She was punished. My slave. My right.”

  “You will soon be a slave if I say so!” he roared, throwing himself upright. The blue tattoos on his face writhed as he raged. “If you have not done as I told you to, you have two choices now. Kill her or become a slave yourself. Choose!”

  Sawyer’s left hand landed on her head and he scrunched in his fingers. “Be good. Do not be afraid, Ari.”

  As if that helped.

  Maybe it did. There was reassurance in the weight of his hand on her and even in her name being said – as if she mattered to him. Her toes curled.

  Zarr wanted her death.

  “Choose!” Zarr repeated.

  Cold washed and ebbed through her. She tried to creep back on her knees, only to be stopped by Sawyer’s hand tightening in her hair.

  “Pardon my humble opinion, Zarr.” Dayne stepped out. Sassik wasn’t far behind. “May I –”

  Keera was pushing herself to her feet from her seat on a block.

  “You may not! Sit down. Choose, Saw.”

  “Her dead?” Sawyer drawled. “Or me a slave?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then I choose death.” He half-turned, bringing his long gun up, finger to the trigger.

  Where could she go? She simply could not run fast enough to escape this. She must close her eyes and meet her fate. This felt like the ultimate in betrayal, though really what else should she have expected...

  Then he turned back and blew a great hole in Zarr.

  Blood splattered the rock throne and he slumped to the ground.

  Dead, dead, dead.

  He’d killed Zarr. Mouth open, thoughts scattered, she stared.

  “Come!” Sawyer wrenched at her arm and she tumbled, then staggered to her feet. A gunfight was breaking out. Ducking, firing one handed, he ran with her toward some rocks.

  Half the Scavs seemed to be firing on the other half. Though when they reached cover, she saw that was untrue. Only a few were fighting back against a larger group led by Dayne, Keera, and Sassik.

  “Stay there.” Weaving, he ran back toward the fighting.

  A thunderous cracking and grinding sound from above distracted her and she looked up, to see a six-legged, giant metal bug walking down the toppled tower. It crunched pieces of the building as it walked, disintegrating some into smashed dust that puffed beneath its circular feet. Chunks rolled down and landed in trees that grew near the base.

  A war machine. A machine from the past. Its upper hull shone in mottled gold and black, and two thin, translucent shields attached down the middle of its spine raised like wings.

  A gun-like tube popped up above the cockpit head. Green fire blazed forth, scorching a line in the earth where she’d recently stood. Roaring, the line of fire ate its way along as the bug walked closer, as the fighting died. The fire winked out a few yards before it reached Zarr’s prone body. Zarr lay on his back, looking up at the sky.

  “It’s a warbug!” someone shouted.

  The machine halted, rocking, with steam hissing from joints, perched upon the collapsed, lower layers of the building.

  Far above, in the slot of sky, the light had faded enough that stars were coming out.

  From the belly of the bug several metal ladders fell, and men poured down them or dropped from hatches. They ran forward and past her. One stopped next to her and stared. His stark black armored suit was in contrast to the red gun in his hands.

  “Hello, pretty thing.”

  She gulped. Naked before the Scavs with Sawyer beside her – she could cope with that, but this man was a stranger. Though she studied him and saw he was a Scav warrior also. She wrapped her hand over her collar where the leash attached, as if hiding that somehow helped.

  “She’s mine,” barked Sawyer. He arrived beside her, his long gun pointed low.

  Mine – for once it was a relief to hear that stated.

  Sawyer...she considered what he’d done...had he truly risked enslavement or death to help her? Who was this man?

  His palm settled on her head again, and she let out a small sigh. Safe.

  Safe? With him? It felt good. She’d figure out why and maybe chastise herself, later.

  “Dayum.”

  She turned to where Sawyer was looking. Something...two somethings, were perched over Zarr’s corpse, and they were eating him, feasting off his legs and his stomach area.

  The jaggs.

  Their hunger during this phase was often phenomenal, or so she’d heard. The crunch and crack of bone was audible from here, as were the gobbling sounds. Gruesome.

  Now one of them was shaking its head, worrying the corpse. Ari grimaced.

  “How apt,” Sawyer muttered. “Go Martha. Go Arthur. Cheapest pets to feed, ever. Not sure I’m ever taking them for walkies.”

  Chapter 27

  After washing, he’d rested for the night. When he woke it was almost dawn. He needed to talk to Osta, so he dragged himself and Ari out of the pile of bedding and from the quiet nook he’d found for them. He’d bet they were the only ones who’d sl
ept.

  He found Osta. A new leader, a new man to assess. Hopefully, this one was saner.

  Campfires to the left lit up the area and reflected off the belly of the warbug directly above them. Osta had chosen here instead of a safer place to set up his private soirée. If the bug fell over, they’d be squashed. The thing must be damn ancient. Rust streaked its sides and legs. Reassuring his men of his courage perhaps? At the least it was a show of bravado.

  If not for the need to speak to the man, Sawyer wasn’t sure he’d be here.

  Before sleeping, Sawyer had talked to people about Osta, gauging the situation.

  Where Zarr had been an overbearing and psychotic despot, Osta was apparently a practical-minded, relaxed, but determined man. He went for the jugular then waited for you to figure out how to do what he wanted you to. Psychology – the man knew his powers.

  Charismatic was the best word Sawyer could think of to describe him.

  He was solid, tall, like maybe even seven feet? Built as if he did more than drive war machines to get from A to B, and he looked as if he’d break your hand if you were stupid enough to punch him. Bristly pepper-gray hair and a square face. Black clothes. Maybe Osta was a latent ninja?

  How had he sneaked up with that ginormous warbug?

  He hadn’t spoken to JI, but the mech had exited from the machine after it’d stopped. That explained the why but not the how. Possibly the sounds from above hadn’t channeled down into this chasm until it had broached the edge.

  “So, you’re a human, from another world. I’ve seen some of you. They say you’re good lovers – better than most.” Osta raised a goblet and smiled then lay back on his ancient sofa among the cushions. “A human woman was being rented as a whore in a grounder town.”

  Sawyer sat forward to the edge of his own sofa. “Could you remember who that was? Her name?”

  He waved a hand. “An Ash-lee?”

  Ashleigh. Not Fern, of course. It couldn’t have been her.

  They were smoking some brown substance that was surely giving the smoothest high Sawyer had ever experienced. Yet this man opposite was still more intelligent than any man had a right to be while drugged after being awake for an entire night.