Prey (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 1) Page 4

  So damn calculating.

  Her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth.

  Protest, say something.

  A bar of rubbery softness was slipped between her teeth and fastened at the back of her head.

  She should protest. Needed to. Must. Nonsense words burbled from her mouth and past the bit as his cock found her, found the exact place she wanted him to be, and she shut her eyes beneath the blindfold and simply...

  Felt.

  The fire from the stretch...

  Gasping, captivated by what he did, she tilted backward, falling into the bonds and his hands. With the blindfold on, her imagination soared as he...it...slid inside. She squealed.

  Chapter 6

  That female squeal made Zarblu shudder and his balls scrunched tight, ready to pour his come into this delicious creature he held.

  This first time, his self-control was so important.

  If she hadn’t fallen into his hands, where would he be now?

  Where? Not sinking the very tip of his cock into a nubile fleshborn woman while straining not to fuck her endlessly, to the depths of her welcoming, wet cunt. And not coming should earn him a medal because, of course, if he went all-out, he’d likely kill her.

  Inject some basht into her open cunt, let it soak into her tissues, and next time she’d be more open. That was it. Full stop. He’d be a fool to do more, yet the head had squeezed farther than it had any right to do on a fresh, untrained woman. The Andurian was to blame.

  The slide, the heavy tight clamp of her around him. Zarblu looked down at the wonder of his sexual organ penetrating her to at least a half a finger length.

  His primitive consciousness screamed at him to thrust harder.

  No. He must not. Carefully he removed his teeth from her neck, leaving indentations in her skin, then he straightened. Teased by the sight of that crescent of pink-red, he rocked into her. Finally he let himself release.

  The small gush of pre-come would be all for today, for him, perhaps. Unless, she spread her legs for him again?

  Time though, the basht needed time to work.

  Hissing in disappointment he closed his jaw then sucked in a fine breath of life through his teeth. Promising life, because the next time he’d go deeper.

  Mila.

  He pulled out, hissing again as cool air flooded the most sensitive head. Very little of the pinkish basht liquid dripped from her, only her own copious fluids.

  “You enjoyed that. I could tell.”

  She said nothing, only stood with her legs slightly spread, her hands clenching and unclenching on the wire. When he swept his hand down her back, despite his gentleness he left scratches, and she didn’t whimper or say a word. She just kept on panting, face and mouth buried in the wire.

  Overwhelmed? Good.

  Getting her ready for Sacrifice Day would be a fine line. That she also had to volunteer – problems, always problems.

  Chapter 7

  This bar-and-lodgings place off the long processional way that led into the Arena looked the best place to crash she could find, quickly. Mila had exited with her sheathed sword in one hand, pack in the other, only wincing a little as she walked. They’d surely sprayed between her legs with something numbing. After that sex, she should be walking like an old-Earth duck.

  The bright pink backpack with the kitty kat logo was crammed full of her worldly and unworldly goods. She never trusted storage and kept her things with her as much as possible – though RETinal ID would get her into her bank account and most important places. She’d showered but was dressed in the same gear. She must smell of whatever Zarblu was made of...not her best moment.

  Stone mightn’t smell but stoneshifters did.

  For a long time the rankness of him had clogged her nostrils, even after scrubbing between her legs, then it’d faded. Hopefully that wasn’t due to her smell sensors dying and giving in. No one she passed seemed to eye her in a shocked way.

  Good. She was normal.

  Really?

  Mila paused in the entrance of the motel-bar, her boot half raised to negotiate the sticky doorstep. Normal? That insinuated getting screwed senseless twice in one day by ginormous aliens was her new norm.

  Not. Please not.

  She sauntered into the Welcome Booth, registered with her RET ID and booked a room, then climbed the stairs, weary and ready for bed. Wait. A drink? She’d earned it. She’d get one at the bar, soon as she dumped her stuff. Something potent and cold.

  What was she going to do next? The wish was gone, an impossibility. Must she leave Tiana here? Failure was not her motto. Besides, time was not infinite, for her. She eyed the black tendrils creeping into her fingernail beds. Nothing to lose, not for her. Not now.

  Blood was blood. Only problem was she was fucking tired, weary down to atom level, and she had no notion as to how to get Tiana from Zarblu’s clutches. He owned a friggin fortress.

  The last flight of stairs left her heaving in air. She should have looked for longer and found a place with functioning lifts.

  This place – Dueler’s Last Resort – was messy as hell, decrepit, and would probably fail certification as a dump.

  Which was why shoving open the etched, red-metal door to find a room with a grimy bed that took up most of the space, and some form of multi-legged pest scattering to the four winds across the floor, was not a surprise.

  The hands on her back were, however. Those pushed her forward and she staggered and fell. One knee sank into the bug-chewed bed cover, one boot hit the floor. Mila kept going, somersaulting forward and twisting, to land facing her assaulter.

  Make that assaulters. Plural.

  The overmaster and a henchman. She squinted, filtering out the flare of corridor light behind them. Her sword was held by the overmaster – he’d wrenched it from her as she fell. He also had a large blue weapon trained on her. Some sort of auto-fire laser. With fancy blipping lights.

  Oh she was way too tired and fucked in the head for this nonsense, and she was already rummaging in her pack with her left hand.

  “Go.” The overmaster waved away the crony and he slipped backward. The door clanged shut, leaving just her and this slimy, overconfident blob of a man. “Remember the agreement? You lose and I get to claim you. Stop searching that. I know this is your only weapon.”

  He raised the sheathed sword.

  There had been some agreement like that.

  “I didn’t lose. Remember?” She waggled her right index finger in admonition, while still feeling for something useful in the pack.

  This. That? No that was a packet of chocolate...and then a souvenir, a sachet of sauce, or lube. Her hand rapidly and blindly sorted through junk.

  “Guilty of cheating, losing, getting fucked by the lord Zarblu...same, same.” He grinned, used his thumb to click something on his gun.

  “I beg to differ.”

  “Oh you will beg. This I guarantee. The things I plan to do to you. I’m going to fuck holes you never knew you had. Turn around, hands at your back.” He jerked the gun, as if that would encourage her.

  Finding a weapon was a big-ass priority at this current second. She pulled it out. Big, black, rubbery. Long enough to be called deadly on a few planets. Mila frowned at her favorite dildo.

  The overmaster laughed. Snot actually bubbled out his nose and his face turned an overblown red. Which was when she saw the secondary pair of snorting nostrils on his forehead. Small but icky.

  Ugly, even for an alien on this backassward planet.

  “Fine. Damn you to a thousand, fiery, black-hole hells.” She went to turn but instead flung the dildo at him.

  His laugh became louder, more raucous, in that very, last, second of his life.

  Her pet black dildo, Mister Ram, was weighted with heavy depleted cucanium harvested from a battlefield on a far distant planet. She only fucked other people with this one. The bad guys.

  The pop-out blade at the tip skewered him right in the middle of his snorty red
forehead.

  Blood dribbled out, a little, as he slid to the floor, crumpling like a bag of wind. He vanished from sight but she heard the thud.

  Retrieving the dildo was a must. Evidence, right? Would they prosecute her for killing a guy who aimed to enslave her while pointing a gun at her tits?

  Maybe.

  She crawled forward, peeked down at him.

  “Fuck.” Mila pushed her hand through her hair, grabbed a hunk while she made her brain do stuff. Think.

  “Fuck, I need a drink.”

  She frowned at the dead overmaster as his last breath whiffled from his mouth and little nostrils.

  “Mouth to mouth?” she whispered. “Nah.”

  The dildo was plugging the wound hole. He could wait. The floor seemed fluid proof anyway.

  Maybe she should ask for a change of room?

  Where did you lose bodies in this place?

  That thought consumed her all the way down the stairs. The henchman was nowhere visible. The communicator she’d found in the coat pocket on Snorty McSnorty had been locked, so she’d left it on his body. The gun, she’d left too. Stealing was sometimes a worse offence than killing. Depended on the attitudes of the local law.

  Drink time.

  Trouble could do the work and find her, she wasn’t looking.

  Not without something intoxicating in her.

  She was staring into a tiny glass of some exceptionally cold, green fluid, which had a tiny umbrella bobbing in it, when a tall someone wearing a cloak and dark gray hood slipped onto the stool next to her.

  Green clouds floated over her drink. The umbrella had sunk.

  “Hi there,” he grated, in a tone that suggested he gargled ball bearings.

  She grunted. “Hi, yourself. Ever wonder why bar stools are a universe-wide phenomenon?”

  “This is a philosophy bar?”

  She sniffed and found half a noseful of the green vapors had been sucked into her nostrils. Eyes watering, she croaked an answer. “Could be?”

  Her head was swimming with visions of amphibious adventures on a faraway island.

  “Mermaids?” She squinted into the glass.

  “That’s frood,” the hooded man elaborated. “It gives specific fantasies and makes you fall over drunk after about three.

  “Wha’ about four?”

  “You’ve had four?” His voice squeaked.

  “’Bout that?”

  An exaggeration but it was a good strategy to pretend intoxication.

  “That seems far too many for an unaccompanied female to partake of in a foreign bar.”

  “Foreign?” Mila looked about, gaze stealing from one disreputable customer to the next badly dressed and mean-looking customer. All were disreputable, really. “Nah, not foreign. I feel I know the place already. Sides, I will blow you into smithereens if you try anything.”

  “With? That sword?”

  He had a point. Swords did tend to slice and dice instead. She stared into the black and silvery void of the cave inside his hood. A light sucking hood, for sure. Made it hard to see what the bastard looked like.

  “A big fat dildo called Mister Ram.”

  “Ahhh.”

  “Cucanium tipped.” She spread her hands. “So long. Hidden blade. Perfect weight for nailing the suckers. Say, you know of a way to dispose of a body?”

  “Absolutely. My specialty. I’m a retired assassin.”

  She’d figured so. From his dress, manner. Part AI at least too. Not the sort of man or cyborg to frequent bars, unless he had a business motivation.

  “Dare I employ you?”

  “Already employed for the night. Name’s Ledderik. However...I saw your fights. I might do it for free if I had a reason.”

  What reason would a retired assassin cyborg like?

  “He’s...he was, an asshole.”

  Ledderik shook his head, opened his gloved hands. “So many of those.”

  “Tried to kill me too.”

  “Also too common.”

  Fuck. What would work on this Ledderik? Not enough data to tell, or functioning brain cells – most were off on an island holiday with mermen. Go for the obvious then. “He’s the overmaster from the arena.”

  She could swear she heard the smile, and the creak of his grin.

  “Ahhh. Target acquired. I’d do this for free for anyone. Upstairs in your room?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Thanks. Don’t take the dildo. It’s in him.”

  “I would never. My card.” He laid a holocard on the stained bench. Before vanishing, it shimmered for long enough for her to read it and acquire the info. “If you ever have a need, dial me. Now, the real reason I’m here. A certain someone has a dislike for how the stoneshifters on this world have to acquire their mates.”

  So she was his real target. Or job was a better description. He wasn’t killing her.

  “Go on.” Mila pushed aside her glass.

  “This client knows of your desire to free your sister.”

  Did everyone know why she was here? Did he know what Zarblu had done to her?

  “You know what happened...”

  He nodded. “Of course. He has large appetites. You’re not the first.”

  It’d probably been spread across-planet by now, copied and made into posters, memes. Mila of the famous vag might well be on her tombplate.

  “They want to gift you with some information regarding the fortress of the stoneshifter. Of a way to enter without being seen.

  Well, now. Not that she’d quite given up but this...this might help her a lot.

  She contemplated the sword on the bar top and slipped one hand over the hilt, patted it lightly.

  Fingers...

  The tiny forest of black in her nail beds reminded her of her past wrong doings. More of the black there in only sixty-nine days. She’d always known the next job might kill her, or the next, the next. And then it’d happened and she was past the point of no return almost before she registered that something evil had been upon her. Life zipped past, waving bye-bye.

  Unreal. Unfair. Mila blinked and refocused on Ledderik.

  “Keep going.” She breathed in some more frood and more mermen dreams while a shifty individual brushed past and tried to snag her sword from the bar. She’d seen him coming and deftly slid the weapon free, leaving him with only the sheath and the sword point digging at his side.

  “Why?” She poked a little harder and he winced. Straggles of greasy long hair swung over his face.

  “Master wants...” he grudgingly said.

  Ledderik had wedged his leg behind the man’s butt, leaving him nowhere to go.

  “Trapped tween two bar stools, hey?” She grinned. “Who is Master?” She screwed the sword in and a spot of blood blossomed on his gray shirt.

  “Ummm. Owns shop. Says you bought it too cheap. Stole an antique he never meant to sell.”

  So Treeter had figured out what she had. “Well, tough behoozas to him. I win, I own, and I have the receipt to prove it. He loses. Buzz. Off.”

  Hands held high so they could see them, he backed away muttering, “Sorry.”

  “Drop the sword sheath too.”

  “Sorry!” He tossed it to her.

  Not until he’d vanished out the entry door did she turn to Ledderik again. “Is there a price for this information on Zarblu’s fortress?”

  He hunched forward. “No. I can give you the architectural design which has marked on it a route that can be used to bypass security.”

  “That simple? No chance of being charged with stealing this design?”

  “Simple, yes. The plans aren’t precisely a secret and knowing the weakness in security isn’t something you could be prosecuted for.”

  Too easy. Alarms were waking up in her head. But, she could be super careful about how to use this.

  Mila told Ledderik the code for her mail access plus a priority subject line that would bring it straight to her attention.

  Within seconds of him staring into spa
ce, a quiet ding in her mind told her the mailbox had registered the new message.

  “Got it?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I’ll check it out later.”

  He slid from the stool. “I’m done then. Wait an hour before going to your room. Have a good night, miss.”

  She shook his hand, murmured thanks.

  After a subtle dip of his head in her direction, he walked away.

  The bar seemed less...ominous minus the cyborg. She’d caught a flash of orange light from within the hood and knew his eyes were augmented. His gloved hand had been humanoid however. Not all of him was artificial. How much of what he said was truth, now that was another matter.

  She dedicated that hour to thought and to imbibing of liquor and intoxicants before she returned upstairs.

  Her room was clean of body. Clean of dirt even. She suspected the bed cover was new. A neat pile of dead buglets had been left in the trash can.

  “Wow. Now this is thorough.”

  She almost felt bad about not paying him, until she recalled that someone unknown was paying him.

  Every public record she could search for and pin down said the fortress design was correct.

  The low-security route though...Mila chewed her lip, sucked on it, watched some porno, stared at the design and route again. No. She didn’t know the odds on this part.

  A pity.

  A pity because she was going there. If she couldn’t get Tiana out legally, she’d do it her way, using every illegal, sneaky, underhand method at her disposal.

  Then she showered again and lay on the bed to try to find sleep. Her pussy ached, stung, reminded her of all the impossible things that’d been done to her...Zarblu shoving himself in. The press of him inside her. She shut her eyes and breeeathed, torn between masturbating and searching the starwebz for a therapist. Instead she ventured into the lobby downstairs and bought some crushed ice to stuff in a plastic bag.

  Keeping the makeshift ice pack between her legs worked until she almost froze down below.

  For the next hour, all she did was imagine those black tendrils creeping into her, deep, deeper, intruding into lungs, heart, her brain, her eyes.

  “Fuck this.” She turned over and punched her pillow into submission.