Prey (Dark Monster Fantasy Book 1) Read online

  They’d arrived at a floodlit cargo area, and Ledderik had his men make her and Tiana lean over a pile of crates waiting to be transported. One of the Andurians then bound their hands at their backs with bright red rope. It tightened instantly to the point of pain.

  Mila recognized it for what it was and when released she swung on Ledderik, accusingly.

  “Slipmeknot rope? Really?”

  “Of course.” He grinned. “I don’t trust you. You’ve wriggled out from under so many times.”

  Her hair had fallen over her face. Angry, she glared at him through it, contemplating gutting him with a blunt spoon. Though really, she should be thinking of doing that to Tiana. What Tiana had done was expected though, and she’d resigned herself to helping her in whatever manner she had to. If a man, Tiana would be an A-grade asswipe. As a woman...yeah still an asswipe, just she was family asswipe.

  That counted.

  During their walk here, she’d been thinking. Her exit from the fortress had been flawless, apart from the loopzard glitch. The whole plan had been. She’d researched the legal no-go zone in the spaceport. Yet even with that...

  “How come I’ve not heard of this grand capital theft exclusion clause?” While she spoke, she tested the rope, tried to stretch it. Of course, nothing moved. She would’ve tried to run if not for Tiana. This was getting to be altogether too iffy. She wasn’t sure of Ledderik’s intentions, of the odds of surviving this sacrifice.

  Nothing about stoneshifters seemed, well, set in stone. The facts got fudged, rewritten, melted down.

  “It’s done. I have you both.”

  “Not enough.”

  Why trust a cyborg with a thing for killing to shepherd the precious sacrifice who’d save your ass from ten years of being, essentially, a big door-stopper?

  Though he had been with Zarblu a long time. That fact was in the records.

  “Over-ruled.” The wall of armed Andurians behind Ledderik, brandishing a variety of weapons, lent him a menacing air. Well, more menacing. He was already a wretched sadist and a murderer.

  “I want a judge to rule on this. I’m sure you made that clause up.”

  Something told her maybe, just maybe, she’d left this idea a bit late in execution.

  “Mmmm. No. I made it up tonight, yes, but a judge has ruled on this already. I had the paperwork done and filed and signed on, and it’s legal. I...” He tapped his chest. “Get things done. I use the authority he gave me, and Lord Zarblu has a lot of influence.

  “You see...” Purring the word, he padded closer, drawing his weapon, grinning like he was about to eat both her and Tiana, whose lip was quivering. “Your stoneshifter lord has become soft over the centuries, and he knows it. When he really wants something done that requires a darker touch, he assigns it to me. Right now, he’s got the brains of a lively rock. He knew it might come to this and didn’t want to miss out on fucking you, despite his new conscience.”

  Placing the barrel beneath Mila’s jaw, he tipped up her chin.

  “So you do as I say. Or else I get to torture your fucking sister. Got that?”

  “Yes, I get that.” She tried not to stare cross-eyed at the gun. “You’re swearing more than before.”

  “I am. It’s because I’m off the leash at the moment. I get a bit dizzy with the power. But!” He backed away. “I’m fine. As long as you don’t provoke me into doing something bad, I am fine. I owe Zarblu my obedience. He saved me, once, from a horrifying fate. So. Walk. I have transport waiting. It’s well past midnight and you’re due in the Sacrifice Hall.”

  Meekly, Tiana walked past him.

  “You too.”

  She took out her frustrations on the inside of her cheek, chewing on it while breathing far too rapidly and deep. “Okay.”

  When she caught up to where he stood, Ledderik leaned down and whispered to her. “You know I get to tie you to the table too. The perks of the job. And then I get to watch him do his thing. Never get tired of that. Squeezing that massive thing into you girls. Oh, the squeals fill my heart with passion and delight.”

  She muttered a curse at him but kept walking. Ledderik chuckled. As they passed through the huge cargo hall doors, shiny night lenses flicked over his eyes.

  “Our ride awaits.” He took her by the crook of the elbow and directed her to the dark-windowed air flitter.

  What was coming?

  Bad things. Surely.

  * * * * *

  Deep, dark nighttime, when the sounds seemed the cold teeth of some imaginary dragon, and the air of the streets was strewn with both hopeful futures and the remnants of every sin, and the sun was unlikely to ever rise again.

  They drove onward.

  Hours to go before dawn. What had she agreed to?

  Once they were inside the fortress, Ledderik called up a small-wheeled, motorized buggy, pulled her in, and whisked them down a hallway wide enough for half a battalion to march through abreast. Tiana was being taken elsewhere. To Mila’s chagrin, she realized she’d barely noticed her sister’s departure and had not said goodbye. Tiana was going somewhere safe, Ledderik told her and she was thankful he’d simply said that and not tried to torture her with delayed information, because this man definitely had a thing for torture.

  Though the slipmeknot rope was hurting her hands, he refused to loosen it. He merely examined her and left the rope alone. The little tune he hummed as they neared their destination dragged her nerves to the edge.

  The only thing that kept her hopeful, in the oddest way, were Zarblu’s words. They’d sunk into her memories and now they returned.

  These Andurians are large, but I am larger when in my beast-state. I can see you want me to take you, to fuck you, but we must be slow. Very...very, slow.

  He’d been finger-fucking her gloriously when he’d said that.

  She felt his large fingers again, moving into her, pulling apart her entrance and widening her, and her insides melted at that tactile memory.

  He’d also said... Soon I will fuck you properly.

  Meaning he intended her to be here. From his care with her, when he’d had her with him, surely he wished her no harm? From all his actions, he seemed to care. Then why send Ledderik?

  Duh. Because, obviously, she was running away from him.

  She lowered her head, thinking, trying not to get more aroused by the knowledge that he was soon to be near her again. A monster, but a very male monster. He’d moved her around as if she were a toy, rearranged her, made her suck him, lick him. She remembered how he’d tasted, and it made her utterly confused. Her chemical reaction to this basht was messing with her. That was it, right?

  Nevertheless, that Zarblu was so determined to have her, it shook her sensible brain until she felt like one of those ancient snow globes, with her emotions bubbling around her, floating her toward this unknown.

  Being taken to him, being made to be his because he desired it to be so...it was suddenly alluring. To be fucked by a stone beast-monster should never be alluring.

  “Shit,” Mila whispered, resisting squirming on the seat. Instead she tensed, went still.

  Control thyself, as the many-flowered bible-thumpers said when they visited brothels, or came across people humping in the alleys.

  She smiled, remembering the couples she’d seen strewn with blossoms.

  Control.

  It didn’t help. Lust throbbed from her center. When the wheels ran over the smallest imperfections, the vibrations bumped at her. If she could only loosen the buckle on her suit, so it didn’t press so on her clit.

  Huffing out her frustration, she slumped back into the seat upholstery, her eyelids at half-mast, feeling her nipples tighten and poke at the rigid inside of her suit. Something else was happening below, between her legs, and she dreaded getting up, because Ledderik would see. If she squeezed her thighs even harder together, maybe nothing would escape.

  Huge mottled-red doors loomed ahead.

  The screen on the buggy’s dash showed those
doors were at the endpoint of the journey.

  The Sacrifice Hall was beyond.

  The doors towered above the vehicle. Far above was a square skylight, crosshatched with bars that let in dust-dappled sunlight. Mouth agape, she looked up and thought of how this might be her last glimpse of sky and freedom, and life.

  As the doors began to open, whatever engines powered them ground out creaks and rumbles, and the doors cast immense creeping shadows that seemed to reach into her heart and pull at her sense of self.

  You are nothing, they said. Bow before our grandeur.

  What being could order the construction of this room, designed only to be used once every decade, and not be her superior? No wonder they worshipped him...their Lord Zarblu.

  With a boom the doors hit their stops and stayed wide and open.

  “Come.” Ledderik took her by the arm again and helped her from the buggy. His gaze drifted past her and he smiled. “You wet the seat, somewhat copiously. Excited to see him?”

  She refused to respond, to blush, or to acknowledge his taunt. Now that she stood so close to where Zarblu planned to rut, to where he must be confined, she could smell him. The scent of the male stoneshifter was unmistakable.

  “It’s normal for you females. I’ve seen it before. Come.”

  He towed her forward until they passed through the doors, where an incredibly round and short man, dressed in white, sat at one end of a long but low desk. He tapped at a device.

  “Who is this? She’s not the female allotted?” He peered at his screen.

  “No. But she’s the one he wants. The other has been dismissed.”

  Mila gulped.

  “The other was... Tiana Echeva?”

  “Yes. This is Mila.”

  “Last name or other names?”

  “The same last name. They’re sisters.”

  “Oh!” He paused in his tapping, peered up at her. “Unusual. Interesting. Have her lie down so I can calibrate her vagina. You know we cannot allow them in if death is highly likely from the intercourse?”

  “Yes.” Grinning, Ledderik hauled her to the end of the desk. “Lie down on your front.”

  She did so, a little hesitant, but this seemed a measure to help her not hinder. He might even... She winced as her thighs were pried apart, the buckle undone, and something cold was applied to her there, inserted deeply, pinching. Little clicking sounds occurred. All so clinical.

  He might even disqualify her?

  But was that bad or good? Which did she want?

  “Ummm.” The little man tut-tutted. “Six six two. She makes it, barely. You’ll be required to do this especially carefully, the introduction, the heightening of her arousal, etcetera. Are we clear?”

  “Yes.” Ledderik pulled her to her feet. “Hear that? Slow and steady, because you’re tight. The crowds won’t mind, neither will the snack sellers, the networks.”

  Somehow, she’d forgotten half the planet watched this. She wasn’t supposed to be here.

  “Fuck you,” she slurred out, her tongue feeling disconnected from her mind.

  “Hehe. Oh the jokes I could make on that. We have a few last formalities.”

  If she said no, she’d go to prison for long enough that her leech would take her over.

  This was better... Bemused, she blinked down at the document before her. “Where do I sign?”

  He untied her hands then tapped a screen doc and a paper one, then a retinal scanner on a tripod that held it above the table. “Sign here and there. Tap here. Put your eye against that.”

  She did as he told her too, though the pen wobbled in her fingers and she dropped it twice.

  “Come.” Again he tugged at her arm.

  “Wait.” The small man held up his palm. “Her comm is blocked. Why is that? I see three messages are queued to go to her from Lord Zarblu.”

  “Legalities only. Wait.” Ledderik stared at nothing. “Done. Unblocked.”

  The first two messages sifting down her retinas dissolved and were overwritten by the third.

  If this is what reaches you, Ledderik will be chastised once I regain my full senses. He was to bring you here but not terrify you. I have done everything, everything I can to ensure our union will be safe, though it will never be completely that. Sexual intercourse in any species is never foolproof and safe. All that will be done to you is for your safety. I long ago forsake the careless rutting of the past. Please believe this.

  I will take care of you.

  The words swirled and she read them twice, to understand them.

  Ledderik shrugged. “Apparently, I’m to do penance and I’m to tell you this. You are still legally allowed to back out and choose a prison term rather than this, mating with Lord Zarblu. There.”

  So, he’d been messing with her more than Zarblu wanted, maybe.

  “Your answer, Miss Mila Echeva?” The small white-coated man had a finger poised over his screen.

  Prison or this? Mating with him. Fear and desire. Desire and fear.

  She shut her eyes, and again the pheromones and chemicals saturating the air hit her brain, beguiling and beckoning. She found herself shuffling forward, just to catch a...a sniff. Such an animal need. Her thighs and ass muscles tensed and relaxed, then cycled through the actions again.

  She couldn’t stop. Her body wanted. Her mind too, or part of it.

  To rut, to fuck, to let him bury himself inside her. The fog closed in. Nothing here meant anything to her, except him, her waiting beast. She could hear the scrape of his feet on the floor within the room. Back and forth, he stalked.

  “Your answer?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, walking into the room, immersing herself in what was to come.

  The smell of stoneshifter and stone beast prickling deep into her skin, blurring thoughts, drugging her in a thick sexual morass. Her feet seemed to tangle and the cyborg grasped her upper arm to steady her. Her pussy seemed to grow plumper, readying her.

  Echoes... Echoes of footsteps dogged her.

  Behind her, the doors began to grind closed.

  “Are you afraid?” Ledderik said. “You should be. Fear is inevitable here. It grows from the walls, from the sacrifice table, from the deaths, from the centuries of females fucked to sustain the life of our lord Zarblu.”

  “Afraid?” she said softly, absentmindedly. “No.” Gods above, that scent...

  A roar struck, vibrating the floor. Him. Already befuddled, she fell to one knee, slapped her palm to the warm flagstones.

  Warm. This gigantic room was heated, as if it were an incubator devoted to hatching. She wondered how stoneshifters reproduced, then the thought wriggled away and was lost. Sex was the altar she worshipped at here. Every stifled breath of every creature, every touch of flesh and stone to any surface of this room, stirred atoms and the air, made known to her what existed.

  Slowly, she swung her head and focused.

  He was to her right. In the very darkest place. Her inhalations rasped, in, out. Be calm.

  Hooking his hand into her elbow, Ledderik pulled her to her feet. “I need you naked. I have a dress for you. Enough fabric to give him something to do with you, not enough to frustrate him.”

  She swayed then fumbled at her buckle.

  “You’re spaced out, aren’t you? Already. He’ll like that.”

  She stripped and was soon nude. The air caressed her. Every garment dropped at her feet. The cyborg lowered a dress over her head and softness floated down her body, tormenting her nipples with the delicacy of the sensation.

  A pale dress with a tattered hem and a skirt torn through in places, and a split at the back. Her breasts were also mostly revealed by tears and fragile fabric.

  “He’ll like this too,” said the cyborg. “Bend over and it falls away.”

  Yes, when she put her hand back there, she found her ass was bared more than covered.

  Her eyes adjusted to the gloom. Fifty paces from her and to the right, thick bars ran from floor to a ceiling over
two stories above. Behind those bars he paced.

  On automatic, her mind still processed. There’d be lenses everywhere, tuned to adjust to the poor light, watching and waiting. More lights swelled on over the caged area – revealing some, leaving other details only suggestions. Shades of black and gray, except where his eyes glowed red. On his face, the parallel slant of long teeth. The columns of legs, the fold of bulbous joints. Rock and stone, particles of gleaming diamond frosted him with brilliances that caught the light when he prowled, back and forth. Sometimes he halted, his teeth grinding at a bar that frustrated him.

  Back and forth, he went, charging the bars and thumping in, spraying the room with fragments of stone that skittered. Joints and stumpy ears glinted with gems when he shook himself. Broad stripes of brown and black on limbs. And his eyes glowed red and he snuffled when he raised his head.

  “Scenting you,” said the cyborg. “He seeks you, knows you’re here, though his eyes are fairly blind. We are late, so he is fully awake.”

  He was a mountain on legs, a beast with a cock that awed her. It hung beneath his body, lolling, thick, and heavy.

  His first roar? Mila’s body still felt that reaching into her, shaking her, twisting her to his ends. The erection on her monster was longer than her arm and it swayed, threateningly, as he thumped his feet upon the ruptured stone paving.

  Could she withstand that?

  I will take care, he’d said.

  The first dribble ran down her inner thigh. She didn’t understand herself but this, this final evidence of what she was brought here to succumb to, it took her sensible thoughts and tore them to shreds, let them blow away.

  Before her, a stone table gripped the floor with spiked feet. One end faced the stone-beast, angling slightly upward and splitting into a V, to keep the legs of the sacrifice spread and her accessible.

  “Not yet,” Ledderik said, placing a white leather collar around her neck. He buckled it on so it was firm yet not strangling her.

  “Why?” She touched the collar with fingertips, as he clipped on a shiny chain leash that tinkled and swung.

  “You. That’s why. If you get too close too soon, he’ll rip you open. We need to tease him with you.”