Gift of the Goddess (26 page)

A deep groan racked his body and he froze, gloved to the hilt by succulent flesh. His fingers dug into her hips with bruising force. Abruptly, he pulled out and rammed back in, over and over, faster and faster, giving her every inch of his hard cock with each stroke.

Anje screamed. He was burning over her flesh. Her sheath, even her buttocks, stung with arousal. Ah Mother, the cream! His cock was rubbing the remnants of it all over her labia and up inside her channel. He struck the sweet spot behind her clit without mercy and it knotted up so hard it hurt.

Her head thrashed on the mattress and Trey bellowed and came inside her in long, wet spurts, moaning with each spasm.

135 Denise Rossetti

“No, no,” she whimpered, rigid with frustration. Brin’s dark pleasure bloomed along the link.

Trey laid his cheek on her quivering shoulder. “What’s wrong, Mistress?”

“Gods, I’m burning!” She squirmed under his body and realized he was still hard inside her. “Make me come, slave!”

“How would you like it, Mistress?”

“I don’t care!” She twisted her head to glare. The orgasm had steadied him. His eyes twinkled at her and his smile was bland. “Just do it!”

“Your wish is my command, Mistress.”

Anje was so distracted by the delicious friction when he pulled out slowly and pushed back in, that she almost missed the glee in his tone. Trey reached past her and picked up the jar. Panicked, she blurted, “Stop! Trey, don’t—!”

“Too late now, Mistress.”

Brin’s lip-licking amusement floated across the link and she knew she was in trouble. A slick thumb pressed against the rosette of her anus and popped inside. For a moment, it felt cool and greasy, then it began to burn. And burn.

Anje writhed, but Trey held her steady for protracted, gliding thrusts, timing them exquisitely with short, circling strokes of his thumb in her ass.

“Must…thank the apothecary. So hard… Could fuck…you for…hours.” He dropped a kiss on her spine.

Ah Mother of Mercy, she’d die! She was on fire, throwing her hips back at him in a demand for more, but he kept up the remorseless rhythm, driving her closer to the brink in steady increments. She gritted her teeth, sobbing.
Hold on, hold on. Nearly there.

He stopped.

Anje teetered on the edge and slipped back. Snarling, she called him every foul name she could think of.

“There, there.” He patted her bottom. “Don’t be angry, Mistress. Leave it to your faithful slave.”

Abruptly, he pulled out of her body, leaving her bereft. Before she had time to do more than gasp, his cock butted at her anus and the head tucked past the tight ring of well-greased muscle. Simultaneously, he impaled her pussy with two fingers.

Anje moaned and shuddered.

Trey slung himself a little further inside her. His cock rubbed and fretted at her burning flesh, profoundly satisfying, filling a need she hadn’t been aware of. The more he fucked her, the better it felt, each outstroke a dragging pleasure, each thrust back in an edgy, painful delight. Every jab of his cock in her tight ass forced the flesh of her core back on to his fingers, curled deep inside her.

As Trey possessed her body, the shaman’s emotions swirled through her soul, a shadow of grief and yearning coloring the bedrock of his love and hunger. The

136 Gift of the Goddess

combination of sensations was so potent, Anje was terrified she’d burst, fly apart, her skin too small to contain all she felt. Unintelligible sounds fell from her lips, as she jerked and writhed under the double assault.

What must Brin be feeling, riding inside her as Trey reamed her ass so comprehensively? Did he know now how it felt to be fucked by a man?
Gods!

The thought was too much to bear. With a throttled scream, Anje threw herself back into Trey’s driving cock and impaling fingers. Time was suspended for an instant, as she ground herself frantically against him. Then, with a lurch, reality returned and she was released, in a storm so high and vicious, so totally gripping, she ceased to think at all.

Gasping, she jolted under Trey’s body, lost in the paroxysm, almost fainting with the intensity of it. As if from miles away, she heard his hoarse shout, felt the hot wash of his seed in her greedy bowels.

Her knees slipped from under her and she collapsed. As Trey followed her down, warm and heavy over her back, she thought she felt strong arms receive her in a comforting clasp, a whisper of love and approval in her mind. Gratefully, she closed her eyes and lay unmoving.

It seemed a long time later that Trey kissed her cheek. “Anje love?”

She cranked one eye open. “Uh?”

“That was… That was…”

Anje laughed weakly and rolled over. “Fucking gorgeous is the phrase you want, poet.” She ran her hand over the hard planes of his chest and leaned up to nuzzle one freckled shoulder. “Ow!” She winced at the twinge in her ass and gave him a nip. “Some slave you turned out to be!”

He smiled crookedly and patted her hip. “I aim to please, Mistress. Here.” He held out a damp cloth. “This will help.”

“Don’t suppose there’s running water?”

Trey snorted. “Nope. I had to go downstairs.” An expression of profound discomfort crossed his face. “I ran into Braithie.” He rolled his shoulders as though dislodging something. “She said I’d saved her life. Gods, Anje, she hoisted her skirts then and there and offered me a free fuck. It was pathetic.” He sighed. “Poor, stupid little thing. What a life.”

Privately, Anje thought Braithie wasn’t as dim as she seemed. She’d never have the chance to touch a man as beautiful as Trey again—let alone one as clean. She frowned. An idea teased at the back of her mind. “Do you think we could trust her?”

Trey shrugged. “Don’t know. I’m not convinced she’s all there, anyway.” He snuggled Anje’s head into his shoulder. “Why?”

Anje pulled free of his grasp and sat up. “Don’t you see?” She clenched her fists on her thighs. “We have to have a diversion or we’ll never get out of the Hssrda camp alive. And if we’re both inside, who’s going to create it?”

137 Denise Rossetti

Chapter Twenty

Mother keep you warm in the cold.

Mother keep you fed in the famine.

Mother keep you safe among your foes.

Mother keep you always in Her arms.

The Matriarchs’ Blessing, Children of the Mother.

Anje sat stiffly on Twink in the near dusk, her scalp pulled so tight, it itched. She longed to dig her hands into her hair and dislodge the coiffure it had taken them hours to construct that afternoon. She’d been amazed at Trey’s dexterity as he twined ropes of cheap blue beads into her braids and secured the heavy mass in a crown on the top of her head. “I used to make a point of watching my sister being dressed for state occasions.” He’d chuckled. “Her maid was very gifted with her hands. And her mouth. Funny, what things turn out to be useful.”

On the other hand, the link no longer caused her such physical discomfort. There was no question that Brin was near. Soon, she’d see him again, touch him. Her soul wanted to sing, despite the risks they were taking.

They’d reached the outskirts of The Hollows, a mile out of town, where the swamp was at its most noisome. The lights of the Hssrda camp twinkled in a boggy depression at the base of the escarpment. The occasional gleam sparked on the blade of a halberd or reflected sullenly off a patch of oily water.

Anje glanced down at Trey, leading Twink, as befitted a slave. Privately, she thought he looked beautiful. Even the shaven scalp suited him. He looked older, more formidable, without the cap of red-gold curls. After all, he was a warrior, he’d killed the revolting Fettle without a blink. As for the rest… She sucked in a breath. He wore only the collar, the straps and soft boots. The dark lines of the straps went first around his waist and then bisected the cheeks of his ass. They cradled and presented his genitalia, circling his smooth, bare balls and holding his cock upright, flat against his belly.

When Braithie had seen him, her mouth had fallen open, the eyes starting from her head. Anje glanced behind them. There was no sign of the girl, nor of Brownie. Gods, hopefully she wasn’t too addled to perform the simple sequence of actions they’d drilled into her.

Trey caught her eye. “Ready?”

Her laugh was shaky. “Mother, no! But let’s go anyway.” But as Trey stepped forward, she said, “Wait!”

He looked up.

138 Gift of the Goddess

Anje leaned down and caught his shoulder. “Promise me,” she said fiercely. “After we get him out of there, promise me you’ll tell Brin how you feel.”

Trey shook his head. “He doesn’t want me, Anje.”

She snorted. “Don’t be stupid. He can barely control himself whenever you touch him.”

The hope in his face was painful to see. “What would you do?” she asked quietly. “What would you do if you were free to love him?”

“Ah, Lufra, I’d do everything!” Trey leaned into Twink’s shoulder and gazed unseeing at the Hssrda camp. “Get him to rest, for a start. My blasted mother and the Council ask so much of him and he never refuses. He should be on his ranch, with the vranee. That’s where he’s happy. I’d rub the knots out of his shoulders.” He grinned up at her, his teeth flashing in the fading light. “And I’d fuck both of you ‘til we were all too sore to move.”

He hesitated. “Last night, when I was up your gorgeous ass, you turned and looked at me. Anje, I saw Brin’s flames in your eyes, like a shadow behind yours. Do you think the link—?”

“He was there.” She ran her palm over the smooth, hard curve of his skull. “Feeling what I felt. He knows, Trey. He knows what it’s like. But he doesn’t want us anywhere near. I can feel him pushing us away.”

“Always the noble idiot. Tell him we’re coming anyway.” Trey’s chest expanded as he inhaled. “Right, Anje love. Let’s go buy ourselves a pleasure slave.”

They moved forward.

The SpurSoldier on sentry duty at the rough stockade didn’t seem to have any human language, but it assessed them shrewdly enough, a third eyelid flicking across its slit-pupiled eyes. As Anje glared down from her vantage point on Twink, trying to look imperious, it hissed and gestured with its serrated halberd.

Trey tied the vran to a post in the palisade and assisted Anje to alight, handling her as if she was made of spun glass. Restricted by her voluminous skirts and tight bodice, she moved cautiously. One major disadvantage of Trey’s costume—or lack of it—was that he had nowhere to conceal a weapon save in his boots. In contrast, Anje was a walking armory. A single unwary move and she’d bleed right through her finery.

She took the light cane Trey handed her and slashed his forearm with minimum force and maximum noise. “Gently, you fool!”

Another Hssrdan, this one short enough to be a TailSoldier, led them along a muddy path toward the black gloom of the cliff. Squinting, Anje made out a massive, reptilian shape, waiting. Her heart began to thump erratically. They’d gambled that the Hssrda wouldn’t be able to recognize the details that distinguished one human from another. Who knew if they even saw in color? Suddenly, she remembered the magenta scales on the commander of the force that had captured Brin and her stomach turned over. Thank the Mother for Trey’s shaven head! His coppery locks were far too distinctive.

139 Denise Rossetti

She straightened her spine and tried to walk the way he’d taught her, shortening her stride to a gliding mince. Holy Mother, the creature was huge! It cocked its head, watching them, and her guts knotted with atavistic terror.

Anje began babbling from several yards away. “I have need of a tall, muscular slave. What do you have in strong males?” She wrinkled her nose as she looked around. “Faugh, this place stinks! I won’t take anything unless you bathe it first.”

The Hssrdan surveyed her, its scaly face unmoving. Skeins of chartreuse and carmine twined over one massive shoulder. Behind her, one pace to the left, Trey dropped to one knee and lowered his gaze.

After an aching silence, the creature’s mouth opened, exposing an impressive array of teeth. “Yess,” it said, forming the words with difficulty. “Have sstrong sslaves. Thiss way, flesshy one.” It lumbered toward the dark entrance of a cave tunneled into the base of the escarpment, without looking back to see if they followed.

Anje didn’t dare glance at Trey. They’d seen the slave pens from a distance already, enclosures of stout poles in the open air. But a cave! That complicated matters considerably.

Complaining in a shrill monotone, she swept into the gloom, followed by Trey. A couple of SpurSoldiers fell in behind. The passage was damp underfoot, but well lit with slow-burning torches thrust into the floor at intervals. The big Hssrda turned a corner and stopped before a chamber fenced off with metal bars.

After a moment’s silence, during which it seemed to be thinking hard, it said laboriously, “Am ClawCaptain.” It thumped its chest with a taloned fist.

Anje let her lip curl. “So I see.” Deliberately, she turned away and stared into the slave pen.
Mother of Mercy!
She gripped the cane so hard it creaked in her hands. There were about a dozen men crowded into it, all tall and muscular, and all naked and filthy.