Dark Feather: A Dark Post Apocalyptic Romance (3 page)

I could hear the heavy thud of Rigby’s boots as he walked up behind me. Seconds later, his fingertips ran along my inner thigh, feeling for any signs of feathers for himself.

“They aren’t there,” I said as I struggled to maintain my control. My body was betraying me, and the touch of his hand sent an electrical current of tantalizing pleasure straight to my core. Arousal blended with my humiliation, creating an erotic cocktail I wasn’t sure I could resist imbibing. Such a simple touch, and yet such a powerful one. Gentle yet firm, soft but hard, Rigby caressed my flesh along every inch of my inner thigh. I couldn’t hold back the gasp when, rather than lifting his hand and moving it over to the other thigh to check for signs of feathers there, he simply ran his fingers across my pussy in one slow, agonizing motion until he reached the other side.

“I told you that I don’t have any feathers there,” I said between gritted teeth. “I’m a mercenary. Or at least, I was one.”

Rigby continued to search my skin while his men held me in place. My back ached from being forcibly held in the position for so long, and my head felt light with the blood rushing to my head and all the overwhelming sexual feelings coursing through me. The idea of Rigby’s touch made me sick, and yet my body disagreed.

“All right,” he declared as he ran his final swipe across my pussy and then took a couple of steps back. “Chain her up until I decide what we are going to do with her.”

“Damn you,” I snapped. “I’m not a fucking slave to be chained.”

Before I could continue with my verbal rampage, I was silenced by a painful slap to the ass. “Silence,” Rigby demanded as he spanked me again, and then again. “You will be whatever the fuck I decide you will be.” He continued the onslaught of swats to my upturned bottom as he spoke, building in intensity with each one. The men continued to hold me in place while Rigby punished me like a naughty child. “And you’d better learn that fast if you know what’s good for you, Penna.”

My head spun and my body ached, but it was nothing compared to the heat building within the depths of my core.

“I’ll kill you,” I yelled as he continued to spank my ass with even more force than before.

Rigby laughed, followed by his men. “Oh I have no doubt you would try, my little Penna. But you will find that very hard to do as my chained pet.”

He lowered his swats until he was spanking my upper thighs. It took all my will not to cry out in pain, but I would rather die than give him the satisfaction of knowing my bottom was on fire. Mortification raged inside of me as my flesh lit to an inferno of angry hornets. I almost moaned in absolute relief when he finally ended the punishing blows.

“Take her to the tent and chain her.” He paused as the men allowed me to stand upright and turned me to face Rigby, who had just treated me like an errant child. When my entire front was bared to him once again, he gave a wicked smile. “And keep her nude. After all, she is a Penna and has her feathers to keep her warm.”

I tried to pull my arms free, but realized that resisting these men would get me nowhere, and I honestly didn’t want to take the chance of a repeat session with Rigby’s hand. No, I would go with them. I would allow them to chain me. But I would plan. I would plot. And when the time was right—I would get my revenge and kill every last one of them.

I lay on the floor, chained by both ankles, falling in and out of sleep with the thunderous thoughts pounding in my head. My deepest fear had everything to do with being too meek, too gentle, and too weak. All my fears were clearly for nothing now since I was naught but a captive at Rigby’s mercy. Even if I wanted to fight, the metal securely holding my ankles prevented me from doing much of anything.

The darkest questions inundated my exhausted mind. What would Rigby Moss do to me? Did he have a plan? Why hadn’t he killed me? There must have been a reason for not doing what his men all wanted. All he had to do was slice my throat and move on, never giving me a second thought. Killing wasn’t something he hadn’t done before. You could not be a leader of the Cyan and not have killed. So why? Would he torture me for information that I may or may not have? I supposed I did have some information of value, although in all truth, I would offer that info to the Cyan with no need of torture. I would betray the Penna gladly.

I looked down at my wrist once held by Rigby’s powerful, large hand, and grimaced at the sight of my feathers. My fucking feathers. I hated them as much as the Cyans did. They marked me. Branded me. Forced me to be something—or someone—I wasn’t. And now Rigby and all his men had seen them. Exposing my feathers was far more embarrassing than exposing my flesh, though that had been mortifying in itself.

A breeze blew up the dark brown tendrils of my hair as someone rushed into my tent with a burning torch in his hand. “We’ve got early hours, Penna cunt.” I backed away quickly and stared into Oakes’ darkened eyes. The heat of the torch flickered tiny embers onto my snowy floor.

“Where are my clothes?” I asked, my eyes stark and wide. “I need them to go outside.” This fact wasn’t the truth, since feathers were actually enough to weather the most brutal of storms, but I would insist on it anyway.

“Confiscated,” Oakes replied.

“You cannot just take what is mine!”

“It would seem we already did.” Oakes leaned in, lowering the torch too close to my face. “Rigby chose to strip you bare and keep you that way, now didn’t he?” He slid his thumb against my soft white throat. I didn’t flinch or squirm. He then placed some clothing effects befitting a Cyan fighter into my lap.

“What are these?” I asked. “These are not my clothes.”

“New orders from Rigby. Put them on.” He pulled out a key, knelt down, and unlocked the metal around my ankles, setting me free.

“Why? I’ll look like a Cyan fighter.”

“Maybe that is the point, Penna cunt. Maybe Rigby wants to use and abuse you.”

“He wants me to fight? Against my own people?”

Oakes didn’t answer but stood up and brushed the snow off his pants.

“What if I refuse?” I asked.

“Then you can stay here as a naked slave. The plan would still be to use and abuse you, but as a slave. It will just be using you in another way.” He chuckled at his own sick statement. “The choice is yours. Be used as a fighter, or be used as a dirty sex slave. If you ask me, I would prefer you as a sex slave.”

“You would,” I mumbled, using the clothing to shield my nakedness from his eyes.

“Listen, Penna cunt—”

“Stop calling me that!” I spat.

The smile he gave me dripped evil. “Listen,
Tudor
. I don’t agree in the slightest with Rigby’s decision to see what you’ve got when it comes to fighting. But thanks to an ambush from some of you Penna fucks, we have lost a lot of good men. We need an archer, and I guess Rigby thinks you can fill that spot.”

“So he wants me to join you as an archer? To be part of your team?” I could barely comprehend the absurdity of what he was saying.

“Stop asking so many fucking questions and get dressed, or I swear to God I will chain you back up and fuck your tight little Penna cunt and make you a breeder whether you like it or not.”

As Oakes backed out of the door, I was seized by a sense of urgency. I could run. I could use this opportunity of freedom, escape into the storm, and hope they wouldn’t chase after me. Not having the courage to do so, I jammed my feet in the heavy leather shoes and slunk into a too-large tunic. The fabric was heavier than any material I was used to, but it definitely hid any sign of me being a Penna. You would have to look really close to see any feathers, and with the wraparound for my neck, and the snow cap, no one would know otherwise.

Did I want this? Did I want to join the Cyan? Maybe so. Maybe I was meant to be a killer until the day I was killed myself.

Another loud noise drummed outside my tent. I approached the flaps, slowly folded them apart, and saw a circle of snowmobiles parading outside my door. Rigby revved his snowmobile, further breaking the silence of the early dawn darkness with the growl of his engine.

“Time to battle,” Rigby said. “Your snowmobile is waiting.”

Rigby took off into the swirling flakes of snow, followed by the laughing rabble of his battle-weary soldiers. I moved to straddle what I supposed was to be my snowmobile, gripped the throttle hard, and drove close behind.

I knew I wanted to prove something to these men. My future depended on it. If I truly was going to go down this path and join them, I would have to prove my skill and earn their trust.

We all drove far from camp before stopping short at a jagged snowy cliff face. Oakes dropped his burning torch in the snow, riding alongside Rigby. The morning hours in the icy lands were so cold at times, it could easily kill the average person. But I was not average. No—my feathers and the cDermo-1 that flowed through my veins granted me the ability to not feel the cold.

“Where are we?” I asked.

Rigby got off his snowmobile. “Time to show us you are ready to fight.”

I couldn’t help but gaze upon Rigby and the way he gracefully dismounted the vehicle. In that small moment, it felt like I was seeing him for the first time.

“Who says I’m ready to fight? I told you, I walked away from all of that.”

Rigby crossed his arms and glared at me. “Oakes?” he asked over his shoulder. “Did you tell our little Penna what her options were?”

“Yes, sir. I told her she could fight to her death or be fucked to her death,” Oakes answered.

Rigby smirked and raised an eyebrow. “So since you are questioning fighting, I can assume you would rather choose the fucking option?”

“Of course not,” I spat.

“Maybe she is a shitty fighter,” a man called out from another snowmobile.

“Or a shitty fuck,” Oakes threw in.

Other men laughed and agreed.

“Fuck you all!” I screamed. “I could take each and every one of you if I chose to.”

“So what do you choose?” Rigby asked. “Fight or fuck?”

I swallowed back the rage inside and answered, “Fight. I’ll fucking show you fools how it is done.”

Rigby nodded and raised his hand to silence all the laughs and taunts coming from his men. “Very well. As of this moment, I am your commander. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“I expect to hear, ‘Yes, sir’ when I ask you a question.”

“Yes, sir,” I countered, feeling as if the words practically burned my tongue as I said them.

“If you want to survive a fight, you will have to master hand-to-hand combat.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I’m an archer, I handle bows,” I replied plainly. “Although I feel I have also mastered the sword.”

As I dismounted, Rigby waved to Oakes to hand him my bow. Before he reached Rigby’s side, he elbowed me hard in the ribs. I stumbled off balance for a few steps. The other men stifled their laughter. When I lifted the bow out of Rigby’s hands and readied it, he pressed his chest against the raised arrow.

“All right then, try to kill me.”

My first reaction was a breathy laugh in my throat. I then glanced in the eyes of the other men, looking for some sort of reassurance. It wasn’t so much that I couldn’t put Rigby down in the blink of an eye. Instead, my biggest concern was how the other men would react to seeing his lifeless body fall over in the snow—red staining white. So be it—death to their foolish leader it would be.

I hesitated only a few seconds and then released my arrow. Rigby threw himself back fast and the arrow sped out, piercing the dark. He grabbed the bow from my hands, spun around me, and slammed it hard against my buttocks. An electric sting of pain spread throughout my bottom. Again the bow hit me, this time against my upper thigh, causing me to lose my balance. I fell to my knees with my hand covering my stinging behind. Bruised pride hurt almost as bad as the quick punishment to my lower region.

Rigby squatted next to my side, pushed me to where I was on all fours, and swatted my behind two more times. Fury mixed with humiliation nearly blinded me.

“Does this make my point clear?” he asked. “Just being an ‘archer’ is useless. A lesson for you. Fighting means learning how to brawl for your life. Especially when weapons are not an option.”

Rigby stood up and stretched out his hand to help me to my feet. Taking it, I pulled back a bit, forcing him to bend forward, and then punched him square on the jaw with all the force in my body. As he pulled back, I jumped up, slid to the side and thrust my foot out, kicking him in the backs of the knees, followed by a boot to the gut, leaving him to roll and fall near the edge of the cliff face.

The other men hurried from their snowmobiles and rushed to his aid. It all happened so quickly, they hardly saw the blow. Eventually, Rigby came into his own again. He looked idly down into his hand, slowly wiped his bleeding lower lip, and smiled.

“You are much stronger than I thought.”

“A lesson for you,” I said. “Never trust nor show mercy to a Penna in battle.” I winked, taunting him.

He stood up and brushed the snow off his clothes, shrugging off any assistance offered by his men. I stood ready for his retaliation and prepared for another round of battle. He took a long pause and scanned my body. “I have heard of a female Penna who can shoot a bow better than any man. So, if you want blood so bad you can taste it, I’ll give you the chance to prove yourself. If for one moment I feel I cannot trust you, you will be killed without question. If you become nothing but a female burden in battle, I will let my men sort you out. Does that sound fair?” he finished.

I nodded.

“Have you already forgotten what I expect to hear when I ask you a question?”

“No, sir… I mean, yes, sir.”

His lips quirked but he only shook his head. “I am not the commander you once took orders from. But my rules, my command, my authority, will be what you live by. If you falter, I will sort you out in my own way. Are we clear on the expectations of my army?”

I began to nod again but then quickly said, “Yes, sir.”

I was surprised to see him smile and offer his hand for a friendly shake. “Welcome to the Cyans, Tudor.” He shook my hand and turned to the men. “She’s one of us now. Treat her as such,” he commanded. “Tudor chose
fight
, so don’t any of you dare choose the path of
fuck
for her.”