Precious Sacrifice (8 page)

“Naughty thing.” He chuckled. “You want me?” His whole hand warmly cupped her mound as the bed dipped and he half-slid, half-fell, onto the bed.

“Oh yes, I do. I do.” She squeezed her thighs together over his hand. The impossibly urgent need for sex overcame whatever objections she might have thought up if she
could
have thought right then. “Please?” she breathed.

When his hand didn’t move and she saw the shadow of him through her eyelids, she looked. “Gorgeous man, alien soldier. Say I’m yours.”

He didn’t reply, only moved the hand that heated her pussy in a slow exploring path up her body. Over belly, then belly button, across one breast, and to her throat, which he circled. He stopped there, his grip firm enough that her swallow pushed on his hand.

“What do you call me?”

She blinked, wet her lips. Not saying it tempted her, but the pull to repeat the word was magnetic, disconnecting tongue from brain. She gulped, then blurted it out, “Master.” The next time was easier. “Am I yours, Master?”

A taboo word, but her pussy had clenched in as she’d said it. Seemed like it appreciated her being his pet. Happiness shimmied through her.

He shifted even closer until he was inches away, his breath quiet yet caressing her as much as his fingers did her throat. His gaze, his presence, the thigh he settled over her stomach and hips and used to press her down onto the mattress – all these
possessed
her.

“Do you feel you’re mine, pet?”

She was paralyzed by an awareness of every place on her he touched and held her.
His.
Her reply was soft. “Yes.”

He nodded. “If you’re willing, I can give you something. It’s simply words. It won’t physically do anything except that, to me, it will mean you’re mine. Up here.” He tapped his head. “I want that. Okay?”

She bit her lip, teary-eyed. “Yes.”

“Nothing more is guaranteed. Others might deny what I have done but this is what
I
give to you. Me. It’s a ritual of claiming. Are you willing, even though it could mean more pain if we are parted?”

Her answer arrived like clockwork. “Yes.”

He nodded. “To do this properly, I will have you on your knees before me.”

Then he slipped from the bed. Jadd took off his coat slowly, as if the slip of a finger would doom them. He tossed it away. With her elbows propping her off the bed, she observed, wide-eyed. He beckoned to her as he went into the larger living room.

This was a man who’d come from another world. She was about to make a vow to be an alien’s pet. This should have had her running away screaming.

But, it was so right
.

She didn’t hesitate further, and went over to kneel before him naked. The sparrow that often followed her because she fed it, as she had so many of its cousins in the past, flew in and alighted on the dining table chair. Maybe it wanted to watch. Silly little thing.

She waited, looking up at him, at peace yet also ready for whatever would come next. She felt on the verge of some cataclysmic event, as if the entire world waited and watched. He put out his hand for her and she placed hers in his.

“Say this after me. ‘I, Brittany, accept that you are my Master, from this day onward, in charge of my future, my health, my well-being in every way. You are my protector and my commander, my lover and my other half. I will never forsake you. I will obey you to my last breath.’”

She swallowed once then, without wavering, she repeated the words.

“Thank you, my pet.” He placed his other hand on her head. “I, Jadd Tekk, avow that I am your Master and I will fulfill my duties to you as I see fit. I will always be your protector. I will never forsake you.” He bent and with his hand under her chin, encouraged her to raise her head. “And now for the sealing kiss. Clasp your hands together at your back. Do not move them.”

She did so, wondering at the knowledge that had just arrived. Crazy knowledge.

This
was a pivotal moment. Tension clawed at her. On one side of this was normality. On the other side was something that might crack her universe wide open. The kiss was the lever that would create the crack. From that would spill something both good and bad.

I’m imagining. It’s only a kiss.

She opened her mouth as his lips met hers, and welcomed him in. Their breaths merged, their tongues played, dueling, erotic, stirring her body more than any kiss should. She whimpered as he sucked at her tongue, squeaked and writhed on her knees as he wrapped both his hands around her throat. The tide shuddered up her and took her away into an effortless orgasm. Her moans echoed in her head.

Her mind
saw
. Everywhere, everywhere she looked, were particles of wrongness. She sensed them,
felt
them, made them whole. Her Master. The dog. The dying creature in the garden. The
thing
down the street – she touched that and recoiled. As the last spasm rippled hotly down to her toes, she fainted into blackness.

Jadd lurched, overcome by a sudden sense of something hard to understand. He knelt beside Brittany, where she’d collapsed, and he felt nothing. An absence. No pain in his leg. His thigh had seemed close to healed earlier in the day. Now though, it was perfect. Even the vaguely sore throat had gone – the one he’d acquired from some minor Earth virus that had escaped the viral shielding vaccine. The itchy nose too. And the spot where he’d dropped something heavy on his foot. All were gone.

What had just happened? The claiming ceremony was a traditional rite, nothing more.

The sparrow that followed her was here. He frowned. It lay lifeless under the dining table. It shriveled, crackling, turning into black fragments that crumbled to a scrunched ball of charcoal. Then, step by step, elegant origami in reverse, it unwrinkled and unfolded, puffing out into a sparrow shape. Iridescent feathers burned into being across the surface of its body. Bright metallic blue, red, and orange that hurt the eyes. The bird popped upright, shivered through a last burst of flame that made its feathers look completely alight then launched into the air, and flew out the window.

What? He needed his eyes checked, or his mind. That had not happened. Maybe that Earth virus caused hallucinations.

Maybe it was real. He sat, unmoving, and tried to understand. If that was real, her sparrow had died then had been reborn. If what his eyes insisted had happened was true, did it have something to do with Brittany?

And his leg had healed…and it had improved suddenly yesterday also. Was it her? Magic? Except, there was no such thing.

He shook his head. Stupid. It didn’t add up at all.

What mattered was this woman in his arms. He had to convince everyone else it was best they stay together. If he failed, he’d leave her with memories only. And possibly a stronger bond than before. He had to sort out how to do this, what to say. They’d be monitoring the killer. They’d monitor this apartment. Her. Him. There was little time.

The door burst open and heavy boots tromped in.

Or no time at all. His stomach became as heavy as lead.

A flare of a peculiar shade of citrine light from the balcony warned an Ascend had arrived. Which meant he’d really stirred them up.
Kak.

As he straightened, the Ascend pushed through the daisy motif curtains. So incongruous. A bronzed and scaled Ascend draped in floral.

Then Brask and two of his soldier brothers stomped in from the entrance hallway, clad in coats, bedecked in weapons.

He stood, slow, palms out then looked down when Brittany gasped.

She rose to hands and knees, her red-tipped breasts swaying, her eyes dazed. With her lips seared from his kisses. Her cheeks were flushed and blotched as if she had a fever. Vulnerable. His girl.

He assessed the Ascend and his soldier brothers but made sure not to stray from her side. “Tell me why you’re here.”

Brask shifted the heavy Berskald rifle that rested in his hands. Things had escalated. Off-world weapons. Why?

“We’re here to stabilize the situation, to retrieve you, to decide what to do with her, and primarily, to eliminate one…” Brask’s green eyes dead-stared at him, pinpoint focus.

Oh fuck. “One what?” Brittany? Him?

“To eliminate multiple Bak-lal killer clones that have appeared.”

“Holy Ascendants.”
Oops.
“Where?” He put his hand on the butt of the sawn-off shotgun in his waist holster. He could probably take down one with this primitive thing.

The Ascend crunched forward, the timber floor creaking and bowing. “You eliminated one already. Over the side of this building. These are obsolete conversions. With the death of the one below, and identical men appearing on the streets, the computations popped up. A man must have been taken in the past and cloned. Possibly hard-wired for faster reactions but not much more. These are old-style clones. There may be a Bak-lal factory queen nearby – an old one in hiding.”

He thought fast. “They’re coming here?” He pictured them, a small army of cloned killers, circling, closing in. They hadn’t found a factory queen yet, but that was the most likely cause.

“Yes. Here.” The Ascend crouched before him, hands clasped on knee, and he studied Brittany. “This one is interesting.” He stretched out his hand and adjusted her head to see her better.

The Ascend touched her. His pet. Jadd clenched and unclenched his fists, snarling inside his head, but striving not to interfere. Brittany was still not recovered. That was obvious.

“Jadd. Attend me!” Brask was a yard distant. “You’re to accompany the Ascend to the ship.” His voice lowered. “I’ll take care of her. I’ll keep her safe.”

“You want me to leave her?” That was intolerable. He needed to cradle her until she was okay. But he was a soldier too. This…sucked. “With a factory queen nearby, and clone killers homing in? I don’t care how kakking obsolete they are –”

“Come.” The Ascend rose and grasped his forearm, steel strength in the grip. “I promise you, I will allow you to see her again. You will be absolved of your crimes if you do your duty. There’s no time for your protests.”

Before he could summon more arguments, the Ascend whisked him across the room, through the curtains, and sped into the sky. The transition was so abrupt he gaped, and got a mouthful of bug. He spat out pieces of wriggling insect. Wind roared in his ears. The sky rushed past.

He glanced down, twisting to see, and was struck by the barrage of color from the blossoms of vegetation surrounding the building she inhabited – in parks, on ledges and balconies. Flowers. Thousands of them.

She was back there.

“Be still. I promise you, I’ll return you when the battle is over. She’ll be safe. You’re needed.”

In a situation like this, his duty was to his soldier brothers. The call of a pet to her Master was considered far less important. Then why did he feel like he was still attached to her? Like leaving her there was about to tear him in two? He was so very warped. He should trust Dassenze. An Ascend’s word was sacrosanct, surely? But he’d always wondered if they could lie. Would a god lie if he saw a greater good in it?

There was still nothing he could do. To his surprise, they headed skywards, higher. The last he’d seen of it, their ship had submerged and burrowed beneath the lake beside their accommodation. Had it moved?

A blue monolith appeared above, fading in and out like mist until they approached closer. A few last clods of mud and weeds broke away from the edge of a turret and tumbled toward the distant city.

They landed on the topward hull and the Ascend deposited him on his feet while still running. At the sudden stop, he staggered and recovered.

The
Doomslagger
, transport, Midget-class attack ship, and general all-round dogs-body of the Preyfinders had indeed moved.

“Why am I needed here?” he asked as they advanced into the hiss and hum of an entrance hatch. The hatch sealed behind them and Dassenze turned.

“You’re one of only three men on this planet trained and capable of wearing full mech ceram armor. We have a Bak-lal down there somewhere. The ship will deal with that, if it reveals itself. If it spits out an army, we need you.

He bit back his first response.
Why the kak don’t you kill them yourself?
Blasphemy. No one knew the reasons of the gods. He bowed deeply. “I am yours, Ascend.”

“Of course you are. Come.” The inner door slid open.

Yours unless Brittany gets hurt.

He snorted. Now that really was blasphemy.

Why did he want her so much? It was excruciating. He put his hand over his stomach. He was going to vomit if this kept up.

Brittany managed to rise to her knees. She wiped her mouth, struggling to adjust to this whole disgusting feeling of throbbing headache, burning skin, especially her face, and yeah, she was going to be sick in a minute.

The rug was hurting her knees too.

“Oh.” She looked down at herself. Naked. Then she looked around at the three alien guys with guns and shit surrounding her. Not that they were bothering her. One was peering out through the curtains. One was listening to nothing and staring at nothing too. One, a really ginormous one, was heading back to her front entrance.

“Clothes?” she asked softly, and covered her breasts with one arm. “Damn.” They weren’t paying attention, at all. She almost felt neglected.

“Acknowledged,” the staring at nothing one said. Brask. Jadd had called him Brask. “Keyner!”

The one at the curtain nodded in recognition.

“Stay here. Guard her with your life. Gribb, come with me. We’ve got three of the killer clones coming up the stairs.” Brask was running to the front door as he spoke. “We knock them down until they stay down. Don’t worry about locals. Mindblanks and media cleansing will come after.”

“Got it, Brask.” Gribb, the big one, smirked nastily. He looked like he could knock down enemies by just stomping on them. If he nodded, he’d take out her ceiling fan. “They’re going to be kak. Sir.”

At a thump on her door, Gribb, shot down her hallway with his stubby, bristly black weapon. The boom rattled her windows and flame flared back into the room for a second. Dammit. There went her door. Then he and Brask ran off and, from the sound of it, kicked open whatever was left of her door then shot at something or someone else.