Darkness Captured (21 page)

She didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved, but took a deep breath.

In control of herself again, Gabriella shook back her hair. She gave the demon a look filled with loathing and strode quickly away, ready to put space between herself and the wicked couple.

When she turned, she bumped into another body, this one clothed. Her hands came up automatically to push him away.

“Gabriella!” Dagon said, his voice sounding somehow off, different.

“You again,” she said, trying to recover her poise.

He smiled, humor gleaming in his blue eyes. “Enjoying yourself?”

Not sure what the expected answer was, she shrugged. “Not taking part in the games?”

“Perhaps later. Your master is watching.”

Gabriella stiffened. She needed to find some privacy. To regroup. To gain control of the fluctuating ardor roiling through her body—or she might do something that would draw too much attention and reveal her problem. The thought of demons surrounding her, taking turns, was too reminiscent of another heat. She needed a partner. Just one.

“If you’re looking to escape the crowd, you might find what you need down that hallway.”

She didn’t ask how he’d guessed. Didn’t want to let him know his instinct had been dead-on. She shoved past him toward the corridor he’d indicated.

Desperate, she escaped down the corridor and discovered a row of cell-like rooms filled with the sounds of more creatures having sex, until she stumbled past one with a lone figure standing in the dark behind a platform, the purpose of which she instantly gleaned. A kneeler. A spanking bench.

And if anyone needed punishment, needed her flesh scoured to erase the shame left by the arousal a demon had built inside her, it was her.

CHAPTER
13

M
ay I serve you, mistress?” the man standing in the darkness said softly.

She looked behind her down the long, dark corridor, assuring herself that she hadn’t been followed. “I … I think so. Yes.”

He stepped from the shadows, and Gabriella’s gaze swept over him. Her lust renewed instantly. His human form pleased her. Bare-chested, thick brown fur covering his chest, he appeared so like Guntram she nearly cried. She wondered what horror the mask hid, but decided she didn’t really want to know. Maybe he was handsome—one of the undead humans, just playing the executioner role for entertainment purposes.

His scent was unusual. Beneath a light floral lay an earthier aroma, pleasing to her nose. She stepped inside the cell and slid the barred door closed behind her. “What do you offer?”

“Any fantasy you desire,” he said, his voice deep and gruff.

She shivered at his tone, her nipples prickling to attention. Light didn’t penetrate the deep, hollow shadows of the mask. She couldn’t tell where his glance roamed, and she wondered if she pleased him half as much.

“Would you prefer I take you?” he said, slowly, still rooted to the spot. “Will you submit to me?”

“I think I’d like to be surprised,” she replied, surprised her voice sounded so breathy.

“Will you allow me to bind you?” he said, his voice less hesitant, less submissive than before.

Excited by her own powerful response to just his voice, she gave him a flirtatious glance, peering up at him from beneath her lashes. “I’ll allow it, so long as you promise not to eat me while I’m helpless.”

“Why limit our pleasure?”

Gabriella’s lips twitched. “I belong to Marduk. So long as I walk out of here unharmed, you can do pretty much what you like.”

“Marduk, the Master of the Demons. Do you enjoy his bed?”

Something in his voice, a simmering disapproval, made her uncomfortable. “I … do what I must.”

His head ducked, acknowledging the ambiguity of her reply.

Gabriella found herself enjoying this encounter, enjoying the sight of the man who drew nearer now. When he lifted his hand, his palm turned upward, she didn’t hesitate as she had the first time Marduk demanded.

This man’s hand was calloused, his palm so large it engulfed hers. He drew her closer, his nostrils flaring. Had he caught the telltale scent of her heat? Would he know what it meant?

“Will he come looking for you anytime soon?” he asked, urgency making his words clipped.

“He’s occupied at the moment.”

“Then we’re alone.”

The cage door wasn’t solid, but somehow the acoustics of the small chamber softened the sounds from beyond its confines, enhancing the feeling that indeed they really were alone.

He pulled her close enough that the baubles attached to her nipples tangled in his chest hair. The slight tug caused the sensitized tips to swell. She moved closer. “Are you expecting anyone else?”

“I’ve been waiting for you. I chased off the last demon who tried to enter my cell.”

“And he allowed it?”

His lips twitched. “I think I frightened him. I might have mentioned a preference for roasted balls.”

Gabriella tossed back her hair, enjoying the humor he revealed beneath his fearsome mask. “And do you?”

“The only thing I wish to warm is you,” he said quietly.

Gabriella licked her lips, tilting back her head. “With flame … or friction?”

“Do you have a preference?”

“You’re teasing me now.”

“But you aren’t sure.”

“Even when things seem similar to what I’m accustomed to … I sometimes find myself surprised here.”

“Caution is wise.”

“Then we should hurry. Marduk is busy at the moment. Why waste another minute?” When he still didn’t bust a move, she lifted her hand to cup the curve of his masculine breast. Muscle flexed beneath her palm. “However you want me, I’m yours.”

His square jaw tightened, and he nodded toward the bench behind her. “Bend over it. I will ease the tension riding you. Then we’ll play.”

She didn’t ask how he knew. Perhaps all of them knew instinctually. Usually, back in her own world, only wolves sensed her heat. But right now, holding a thought, following a suspicion was beyond her. A heady, powerful swell of arousal held her in its grip. It might have had something to do with the cock encased in his dark trousers and pressing against her belly, which was quickly filling, its size pleasing—not as disgustingly large as the bull-man’s, but exactly proportioned for her enjoyment.

Giving him a challenging tilt of her chin, she tugged her hand from his tight grip and stepped away. Then she turned and climbed onto the platform, settling her knees on a padded step and her belly on the platform, the edge of which ended just beneath her breasts. The position made her feel immediately vulnerable, completely feminine. Her ass was presented in exactly the pose a she-wolf might provide her mate for his inspection.

A deep, slow intake of breath was the only reaction she could discern from the man in the mask. He walked behind the bench and silently urged her to widen her stance, pressing against her knees until he was satisfied. Then he walked to one side and lifted her hand and closed leather straps around her wrist, repeating the action for her other hand.

Gabriella felt no alarm, no fear. Although he remained silent, his methodical approach was reassuring. That was, until he made another slow circle around her, and she sensed his body tautening. His head was held lower, his nostrils flaring like a wolf’s might to draw in scent and stoke his own desire.

Again, she thought his actions, his demeanor was so like Guntram, or what she would imagine he would be like when deeply aroused, that her body shivered with excitement, waiting to see what he would do next.

He surprised her with fingers sifting soothingly through her hair. She released a little sigh, pressing into his hands until he scratched her scalp, petting her tenderly, like a wolf might do for his mate.

Then he lifted her hair and twisted it, dropping the long rope over her shoulder. His hands smoothed slowly down her back and over her buttocks. Standing now directly behind her, she knew what he’d see in the torchlight. Her sex was swollen, red, dripping with honeyed arousal; the inner lips parting, her entrance pulsing, sucking at air.

A low growl erupted from him, and then lips glided over her labia. “Princess, are you ready to be mine?”

Gabriella froze. “Guntram?” she asked, her voice thickening with emotion, but then she realized what he’d said. She jerked against her restraints, joy and outrage mixing in an explosive cocktail. “Guntram! Release me!”

A soft masculine snort sounded behind her. “Alex said that I should ignore your pleas. Take my cues instead from your body. I smell your heat, Princess. Even now, your sweet cunt swells and drips honey, begging my cock to fill you.”

Straining her head upward, she tried glancing over her shoulder to give him a glare, but couldn’t quite turn that far. She rattled the bench with her furious bucking. “You know this can never be. I will never surrender my mantle to a male.”

“And you shall never have to,” he said, his words clipped. “I intend to take it.”

Gabriella shivered at the hard edge of his voice, cursing her own body for the heat that radiated from her womb, tightening her belly and sending rippling shudders down her channel. “Have you come to rescue me?” she said, hoping to turn his mind to the bigger problem.

“Simon and I are working on that. We must retrieve something now that we know where you are.”

“I’m watched.”

“Also working on that. Let’s talk afterward.” His rough palms slid down her back, pausing to cup her bottom, then he dropped his hands from her skin.

There was a rustling behind her and the sounds of indrawn breaths. And she knew he was pulling in her scent, letting it enhance his own arousal.

When his lips and nose sank into her folds, she jerked. “Stop it. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you have to remember whom you serve.”

“I could never forget. I’ve protected you, stood guard over you, prevented other males from forcing their suits on you.
For too long.
Did you think I was made of stone?”

His tongue stroked over her folds, and Gabriella’s breath hissed between her teeth. She clamped her jaws shut, knowing soon she’d be begging out loud if she couldn’t figure out a way to put a stop to this. “Why now, Guntram? Why press your suit in this place? Would you really mate with me in the midst of all this evil?”

“I have no choice. I’m as bound by my duty as you are to this bench.”

“Is that what I am? A duty? Is this only your way of protecting me? Because I’m not seeing it. When you’re done I still have to leave with him. I’ll still be in his bed, servicing his desires.”

“Don’t talk about him now,” he growled. “We haven’t much time, and I have to finish this for both our sakes.”

“If you make me pregnant and fail to get me out of here, do you really want your cubs born here?”

“That will never happen. I’d die first.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

Again, his tongue stroked over her, slipping between her labia, prodding her entrance and driving inward to lap at her honey-coated walls.

She squirmed on the bench, fisting her hands and pulling at her ties, but to no avail. She was at his mercy. Just as he’d intended. The thought that Guntram had planned this excited her. That he wouldn’t listen to her pleas confused her—but also made her perversely glad.

“Do you know how many times I’ve stood in the darkness, watching you—smelling your arousal, knowing your pussy melted around another man’s cock while I forced myself to remain unaffected? Hundreds of years, I’ve waited for just one chance to be with you. If I’m to die here, don’t you think you owe me this?”

The tightness of his gruff voice affected her like no other ever had. She’d yearned for him to come. To save her. Had she also, secretly, wanted to surrender to
him,
her protector, her personal guardian?

She’d always known he’d watched, and the knowledge had spurred her arousal each and every time. Had she been teasing him, hoping to make him break?

As much as she wanted to bend to no man, she wanted to surrender to Guntram—here. Now. Wanted to feel his cock stroke deeply and lock inside her, nestling against her womb while his seed poured into her. She’d never experienced that before, the true connection with another of her own kind, her species. She’d denied herself the joy of children in order to maintain her status—but also because she’d been afraid to trust a mate to see to her happiness, to listen to and heed her opinions. Mated females held power in their own right, but only within their pack, and only over each other.

“Guntram, you don’t know why I’ve resisted this. I have reasons for remaining alone.”

“And I’m sure they’re good ones,” he said, a finger trailing along the edges of her sex. “But this is me, Gabriella. You should know by now, I would never hurt you beyond the pain you desire. You’ve earned respect in your own right among our kind. Do you really think that will disappear once your belly’s full and your breasts are nurturing pups?”

A soft sob caught her unaware. The picture that filled her mind was of golden sunlight in a copse, her in wolfskin, cubs suckling her breasts while Guntram kept watch. A sublime image, empty of all her fears.

Even now, tethered to this bench, knowing he would take her whether she gave him the words to grant him that right or not, didn’t feel in the least like that other time that haunted her nightmares.

Guntram had indeed earned the right to her body, to her future. He’d earned her trust. But did he love her? She didn’t think she could bear to mate herself to him if he felt compelled only by duty.

But she was woman as well as a wolf. And she knew a woman could wield power over the strongest man by her wits and femininity. If he didn’t love her now, she would find the key to his heart.

“You know I won’t say it,” she said, her voice wavering.

“Say what, princess?”

“That I surrender.”

“I’d be disappointed in you if you did.”

She almost smiled at the wry note in his tone. “Know this, if I were free, I’d give you a fight you’d never forget.”