Falcon’s Captive (14 page)

“Maybe you don’t have fight in you after all,” he continued. “A strange concept, I’m certain, to discover that you like this.” Leaning low, he fed her breast into his mouth and closed down.

Arching her back, she gnawed on the leather in her mouth. Her cheeks flamed.

A drawing sensation on her imprisoned breast forced out a low moan. Hating her weakness, she shook her head.

No!
He was feeding on her, nibbling here, there, and everywhere. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t keep up with him, couldn’t begin to guess where his teeth and tongue would touch next. That he’d done this to her before didn’t matter. As he sucked more of her into him, she tried to turn to the side, only to stop and flop onto her back again as his grip tightened.

Still firmly gripping her with his lips, he straightened a little. She stared as her blurred breast elongated. The drawing sensation increased, then built even more until another moan broke free. Instead of heeding her cry, he pulled again. Tears sprang to her eyes. At the same time, white-hot heat scored her belly and ran toward her crotch. This time she groaned.

After giving her breast a quick jerk, he released her. Her entire breast felt as if it had been brought too close to the sun.

“What did that do to you?” he asked and slid a hand between her legs. Shuddering, she struggled to remember how to close them, but even when she managed to bring her knees together, his hand prevented her thighs from doing the same. Hating herself for the thought, she drew comparisons between her sex lips embracing his cock and soft thigh flesh cradling his fingers and palm.

And when he glided a thumb over those lips as she’d known he’d do, she whipped her head to the side and tightly closed her eyes. She had no such control over her bucking hips.

“You want to be ridden, do you?” he demanded. “Yes, you must, because here’s the proof.”

Something deep inside her quivered. She barely acknowledged the thumb that was invading what maybe already belonged to him. This body of hers had never felt like this, had never been touched in such ways.

“Proof,” he repeated, lower this time. “Sweet, wet truth flowing from you.”

He was gone, leaving her empty and her mind shaking. Then he began bathing the breast he’d handled earlier with warm, sticky fluid from her pussy, forcing her to open her eyes and gape at him. She had no thoughts, no words wanting to be spoken. There were only his indistinct features and the heat sliding off him and onto her. Only that sweet, wet truth he spoke about drying on her breast and him going back for more.

One of the two other men might have chuckled as he painted her other breast with her own liquid, but perhaps she only imagined the sound.

Back he came for more, sliding past her inflamed flesh, caressing and stroking, his sleek, firm nail contrasting with his calloused fingertip and everything confusing her. Making her whimper and moan and still not care that she was being noisy. Her leg muscles burned and threatened to cramp. Why was she trying to hold onto modesty or self when both had been shattered? Melted.

“See what I mean,” Tau said from someplace far away. “She’s ready.”

Nakos’s thumb stilled. She could be wrong, but he seemed more tense than he’d been a moment ago and his breathing was louder. “Just because her legs have parted?” he asked. “Believe this, shaman, there is more to her than sex and need.”

Was there? With Nakos handling her and what the other men had done to her earlier ruling everything, she didn’t know.

“What about it, Jola?” Nakos asked with his mouth so close to her ear that his breath tickled. “If I remove your gag, will you tell us where the falcons breed and give birth?”

“No!” she screamed into the gag.

“I told you,” Nakos said, speaking to the men, “she isn’t as simple as you want her to be. Yes, she’s a sexual creature.” As if making his point, he slid his thumb deep into her. Her legs all but melted into the ground. “But she’s loyal to her people.”

“People?” Tau questioned. “They’re animals.”

“No, they aren’t.”

Before she could comprehend what he had in mind, Nakos grabbed her ankles and began pushing on them, forcing her to bend her knees. He was relentless and strong, not stopping until her heels touched where her thighs and buttocks joined. Then he drew her legs apart and settled himself on his knees in the space he’d created. Only then did he release her ankles, but with his body in place, she remained spread. Vulnerable.

“Pleasure and helplessness, Jola,” he said and rested the heel of a hand on her mons. She saw nothing but his face, his dark and knowing eyes. “That’s what I’m going to give you. When I’m finished, you can either thank me by telling us what we want to know or…”

Or what?
her mind screamed. Then he placed her calves on his shoulders, lifting her buttocks off the ground. Her weight settled onto her trapped hands and shoulders, forcing her head back so she now stared at the top of the tent. Not being able to see him even as her body recorded everything he did frightened her.

Not content with what he’d just accomplished, he gripped her ass cheeks and pulled her yet closer, yet higher. Her shoulder blades ached from the increased pressure, and her cunt muscles clenched in anticipation.

“I saw that,” Nakos told her. The breath that had inflamed her ear a few moments ago now bathed her pussy. “The simple beauty of a woman’s sex muscles doing what the spirits created them for.”

Something wet and warm slid over her slit. Gasping, she tried to buck out of her captor’s grasp. He waited her out, and when she relaxed a little, he touched her there again. Although she shuddered and gasped, she didn’t try to break free this time. He’d caressed her with his tongue—his tongue!

“No more fighting, Jola?” her captor questioned almost gently. “Is it because you want this more than you fear it?”

Fear, maybe a little. Acknowledging that, if only to herself, made it easier to shake her head. However, she guessed he didn’t believe her because he lapped at her once more, taking twice as long this time and dipping deep into her core. Again she fought, not for freedom, but because his touch brought her so close to the edge.

She started to thrash her head only to stop because her neck burned. Although she wasn’t upside down, she might as well have been for all the control she had over her body. Not only that, she was becoming light headed.

Most of all, every time her struggling quieted, he came after her. Dragged her to the edge of sanity. As if it wasn’t unsettling enough to have his tongue plunder her sex, he occasionally pressed it against her clit. She wanted to be silent, damn it! Needed to close silence around her. But moaning kept her from shattering, as did trying to lift her legs off his shoulders.

“No!” He lightly pinched her buttocks.

Arching her back bought her no freedom, no relief. But as long as her legs remained in place, he didn’t pinch her again. And when tongue and hot breath on her about-to-explode tissues fed her thigh muscles, the resultant
punishment
slammed against her brain.

She’d just wrapped fragile self-control over her legs when he opened his mouth and sucked her labia into his moist cave. His lips closed down, captured her.

“Ah, ah,” she cried into the gag. More heat than she’d known was possible rolled through her sex and caught her entire body on fire. She shuddered now, shuddered and shook and trembled as if a storm had overtaken her, and still he sucked.

Her brain spun out a comparison between what he was doing to her sex now and had done to her breast earlier. It all came together, stirred into a frenzied whole, sliced her into small pieces.

“Ah! Ah!”

The other men were speaking, their words thudding around her. But her captor continued his relentless hold, and that became her all. Everything.

Belly clenching, she struggled to push herself at him. Helplessness surrounded her, yet she reveled in it. He’d taken her apart and was putting her back together.

Or maybe she was on the brink of shattering.

Coming.

Yes, coming!

On and on and on. Legs screaming. Her mind pulsing. Trapped pussy tightening endlessly.

Laughter, male laughter. Her captor lapping at her, and her pussy endlessly filling him with liquid proof of his knowledge.

She hated him and feared herself.

“R
emember what I said?” Nakos was somewhere far away, his voice faint and fading. “That when I was done with you, I’d expect you to show your gratitude by telling us what we want to know.”

The words slowly gathered around her, and although they didn’t all make sense, she comprehended that something was expected of her. He’d lowered her onto the ground again but hadn’t allowed her to close her legs. A hand rested against tissues so sensitive that her brain couldn’t distinguish between pain and pleasure. She couldn’t feel the rest of her body.

“Where are they?”

Tau’s voice grating on her nerves, she rolled to the side a little to take what pressure she could off her arms. Doing so earned her a wave of dizziness. When her vision returned, she turned her attention to Nakos. He was close enough that he could touch her if he wanted, but his hands were flat against his thighs, and he didn’t return her gaze. She belatedly recalled that he’d been telling her something when she regained consciousness.

“Tell us,” Tau repeated less patiently than the first time. “I’ve already waited much longer than the spirits promised I would have to.”

“Tau.” Nakos sounded irritated. “This is between her and me.”

“No, it isn’t! You wouldn’t have taken her if I hadn’t ordered you to.”

“That’s it.
I
caught her, not you.”

“Nakos, enough,” Sakima interjected. “Have you forgotten that we have only one use for her? As long as she tells us what we need to know, it doesn’t matter how that knowledge is gained.”

Nakos wiped his mouth clean of her juices. “Do you understand what this is about?” he asked her, sounding weary and wary at the same time. “Freedom is behind you. Your choice is simple. Either you lead us to the falcons’ home or Tau will find a way to force that information from you—a way you won’t enjoy and might not survive. Because of who he is to me, even if I could, I won’t try to stop him.”

She couldn’t go on looking at Nakos, not with the memory of the climax he’d just pulled out of her still overwhelming her. But neither could she bring herself to acknowledge the shaman. Nakos was right. Freedom belonged to yesterday.

Or did it?

When she nodded, Nakos removed her gag. She opened and closed her mouth repeatedly until it was no longer numb.

“Falcons?” She made the word a curse. “They are nothing, small and insignificant birds. Eagles rule the sky, eagles and buzzards.”

“Buzzards? Do not insult me with the word.”

Judging by his outburst, Tau was reaching the limit of his self-control. If she could push him a little more, bring out the violence she sensed lurked in him, Nakos would be forced to protect her, wouldn’t he? Afraid she might not survive the alternative, she made herself study the shaman. He put her in mind of a coyote, a predator capable of both killing its own food and stealing from other predators if the opportunity arose.

“Buzzards are as vital to this land as any falcon, maybe even more because without them, the dead would make the air and ground unbearable,” she told him. “That’s what your spirit dreams are about, not trying to train some small bird with no value but taking buzzards back with you so the stench of the dead no longer pollutes. That will be your legacy.”

His breath hissing, Tau kicked her in the side. Because she’d seen the blow coming, she managed to deflect it by turning away. Just the same, pain bloomed around her ribs.

“Tau, no!” Jumping to his feet, Nakos positioned himself between his shaman and her. “That’s not the way to—”

“It is! We were wrong to treat her like a slave when she’s an animal, a simple, groveling creature. The only thing she understands is pain.”

“Tau!” Sakima warned. “Your impatience is blinding you.”

His expression still harsh, the shaman turned toward Sakima. “Of course I’m impatient. The longer we stay here—”

“I know. We want to return home, before winter if possible.”

“But not empty handed. Never that, never.”

She might be wrong, but the shaman sounded desperate. If he couldn’t turn his vision into reality, maybe his position within the tribe was in jeopardy. Although she didn’t want to feel sorry for him, in a small way she did. If he wasn’t respected, and believed, what was he?

“Nakos,” Sakima said. “Take her to your place.”

Instead of pulling her into his tent, however, Nakos led her over to Lamuka’s cooking fire. The slave wasn’t there, but a small pig carcass hung from a stick suspended over a bed of coals. The smell of hot fat and meat reminded him of how long he’d gone without eating. And as was Lamuka’s way, a clay pot filled with water was nearby. Fortunately, the water was clear, proof that the slave hadn’t used it in his food preparations. After repeatedly dipping his cupped hands in the pot and quenching his thirst, he indicated he wanted Jola to kneel near it. He started to fill his hands in preparation for helping her drink when he changed his mind.

“Don’t try anything you’ll regret,” he said as he untied her.

She said nothing, only winced as she brought her hands in front and tucked them against her body, rocking. He’d already regretted his outburst against his shaman, but seeing her in pain made him reconsider.

“How long were you tied like that?” he asked.

“Too long.”

After rocking a little more, she shook her arms, then dipped her hands in the water and drank deeply. She eyed the sizzling carcass.

Lamuka never left meat untended, which meant he’d probably gone after more wood and would return shortly. In the meantime, however, there were two hungry people with growling stomachs. Lifting the stick off one of the vertical branches that held it above the fire, Nakos turned the carcass so the side that had been closest to the coals was now on top. A couple of slices with Lamuka’s knife and he’d cut off two good-sized chunks of hot pork. He handed the smaller one to her.

After blowing on it, she ate quickly, licking her fingers when she was done. He was cutting off more meat when he noticed that she was studying the sky. Whatever she’d told Tau about how worthless falcons were, it was a lie.

“This changes nothing,” he told her as he gave her another slice. “Just because I refused to turn you over to my shaman earlier doesn’t mean it won’t happen.”

“I know.”

“Then tell him what he wants you to. Take him to the falcons’ nests. Do that and he’ll have no further use for you. And the Ekewoko will leave your people alone.”

“Will they?”

“You don’t believe—”

“He won’t be satisfied until he has gathered all the eggs and hatchlings he can.”

“So? If, as you said, falcons have no value here, you shouldn’t care what happens to them.”

She turned on him, eyes blazing almost as fiercely as they had when she was climaxing. “I will
not
betray—No matter what happens to me, I will
not
do that.”

Even if it costs you your life?
he wanted to demand, but her eyes supplied the answer. The falcons’ safety was more important than her own. What he didn’t understand was why.

They ate in silence. Even when Lamuka returned, Jola said nothing, and Nakos had little to contribute to the slave’s questions about the meat’s quality. He was trying to decide whether he wanted more when movement to his left distracted him. His lord was leaving the shaman’s tent. Although Sakima didn’t look his way, the older man’s presence was enough to get him to his feet. Sakima hadn’t detailed what he wanted Nakos to do with Jola once he’d taken her back to his tent because it hadn’t been necessary.

She hadn’t been broken down, yet. But it would happen, soon.

Jola, too, must have seen Sakima, but she didn’t acknowledge the lord. Instead, she again glanced skyward. What he’d concluded had been rage faded from her features, and in its place bloomed a deep longing.

“Come,” he said. “Do as my lord ordered.”

Lowering her head, she fixed him with yet another expression. This one whispered of resignation along with a hint of rebellion that instantly brought him to her side. “Don’t,” he warned.

“You can’t stop me from being who I am. No one can.”

All too soon, Jola was asking herself whether she’d lied when she’d warned Nakos not to try to change her. Once again her hands were tied, one wrist over the other, in front of her this time. He’d ordered her to kneel before him, and when she’d refused, he’d picked her up and deposited her on her back on his mat. With his scent drifting up from the bed to envelope her, she’d lain there waiting, anticipating even.

That had been before he’d clamped a warrior’s hand over her crotch, his grip so firm it bordered on the painful. She tried to slap his arm away only to have him grab her bonds and force her arms over her head and against the mat as he’d done too many times.

“Move them and I’ll tie them in place.”

That she couldn’t handle.

As soon as he released her hands, his hold on her pussy tightened. A finger slid past her cunt and between her ass cheeks, trapping her anus under his heated strength. He lifted her until her buttocks barely brushed the bed and held her there, the moments beating on and on, his finger pressing against her rear entrance. His heat was everywhere on her, storming past her labia and slipping deep into her. Then he settled his other hand between her breasts, separating them, claiming them. She felt disfigured by him, her breasts molded into shapes and places they didn’t belong.

But if she tried to stop him, he’d anchor her arms, and she’d be even more helpless than she was.

She’d wait, anticipate, feel, breathe, fight for control.

Maybe mostly anticipate.

“There’s more than one kind of force, Jola, more than one way to compel someone to speak.”

“Torture?”

He didn’t immediately answer, and when he did, his voice sounded strained. “Not the kind of torture you’re thinking of.”

She nearly laughed at that because his handling of her was taking her past being able to think. Her existence began and ended with his hands. Not only did he rule her body, she didn’t want it to be any other way. In some respects this was like being wrapped in a soft, warm blanket. Even with her nerves snapping and humming in anticipation, she was content to live in the moment—his moment.

Had she ever felt this way with Raci? Could she even pull her dead mate’s image into her mind?

“A woman’s body is far different from a man’s,” he went on. “In some ways I envy a woman’s ability to experience pleasure after pleasure without having to recover in between, but as much as I might want endless pleasure, it is better this way.”

“Do you know what I’m talking about?” Cupping a breast, he drew it upward. “A climax is a powerful thing, a wonderful moment. But when it never ends…”

Never end? Was that possible?

All too soon, he’d pulled her into a deep swirling pool without beginning or end. He began by lightly slapping her sex. The flat-handed taps echoed deep inside her, reaching not just her pussy but her belly. They came faster and faster, each slap a little stronger, and the echoes seeped clear to her spine. Once there, they spread up her back, flowed over her shoulders, gripped her neck and sent hot fingers to her mind.

Her breasts caught fire. Flames licked at her thighs and buttocks and still he forced teasing blow after teasing blow on her system. She barely noted when he stopped slapping and buried a finger in her hole.

In and out he drove, in and out. Faster and faster he fucked her, heating and heating and heating her already overloaded channel. Lowering her arms, she scratched his shoulder.

“Ah, so that’s where you are,” he exclaimed. “Reaching the edge. Trying whatever you can think of to keep from falling into space.”

What space? What edge?

Claiming one breast and then the other. Pulling up on them and pushing down. Taking hold of a nipple and painting crude, uneven circles with her so-pliable flesh. Finger fucking her at the same time, going deep, so deep. Reaching her depths only to pull out only to rush in again. Fire everywhere. Crying and screaming and sometimes howling like a wild thing.

Climaxing. Body shaking. Teeth clenching and jaws aching. Body exploding, flying off, flying apart, pieces lost.

Air! Everything became about getting enough air into her lungs. But as soon as the light-headedness faded a bit, her body started screaming again.

He hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t let up on his attack.

One thing had changed, a little, and not that it mattered. His finger no longer filled and owned. Instead, he caught her throbbing clit between thumb and forefinger and rolled the nub about.

“No!” Closing her fingers around his shoulder, she struggled to leverage herself off the bed.

“Yes!”

Her back slammed against his bed, shaking her entire body. Her eyes couldn’t focus, and her mind struggled to hold on to something, anything, in answer to the question of what had just happened.

Then she knew. He’d pushed her off him, simple as that. Struck her with undeniable proof of his superior strength, his goal.

By the spirits, he hadn’t released her clit!

Knowing nothing except that for this moment he wasn’t rolling it about, she tried to breathe her way to the other side of this overwhelming explosion. But she kept climaxing, pussy tightening and tightening again.

Then he gripped her hips and flipped her onto her stomach. Her arms were trapped under her, useless. She couldn’t see him, could only feel as his fingers crawled over her buttocks.

He spread her wide, exposed her in a way she’d never been exposed.

“No, please!”

“Yes, Jola, yes.”

Working with a speed that rocked her, he bent her knees so her ass was forced up off the bed and into the air. She tried to straighten her legs only to jam her feet against some part of his body, maybe his knees.

Anchored, face to the side and worthless hands against her cunt. The proof of her not-yet-done climax seeped between her fingers and too much of her weight was now on her shoulders and flattened breasts.

But those things didn’t matter because he was spreading her ass cheeks again, seeing everything.