Kept: An Erotic Anthology (15 page)

He sped up and rocked his hips into her pelvis, slamming her hard, over and over, reaching between their bodies to rub her clit, sending new sparks shooting all around her body.

“Again, my love, come again for me.”

Her back lifted, her mouth open in a scream when the third one hit hard, making her body shake uncontrollably, and her vision dim.

He lost all control, his rhythm becoming erratic and his breathing labored. Crying out, he slammed into her with full force, making the bed shake as his seed spilled into her depths. He never stopped thrusting, tilting her head back to kiss her passionately, before collapsing forward.

He grabbed her and rolled until she lay draped over him, listening to the pounding of his heart and his fast breathing. He liked to use her as his blanket during sleep cycle—not that she minded.

“Are you happy, Ashlyn?”

“Well, my King, I am if you promise never to stop making love to me like this. I think I said it before, I’m going to die a very happy woman.”

He chuckled, stroking her hair. “This is one promise I can easily keep, my soul bond.”

***

The Mediator leaned back in his chair, the feeling of satisfaction thrumming through him. The King had his soul bond, and not a moment too soon, but there were so many others, so many in need. His work would never be done.

He cocked his head when several more matches blinked to life on his screen. This planet Earth was proving more fruitful than he, or the others could have hoped.

“A’tom, show the new matches.”

The data scrolled down before his gaze.

“Wrap the data, send them out. It may pay to ask the King to send more agents to sector five zero one.”

Yes, a new hope bloomed in the little blue planet. It would keep the seekers extremely busy indeed.

Precious Sacrifice

By Cari Silverwood

Chapter 1

Queensland, Australia

The sky was turning gray and pinky red, the sun abandoning the day.

Past Brittany’s outstretched legs, the grass sloped down to the cliff. Dangerous there. Only last year some drunken party goers had toppled over. People thought the woman had fallen first, then the men when they tried to rescue her. She closed her eyes at the familiar pain of loss. But this was why she came. Some days she sat closer to the crumbly edge.

“Time to go home,” she muttered. As if anticipating the move, the sparrow that had adopted her hopped off her shoulder and flitted away.

If her sister, Talia, knew she came here, she’d think suicide was on her mind. It wasn’t. Life was. This all reminded her of why she needed to,
wanted
to live, despite Jason dying a year ago on a similar slope.

Some had said it was her fault. She couldn’t climb though, or abseil, not like Jason who was...had been...half mountain goat. Things had gone wrong. She’d screamed, tangled in the rope and terrified. He’d come to her aid and somehow, some fucking how, in a way no one could comprehend, he’d fallen, and he’d died.

Convincing herself that she wasn’t to blame had taken some doing. She shouldn’t have panicked.

She’d
felt
him die. Nobody believed her but she had. Being unable to help had destroyed her.

***

On a different planet in the Milky Way galaxy.

Jadd smiled crookedly, sad at the death of another city.

Columns of black, gray, and orange twisted upward from where the fragthorn missiles had struck. After the missiles hit, his Igraak warriors had swamped the surviving enemy.

In the misted rubble a thousand meters below, he spied nothing more hostile than corpses and little avalanches of shattered buildings. Explosions wracked the structures that remained, spattering shrapnel on his armor. Stone on metal.
Ping, ping, pang
. It sounded pretty, like some alien musical offering from the native Pensk.

Once, he’d mingled with them, danced with them, and been welcomed. Their young had sat at his feet to hear his tales – all pretend, of course, part of his information-gathering mission. Though intelligent, they’d never attained space travel. They’d not suspected him, couldn’t comprehend he’d come from beyond their planet.

At one point he’d fallen silent, staring back at the rapt little faces. Such happy smiles. If they’d possessed cheek grooves, they might have been the children of his friends.

The situation had changed. The Pensk had been found to have no star-faring potential. If you couldn’t master space travel, the enemy would have you by the balls as soon as it found you.

First balls, next forcibly enlisted, third, they’d be fighting us. Jadd’s smile set in place. Hence they were being removed before they became a threat. Life had served them kak. In days, their planet would be a demolished and expanding ball of incandescent dust.

Below, a flurry of movement and a flash of blade made him focus. A Pensk woman slumped in death. Red blood soaked the dust. Iron-based blood, like that of all mammals, even these lesser ones. He’d executed seven invasions. People died, always.

He was so tired of death.

As a second woman bolted, an Igraak warrior raised his blade.

Jadd barked into his comm. “Non-lethal pursuit, Ladet! Sheath that sword!”

But the sword remained bared. Desperation showed in the woman’s frantic, crazed movements.

Was the man’s comm out of action or was he ignoring the order? Ladet stalked after the fleeing woman, lazy if determined, his sword pointing earthward and trailing in his wake. The woman cowered as he stepped closer, his sword rising.

The wide brown eyes of the children.
Their innocence.
He was so very fracking tired of killing. Inside him, something cracked.

He launched into a descending path. Dust spat from each ledge he used to ricochet down the building. He reached the bottom in seconds, the last of it in guided free fall. Like a hammer, his boot thunked into Ladet’s arm. The limb would be a mess, even inside armor. He kept going, driving downward. The force flipped the warrior, spinning him sideways.

As Jadd’s boot met ground, his armor’s engines whined madly, struggling to compensate for the impact. He skidded.

When he stood, he found himself the center of a ring of stunned Igraak warriors.

So be it
. He’d accept the consequences.

The woman, her sobs frozen, peeked from between her fingers. At her feet lay her long knife – its steel stained with blood.

Oh
kak
. She was armed. What had he done?

The hours dragged past. At the end of the day, their landing craft returned to the launch ship, synched hatches, exchanged air and men. Wounded were hurried away. Voices diminished. The ship’s corridor was deserted of all bar him, the clean-up bots, and a few patches of blood somebody had shed on the otherwise pristine metal floor.

Jadd’s mech-rifle weighed down his hand, the muzzle clunking as it met his leg. In the traditional greeting of the returning warrior, he knelt. He kissed his gloved hand, touched the ship’s deck. A message scrolled across his retina.

You are summoned to the commander.

With deliberate slowness, he rose. Ceram plate slid. Claws on his gloves retracted. The engines at his joints purred as they helped shift armor. He left his weapon for the armorer bots to collect.

Outer space was cold but the atmosphere in here was even colder. No one met his eyes as he limped the corridor. Landing on Ladet with the same leg he’d been shot in a month before hadn’t been wise. The injury was still healing.

When he stepped into the room, General Freyder fixed him with a stark look. The darkness of his cheek grooves signaled the seriousness of the meeting. On a large cushion beside the desk, his mostly naked pet kneeled. Her blond hair curtained her face and brushed her scarlet nipples. From the direction of her gaze, the woman seemed thoroughly fascinated by the floor. Jadd grimaced – doubtful it was so.

“I see you, Jadd Tekk.” The General leaned against the steel desk behind him. “You’ve maimed a member of your squad and a soldier brother and are to be judged for your crimes.

The room jolted. His heartbeat kicked higher. “I await your decision, sir.”

Freyder drummed his fingers on the desk. “I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself. Your officer status is revoked. You’re assigned as a temporary Preyfinder to a mission investigating the suitability of a new lesser mammal race as Hunt trophies. We’re at the stage of trialing the nano-chem. You are to apprehend the first prey, then go through each stage excluding full submission. Follow orders to the last dot on the mission manuscript, and I will have you named a full Preyfinder.

Thoughts whirled. Preyfinder was a demotion, but at least he’d be alive. “Stop before full submission, sir?”

“This is punishment. The bond you’ll develop with the woman will be painful when you separate.” The bushy eyebrows inhabiting the general’s heavy brow ridge tweaked upward. To Jadd it looked like a pair of hairy bugs. “Our research shows she has zero future anyway. Ninety-nine percent probability plus. She’s going to die.”

He straightened, his gaze drifting to the general’s pet. The precise shade of red of her lips, areolas and her hidden labia would match the general’s cheek groves, and marked her as his. They meant him to mate with this human, to bond, but not to own.

“I can do this, sir.”

Partially bonded and knowing she would die. Cruel punishment. His best course was to stay distant. He’d failed his soldier brothers once. Never again.

Chapter 2

“Time to pack up.”

The teacher’s voice startled Brittany and the charcoal line she’d been drawing did an unexpected jag to the left. She sighed, her lip twisting, as she glanced from the nude male model seated in the middle of the class to her sketch.

Damn. It actually looked better.

The teacher clapped his hands and slowly turned on his heel to include everyone in his speech. “Next week, we’ll try the reclining pose with cloth draped over the torso. Just to show you some new techniques. Thank you, Carl.” He smiled back at the model.

Charcoal pencils in hand, Brittany frowned at Carl, blond and bulked up like he took steroids. All those tight curves and hard muscle. The man gleamed.

No. She wasn’t into gleaming. Just rough, masculine, outdoorsy types who had confidence…like J—

“Shit,” she muttered.
Dorkus.
She stuffed her sketch pad into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.

Dark outside, but only just. Seven pm and summertime made for real late sunsets. Luckily, hairdressing let her have flexible hours. Leaving the salon at quarter to five gave her time to get here with half an hour to spare. That earlier cappuccino meant her eyelids didn’t, as yet, need toothpicks to prop them open.

Time to go home, rest her aching feet, and eat some instant noodles and smoked salmon. What should she watch tonight? Reruns of
Star Trek
?

“See you next week, Brittany.” Carl waved then dragged his t-shirt the rest of the way down his rippling six-pack.

She managed to smile back. At least he’d already put on his pants. “Bye!”

The glass door swung shut behind her with a
shush
. She sighed and hoisted the shoulder strap into a better spot. The front car park at the college had great floodlighting, except for under the jacaranda trees with their giant spreading, crazy branches, where she’d parked. Where, apparently, no one else from her class had parked. Or they’d left already.

Near-death experiences commonly gave rise to new phobias, according to her psychologist, Allan. His little lesson repeated in her mind.

Own it. Approach it sensibly. The world isn’t perfect or perfectly safe. But if you don’t own your fears they will own you.

Fuck you, Allan.

No one was going to kidnap her tonight. She hadn’t even repaired her makeup. Brittany felt for the jingly mass of keys in her shorts pocket then marched down the steps.

If anyone messed with her, she’d poke their eyes out with a blunt key.

Except, when she had the car door open and was about to slide in, she realized someone had followed her. Footsteps tapped closer. From the corner of her eye she spotted the flicker of a purposeful shadow.

***

Though the car park seemed deserted apart from him and Brittany, Jonathan One hesitated. This was too early, too easy. He liked to stir them a little before he drew them in, liked to tease with unease, liked to make them wonder. They never did figure it out. None of them. No matter his clues. Eventually he’d pounce and take them home.

When the moment came that he had to kill her, Brittany would let him into her soul, through her wide open eyes. Knowing they were about to die, that he was about to kill them, and they couldn’t get away...it was unique. He loved that moment. If only he could preserve it forever.

Luckily he always got told to do it again, to another one. This one, that one. Next please.

Yes.

Chapter 3

Jadd shifted, readying himself. The human woman had reached her vehicle and was a moment from entering. Her dark mane of hair swung as she looked out across the car park, in the opposite direction from where he hid. A silhouette showed where another human had paused. The car itself was in deep shadow.

Her future killer? Was that it? Him?

“Ready?” Brask’s husky voice would barely travel past where they huddled against the tree trunk.

Jadd sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

He hopped over the low timber fence, winced as he jarred his leg, but carried on and stepped up to the woman. Studies said their names would gain a human’s attention in ninety percent of cases.

“Brittany?” he whispered and placed his hand around her nape.