Marked for Pleasure (7 page)

Her arm flared with flesh-searing agony, the sensation sliding along her nerves. He grunted in pain as well, which surprised her. She was sobbing now, her arm sharply aching. But Conner stroked her with his spent penis, hardening as he did so. She couldn't tell where the pain ended and the pleasure began. They became jumbled together, and she careened into another spasm that shook both of them.

She glanced at his face, twisted in pleasure and pain. Then she dropped her gaze to view the connection, where his penis slapped inside her pussy. It was then that she noticed the mark on him. He burned as well.

Curious, she dropped her marked arm to touch his hip, where a circular burn was seared into his flesh. At the touch of her fingers on his mark, he growled, a low, feral sound that sent both fear and lust ripping along her nerves.

He slammed her against the wall, his dick still buried balls deep inside her. His hand clasped her arm at the place where her mark still throbbed. A wall of pleasure hit her violently. She crested wave after wave of convulsions. She kept her fingers on his mark, knowing that he must be experiencing the same intensity from her touch.

This time, when his cum streamed inside her, the mark flared with sensual pleasure, not burning pain, though Rhea wasn't sure she knew the difference anymore.

They were both shaking. She could barely stand, devastated to her very soul by what had just happened.

His head rested on her shoulder, and she lifted her arm to stare at the mark.

Circular, like his, with a shower of stars inside it. Impossibly intricate, and different than any other she'd seen. How could she have ever believed they were branded on the skin in any normal way? “How?”

He was still breathless. “It's in my sperm. I can control the chemicals in my semen and mark a woman as my mate.”

“But why the arm? Yours is on the inside of your hip,” she said and stared at where their bodies were joined.

“I don't know,” he admitted. “It's a visible sign of possession.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Convenient for you.”

He met her gaze. “And I can only do it once. It's irreversible. The only way to undo it is if one of us dies.”

The enormity of what he was saying spliced through her. “What?”

He studied her face for a moment and then slid away from her. “Don't worry. I probably wouldn't have mated anyway. This way, you have a built-in protector.” His tone was so bitter.

“I never asked for that,” she snapped, her body cold, the mark aching.

“It's done.” He turned and started to dress. “Don't worry. When I'm dead, the mark will fade.”

Her stomach churned, and she gripped his arm to yank him to face her. “Why? Why did you do this?”

He sighed and handed her a flight suit. “I told you. Because someone wants me dead, little bird. If we had dropped into a different system, I could have left you there safe and sound. But we're in the Sethos system, and the only way to protect you is to mark you.”

“You didn't tell me it was permanent. You have a lot of nerve,” she snapped. Nothing he was doing now added up with the man she'd been researching for two years. Apparently, she'd been so caught up with catching him, she hadn't learned a fucking thing about him or his people. She'd known the mark was part of their ritual, but permanent? Until one of them died? What the fuck was going on? The man she'd been chasing was a cold bastard who let hundreds of people die for his greed. He was a killer, a crook, a fucking scourge of the galaxy. She shook her head. It didn't add up. “You don't make any sense,” she muttered as she zipped up the flight suit.

He headed for the cockpit, and she followed him. “I'll keep it short and simple. I've been undercover for three years trying to stop a group of highly trained murderers.”

She blinked. Okay, she hadn't been expecting that. He glanced at her and gave her a tight smile. “You met some of them on the
Star of Pleasure
.” He slid into the pilot's seat.

She nodded. “The Brotherhood.” She still didn't trust him. “And who are you working for?”

His smile held no humor. “For the Teran governments. The problem is that some of the intel I've collected involved some powerful people.” He flicked the autopilot off and headed for Sethos Five. “It seems that I've been slated to be eliminated. By both sides.”

Her throat was dry. It all made too much sense. The things she knew about him, the way her heart never believed what her head insisted was true. “But you raided that supply ship. You delayed that serum.” She clutched his arm.

He shook his head slowly. “You don't get it, do you? There was no serum, Rhea. That supply ship never existed.” His eyes narrowed to slits. “The Blueshift Brotherhood didn't dust your planet with anything that could be cured. Only survived.” One of his eyebrows rose. “Let me see if I can guess who told you that. Does the name General Halloway sound familiar?”

Abruptly she sat down in the copilot's chair. She wanted to hurl. “He”—she blinked—“he told me you had delayed a supply ship, that all those people wouldn't have died.”

Conner's gaze held hers. “I looked it up. The four months your colony was ravaged by that sickness, I was in the Medarian system. Why didn't you check it?”

“I did,” she said, her throat closed and her stomach clenched. “I thought it was one of your lies.” She glared at him. “You're lying. You have to be. Why would General Halloway lie to me?”

The derisive laugh that came from Conner made her blood run cold. “Because he's my boss. He wanted me to have a bad reputation. What better way than to make me responsible for hundreds of deaths?”

She shook her head, trying to clear it. He was lying. He
had
to be. His eyebrows shot up, and he said, “You still don't believe me?”

“No.”

“That's fine, then. First chance you get, dust me.” He turned away and pressed several buttons.

“None of it makes any sense.” She shouldn't care. But what if she was wrong? What if he wasn't a killer? A horrific murderer? What if he was exactly what he said he was?

“Oh fuck!” he suddenly burst out. A huge warship loomed in their viewscreen.

“What the hell is that thing?”

“It's a Sethos Prime warship. And it's got its weapons aimed at us.”

They were fucked. Even if the warship didn't blow them into space dust, the alternative wasn't much better. “Listen to me, Rhea. Your life may depend on it.” He shut all the engines off and powered down, a sign of surrender. He'd thought Sethos Five would be bad. The Primarians were much worse. Damn it. If he didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all. “Sethos Primarians are violent, ugly. Nyral has a treaty with them, and they respect the mating. Otherwise, you would be an officer's sex slave.” Even the flight suit that was two sizes too big for her didn't hide his new mate's beauty.

Her eyes were wide, and he smelled the fear on her. “I've heard stories…”

He didn't spare her. “Whatever you've heard, it's worse. Primarians are conditioned young that other races, other planets, exist to serve Sethos Prime.” He resisted the urge to touch her, comfort her. “I don't know how they found us, but they have.”

He watched her throat muscles moved when she swallowed. “What are we going to do?”

“We're going to hope they let us off with a little torment.” He gazed at the large black hull. Primarians were notorious for their little games with aliens. Their military was a mass of violent men who raped and pillaged across two systems before several of the planets joined together to slap them back.

“Conner, if they take me—” Rhea's voice shook.

“They won't.”

“Unknown shuttle, be prepared to be towed into our bay.” A voice blared over their radio.

He reached over and took Rhea's hand. His fingers traveled up her arm, sliding her sleeve up, and his thumb traced the mark on her forearm. She belonged to him. He'd never intended on becoming mated, but now that he was, he had no choice. He had to protect her. But how?

She shuddered and stopped his exploration of the mark. “This isn't happening.”

The doors to the shuttle were shattered, and five men burst into the cab. Two of them grabbed her by the arm while another man slammed an elbow in Conner's throat. The pain exploded in his head, but he didn't struggle. The soldiers wanted him to fight them, give them an excuse to kill him.

All would have been fine if one of the Primarian soldiers hadn't gripped Rhea's tit in a painful vise. She cried out, and he went insane.

It was involuntary, natural, and totally instinctive. The mark demanded much from a male dominant. No man touched a Nyral woman that way. A dangerous buzz in his ears grew into a roar. Like a madman, he exploded, disarming the men who held him. He cracked one in the head with a furious slice of his hand. In an effort to get to Rhea, he twisted the neck of another man and knifed the man who dared to lay hands on his mate. He growled, a vicious, ugly sound, and attacked the remaining man who held Rhea's arm. The soldier squealed and dropped her like a hot potato.

The clicking sound of disintegrators being armed and aimed reached him, but he stood in front of Rhea, ready to die.

“Hold your fire!” An authoritative voice halted every movement. Conner took deep breaths, and the killing rage began to subside. His head spun, and his heart thudded.

A tall, thin man in a Primarian uniform stepped forward. “I've never seen the Nyral rage before. Fascinating. All the rumors are true.” He glanced at his men. “Lower your weapons. I told you to be careful. Nyral matings are dangerous things.”

He stepped over two of his broken and bleeding men to stare at Rhea behind Conner's shoulder. “My name is General Ancred. Hold out your arm, ma'am.”

Rhea's arm slid out over Conner's shoulder, the mark glowing red. The general stared at the mark, his black eyes intense. “Very interesting.”

Conner's jaw clenched. The rage still bubbled just beneath the surface. The general pivoted and faced his men, hands clasped behind his back. “This was a terrible mistake. These people have done nothing. I warned you not to touch the woman, didn't I?”

One of the men cleared his throat. “Yes, sir.”

It was probably a lie. Somehow Conner got the idea this General Ancred wanted to see the rage in action. The general paced in front of his men. “I do realize that loss of comrades may cause dissension between Nyral and Sethos Prime.”

Conner had a very bad feeling.

“Why don't you come into my quarters and discuss it?” The general waved a hand toward the door.

Conner resisted the urge to glance at his mate. She didn't understand the stakes here. Primarians were animals with a thin veneer of social skills. One wrong move, and they could be in big trouble.

The men stepped aside and allowed Conner and Rhea to pass. Two soldiers remained behind them, and the general led the way. The ship was a labyrinth of solid gray walls and cold steel.

General Ancred opened a door to a small room with a table and chairs, all a dull gray like everything else on the damn ship. Conner didn't sit but stood behind the seat Rhea slid into, his hands resting on her shoulders.

The other two soldiers, completely anonymous due to the helmets all Primarians wore as part of their uniform, flanked the door, presumably to prevent escape.

The general's black eyes were bright with anticipation as he stared at Rhea. Conner gritted his teeth. Damn it. The man was baiting him. His teeth were yellow and crooked when he displayed them in an offensive grin. “We must, of course, prevent some interstellar incident, no?”

“That would be best, I think,” Conner replied.

Rhea flinched when the general suddenly reached out to touch her hair. “Of course, you killed two of my men. By Primarian law, I can take your mate in payment.”

Bastard. That fucker knew exactly what he was doing. “The agreement between our planets is quite clear on the Nyral mating. Are you willing to risk years of peaceful agreement over two men who died during a Nyral rage?” God, he hoped the man would back off, negotiate, anything.

The general smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. “Perhaps you would be willing to…demonstrate your famous practices for my men.”

A cold hand gripped Conner's stomach. Well, he'd thought they might torment them. But the mouse often didn't live long when the cat played. “We are newly mated,” he said, hoping the man would back off but realizing they were doomed.