Chapter Twelve

Noelle had fully expected something frightening to happen once he had the leisure and privacy to exploit his displeasure over her assessment.

It was certainly unnerving.

But, once Drak had closed and bolted the door, she discovered he had something way more exciting to do to display his mastery over her.

Instead of tossing her onto the bed as he had before when he’d carried up the stairs, slung across one shoulder like a hunting trophy, he merely allowed her to slide down his broad chest until they were nose to nose and covered her mouth in a kiss that was electrifyingly, savagely, possessive.

It could have been hurtful if he’d been of a mind to harm. Instead, it was punishing only in the intensity of it, in the heat it produced inside her that scoured her nerve endings like acid. There was great hunger in the way his mouth moved so possessively over hers and he conveyed that to her, lit her on fire for his touch even though doubts still fluttered darkly at the back of her mind.

When he finally broke the kiss and allowed her to slide the remainder of the way to floor, her toes touched and her legs turned to the consistency of rubber. She thought she would have wilted limply to the floor if left to her own devices. Instead, he swung her into his arms and carried her, climbing onto the mattress on his knees and sprawling over her.

They were both still fully clothed. Worse, Noelle had the damned cloak he’d given her tangled around her. She thought she was going to pass out from the amount of heat he generated that was captured within the cloak and baking her.

Pulling away after a second devastating exploration of her mouth, Drak shrugged out of his tunic. Noelle untied the cloak from around her neck and did her best to fling it off. She was only partially successful, but she managed to shed it enough to give herself a little breathing room.

They wrestled with clothing and limited access. Noelle broke a sweat just trying to get her fingers into the waist of Drak’s trousers to explore him with her hand.

Drak ground his teeth when she accidently found him with her nails, levering himself away from her long enough to unfasten the opening and then reaching for her clothing to peel it away before she could wedge a hand into the opening to grasp his cock.

Noelle began to feel a desperation to be naked and have Drak in that state. She felt her desire peaking and dipping like a roller coaster as they wrestled to position themselves and caress whatever small patch of skin they could uncover.

Sweating from effort wasn’t helpful. The clothes began to cling to their skin, making it that much difficult to remove.

Finally, they rolled apart and removed tunics and boots and trousers. When they collided again in embrace, it would’ve been difficult to say who was more desperate to connect fully.

For her part, Noelle felt she’d had all the foreplay she could handle.

Drak didn’t seem to think she had. He fought off her efforts to mount him, pinioned her to the bed with his lower body and his great hands and thoroughly explored her breasts and belly and mound with his lips and tongue and teeth.

Noelle had sucked in gasping breaths until she nearly hyperventilated and passed out. She was almost too limp and drunk with desire and over-oxygenation to identify his cock and grab it when it came within reach, but fortunately, he surged over her at just the right moment and basically placed it in her palm.

She managed to maneuver one thigh from under him and spread her legs wide enough to plug the massive staff between her thighs, but she could get no further and no amount of wiggling lined her up the way she needed to be.

Huffing for breath, she went limp to collect herself and try to get a decent breath of air into her lungs before she passed out.

Drak seized the opportunity to gnaw on the throbbing nipples of her unprotected breasts.

Uttering a squawk, Noelle grabbed his cheeks and levered his head upward so that their gazes met.

“Put the damn thing in!” she growled.

A jolt went through him, but he surged over her, grabbed the anaconda and began trying to shove it into her pee hole. Noelle tried tilting her hips back and forth a few times to ring it with the hole, but he was determined to stick with the spot he’d chosen.

Damn it!

She began shoving at his shoulders. When he rolled over, she climbed across him, straddled him and then lined up with his lance. She felt the skin on her knees pull with the effort to engulf it, but she couldn’t seem to make any progress.

After a moment, he tossed her onto her back on the bed, grabbed her legs and parted them, then dropped into the V and covered her clit with his mouth. Noelle came up off the bed as an electrifying jolt traveled all the way through her and short-circuited her brain.

Drak planted one plate sized hand in the middle of her face and shoved her down again.

By the time Drak was satisfied he’d lubricated the area enough, Noelle was screaming. Coming up on his knees, he rang the hole and fell over her in the same motion, thrusting. The head embedded itself within the opening and hit deadlock so that his thrusts merely shoved her across the bed.

He dragged her back and thrust again. That time he had the forethought to grab her shoulders and pin her to the bed. He nearly buckled her spine, but his cock slipped a little deeper and when he withdrew again he managed to gather enough moisture to shove her womb through a lung when he drove into her again.

She panted for breath. They were both so slick with sweat by that time that their skin clung when they didn’t want it to and slid when it was least helpful.

Huffing for breath, Drak slipped his arms beneath her shoulders and got a good grip before he began to set the rhythm Noelle, at least, needed to complete her journey to nirvana.

Well, the second one. Despite every effort to fight him off, he’d sucked her clit to ‘get her ready’ until she came … and came and came until she was screaming.

The lack of a good stiff cock in the right place while she was coming had left her feeling a little hollow, however, and she hadn’t actually managed to come down from the mountains while he was struggling to mount her on his staff. When he finally set the thrust-retreat rhythm she’d been waiting for, her body surged upward in a new race for completion.

Great shudders began to wrack Drak’s body.

Noelle knew what that meant.

He was going to come and leave her with an interrupted one.

Tilting her hips, she wrapped her legs around his hips in an effort to control the depth and speed of his thrusts.

It was a fortuitous move, placing her g-spot in just the right position to get hammered by the head of his cock. It set off her second, mind-blowing climax and fried every circuit in her brain. She could barely hold on to him until he’d begun to come, but as soon as she felt the heated wash of his semen, she gave up the effort to cling and melted into the mattress of the bed, struggling to catch her breath.

Drak lost all muscle tone when he’d expended himself and sank heavily on top of her.

It was surprisingly gratifying.

Until he sank heavily enough that she began to have trouble expanding her lungs for a breath of air.

She lifted one hand and shoved weakly at his shoulder. “Air,” she managed to mutter faintly, drunkenly.

She thought for a few horrifying moments that Drak had lost consciousness on top of her. Thankfully, after a few moments he seemed to gather himself, shoved himself upright and fell off of her, rolling onto his back.

And let that be a lesson to me, Noelle thought with drowsy satisfaction. I’ll have to be really careful about pissing him off again!

* * * *

Drak didn’t realize he’d lost track of his objective until he woke the following morning. He wasn’t certain he would have then except he was suffering a hangover effect from having spent most of the night fucking.

It had, in fact, taken a strenuous effort of will to leave Noelle sleeping and get out of bed without waking her for another bout.

As he stepped under the near scalding hot water, though, he abruptly recalled Noelle’s comment about the primitive, filthy conditions.

Not that she’d used those precise, insulting terms, but it had certainly been close enough he was sure he had a good understanding of her feelings.

He might have been enraged at the comments instead of just insulted and moderately pissed off if he hadn’t recalled that his mother had had a similar opinion of the situation on Aiper in general and his father’s main holdings in particular.

He hadn’t actually spent a great deal of time on his mother’s home world, but he couldn’t recall from his many raids that the people of K’naiper lived a more comfortable existence—not of their own devices. The planet itself enjoyed a far milder climate, which allowed the inhabitants to spend a great deal more time outside and also a growing season that made it possible to keep a good table all year round. But he didn’t recall that they had many things of comfort. In point of fact, they moved from one place to another and carried only the essentials with them. They still lived in the temporary shelters devised for them so long ago, directly after the great disaster, when their ancestors had taken the ships that were still able to make the journey and carried the women and young children to safety.

Obviously, the place where Noelle was from was different from both, her home world at least and very likely this new colony she spoke of. He didn’t recall that she’d said the village was better.

He shook that thought and the anger that still simmered each time he thought about it. He knew she hadn’t said anything that wasn’t true. He also conceded that she hadn’t said it as if she felt superior or was being judgmental.

He’d insisted upon having her opinion and she’d been brutally honest instead of mouthing polite lies.

The anger rose from his conviction that she was right. She had only to point it out to make him see everything through her eyes and recall that his mother had complained of how miserable it was in the castle—the cold, the damp, the drafts and on top of that the filth from so many people living virtually on top of one another for more months out of the year than they were able to leave the castle and move about freely.

There was nothing that could be done about the miserable weather. That was something many generations of ancestors had had to deal with since the new planet had entered their solar system and ousted Aiper from its place, the sister taking the comfortable zone for herself and leaving brother god Aiper in the cold.

But he realized they had spent far too much time focused only on survival rather than focusing upon a future where there was more to life that surviving and getting drunk to celebrate that they had made it through another hunt, another raid, another year.

His grandfather’s grandfather had built the fortress to guard his domain from his enemies, to protect himself and his men from both enemies and nature, and to preserve and protect their food supplies. Not only had no one since that time accomplished more, but they had fallen into the rut of fighting war after war, raiding the sister world for supplies and women in the winter when the weather was too brutal to fight their endless wars and simply waiting out each winter until they could go out and do more of the same. They’d done only the minimal upkeep on the fortress his ancestors had built and the end result was that the few comforts that had been designed into it had fallen into disrepair and become useless.

He’d claimed the only suite that still boasted fully functional plumbing—the suite that had originally belonged to his grandfather’s grandfather.

They weren’t progressing. They weren’t even maintaining an even keel. They were losing the little that had been gained since the great cataclysm.

He’d listened to the tales of the teller in his childhood. He knew the history of his people, what they’d had before, the almost miraculous things they’d accomplished. He’d had some half-baked idea that stealing any remaining technology he found and guarding it in his treasury was his way of preserving the old life, the old ways, but he’d done nothing but collect. There were none left who even knew what the crumbling, rusting pieces of a bygone age were, let alone how they worked or how to fix them.

More thoughtful than angry by the time he decided he’d had enough of the battering, hot water, he shut it off and climbed out, dried himself, dressed, and left his suite. By the time he’d reached the stairs leading down to the great hall he’d completely forgotten his anger. In its place simmered an energy of excitement, of purpose.

He debated joining the men in the hall briefly. Instead, after a little thought, he summoned Kulle with a motion of his hand when the man looked up and headed to his solar.

He was seated at his desk when Kulle arrived with a serving boy bearing a tray of food. Surprised but gratified that Kulle had thought to have his breakfast brought up, Drak directed the boy to leave the tray on the corner of his desk and dismissed him.

“What is your opinion of my woman’s understanding of the mechanicals?”

Kulle assumed a more comfortable stance since he had not been invited to sit and considered the question carefully. “She seemed very interested in the things there and curious, but it did not seem to me that she understood them. She sat with one and began to take it apart, but then she was diverted by Terl’s comment regarding the short growing season we have and began to discuss something she called a greenhouse. She said that it would enable us to grow food all year.”

Drak stared at Kulle for several moments in disbelief. “What?”

Kulle shrugged. “I was skeptical myself. But she said it would be like spring always and the plants would grow.”

Drak’s lips tightened in irritation. “When did you and Terl plan to inform me of that?” he growled.

Kulle gaped at him. “You did not say we were to report everything. Only that we were to watch her.” He shifted uncomfortably. “The drawings were on the desk when you arrived and took her away.”

Drak contained his impatience with an effort and turned his mind to the reason he had summoned Kulle. “You have had time to assess the boys we brought back with us?”

Kulle blinked, apparently slow to change gears. “Not … not entirely, Sire.”

Disappointed, Drak considered for several moments and decided that assessment could wait. “You have certainly had time to assess the elder boys. I would like for you to find the brightest among them who does not seem to have either the disposition or inclination to become a warrior and we will see which, if any, can be taught other skills that will be useful to us.”

Kulle frowned in confusion. “Instead of sending them to the servant’s quarters?”

“Yes. Instead. That is the sort of thing that anyone can do. It requires very little skill.” He shrugged. “I suppose the cooking does, but otherwise …. We will see if we have young men who can understand the mechanicals and perhaps repair them. Take a few each day when you take Noelle to the vault and we will see if she can teach them anything.

“According to what Terl told me, she said that she was not trained to do this. It was something she simply enjoyed doing and could do because she was interested. If that is true, then others may also be inclined to learn because it is something they are interested in.”

Kulle looked unhappy and uncomfortable. “Pardon, my lord, but …. They may destroy the mechanicals.”

Uneasiness flickered through Drak, but he resolutely dismissed it. “They are not doing us any good at all at this point. They are useless except as curiosities. If they could be fixed we might discover that they are very useful.

“We will learn who may have an aptitude for this sort of thing and those who do not should be settled with others who have skills that can be taught. If we are to build this thing Noelle has called a greenhouse we will need men with the skills to build it.”

“It will cut into our army considerably, my lord,” Kulle pointed out hesitantly.

Drak frowned. “They can still be taught to fight, but if they have no heart for it and no talent they are more in the way in battle than helpful and pretty much useless as anything beyond presenting a target that might divert the enemy from cutting down our finest warriors!

“As far as that goes, I see no reason why our warriors must be useless for anything beyond fighting, hunting, and eating up our supplies! Tell them I expect them to make themselves useful by cleaning up the mess they have made in the great hall. They can repair the tables and stools they have broken in their brawling while they are at it!”

Kulle gaped at him. “What are they to do with the … uh … manure and rotting scraps of food when they have collected it?”

Drak frowned. “Toss it over the wall. I do not want it in the courtyard either.”

Kulle shifted uncomfortably. “The doors are frozen shut, Sire, and have been for nigh a week now. And there is mayhap five feet of snow in the courtyard.”

Irritation flickered through Drak. “Then they will dress warmly and start the cleaning there. First you will send men to climb down from the second floor into the courtyard to clear away the snow and break the ice that has frozen the doors. While they are doing that, you can give those inside the task of cleaning up the mess and then they can remove it when the snow has been cleared and the doors opened.”

Kulle nodded and turned to depart. He paused at the door, however. “When am I to take your woman back to the vault?”

Drak considered that. “Send someone to my suite with her breakfast. I will take her when she has eaten. In the meanwhile, you can round up the youths for training and then set the men to their tasks.”

Kulle nodded unhappily and left.

He was pretty sure the men weren’t going to be any happier than he was about the Prince’s orders and that a good portion of them would end in the brig for insubordination.

* * * *

Noelle had expected that Drak would remain angry and insulted and possibly dislike her intensely for her observations regardless of the fact that they’d spent most of the night having sex. She wasn’t surprised, therefore, to discover she was alone when she woke.

She was relieved, though.

Not that the sex between them hadn’t been beyond the most wonderful thing she’d ever experienced! But they’d explored their passion pretty damned thoroughly throughout the night and she was exhausted. She was relieved beyond measure that he didn’t expect to spend all day having sex, as well.

There was a tray of food on the table beside the bed when she limped out of the bathroom sometime later after standing under the near scalding water for upwards of half an hour in the hope that it would beat the soreness from her muscles.

Her stomach instantly set up a clamor for the food—even though it was far from being the most appetizing that she’d ever seen!

After dressing quickly, she settled down to eat.

Drak arrived about the time she finished and she slid an uneasy glance at him. Surprised when she discovered he seemed more thoughtful than angry, she relaxed.

“Are you ready to return to the vault?”

Excitement immediately replaced Noelle’s lingering uneasiness. “Yes!” she said, getting up immediately from her seat and searching for the cloak Drak had brought her the day before.

“You will have helpers today,” Drak said conversationally as they headed toward the rear stairs.

Surprise flickered through Noelle, but she decided not ask whether Terl would be one of them or not. Drak hadn’t seemed terribly pleased that they were getting along so well with one another. And he seemed to be in a better mood now than he had been the night before. She decided not to say anything that might spoil his good humor and merely nodded.

She discovered she had a good half dozen helpers.

She was somewhat taken aback at first, but then decided Terl must have talked to his father about their discussion the day before and he must have approved of it.

She explained to them that they were going to organize everything according to how likely it seemed to be fixable. The things that seemed beyond help could all be put together toward the back of the room. Those that looked as if they might actually be in working condition already, or close to it, would be moved to the front and everything else would be arranged back from there from least work needed to most.

This required that they stop and examine each piece fairly well just to determine the likelihood of fixing it. She wasn’t especially surprised to discover that most of the boys seemed interested in the mechanics—at least to a degree, although some were noticeably more interested than others. It was the sort of thing, in her experience, that had a wide appeal among boys.

Not that there weren’t plenty of girls, like her, who also found mechanics fascinating, but it seemed boys were more inclined toward it.

They spent the entire time they were there at that task, but by the time Drak returned to fetch her in the evening they had pretty much examined everything and sorted it and she’d discovered several of the boys seemed to have a real knack with mechanics.

The following day the boys who’d shown the most promise returned. Those who hadn’t didn’t, but there were new boys to take their place.

Shrugging, Noelle focused on finishing the sorting and then settled down at the bench to resume the restoration of the piece she’d started the first day. She carefully identified each piece she was able to and explained to the boys that it was of utmost importance to remember the order of disassembly so that you’d be able to reassemble the piece in the opposite order after you’d carefully cleaned everything and checked it for damage. She also pointed out parts that shouldn’t be touched at all since they might be dangerous electronics. She wasn’t certain she’d correctly identified those components, but they looked suspiciously as if they might be something like capacitors and she didn’t want any of them hurt—or worse, killed—by touching the wrong thing.

Because if she was right and the parts were capacitors they could easily carry enough electrical charge to kill the unskilled and unwary.

After the first week, her escorts began to vary. Sometimes Drak would arrive to escort down in the morning and sometimes Kulle or Terl. Sometimes Drak would come to collect her in the evening and sometimes she would simply leave with Kulle and/or the boys who’d been working with her.

Noelle was so wrapped up in her ‘work’ that it was a while before she noticed that the castle was slowly but surely being transformed.

Very slowly.

The stench didn’t exactly disappear, but she noticed she wasn’t stepping on nearly as many disgusting things on the way to the table and the animals that generally roamed the hall, squatting to do their business wherever and whenever it suited them, vanished.

The men weren’t nearly as rowdy and boisterous.

In fact, they seemed surprising sober and subdued.

And not terribly happy.

And Drak seemed preoccupied and brooding by turns.

Except when he got her into the bedroom.

Regardless of how much room there still was for improvement, the things that had been done were a very definite improvement over the conditions of before.

It occurred to Noelle after she’d encountered a few unpleasant looks from some of the men to wonder if it had anything to do with the assessment she’d made to Drak, but she couldn’t imagine he would pay much attention to anything she’d said. Particularly when he’d been so pissed off about her comments.

The women, she finally noticed, didn’t seem any more fond of her than Drak’s men.

It made her uneasy, but then she was alien to them. She hadn’t really expected them to feel warm and welcoming toward her.

And she thought, maybe, the women disliked her because she had the run of the castle after the first couple of weeks and could go where she liked and explore as much as she liked. Of course, she wasn’t exactly allowed to wander alone. Someone generally escorted her if it was only one of the boys she instructed on mechanics.

Or the little one, Jules. Somehow, he’d made his way to the vault to watch and listen and play at helping. Not that he was much help. He was very young and not as dexterous as the older boys, but he was certainly very willing and eager to learn.

And to teach. He said very little at first, but once he grew accustomed to her, he relaxed his guard enough to chatter like a little magpie.

It was from him that she learned more about the customs and history of the people that occupied the twin worlds than from anyone else.

She also learned that he’d only recently been ‘weaned’ from his mother—the year before—and that he was horribly homesick and hated everything about Aiper, including his father and brothers, and he wanted to go home.

His homesickness infected her. She hadn’t even realized, before, that she’d gotten used to the colony enough to think of it as home, but she missed all of the people and things familiar to her.

Beyond that, his situation absolutely horrified her. She’d been appalled before she’d considered that it might actually affect her own life, but when Drak appeared to have reversed his earlier decision not to breed her and seemed to dedicate himself to doing just that she began to feel far less confident that it was beyond his ability to impregnate her.

What if a child did result from all the sex they had almost nightly now? What if that child was a boy? Apparently, they had no interest in the females except for breeding and never took the girl children, but she didn’t think she could bear it if she had her son torn from her arms as this child had been torn from his mother. It didn’t matter that Drak seemed to treat him well enough. Children needed love! Not to be taught how to be skilled killers!

She didn’t think she could risk such a thing!

But how could she prevent it?

If he did manage to get her pregnant, he would be back in a few years to collect his son if she bore one for him!