Day three and still stuck in the cell with no sign of any of my Vepar. The Council had said we had two weeks to complete this and while I didn’t want to rush into some survival test on an alien planet, I also didn’t want to belong to the Council.
I had been passing my days by sleeping as much as possible, my dreams filled with images of Corran, Derrial, and Thane. I wondered what they were thinking, why they had done this?
Did they really want me as a mate? It didn’t seem possible. Was this some kind of misguided attempt to make amends with me after everything they had done?
I somehow felt angrier at their efforts than before when I thought I was going to become a Vepar surrogate. First I was being forced to be a mother, and now I was being forced to be a wife.
My anger was mostly directed at the fact that over the past few years, when the loneliness felt like it was going to overwhelm me, I had dreamed about meeting the love of my life. Someone who would sweep me off my feet and save me. My dreams had been dashed into a million pieces and my dream guys had ended up being the villains in my story.
I guess I should have dreamed about saving myself.
I was dozing off again when suddenly I was startled awake by the Vepar who ran the food cart. It made me uneasy about how silent the Vepar all were. I never noticed they were coming until they were practically standing on top of me. Who knows who else was going to come into my cell.
“Let’s go,” the Vepar said without any explanation.
My stomach erupted in butterflies. Was this finally it? Were we starting the mating trials today?
I was tempted to ask, but I knew it would be a fruitless endeavor. This guy hated my guts. Over the past three days he had given me lukewarm water and something that resembled stale bread.
At least I was hoping it was something related to bread.
To be honest, I wasn’t feeling ready for any kind of trial. I wasn’t even feeling ready to get out of bed. I could also sense that a withdrawal was coming on.
I thought it cruel that Derrial, Thane, and Corran had left me to fend for myself and get progressively weaker when I was supposed to be getting ready for tests that were supposed to help me to save my life.
Or maybe that was their plan all along, make sure that I didn’t have a chance so they didn’t have to follow through with something they didn’t want to do.
“Why would you come here?” asked the Vepar walking beside me in a gruff voice. I looked at him, surprised that he was even deigning to speak with me. He was beyond good looking as all the Vepar were, with ashy blonde hair and grey eyes flecked with gold, but there was a sort of melancholy air around him, like he had been beat down by his life.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I said, too tired to not tell the truth.
“What do you mean?” he asked, sounding confused about my answer.
“You’ve heard of the Khonsu right?”
He nodded, his grey eyes darkening at my mention of them.
“The Khonsu were after me. Apparently the only way that I could come here was to be saved.”
“And they saved you from the Khonsu?” he asked incredulously.
“They as in Derrial, Corran, and Thane?” I clarified.
“It’s very strange,” he said, instead of answering me.
“What’s strange?”
“How casually you can say their name. Their practically celebrities on Veon. Each of them celebrated in their fields almost above all others. No one can figure out how they got tied up with you.” He scanned his eyes over me, like he was trying to figure out what they could possibly see in me.
It was the same question that had been plaguing me since I met them.
“They’re threatening everything about Veon by whatever game their playing with you pretending to do the mating ritual. There’s rumors that their using the games as a front before they stage a coup and take over the Counsel.” He laughed, as if that was the craziest thing he had ever heard. “We’ve long known that the Vepar on Earth had dalliances with the human females. But bringing them back here...It’s the craziest thing that I’ve ever heard of.”
I didn’t feel the need to answer him. It seemed like he was more talking to himself than me. His observations were very interesting though. I wondered about the coup idea. With how displeased Derrial, Thane, and Corran had been lately with how the Council was handling my situation, I could see them trying to take over. I didn’t think I should probably say that to this Vepar though.
We walked down a hallway that seemed dimmer than the rest. The Vepar furtively looked around, and I started to get a bad feeling. What was he doing? Where were we going?
Suddenly, he pushed me against the wall. I could feel every ridge of his body and my stomach lurched when I realized that he was aroused.
“What are you doing?” I whimpered, struggling to get away. It was no use though. The Vepar were genetically superior in their strength and my struggling only seemed to amuse him.
“I want to see what all the fuss is about. If you somehow have managed to spark their interest, there has to be something more to you. Are you a good fuck? Because I think I need to try human out. If it’s good enough for them, it’s good enough for me,” he said with a sick smile.
I tried to knee him in the balls, but he easily avoided me. He forced his lips on mine, sticking a long tongue down my throat that seemed twice as long as normal. It went so far back that it awakened my gag reflex and a rush of bile came up and went straight into his mouth.
He broke away from me coughing bitterly. “You skitch,” he said, and I could only assume it was some alien insult. He raised his hand to strike me. I flinched and prepared myself for the impact. But before his hand could touch me, it was caught in a crushing grip. The grip of a furious looking Thane.
“Arrrgghhh,” the Vepar screamed as Thane’s hand tightened. I heard the bone crunching together and I knew that the Vepar wouldn’t be using that hand for a long time, if ever without some serious help.
“How dare you touch what you knew was mine, Simeon,” Thane growled.
He looked at me. “Where did he touch you?” he snarled.
I stared at him, shaking in fear from his wrath.
“Where?” Thane roared. I finally managed to move. I touched my mouth and began to drag my hand down my body where the Vepar had pushed against me.
“Your mouth. We’ll start there,” he said. Faster than I could blink, he reached inside the whimpering Vepar’s mouth and ripped out his tongue with such swiftness and strength that I shuddered. It flopped to the ground like a slug, turning black with decay immediately. I wanted to throw up again. I had been right about the Vepar’s tongue seeming long. The tongue laying on the ground looked as long as a snake. It was terrifyingly disgusting.
The Vepar was gagging and shooting a deep blackish red blood everywhere. All I could do was stare as Thane next grabbed a knife from around his belt and proceeded to carve a deep line from the Vepar’s mouth all the way down his stomach. He didn’t sink the knife in enough to cut him open, but it was enough for blood to seep out and make the Vepar’s garbled screams even louder.
If I thought the Vepar’s screams were bad before, it was nothing to how it sounded now. I pitied him for half a second before a sense of dark satisfaction passed over me. For one of the first times in my life, someone had avenged me. If Thane hadn’t shown up, the Vepar would have raped me. He would have raped me after days of trying to starve me. He had deserved this and I was glad that I had seen it.
“You liked that, didn’t you pet?” Thane asked with a smirk, wiping off the blood on his knife on the Vepar’s pants as he huddled on the ground, an intermix of moaning and screaming coming out of his mouth.
My eyes must have shown just how much I had liked it because Thane suddenly swept me off my feet and began to carry me bridal style down the hallway.
“What are you doing?” I said in an annoyed voice. I was getting tired of Vepar men deciding they could do whatever they wanted with me.
“Giving us something that we both need,” he said in a rough, gravelly voice that sent sparks along my synapses.
He stopped at a door and after waving his hand in front of it to open it, walked us both in.
“What is this place?” I asked, looking around. It reminded me of the hospital rooms in Grey’s Anatomy where the doctors’ slept when they were on call, except instead of bunks there were rows of full size beds along the long wall.
“Just a room for staff to get some rest during their shift,” Thane answered. “Workers on Veon usually work for fifty hours straight before getting a day off. This allows them to sleep.”
“Won’t someone come in?” I asked.
Thane took a step towards me. “Not if they know what’s good for them.”
I rolled my eyes at his arrogance. “I thought I was supposed to be starting the trials today. At least that’s what I assumed I was being taken to before that Vepar decided to take a detour.”
“We have enough time for this.” Thane took another step towards me.
I summoned as much bravery as I could, despite the fact that all I wanted to do was weep, and I glared at him. I glared at him, trying to channel all the hatred and betrayal rattling through me.
“If you think for one fucking second that you can touch me you’ve got another---”
He cut me off before I could say another word by lunging towards me from several feet away. His hand snaked out, fingers grasping my neck. He shoved me up against a wall, towering over me. The bastard just stared down at me, breathing heavily, his lips an inch from my temple, his hand still against my throat, not squeezing but possessive, making a point.
“I like it when you get fiery,” he murmured slowly in a low and terrifying voice, his eyes burning into me. His body pressed flush against mine, and his hardness nestled against my stomach. “I’ve been dreaming about how good you tasted...how perfect you felt.”
I forgot how to breathe for a second. I finally gulped against his hand and tried to regain my bearings. I was breathless, totally surprised, pretty much petrified, and unfortunately very turned on. When I tried to slink away from him, he tightened the grip on my throat just a little. My hands came up and I tried to pull on his wrist to get him to let go. He wasn’t cutting off my air supply, but it was firm and scary. His jaw tightened. My nails dug into his wrist.
“I would be careful if I were you,” he growled. “I wouldn’t want you to draw blood.”
But it was too late. My nails sunk into his hand until droplets of blood started to roll.
The smell got to me almost immediately. It smelled...like the most delicious thing I had ever come across.
He watched as a drop of blood trailed down his arm. Then he looked at me triumphantly. “Hungry?” he asked in a sing-song voice. I started trembling, my mouth watering. Evidently the guys had no problem taking advantage of my new blood lust to get what they wanted from me.
He let go of my throat and in a flash he tossed me toward the bed and I laid out on my back on his bed like a buffet. He climbed onto me and pinned my arms above my head. I tried to struggle but all it succeeded in doing was rubbing me against him, which immediately set my body on fire. I was starving, and I didn’t know which one I wanted more. His body...or his blood.
He caught both of my wrists in one hand, re-pinning them to the bed over my head. His free hand ripped my dress off my body until I was bare to him except for my bra and my miniscule thong.
“Look at this…” He palmed the side of my rear end and snapped the thong quickly against my hip.
“Don’t touch me!” I ordered halfheartedly, letting out a soft moan at the heat of his hand as it traveled softly across my skin.
“You’re a very naughty girl,” he said, wedging a hand under my hips as he cupped me between the legs. I gasped. I felt a finger dip under the elastic of the panties and sliding toward my heat, his greedy finger sliding over my silkiness, teasing me. I let out another groan. His hands were magic.
“Hmmm...seems like you’re enjoying this,” he teased as he let out a sexy laugh that only turned me on further. “Could it be? Do you enjoy playing games?”
I squeezed my eyes shut tight and held my breath. His finger circled leisurely and then I felt him gyrate ever so slightly against my behind. “You do. Fuck. You’re perfect.”
His tongue traced from my earlobe down to the crook of my shoulder. “How did I get this lucky?”
“Not by your personality, that’s for sure,” I muttered as I found myself moving against him.
Why did I say that? Why was I provoking him? There had to be something wrong with me because Thane had lied to me. They all lied to me. And here I was practically begging to be under his body.
I was so screwed up. I hated that it felt good. Was I just as sick and twisted as him? He kept going and then he started to rub circles around my clit, eliciting an “ah” from me. He leaned into my ear and announced, “Guess you don’t hate me as much as you thought.”
I guessed I didn’t hate him. Or at least I didn’t hate what he could do for my body. He wasn’t pinning my arms any longer and yet I was obeying him.
“Please, Thane,” I begged, not even sure what I was begging for, and I opened my legs for him.
His weight fell between my thighs, and without ceremony, he slid into me. A groan of relief sounded out of both of us. He started pounding into me, grunting a myriad of nonsensical words as he did so. I did catch one sentence. “Your body was fucking made for me.”
I wholeheartedly agreed.
Goose bumps popped up all over me. Thane laughed low in his throat, a knowing laugh, knowing that he owned me, reveling in the fact that my body was doing just what he wanted it to do. He leaned back, rotated his hips, and smacked me across the top of my ass with his hand, as he drove in. My eyes rolled back into my head and I let out a loud “ah.” He hit again with his hand, making me scream out not only in pain, but also in pleasure because inside, he was hitting that spot. He touched me then, forcing my body to explode.
He leaned forward and grabbed my throat, mid-climax and lifted me back up to my knees, grinding out a husky, “Perfect, baby.” He kept going, hand covering my throat possessively, as he used me like a ragdoll. He went on for what felt like forever. Just when I thought that it was going to last forever, his mouth moved to my neck. He glided over sensitive places inside of me, making me feel so good that I didn’t even realize it was happening until his teeth had sunk into my shoulder. I let out a scream that was a mix of pain and pleasure.
A husky groan fell from his mouth as he licked the blood that trickled down my shoulder. I knew I should hate it, but I didn’t. I just wanted his in return.
I didn’t even have a frame of mind to judge myself.
I flipped suddenly, surprising him with the movement and allowing me to be on top. I kissed him, biting his lip hard as I did so until drops of blood started to fall onto my tongue. We both let out low groans of pleasure.
Time seemed to stop after that as we kept going and going until I couldn’t even remember my name, or why I was mad. There was only Thane. There was only this moment.
When it was all over, I was limp on top of him, totally spent. I could do nothing but just lie there. I wasn’t sure what to think about what I had just discovered about myself. I had never thought I would get turned on by being dominated.
But I had been more than turned on. I had fucking loved it.
Something was so wrong with me. I didn’t know if it had always been lurking there, or if I had been conditioned to act like this by them.
I rolled off of him and lay on my back, staring up at the ceiling.
“Stop it,” Thane said, pulling me back onto him.
“Stop what?” I asked in a frustrated voice.
“Thinking.”
I barked out a laugh. “You don’t even know what I’m thinking.”
“I do know what you’re thinking. This is what you always do. We fuck up, then we fuck, then you hate yourself because we fucked.”
I looked over at him, hating that he was right. “That’s not what I was thinking,” I said halfheartedly.
He snorted and ran his hand gently down my naked back. “It was what you were thinking, pet. And you need to stop it. How can we ever move forward when you are always forcing us back?”
“I don’t trust you,” I whispered softly, staring into his eyes.
“We get that. And we’re going to keep proving ourselves to you. But you have to help us out. Hell, I’ve killed five Vepar since we’ve been here, all because they dared to look at you wrong.”
“Five?” I squeaked.
He grinned. “Don’t get squeamish on me now. You barely even flinched when I almost gutted Simeon like a fish earlier.”
“Something is wrong with you,” I replied.
His smile grew even wider at my words.
“Probably. But I know it does something for you when you see me go all crazy on anyone who is giving you a hard time.”
“Why did you three set me up for these tests?” I asked, ignoring his last statement because it was the truth.
“Because it’s what we want.”
“You want me to be your mate?” I asked.
Suddenly all the earlier levity disappeared.
“You can’t even comprehend how much. You think we made you our prisoner but it’s been the opposite all along. You’ve captured us. And the funny thing is...none of us want you to let us go.”
I couldn’t say anything in response. His words did something to me, they gave me hope that I’d been trying desperately to get rid of.
I laid back, unwilling to look at him anymore. I was too afraid of what he would see in my eyes.
“So how will this all work?” I asked, thinking about the trials and how a part of me actually wanted to win now.
“You mean being the mate of three Vepar?” Thane asked slyly.
I ignored him. “You know what I mean.”
“The trials used to be the opposite. It was the men who would compete for the woman’s attention that they were interested in mating with. When most Vepar women lost the ability to conceive the Council changed it. The thinking was that the strongest and most cunning women might have the best ability to have a child. It became a sort of culling strategy as the Council tried to fix the fertility issues.”
“How did they know that it wasn’t the men who were having the issues?” I said, feeling defensive for some reason for all the Vepar women.
Thane gave me a look. “Do you really think Corran wouldn’t have ruled out everything before going to drastic measures like thinking about mating with a human?”
I reluctantly couldn’t argue with that. I had never met anyone as brilliant as Corran, as obsessed with detail, and determined to get everything right. It still bit my insides however at the thought of the female Vepar having to prove their worth.
“You’re thinking about this the wrong way,” he said with a wry grin. “This goes back to our beginnings when both males and females did everything they could to show their ability to provide and complete the other person. This is no different.”
“I don’t see you and the others having to go through anything to show me you’re the best,” I remarked saucily, sparking hunger in Thane’s eyes. “Maybe there are other Vepar more suitable for me, more likely to produce strong offspring,” I taunted him.
Thane growled, his eyes began doing that glowing thing and suddenly I was a little bit afraid. When he spoke, it was like he had been possessed, like there were other voices mixing in with his own.
I couldn’t help but shiver.
“You’re never going to know any other male’s touch again, human or Vepar. Do we understand each other?” he insisted.
I nodded, breathless at what I was seeing and hearing.
“And if any other male does decide to touch you...well you’ve seen what will happen to them,” he said, referencing the now tongueless cart Vepar.
I opened my mouth to say something stupid like ask what would happen if I actually wanted another’s touch, but Thane quickly cut me off.
“You can lie to yourself all you want but we’ve ruined you. We’ve made sure that there won’t be another who could satisfy you the way we do, could make you burn the way we do. Oh..” he said, a sly smile on his face. “There’s also the matter of our little blood bond. You wouldn’t be able to find pleasure with another now that we’ve done that.”
“So you’ve ruined me,” I said woodenly. “Meaning if I lose these trials than I’ll never find someone to be with that could make me happy. You’ve literally ensured that I will be miserable for the rest of my life.” I could feel tears gathering in my eyes at the prospect.
Thane’s eyes stopped glowing and I could feel the intensity lessen.
“You’re going to be happy, pet,” he said, taking my hand in his and putting it over his heart. “And you’re going to win.”
I looked up at him forlornly. “Have you seen the other Vepar women?” I asked. “It’s not even a contest.”
“The tests aren’t just for physical strength, they’re also about someone’s mental toughness...their inner strength. And you Ella, have more of that than anyone I know.”
I looked at him gratefully. Everything he had been saying was shocking to me. It added a whole new depth to this thing going on between us, and I didn’t know how to handle it.
But one thing was for sure...I actually wanted to win the trials now.