22. My AllyEnemy
TWENTY-TWO
MY ALLY OR ENEMY
Syasku
My prick throbs at every glance she sends my way.
I do not know what I did wrong and am frustrated, and as the warmth of her body fades, my frustration borders on anger.
She is the daughter of the alpha, the male who allowed my capture. He is the one Ursula speaks of when she torments and steals from me. He is the one who is always in the background, in the shadows, spoken of yet rarely seen.
My female’s sire is a male I very much intend to kill. A kill I will relish and savor.
Her mother almost became my bride.
“Come here,” I order through clenched teeth the next time Vivian looks my way. Yet she continues to ignore me, pacing the room outside of my reach.
Her arousal, thicker than ever, trails wherever she goes. Straining against my instincts, I hide my prick and keep it out of sight so I do not upset her further. The last time it fell out, she moaned, covered her face, and curled up in the corner by the waste bucket, breathing it in. Her lips pursed as her nose wrinkled around gags.
She is trying to fight my pheromones— me —choosing to breathe in the scent of her waste rather than submitting to it.
She is right. I should not trust her, not after her omission. Not after everything.
Yet all I can think of is her soft lips, the way her hair curls tightly around my fingers, the warmth of her slight body lying on mine, and her tongue on my shaft, her hands around my knot, squeezing my seed loose. Thoughts of those same hands washing my body, cleaning the dried blood from my scales, plague me as I recall her large brown eyes sneaking glimpses my way.
I should hate her, use her, manipulate her, and take my vengeance against my captors. I could kill her, wrangle her body, crush it in my tail, and throw it against the window as a warning to those in charge. I should become the very thing everyone expects me to be, an aggressive animal intent on killing. Brooding on these thoughts, I ready my resolve.
And then she will glance at me again, and I lose those thoughts in the soft brown of her eyes.
I realize I do not care who her sire is, though I should.
I want her. I will have no other.
Above all else, I need her to return to me.
“Come here,” I order her again, quaking with lust, and burdened with too much seed.
She ignores me.
“You are mine,” I remind her, my voice unusually deep, raspy with the fear she will never return to my side. “Come to me.” If I get her back, I will not make the mistake of not mating her again. I will drag her under me and claim her for all to see. I will become the new alpha in her life. Grinding my teeth, I have made many mistakes, and foregoing taking her may be the one I regret most.
Vivian stops and bares her teeth at me and hisses. I hiss in response.
She goes back to pacing.
Between rage and frustration, I try thinking of a way to lure her back to me when the lights flicker.
Vivian glances at the lights and then at me, and I release another hiss. My hands fly to my collar, readying to tear it off the next time the lights drop.
She shakes her head and goes back to pacing.
With my fingers digging under the tough leather to the bands of metal beneath, it occurs to me it is not the collar I need off, it is the band around my tail. With it off, I can reach her—if I am fast enough, I can snatch her up.
Anything is better than the stiff, inescapable tension between us knowing she is just beyond my reach. Anything.
Retreating to the wall and shifting my tail inward, I watch for her next glance, intent on having her gaze on me.
“You have not had nourishment today,” I say, hoping for a response.
I test the band on my tail. The metal prongs are embedded deeply, but if I can yank them out at the moment the lights turn off, I may be able to remove it from my tail without too much pain.
“I’m fine,” she snaps.
Slipping my fingers under the band where she cannot see, I wait for the lights to flicker. “When we are free?—”
“Stop saying that.”
“When we are free, we will find her. Your mother. I know where she might be.” If Azsote was able to keep her, she would be with him in his nest in the forest abutting the wetlands.
The lights flicker again as I speak, and I miss my chance.
Vivian pauses and continues pacing. “I don’t want to see her.”
I slip the fingers of my other hand under the band, gripping it hard between both. “Why?”
“She is my mother only in name and DNA. There is no relationship between us.”
I cock my brow. “And yet… you are upset with me.”
“I’m trying to decide what I am.”
“You are mine.”
She startles and looks at me, a blush forming over her cheeks before she turns away.
My hands freeze as I wait for her to face me again. “You belong next to me, where you are safest.”
“I think I’m plenty safe right where I am.”
I pull my fingers out from the band and raise it toward her. “Come here.”
“So I can be safe?” She chuckles hard with disbelief. “Or so you can have sex with me?”
“Both, female,” I warn. “Both.”
She presses her hands to her face. “I can’t get the thought of you and… and Laura out of my head.”
“Is that her name?”
“My mother’s? Yes.”
“You look nothing like her.”
“I take after my father. All his children look like him. For once, I can say thank god for that.”
“He has more offspring?”
“Twelve, last I checked. He probably has a lot more.”
When she does not come, I lower my hand and place it back around my band. “You are not familiar with them?”
“No.”
I frown, trying to understand her and her relationship with her sire. “At the beginning, when you would take my blood, you reeked of fear, but it did not seem it was me you were entirely afraid of.”
“Is that a question?”
“Do you fear your sire?”
She stops in the center of the room and looks at her feet. “Everyone fears him. It would be stupid not to.”
“Why?”
“He can be… controlling. He’s ruthless and doesn’t have an ounce of mercy. He can do just about anything he likes and no one would dare stop him.”
“I can be controlling.”
“It’s different. There is no one with more authority on this entire ship. He can do whatever he pleases, including isolating me in a room with nothing except medical and mechanical engineering books to memorize, for months on end, never seeing another living soul. Look at where I am—I am nothing but a pawn to him. You only want to control where I am in this room. It’s different. ”
“All the more reason to kill him.”
She looks at me, eyes wide, before streaking her gaze around the room. “Don’t say that so loudly.”
“He will not kill me.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I can use the technology he seeks, and he will need me alive for that.”
“And when he captures another of your kind? He won’t need you so much then.”
I shrug, unconcerned. “Ursula will keep me alive.”
Her brows furrow. “She and you have something planned? What else aren’t you telling me, Syasku?”
“I am keeping nothing from you,” I snap. “You only have to ask.”
She throws her hands into the air. “The last time I interrogated you, bad things happened to both of us. Forgive me if I’m not gunning to do so again. I don’t…”
“Don’t?” I repeat when she fails to continue.
“Don’t want to retraumatize you.” She sighs and looks away.
“I am not traumatized,” I scoff. The lights flicker, and I miss another opportunity. “Ursula is sick now, like you, intentionally making herself that way by drinking my seed.”
Vivian’s mouth falls open as her eyes snap to mine then down to my aching slit. “She…what?”
“She believes it will make her stronger and extend her life.”
She takes a step toward me, then another, concern crossing her eyes. “Has she touched you again? Grabbed you?”
Stiffening at her approach, I prepare to snatch her if she gets too close. “She does not touch me,” I lower my voice, trying to lure her nearer. “She has me fill vials.”
She stops just outside my reach, worry taking over her expression. “Syasku?—”
“Come here,” I growl, my frustration returning fiercer than before. “Now.”
“I’m so, so sorry for everything that has—is happening to you.”
“I am not. Only you and our freedom matter. Come to me,” I rasp, desperate to bury my nose into her hair and coil around her. “I know you are cold.” I release a lulling hiss, the kind that puts her to sleep when she is resting against my chest.
She hesitates, searching my face, indecision making her body twitch. I inhale a fresh wave of her arousal and barely hold back a groan, unable to keep my prick trapped any longer. It springs free, dripping with seed. Rising to stare her down, I goad her to take the risk and close the distance.
The lights go out.
Losing sight of her, I grip the band around my tail as tightly as possible, yanking the barbs out enough to pull it down my tail. Blood coats my hands as I manage to shift it half a foot before the lights turn back on.
She gasps just as a burst of electricity floods me. I drop to the floor, seizing with sharp pain.
“What are you doing?!” My hands are grabbed and pulled out from under the band.
Grunting, I flick the blood off my fingers with gritted teeth.
“What did you do?” she gasps again, her hands covered in my blood.
Realizing she is within reach, I yank her to my chest and wrap my limbs around her.
“Syasku, stop!” She leans away. “We need to staunch the blood.”
“My wounds will close in time.” Smearing more of my blood on her, I adjust my grip on her arms. She is such a delicate thing compared to me, and I must be careful. “If I had known blood would be enough to bait you, I would have bled sooner.”
“Release me!”
My hands drop to cinch her waist as her form slides over my appendage, and I bite back the need to throw her on the floor and cover her with my body.
“Just because you can regenerate and endure pain doesn’t mean you should go and act stupid. Do you know what would have happened if you took the binding off?—”
“You would be in my arms like you are now.”
“The guards would come in here and beat you unconscious. They would find another way to keep you bound. A worse?—”
I grab her hair, lean her head back, and cover her mouth with mine, stopping her words. She freezes as I taste her lips, invading her with my tongue and claiming it down to her throat. Wrapping one of my arms around her back, I lower us to the floor until she’s forced to straddle my tail with her legs, all while nudging my prick hard against her.
Vivian’s hands fly up to press against my chest, and with a little of my blood dripping into our kiss, her mouth opens under mine.
A moan leaves her lips as her hands climb my chest to clutch my shoulders.
“I have caught you, female,” I warn against her lips, licking and sucking on her pouty lower one. “No amount of blood spilled will change that.” The desperation of our kiss fades into something softer as I close her in a cage of my tail.
Her hands thread through my hair. “I wish…” She closes her eyes. “I wish there were no consequences for our actions.” Her voice lowers, saddening. “I wish we knew each other under different circumstances.”
I cup her chin with my hand until she looks at me. “There are worse fates.”
“Loneliness,” she whispers. “Unending loneliness.”
“Yessss.”
Her eyes glisten. “Can you forgive me?”
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“I could have refused, walked away. I could have sought someone who could help, who could make it stop, yet I did none of that. And now you’re hurt again.”
I run my nose along the side of hers, straining with need. “ She has shown me her weaknesses and there are many of them. It is only a matter of time.”
“A matter of time?”
“Before the lights go out when I am in her presence.”
Vivian is silent for a moment before shuddering. “I don’t want you to die.”
She pulls my hand from her chin and presses her face against me. The sweet softness fuels my need to keep her safe, and contained—and to destroy her sire. She is too gentle for me. Yet she is with me all the same.
Sad, quiet, tender Vivian, a female I never would have imagined mated to one such as I… has become an all-consuming presence in my thoughts. I will enjoy being her alpha, her protector, and if it is the last action I take, I will kill if it means keeping her.