Primal Stalk (Corrupted Pet #1)

Prologue

Two dark scuffs cross the pale limestone floor of our dining room where Arrek dragged the enormous table to make room for the cage.

The final blow of his mallet cracks through the room, echoing between thick white-stone walls and the dark heartwood beams overhead. A low fire burns in the broad hearth.

Winter will come, and we will have her here, naked and collared, warmed by our fire. I will feed her by hand. I will make her beg.

Beyond the deep-set windows, the restored terraces descend only a little way before the forest takes them back.

It rolls down the high slopes for miles, broken far below by the silver bend of a great river and the first lamps of human villages along its banks.

Our boundary wall is somewhere beneath those trees.

High stone walls, but they have never stopped her.

She has wriggled out of every trap.

Escaped every hunt.

But I can taste her sweet innocence in her scent, and I know how the thrill of each near miss is making her crave to be tamed.

In the space left by the table, a cage of dark heartwood now stands, large enough for a woman to stand upright. The bars are spaced widely enough for us to reach through, but close enough that she cannot squeeze between them.

“When I catch that little minx, I’m going to make her howl.”

He straightens in one smooth movement.

Sweat glazes Arrek’s marble skin, turning the heartwood dust across his chest into dark streaks.

He is stripped to the waist, his dark work trousers tucked into his boots and the hilt of his Orb-Blade secured to the belt at his waist.

The axe leans against the finished cage amid curls of brown shavings. He felled the tree and shaped every bar himself.

He has changed in the six months since we laid down command and came home for good.

War left him lean and mercilessly chiselled.

Honest work, uninterrupted sleep, and meals eaten at his own table have put solid weight back across his shoulders and chest. He has allowed his brown beard to grow, roughening a face already weathered by too many years of command.

His slate-grey eyes remain fixed upon the empty cage.

Every time we dismantle one of her traps, another appears in its place. We rarely catch more than a glimpse of her.

A wary face turning between the trees. A wiry body disappearing into the undergrowth. Nothing more than a shadow, always two steps ahead of us.

She is too thin. Her patched clothing conceals most of her body, but not the delicate waist or slight feminine curves that hunger has pared down rather than erased.

I follow Arrek’s stare through the bars and see her there.

Curled upon a fur. Glaring at us. Her narrow fingers wrapped around the heartwood while the leash prevents her from retreating beyond our reach.

The hatred in her scent should repel me. Instead, it gives the intoxicating virgin scent beneath it a sharp spice that makes my body ache more fiercely for her.

My cock begins to pulse beneath my trousers.

An answering surge of hunger comes through our Bond. Arrek’s hand tightens around the mallet.

“You’ll have to catch her first,” Talarin says.

He enters carrying her latest snare in one hand. A folded fur and two pillows rest beneath his other arm, with a shallow stone water bowl balanced on top.

Talarin has not gained a pound since we came home. He wears the battle-robes of our species while we have taken on civilian clothes. The hilt of his Orb-Blade hangs from the belt at his waist.

We were offered a manor in the capital, where we could have grown old and fat, drinking wine while dozens of women in pleasure dresses drained our balls and satisfied every base urge.

Instead, we retired to the far reaches of Colossus, two days’ march from the city, to the estate of my forefathers.

Many estates out here have fallen into ruin as our species has dwindled.

The estates on either side are empty. There’s no one to disturb us.

Or that is what we thought, until her scent prickled at our nostrils.

Every morning, Talarin drills against me with his Orb-Blade, then swims length after length of the estate’s long pool. It was choked with algae when we returned. Now the water is clear enough to drink.

He keeps himself ready as though he might be mobilized for war at any moment.

We all might be again, if Doman takes up his mantle and extends our reach into Wild Space instead of forbidding us to Shift.

The old rage boils.

Settlement after settlement. Distress calls we were forbidden to answer. By the time we arrived, all we could do was punish raiders, kill slavers, put down entire nests of Scorp, and do our best to help the survivors rebuild.

Arrek turns on Talarin. His hand closes around the top bar of the cage. The heartwood groans and begins to bow beneath his grip. He releases it before it can break, and the bar springs straight again.

“I will catch her. And when I do, I’m going to turn her bottom red.”

Talarin crouches and slides the folded fur through the open door. The pillows follow, then the shallow water bowl. Arrek’s lips curl back in a sneer as he sees the little nest he’s making for the human we plan to keep.

“You would coddle her after what she’s done?”

It’s the most life he’s had in him since we came here. His aura had been dull and grey, and all of us were ready to simply... disappear.

Until that scent made something in us burn.

“Are you angry with her,” Talarin asks, “or with the fact that she has evaded every one of your traps?”

“If it were anyone else stealing from us, I would use pit traps and spikes. I will not have her hurt while I hunt her. I handcuff myself.”

“But she is not anyone else,” Talarin replies. “She...”

I raise my hand, silencing him. “Do not speak that.”

An old superstition, but I will not have one of my triad speak those two words.

Of what she could be.

We came here for peace. For a short while, we had it, losing ourselves in the hard manual work of restoring this place after centuries away.

Then I caught a tendril of her scent, so faint I thought it false. I caught it again the next day, my cock growing painfully hard and refusing to subside. Every night I’ve gone to bed with the Mating Rage roaring in my blood, my cock throbbing for a woman I have barely seen. Nothing sates me.

There will be no release until I ruin her.

No peace until she’s trapped in the cage, all of her hatred turned to lust, all of her defiance turned to total submission as she becomes our sweet little pet.