Charlotte Boyett-Compo- WIND VERSE- Prisoners of the Wind (13 page)

“By the gods, no!” he said with a laugh.

“No one who even came close?”

He thought of Kali and her wicked ability to bring him to
his knees with her expert hands and tongue.

“There was, wasn’t there?” Marin queried, his quietness
telling her there had been.

“One,” he said after a moment or two, “but it was not
serious between us. At least, not as far as I was concerned.”

“She thinks differently?”

“Kale says she does. She fully intends to become my
common-law wife when I return to Contúirtia. On Contúirtia, if a man and woman
live together for ten years, they are considered common-law married.” He shook
his head. “I knew damned well I’d never be able to live that long with her so
it never crossed my mind that I’d be tied to her the rest of my life.”

“Is that what you intend for me?” she asked, holding her
breath for his reply. “To make me your common-law wife?”

“No, wench,” he said, his arms tightening around her. “I
intend to make sure you are unable to escape me, though.”

She opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but he moved over
her and claimed her lips with his.

* * * * *

Three hours after Taegin Drae’s runabout the
Folaithe
shot through docking bay door five, it raced through the iris and settled
gently into its waiting harness. The engines idled for a moment then quit.
Silence filled the craft as the two occupants sat side by side in the two
console chairs, staring out at the technicians who were waiting to service the
returning ship.

“She handles like a dream, doesn’t she?” Taegin asked.

Marin nodded. She was still lost in the soft afterglow of
passion that had been there when she had awakened in his strong arms, his chin
atop her head, the fingers of his right hand laced in hers. That and the great
compliment he had paid her by allowing her to bring them back to the
Revenge
on her own had eased aside any anxiety she had been feeling.

“Can we go out again?” she asked.

“Whenever I have the time,” he answered, grinning at her
eagerness. He knew damned well it wasn’t the flying that she found so
entertaining. “We’ll drop the male prisoners off tomorrow then head for Ennead
to pick up another batch.”

Shyly glancing at the man sitting in the chair to her right,
Marin blushed. Though she had put on the silken gown he just
happened
to
have onboard, he sat there in all his naked brazenness, as calmly as though
such a state of undress was natural for him.

“My ancestors fought in the nude,” he’d told her when she
asked if he wanted to put at least his britches on. He reminded her he couldn’t
since he’d ripped them off his hips.

“But when we get back to the
Revenge
…”

He’d shrugged. “I’ll get dressed.”

“It isn’t that I find your body unattractive, milord!” she’d
been quick to tell him. “It’s just that I don’t like… I mean I wouldn’t want
to—”

“Share my body with someone else?” he finished for her,
laughing at the deep crimson stain that attacked her cheeks as she looked away.

“Something like that,” she’d mumbled, making his heart soar.

She’s played you like a master
, he thought as he
lifted her hand to his lips and placed a kiss upon it. That knowledge pleased
him rather than angered him, as he would have surmised it would. He had read
her thoughts earlier as easily as though she had spoken them aloud and his grin
widened when he thought of her “reeling him in”.

“What amuses you, milord Tiogar?” she asked, turning back to
look at him.

“You,” he said.

Marin stiffened. Had he been toying with her only to hurt
her now?

“No,” he said. “It was never my intention to hurt you,
wench. I’m not that much a beast even in my worst times.”

She pushed away from him. “You are reading my thoughts
again!” she accused.

“Not happy with the catch you reeled in, wench?” he asked
with a chuckle. “Finding him harder to handle now that you’ve caught him?”

Before she could stop herself, Marin snatched her hand from
his and burst into tears, slamming her hands over her face as she sobbed with
such force, her chair shuddered.

The Tiogar sighed. He got up and stood gazing down at her.
“You act as though you didn’t enjoy what I did to you.”

“Leave me alone!” she cried. “Just leave me the hell alone!”

“You can’t call it rape when you took an active part in what
was done to you, can you?” he asked. “Is that why you’re wailing? Because you
enjoyed it?”

Her tearful sobs grew louder, sounding more like keening
than crying.

Rolling his eyes, Taegin glanced at his clothing lying
scattered on the floor then shrugged. He ordered the door to the runabout open
then strode out naked as the day he was born with a jaunty strut down the
catwalk, whistling as he went.

* * * * *

Lying in his bunk later that evening, looking up at the
ceiling he had had commissioned for his enjoyment, Taegin was frowning. He had
never slept well and what few hours of sleep he managed to get during the night
were always filled with torturous images that made him break out in a cold
sweat.

His head was cupped in the valley of his hands as he fought
sleep, his fingers laced together. Though a cool draft played over his naked
body, he made no attempt to pull the covers up. He was heated more than he had
any desire to be and as uncomfortable as he could ever remember being.

His cock was as hard as stone, flexing as though it was
trying to garner his attention. He could almost hear the wicked thing yelling
at him,
“Hey, look at me! Drae, look at me! See what you did, you idjut? Do
something about it! Don’t leave me like this!”

He would have slammed the damned treacherous shaft down
between his legs if he knew it wouldn’t spring back up again to torment him
even more. The pressure building in his balls was enough to make him grit his
teeth and he could not force his mind’s eye away from the sight of Marin naked
and willing.

* * * * *

Marin dressed listlessly after the warm bath in her new
chambers. No longer locked in a cell, she was in a pleasant suite reserved for
visiting dignitaries. Gone was the prison jumpsuit she had worn and in its
place a pair of snug britches and a silk shirt—both black—that no doubt had
been meant to mark her as Taegin Drae’s property. Her closet was filled with
such garments—no gowns in sight save the one she’d worn off the runabout.

Her eyes were red and swollen, her nose dripping and she was
as miserable as she had ever been in her life. She was a fallen woman, damaged
goods and if her mother had ever thought of killing her that decision would
surely be made now once she found out Marin had been soiled by a loathsome
Tiogar.

“Never,”
he had said,
“will any man ever touch you
save me!”

Stretching out on the firm, comfortable bed, she could not
get his face out of her mind. She seemed obsessed with remembering the way his
hands had touched her, the way his mouth had felt upon hers. She could not push
aside the memory of those golden eyes seeming to look into her very soul.

Taegin Drae was a major specimen of male beauty. Despite the
hardness of his expression—which changed drastically when he smiled—there was
something very gentle in the amber depths of his gaze.

“Sweet Aneas, help me,” she said. “Show me where you wish me
to go, for I am as lost as any woman has ever been.”

She was completely
unprepared when Drae suddenly appeared in her sleeping chamber. She had not
heard the door open, had not heard him approaching her bed. One moment she was
alone with her uncertainties and the next her heart was thudding heavily as she
looked up to see him standing there.

“The gods help me,” he
said, “but I can’t stay away from you, wench.”

His shoulder-length hair
was as sleek and glossy as a sparrow’s wing and was held back from his
clean-shaven face with a golden clasp at his neck. Thick, arched eyebrows
curved boldly over eyes the color of dark amber, and those glowing eyes were
shielded by the longest lashes she’d ever seen on a man. The almost perfect
shape of his nose hinted at softness to his nature while his lips gave lie to
the suggestion of gentleness and labeled him aggressive and perhaps a tad
cruel. There was nothing in his expression that suggested he was anything but a
potent conqueror, a man not to be challenged.

“I am glad you do not
find me loathsome, Marin,” she heard him say, and she forced her stare from his
lips to the compelling darkness of his eyes and was caught—and held—by the
sensuality lurking there.

Marin felt as though she
was drowning in that intense gaze, being pulled down through a maelstrom of
dark needs that set her blood to singing and her juices to flowing. Without
knowing she was doing so, she lifted her hand to him as he skirted the desk
with feline grace and reached out to accept her offering.

“I must warn you, wench.
I am near my time.”

Marin stopped breathing.
“Your time?”

“My Conversion.”

At the mention of the
phase of his existence that brought about the shape change from man to deadly
beast, Marin felt a current of fear wriggle down her spine.

“Should I be afraid of you, Captain?” she whispered.

“Why should you fear me?
You are not my prey, wench,” he said as he walked to the bunk and held out his
hand. “You are my woman.”

Marin swallowed hard but
lifted her hand, placing her palm in his, unable to do anything else. And when
their fingers met, she sucked in a wavering breath and felt her knees growing
weak as his strong hand closed around hers. He pulled her to her feet and
against him.

“Milord?” she asked,
snuggling into his embrace.

“Aye?”

She hesitated then
gathered her courage. “Why did you warn me about the Conversion?”

His arms tightened
around her. “I don’t ever want you to see me in my Tiogar form, wench. It is
not a gentle sight and one that might disturb your dreams,” he admitted. “Even
my men don’t like seeing me that way.”

“But it’s a part of who
and what you are,” she said. His chin was rubbing against the top of her head
and the image of a big tomcat flitted through her mind.

“I’m more than a big
tomcat when I convert, Marin,” he said, but he smiled at the picture that had
formed in her head.

“More like that, then?”
she asked, and dredged up the memory of a mountain lion she had once seen in a
book.

“Aye, but a lot more
ferocious than that little feline and three times the size,” he bragged.

She pulled back and
looked up at him with wide eyes. “You’re kidding!”

He shook his head and
pushed a strand of hair back over her ear. “I’ve never had myself weighed, but
I imagine I’d come in at around eight hundred pounds. I do know I’m at least
ten feet in length because that is the width of a Ojani shuttlecraft and I had
to turn around inside one once. My shoulder width is most likely around three
feet.”

She stared at him.
“You’d be hard-pressed to skulk around looking like that,” she whispered.

“Wench, when I go into
stalking mode, my prey doesn’t see me until I’m already on them and by then
it’s too late.”

Marin shuddered. “No,
you’re right. I wouldn’t want to see you like that. If you’re that powerful an
animal, what must your growl be like?”

He grinned mischievously
and tweaked her nose. “Believe me when I tell you that you can hear my roar two
miles away, it’s just that loud.”

“Then don’t you go
roaring at me,” she said, pressing her body against his once more.

“Has your goddess Aneas
answered you, my wench?” he asked softly, his chin resting on the top of her
head.

“Aye,” she said, giving
in to the overwhelming emotions this man was generating in her body. Even
though she knew he was reading her thoughts, it didn’t seem to matter. She’d
come to accept that was something he was going to do, whether she complained or
not. “I believe She has.”

He put a finger under
her chin and lifted her face. “Then I thank Her for Her blessing,” he said.

He lowered his head and
his mouth captured hers in a heady kiss that took her breath away. When he
released her lips, he reached up to gently cup her cheek. “When I take you this
time, wench, you will discover a pleasure much more intense than that which you
experienced earlier,” he told her.

Marin stared up at him,
her eyes wide. “It can be more pleasurable than what I felt on the runabout?”

“Much,” he said, and put
his lips to her ear. “Imagine my cock—as hard as steel—buried deep in your
tight sheath. Imagine it as warm as honey sliding in and out of you, going
deeper and filling you completely. Imagine my body covering yours—the weight of
it pressing you to the fur and hot against your skin, my knees pushing yours
wide apart, your legs wrapped around my waist to anchor me to your sweetness.”

Marin felt goose bumps
popping out along her arms and there was an ache, an itch developing in her
nether regions again. She gripped his forearm, liking the feel of the crisp
hairs beneath her palm.

“Then,” he said, running
his tongue along the spirals of her ear, “imagine me thrusting into you, the
friction causing such an exquisite awareness between your thighs and in your
cunt that your knees feel weak.”

Marin trembled. As
afraid as she was, as nervous, his voice sent shivers down her flesh and deep
inside her lower abdomen, she felt a sweet clinch.