Gift of the Goddess (27 page)

As soon as they saw her, they rushed the bars, shouting, hands reaching through in clawing desperation. Anje leaped back, her forearm knife falling neatly into her palm. It was only when Trey thrust her behind him that she remembered who she was supposed to be.

At least she didn’t have to conceal her disgust. She shrank away, one hand pressed to her breast. “You’re wasting my time, ClawCaptain,” she shrilled. “These are scum!”

“But sstrong!” it pointed out.

“Well, yes, I suppose so.” Anje turned back slowly, ignoring the pleas and catcalls.

Only three men weren’t pressed against the bars. Two lay unmoving in the furthest corner. One had a rough bandage around his head. The other didn’t seem injured, but he was curled up in a fetal position. The third was Brin.

He sat cross-legged, bolt upright against the wall, his face expressionless. The dark beard shadowing his jaw made him look both scruffy and menacing. One thumb stroked the braided circlet around his neck, over and over. The soothing rhythm of the caress slowed—the only indication he was aware of their presence.

140 Gift of the Goddess

But the Bond link fairly hummed with his fury that they had dared to put their lives at risk for his. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Anje’s lips quirked. She put a hand to her own torque, concealed beneath a gauzy scarf that drove her crazy with its trailing ends.
Same old Brin,
she thought as loudly as she could, concentrating on her exasperation. His mouth thinned.

“I want to see that one.” She pointed. “Bring him out.”

“You ssure, flesshy one?” The ClawCaptain’s armored scalp shifted back a fraction, showing its surprise. “That meat iss disscolored.”

“Among humans, a tattoo is considered decorative, ClawCaptain.” Anje raised her brows, striving for the hauteur of the privileged. “And please do not call me that.”

“Flesshy one?” The ClawCaptain scratched delicately behind an eye ridge with one talon. “Iss what you are.” Awkwardly, it bent its thick knees to peer more closely into her face. It had to be over seven feet tall.

The fanged snout did not lend itself to smiling, but Anje had a horrible feeling the creature might be trying. Finally, it said, “A meat with money, yess?”

“Yes,” she agreed curtly. “Are you going to show me or not? I’m sooo bored with this one.” Gritting her teeth, she turned to Trey, back in position behind her, and slashed his shoulder with the cane.

He grunted, absorbing the pain. She’d pulled it at the last possible second, but it had to have hurt. A hand flew to the stripe scoring his fair skin, but her hard stare captured his hazel one. Slowly, the hand dropped and his head sank.

The ClawCaptain hissed its approval and waved a taloned hand. The SpurSoldiers waded into the naked bodies in the cage, serrated halberds jabbing right and left.

Brin rose slowly to his full, imposing height, the snouts of the SpurSoldiers reaching only as high as the middle of his chest. Presumably they could grow as large as the ClawCaptain if they got enough
meat
. Anje suppressed a shudder.

She heard Trey’s quick, rattled breath. Brin’s torso was mottled with bruises and a long slash on his upper arm seeped blood. A nasty-looking knot marked his temple. They’d taken everything from him except the torque, but a thin, angry welt on the strong, brown column of his throat showed where they must have tried to wrench it off and failed.

Anje’s heart pounded, but she forced herself to assess his condition dispassionately. It wasn’t as bad as it looked. Who knew better than she the strength in that huge, muscular body, the sheer power of his will?

One SpurSoldier stood directly behind him, halberd pressed to his spine. The other flanked him, weapon at the ready.

“Thiss way.” The ClawCaptain stumped off, leading them further into the cave complex. The link thrummed with shock as Brin got his first real sight of Trey. It was followed by admiration and amusement and a thread of something else that made her lips tilt. She wasn’t the only one who thought her pleasure slave looked edible.

141 Denise Rossetti

Their destination was a well-lit chamber with a mud wallow at one end. It steamed gently, exuding a stagnant marsh-like smell, harsh enough to make the eyes water.

“Fassten the meat.” A SpurSoldier stepped forward with a length of chain and a lock. There were two wooden poles set deep into the earth, facing the wallow.

The very sight of them made Anje queasy. “No!”

The Hssrdan fixed her with an unblinking yellow stare. “Insspection, yess?” It hissed another command and the second SpurSoldier left the chamber at a lumpy trot.

“I’ve seen enough.” Anje put a hand to her belt pouch. “This one will do. Let’s bargain.”

“Hssrda traderss have good name! Insspect meat now!” The ClawCaptain slid into the wallow until only its eyes were exposed. When it heaved itself up again, acrid clouds billowed into the cave.

The SpurSoldier returned with a bucket of water and slung it over Brin. “Wassh,” said the Hssrdan triumphantly as the shaman gasped and swore, pushing his wet hair out of his eyes. “Insspect.”

“Uh, yes.” Anje laid a tentative hand on Brin’s dripping shoulder. “Right.”

“What the hell do you think you’re
doing
?” he hissed.

She ran her hand over his biceps, squeezed. “Rescue,” she whispered.

The ClawCaptain shifted. Mud squelched and popped beneath its enormous weight. “Iss sstrong meat. Work fieldss. Throw in gelding for free.”

Brin’s mouth opened then clamped shut. His face was dark with fury.

Anje cupped his heavy testicles in the palm of one hand. “Definitely not,” she said firmly and heard him exhale.

“Pleassure sslave?” Despite the rigidity of its facial scales, it wasn’t difficult to see the ClawCaptain calculating an increased margin of profit.

“Yes.”

“Ssatissfaction guaranteed. Insspect.” With a loud clink, the SpurSoldier fastened Brin’s wrists behind the pole. “Working partss, yess?”

Anje literally didn’t know what to do next. Surely the creature didn’t mean… But apparently it did. Waves of panic made her head whirl. She couldn’t, not here.
Couldn’t
. But if she didn’t, they’d all die.

A piece at a time.

142 Gift of the Goddess

Chapter Twenty-One

Darling Letts,

You’ll never guess what Mama gave me for my natal day—a pleasure slave of my very own! She says I’m a grown woman now, with a woman’s needs. He’s the most gorgeous thing—dark gray eyes and a lovely body—especially the you-know-what!!!

But he’s dreadfully sullen. He’s been tongue-trained, but he shows little enthusiasm for pleasuring ME. Do you think it’s too soon for a whipping? I don’t want to ruin him.

Are you going to the Sea Harvest masque? I have such a cheeky idea for a costume …

Extract, letter from HighDuchess Willimela d’Agostin to NobleLady Lettalefa van Pinzfest, Kingdom of the Leaves of the Sea, 10332 ATF.

Warm fingers touched her calf. “Mistress?”

Trey crouched at her feet. He pressed his lips to her boot. “Let me do this for you.” Even the shape of his shaven skull was strong and beautiful. The fluid line of his back and buttocks gleamed in the lamplight like gold-washed ivory. The woman who owned a pleasure slave like Trey would be mad to look for another.

Unless it was Brin.

Tears of relief prickled behind Anje’s lids. “Yes,” she husked. “Please.”

No, the tone was all wrong for a pampered aristocrat. She squared her shoulders. “Some privacy, ClawCaptain!” she demanded.

“Sss?”

Better rephrase. “Send these…” she indicated the SpurSoldiers, “away.”

The Hssrda grunted and waved a clawed hand. Stolidly, the SpurSoldiers dropped to all fours and shambled out. She heard them ground their long halberds outside in the passageway.

“Tesst working partss,” insisted the ClawCaptain and Anje wanted to scream.

Trey reached around Brin as if to check the strength of his bonds. Averting his face from the yellow stare of the Hssrdan, he whispered into Brin’s neck, “Trust me.
Please
.”

When Brin’s mouth opened, Trey clapped a hand over it. The Bond link roiled with apprehension, rigidly controlled. The dark warrior’s gaze remained impenetrable. Slowly, Trey released him.

“No,” Brin rasped. “Don’t—” Anje trembled with the impact of the shaman’s emotions. His appalled comprehension of what Trey was about to do was underlaid with dark desire.

143 Denise Rossetti

Trey’s lips twisted in the ghost of a smile. He huffed out a breath, sank to his knees and ran a shaky hand up Brin’s flank. The two heads turned to her, Trey’s shaven scalp shining pale in the yellow light, Brin’s black locks hanging in disheveled glory around his jaw. The goddess flame flickered deep in his black eyes.

Time seemed to stretch like taffy. Mother, how she loved them! Fear swarmed over her and she beat it off. She turned her back squarely on the ClawCaptain and reached up to stroke Brin’s cheek. “Trust us,” she breathed.

The inferno in the shaman’s eyes leaped with hungry power. The charge of it fair burned her alive. Her response hummed under her skin, ran tingling through the silver lines of the wings clasping her loins, to her sex.

Mother, give me courage!

Raising the cane, she brought it down sharply across Trey’s buttocks. He reared back and the breath whistled out between his teeth.

“I want to see him hard, understand?” she snapped.

Brin’s eyes slammed shut as Trey reached out to cradle his heavy balls in both hands. He handled them gently, rolling and stroking, hefting their weight. Then he bent his head and ran his tongue over the seam and back and around and under, mouthing and nibbling. His touch was delicate, light, but his own cock had risen brutally, stiff in its nest of straps.

Brin’s jaw set so hard, she heard his teeth click. His shaft stirred and swelled though Trey hadn’t touched it and the link swamped her with delight and shame.

Anje moved to interpose her body between the two men and the ClawCaptain. But the Hssrdan was picking its teeth with one long talon. When it yawned, a gust of carrion breath wafted her way.

The Hssrda didn’t copulate with anything they considered food. Only the Mother knew how they obtained sexual satisfaction. And She probably wished She didn’t.

Hastily, Anje turned back to Trey and Brin. They made an insanely erotic tableau, ferocious in its intensity.

Trey had wrapped one hand around the base of Brin’s magnificent cock and slid his mouth over the rest. He grunted with each greedy pull, his cheeks hollowed with effort. Brin’s hands gripped his chains so hard, he had to be leaving bruises. He was gasping, sweat damping the hair on his chest, his nipples swollen into small, jutting peaks.

Anje was utterly transfixed. She’d never seen anything so unapologetically, brutally male. These were the two men she desired more than life itself. She stifled a moan, deep in her throat, and juice trickled into the fabric of the trews she wore beneath her skirt. Her intimate flesh was slick with it, dripping.

Brin fought, struggling against his own pleasure. And she realized, with a bolt of dark lust that nearly took her to the floor, that he was a virgin.

The shaman of a lust goddess, the sexual athlete, the one who’d taught her to pleasure him with her mouth and given her the dark rapture of being taken anally. The

144 Gift of the Goddess

lover who’d shared her and made her scream and beg. He’d stripped away her self-control, emptied her very soul and filled it to the brim with himself.

He’d never had a man.

And he hated the helplessness of his pleasure.

Love he would never reject, his divinity was all love and joy. But the loss of control—that flayed his soul.

The trust they were forcing from him. The utter vulnerability.

Brin possessed and protected those he loved. Not the other way about.
Never
.

His brows drew together, his face stark. “
Gods!
” The dragon on his loins writhed.

Trey only crooned around Brin’s cock, and when he pulled back, it was to wrap his tongue around the smoothness of the broad head in a spiral lick that dragged a tortured groan from deep in the big man’s chest.

With a last, lingering swipe, Trey raised his head. “Mistress?” he whispered.

Brin said hoarsely, “I can’t— That’s enough.”

They were poised, shaking, both of them, sweat beading their skin. Waiting for her command. She swallowed, exquisitely moved, unbearably aroused.

Brin’s cock was towering now, the skin slick and shiny with Trey’s saliva. It pulsed rigidly against his muscled belly, the veins visibly throbbing, an oily bead sliding over the broad smooth head, trembling on the collar beneath the glans.