Pleasure Bound - Complete (66 page)

“Listen, buster. You’ve gotten me mistaken with somebody else. Okay. Just cut this crap and get a doctor for Jarod. He’s burning up with fever.”

He frowned, and stared at her thoughtfully. “Such unusual concern for a male. Why?”

Forcing herself to steady her breathing, she remembered that women were the superior race on this planet.

“Never mind. Just get the doctor in here.”

“No need. His fever will leave shortly. He’s been given a quick healing injection already. It was most unfortunate he was injured. The men didn’t recognize him. They only saw you and did not want the same fate as their leader, and so you both had to be put out of commission quickly.”

He took a step toward her.

A surge of fear skipped into her veins and her grip around the chain tightened. “I’m warning you. You take another step closer and you’ll regret it.”

“I already regret not fucking you the instant I captured you the last time. You have a wild streak inside you that needs to be tamed by a male.”

“I told you that you’ve got the wrong…”

Realization slammed into her like a sucker punch.

He had to be talking about her twin sister, Kinley. Had the Death Valley Boys attacked her?

Okay, she could handle this.

Think
!
Girl
!
Think
! If she gave this guy the impression she wasn’t Kinley then they would go after her.

“You hit me a little too hard on the head. Refresh my memory, will you? Exactly what happened to me when I was last captured?”

“You are still playing that game, are you?”

“What game?”

He chuckled and took another step toward her.

She backed up and readied the chain in her hands. How she was going to do any damage to this big guy was beyond her, but she wasn’t going to allow him to so much as touch her.

“Pretending you don’t know this is Death Valley Boy territory, and the fact that any woman who ventures onto our land belongs to us.”

Oh, boy.

“Therefore you now belong to the Death Valley Boys. The males haven’t taken too kindly to having their leader being killed by a female. I’m finding it difficult to keep them from wanting to punish you, my dangerous warrior woman. Perhaps I can persuade them to go easier on you. Perhaps you’ll allow me to run my tongue along that scar on your belly as you allowed me to do the last time we met?”

Of course, Kinley’s appendicitis scar.

He’d gotten that close to her sister? She wished she could question him as to how her sister was doing and where he’d last seen her, but she’d give herself away and they’d go after Kinley.

This was just great. Her sister had murdered some guy, which the guy probably deserved, and they thought she was the one who had done it.

Time for a plan
,
girl
.

No plan came to mind.

His eyes darkened with lust. “Not many women allow themselves a scar. They get rid of it with the injection. Why you didn’t get rid of yours isn’t my concern. Rest assured, though, it makes you look so sexy. How about giving me another peek at it? So I can taste it again.”

“I don’t think so. Not after what happened during our last encounter.” She was fishing for more information, and that question seemed safe enough to ask, considering he’d obviously watched his leader getting killed by Kinley. Thankfully, he took the bait.

A frown tugged at his handsome face. “You appeared to enjoy what I was doing to you…that is, until the leader showed up and decided he wanted you for himself. Too bad you killed him before either of us could have a taste of your pent-up passion.”

Piper sighed her relief. It seemed as if these men hadn’t physically hurt Kinley. She’d been able to fight them off and escape.

“Come closer to the fire; let me see that sexy scar again.”

Thankfully it was dark enough in here that he couldn’t see she wasn’t wearing a sexy scar. On the other hand, what she was wearing would reveal to him that she didn’t have a scar the minute he got a look at her belly. And what was he saying about letting him taste her scar again? Exactly
what
had Kinley been doing with Blackie?

Cripes, that girl drew men to her like a moth to a flame.

“You can’t touch me. I belong to Jarod.”

Blackie licked his bottom lip as he looked over at Jarod’s prone figure.

“I am an ex-sex slave just like Jarod. I can bring you so much joy. Perhaps more than Jarod has done.”

Arrogant son of bitch.

Her grip on the chain tightened. “You think highly of yourself, don’t you, Mr. Blackie?”

“I know what I want, and I want you under me before the other men get a chance. Once you have a taste of my charms, the others will seem like inexperienced boys, and you’ll keep coming back to me over and over again.”

“Sorry; like I said, I belong to him. So why don’t you just let us go?”

He growled in frustration and turned to leave, then stopped at the door. “You will stay here with Jarod. And you will rest so that you will be ready for the punishment from the Death Valley Boys. Payment for what you have done to their leader. And I will be the first to take that payment and I will enjoy how you writhe beneath my body.”

Having said that, he turned and left.

Shoot! She was in a heap of bad trouble, and it didn’t look as if she was going to get out of it any time soon.

Chapter Eight

Fire burned through Jarod. It seeped into his limbs. Devoured his body until he could barely stand it.

The walls in the dungeon of the prison were rock.

Ice-cold rock.

He couldn’t remember how long he’d been chained here in the darkness. But by the pain roaring through his weight-drenched balls it had been quite some time. The coolness of the rock nestled against his back did little to douse the lines of fire roaring across his flesh from his most recent whipping.

Feminine hands roughly groped his heated flesh. Slapped his penis. Yanked on his weight-laden balls until he screamed in pain, and yanked fruitlessly at the chains around his wrists and ankles.

Her disembodied voice echoed
eerily through the darkness. “You dare to lead a rebellion against women? You will be taught a lesson you shall not soon forget, my sex slave.”

A couple of strong hands slid under his chin and held his head captive. Fingers pried his left eye open, keeping his eyelid from closing.

A long knife gleamed in the firelight of a torch as it drew closer and closer.

Bile rose up in his throat as he realized their intentions.

Searing pain unlike anything he’d ever experienced before ripped through his eye and down his cheek.

He screamed.

And screamed.

Jarod awoke on a gurgled cry.

“Oh, thank God, you’re awake.”

Piper’s voice?

Despite the grogginess pulling him back under, he forced himself to open his eye and blinked at the concern flushing her pale face.

He tried to move, to reassure her everything was fine, but a devilish pain lanced through his shoulder, shot into his chest and seared up into his neck, stopping him cold.

“Don’t move,” she whispered, her warm fingers curled around his chest hairs, urging him to remain still.

He forced the fatigue away. He didn’t have too much trouble doing it. He’d had years of experience of staying alert despite his injuries.

“What happened?” he asked.

“They shot you in the shoulder with an arrow. You had a high fever. It’s almost gone now. They said they gave you something called a quick healing injection. Your wound is already half-healed. It’s amazing the technology these people have access to.”

He peered around at the surroundings. His gut clenched the instant he recognized the hide house belonging to Blackie.

Oh
,
Gods of Freedom
! His worst fear had come true. The Death Valley Boys had captured Piper.

“You must leave.” His mouth felt so dry he could barely talk. He needed some water, but first he needed her out of here. “Leave now. Cut a…hole in the back of the hide house and leave. Don’t look…back.”

“I can’t.”

A cold wave of fear splashed over him. Maybe she didn’t want to leave? Maybe they’d already done things to her? The Death Valley Boys were notorious for finding a woman’s sexual weakness and using it to their advantage. And from his experience with Piper, she was a highly sensual woman.

She enjoyed sex, most likely all kinds of sex.

That would be her downfall.

“Have they done anything to you?” He held his breath awaiting her answer.

“Aside from a nasty headache from the wallop on my head, they’ve been rather sociable.”

Sociable?

That was not a good sign. If they were being nice to her it only meant they were still trying to decide what role she would play for the Death Valley Boys.

She moved a little closer. His blood ran cold at the sight of the black metal collar wrapped around her neck. A chain hung from the collar to where it was locked onto a hook in the ground.

“I tried to break free, but it doesn’t budge,” she said.

Jarod cursed, and once again tried to move, but the pain kept him still.

“I need to…get you out of here.”

“Please, don’t move. I know it’s healing really fast, but I don’t want you to reopen it.”

“I don’t care…about the wound.”

If he could somehow rip the stake out of the ground, he might be able save her.

At that instant, the flap opened and his worst nightmare crawled inside.

“Glad to see you are awake, old friend,” Blackie said as he entered. He quickly gazed at Piper and smiled. “And we thank you for the delicious present you brought for the Boys.”

“She is not a present for you.”

Blackie’s eyes darkened dangerously, but Jarod wasn’t afraid. He would kill Blackie, or any male who dared touch her.

“Are you saying she belongs to you?”

Jarod’s head snapped up and he found Piper staring at him, her eyes pleading with him.

“She is mine.”

“Are you prepared to speak to the council, Jarod? Are you prepared to explain why you were on the outskirts of the cemetery? Why your woman killed Laird?”

“She didn’t—”

“Jarod knows me so well.” Piper broke in—preventing him from telling Blackie she didn’t kill anybody. “He knows I don’t like to be forced into anything. I had to kill the leader because I didn’t belong to him. I belong to Jarod.”

“It is true,” he agreed, wondering why in the world he was going along with her story. Whatever her reasons, it wouldn’t do to argue with her in front of Blackie. “I have captured her and turned her into my sex slave.”

He noticed Piper’s eyes widen slightly at what he’d said, but he also noticed her shoulders slump in relief.

Blackie was watching him carefully. His old friend had always known Jarod hated women because of how they’d kept males enslaved. Blackie had understood what Jarod had wanted to accomplish with the Slave Uprising. He’d wanted the male sex slaves to reach a new alliance with the women. To be treated better. To have the whippings stopped among many other things.

Blackie had not been one of the many who had mutinied against him during the Uprising, but after he’d escaped the Brothel Town, he had joined the Death Valley Boys, the same males who had betrayed Jarod and then raped and pillaged the women of Brothel Town. He’d also remained behind in Death Valley even when Taylor and Jarod had begged him to leave with them after discovering the Boys were allying themselves with Cath, the woman who had caused so much grief for his sister Virgin and himself, and countless others.

“I don’t have to explain anything to you or to the council, Blackie. I no longer belong to the Death Valley Boys.”

“You best spill your guts to the council or at the very least they will kill you, and order the males to give Piper a good punishment for killing our leader. There is talk about it already.”

Horror raced up Jarod’s spine as Blackie’s hand flew to the lock at Piper’s collar.

“Keep your grubby hands off me, mister!” Piper spat, despite the fear that flashed in her eyes.

He knew without a doubt she’d start fighting any second.

“So much fire,” Blackie grinned, as he easily clasped her two wrists together in the palm of his one large hand. “I will enjoy fucking you, my warrior woman.”

Jarod swore when Blackie’s hand cupped Piper’s breast.

“Do not touch her! She is my woman, Blackie. I challenge you!”

Blackie froze.

Piper reacted instantly and slammed her palm up under his chin.

Growling in pain, Blackie automatically let her go. Piper grabbed her chain in both hands, yanked them between her hands and held it up. Anger sparked in her eyes.