I was going to break. I could feel it already, the cracks spreading through the walls I'd built around myself. He'd engineered this as precisely as he'd engineered everything else. The maze to herd me here. The storm to trap me. The edging to prime my body until it couldn't accept any relief except him.
I had a feeling I wouldn't last three.
"Let me see your wounds," he said.
I let him.
KERRIS
His hands on my skin.
That was all I could focus on. Not the pain of my wounds. Not the storm screaming outside. Not the awe at the construction surrounding me. Just his hands, massive and warm and impossibly gentle, cleaning blood from cuts that should have been the most important thing in the world.
They weren't. The tonic had made sure of that.
I tried to distract myself by studying the Keep. The main chamber alone was a masterwork. The ceiling arched in a perfect curve, following the natural contours of the skull he'd carved it from but reinforced with structural elements that improved on nature. I could see the load calculations in every joint, the weight distribution in every support. This wasn't instinct. This was engineering.
Luminescent material lined channels near the ceiling, casting soft blue-white light that didn't hurt my eyes. Some kind of phosphorescent compound, maybe organic. The temperature was cooler than outside but not cold, regulated by the mass of bone around us and the ventilation system he'd designed. Water trickled somewhere, a gentle sound that should have been soothing.
Should have been. Instead, every sound, every sensation, every breath reminded me that I was trapped in here with him. That his scent was in every molecule of air. That my body had been prepared for this moment for five days and refused to wait any longer.
He worked methodically, the way he did everything. Starting with the cut on my forearm, the deepest one. He cleaned it with water from a basin that had somehow been carved into the wall, using a cloth that was softer than I'd expected. His touch was clinical. Professional.
My body didn't care about professional.
Every brush of his fingers sent lightning through my nervous system. The tonic had primed me so thoroughly that even medical attention felt like foreplay. My nipples were hard against my ruined shirt, aching points that throbbed with every heartbeat. Between my legs, wetness was gathering again, fresh arousal mixing with the residue of days of desperation.
I felt myself swelling down there, my pussy lips puffy and parted, my clit protruding and throbbing, everything wet and ready and desperate. The seam of my ruined pants was pressing against oversensitive flesh, creating friction that made my hips want to rock.
He could smell it. I saw his nostrils flare as he worked on my arm, watched his pupils dilate slightly. Behind his armor plates, something shifted. The bulge was already visible, already growing.
"This will need binding," he said, his voice that same grinding stone. "The bleeding has slowed but not stopped."
He produced strips of cloth from somewhere and wrapped my forearm with a competence that spoke of practice. The binding was tight but not painful, positioned to allow movement while protecting the wound.
"The others," he said. "Let me see the others."
The others were on my legs. My thighs. Places that required him to either move lower or me to remove what was left of my pants.
I knew what he was doing. Knew this was part of his strategy, his careful engineering of my surrender. He'd designed this the same way he'd designed the maze, the same way he'd designed the water sources that carried his scent. Every element calculated to break me down, to make me desperate enough to give him what he wanted.
But knowing didn't help. My body didn't care about strategy. My body only cared about the ache between my legs and the massive male kneeling in front of me.
I peeled off my pants.
They were ruined anyway. Shredded by bone shards, soaked with blood and arousal, useless for anything except evidence of how thoroughly this planet had broken me. I pulled them down my legs and kicked them away, leaving myself in nothing but my torn shirt and underwear that was so wet it was essentially transparent.
His eyes dropped. Traveled over my body with that same clinical assessment he'd given my arm. But something shifted behind his armor plates. The bulge between his legs swelled visibly.
"The cut on your thigh," he said. "Show me."
I spread my legs.
The wound was on my inner thigh, maybe four inches from my pussy. The bone shard had sliced deep, leaving a gash that was still seeping blood. It needed attention. It needed his hands.
He knelt between my spread legs and went to work.
His fingers on my inner thigh. Cleaning blood from skin that was hypersensitive, that hadn't been touched by anything except the tonic's torment for five days. I gasped at the contact, my hips jerking involuntarily.
