Human captives were young, strong-bodied men, handsome and bold, who cursed and fought and gave as good as they got. They suffered so beautifully in their captivity and their eventual and inevitable surrender. Their physical forms were so attractive to the Tygerians that many of the “slaves” became permanent fixtures in the households of their captors. That situation became official when King Davos himself took a beautiful human love slave with the blond hair and blue eyes that were considered to be so exotic and didn’t exist on ourplanet. He’d had declared him to be his nobyo—an unheard-of thing. The term nobyo was reserved for a beloved mate, and it was an audacious thing to do. As Kirstos understood it, the wordaudaciousmeant to be bold, daring, and fearless. It described a person who disregarded convention and took crazy risks with confidence and recklessness. King Davos was nothing if not all of those things.
And the people of Tygeria loved him for it. It was human lovers then that first introduced kissing as an intimate means of expressing affection, and it caught on in a big way. Kirstos had even seen his own father, a man known for his cool, reserved, even aloof behavior, kiss his nobyo on several occasions, and when they went to their bedroom and closed the door, he and his brother knew never to knock or even think about trying to enter.
“You taste so good,” I told Taran, tangling my hands in his thick, beautiful hair to taste him again. Those kisses had sent a charge straight to my groin. My typpid was rock hard and straining against him, and a slow, sultry feeling was coursing through me. I could feel a tingling start up at the base of my spine. I wanted to ravage him, tear him apart and then slowly put him back together again. My hands roamed down his body, and I took him inside my mouth, swallowing him down my throat as he thrashed and begged and tried to thrust his hips like he wanted to get away, but I’d never let him go.
I turned him over and hauled him up to his knees. He pressed back against me, but I wouldn’t try to breach him without some kind of oil. As much as I wanted to ravish him and punish him for making me love him, I felt equally protective of him, never wanting to hurt him in any way. It was a ridiculous dichotomy, a foolish contradiction of feelings, yet I was helpless to change it. Frantically, I left him for a moment and looked around the room. I tore through the drawers of the table besidethe bed looking for what we needed and in the second drawer, I found a small bottle of the thick oil used for that purpose.
I blessed the person who had used this room before and left it there. I smelled it to make sure of what it was, and that it was still good. It was definitely one of the lubricants used on Tygeria. I wondered vaguely if Vannos had ever used this room, or perhaps some Tygerian guests. It was the first room at the top of the stairs, so perhaps it was used frequently because of its convenient location. Maybe the gods themselves had arranged it as a mark of their special favor. I didn’t care. Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. I was so glad of the oil, I gasped and caught my breath. I put a hand on that beautiful little ass of his and began to stroke him and get him ready.
“Don’t stop,” he begged me, looking at me over his shoulder, as I kissed the base of his spine. As if I would ever stop. As if I could.
“I have no intention of stopping unless you tell me to.” I prayed he wouldn’t, because I wasn’t absolutely sure I could make myself do it, though I would try, for his sake.
He groaned with pleasure as I prepared him, and I found my hands were trembling. He was far too important to mess any of this up. When he was ready, I tried to be gentle. But found myself driving into him as he braced his hands on the bed beneath him. He made little noises and groans of pleasure, and I was happy that he was used to rough treatment yet incensed at the idea that someone had been there before me. I moved against him again and again, and I put my hand on his flat stomach to press him back against me, my fingers digging into the hard muscles of his abdomen. His head lolled back on my shoulder, and he cried out as he felt an orgasm teasing at him. Heat raced through me, but I wanted this to be good for him, so I clutched him tightly to me and bathed his neck with morekisses and little love bites as he began to come, crying out at the intensity of his orgasm.
But I was a long way from being done with him. I kept surging against him, spilling out all the hunger and yearning I’d felt for him since the night I found him searching my room. I could feel my body tense and then my climax came and I was tumbling like a shower of stars, falling into him like a meteor blazing a new trail that would only ever be repeated by me again. He was mine and I’d never be without him ever again. Another couple of thrusts and jerks and I collapsed down on top of him, breathing hard. I felt his arms slip around my waist as he turned back into me and buried his sweet, hot face against my shoulder. I nuzzled his beautiful little face and closed my eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
Taran
Kirstos was gone the next morning when I woke up. I’d been aware that he was an early riser, but it was far too early for me yet. I rolled back over instead and covered my head with a pillow to block out the weak, early morning sunlight lighting up the windows.
The sunlight, weak though it was, might be a sign that the storm was finally coming to an end, but I wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. It definitely meant my family’s time was running out—once the Tygerians were sure the storm had passed, then they would send for the shuttles to take us back up to the ships. What would happen then was anyone’s guess.
I wasn’t worried for me. I believed Kirstos was serious when he said I “belonged” to him. Part of me resisted the idea—I belonged only to myself, and he was an arrogant ass for saying otherwise. Yet because of my history—the way my brothers had sold me as a slave when I was a child, because they couldn’t be bothered with me—I had to admit it felt good to be claimed by someone.
But I worried about how Janos would fare on Tygeria and how that would play out with Larz. It was a potentially volatile situation, and it could have disastrous consequences. They had retired to their room when I’d last seen them the night before. Larz got up early, though Janos was probably not going downstairs this morning, because, like me, he was not an early riser in any kind of way.
Still, the thought that he might be coming by my room soon to get me to go down to breakfast with him made me get moving. I didn’t want him to know yet about me and the general. He’dhave to know soon, but this was brand new and I wasn’t ready to make any announcements yet. I pulled myself out of bed and went to take a quick bath. I wanted to luxuriate in the hot water, but I suddenly remembered that I had only a robe to put on afterward and that finally got me moving faster. Luckily, my room was on this same hallway and only a few doors down.
When I was ready, I slipped out of Kirstos’s room and went quickly down the hall to my own room. I wondered if I should knock on their door to see if they were up, and just as I raised my hand, I heard a muffled yell inside the room.
“Larz? Janos? Is everything okay?”
There was an immediate silence from inside, followed by a thump, like something hit the floor or one of the walls inside. “Larz, let me in! It’s Taran.”
I heard more muffled sounds and then another meaty sounding thump. I dug into my pocket for my room key and used the method Bryos had shown me—jamming the metal key to the side and forcing the lock. The lock clicked and I was able to force open the door.
I couldn’t understand what I was seeing for a moment and then I was shocked and horrified to see Janos lying flat on his back on the bed with a pillow covering his face and Luc Dimitri standing over him, his knee on the bed beside Janos, pressing down on the pillow covering Janos’s whole head, as Janos’s arms flailed and his legs kicked.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I shouted and ran forward, tackling Luc and taking him down. His head hit the wall behind the bed, but Luc was strong, even though he was older than me. As we struggled wildly, he managed to get the upper hand. He kicked me off him and jumped to his feet, heading for the door. He still hadn’t said a word or offered any kind of explanation. Not that there was one, I suppose. He had clearly been trying to suffocate Janos with a pillow.
I could hear Janos struggling to sit up behind me and gasping for breath. I thanked the goddess that I’d been in time to save him. Luc had reached the door by that time and wrenched it open, but I threw myself at his back, getting him around the waist and taking him to the floor again. He kicked back at me, connecting his boot this time with my face and I was stunned enough by the blow that I let go of him. It was only for a few seconds, but long enough for him to scramble back to his feet and take off into the hall.
Janos’s gasping sounds behind me made me turn back to him to see if he was badly injured. That’s when I heard a voice from the doorway. “Taran? Are you all right? Do you need some help?”
I’d never been so glad to hear someone in my life. “Bryos!” I cried as I turned to see him at the door. “Run for help! Janos was attacked. Someone tried to-to kill him, and he’s not breathing right!”
He looked shocked but turned without hesitation or asking any silly questions and ran down the hallway. I heard him yelling for help minutes later and only minutes after that when that I heard people running toward us. By that time, I had Janos sitting up on the side of the bed, trying to take in deep breaths.
I didn’t know why I hadn’t told Bryos that the attacker had been Luc Dimitri. Maybe because I couldn’t quite believe it myself. I kept thinking that there had to be some other explanation and that somehow I hadn’t seen what I knew I had. I dreaded telling Larz, who had been close friends with Luc since he’d first arrived on Laltana. They had fought a war together and Larz considered him to be one of his best friends. This was going to be devastating for him and for all the Guard.
Suddenly, the room was full of people, and someone who was dressed like one of Vannos’s physicians pushed me gently away so he could help Janos. My legs gave way, and I fell backon my ass on the floor beside him, still feeling stunned by what—and who—I’d seen in that room when I came through the door. Larz arrived seconds later and rushed over to sit beside Janos on the bed and wrap his arms around him, despite the doctor’s attempts to make him wait until he finished his examination.
Strong arms came around me as well to lift me to my feet, and when I saw it was Kirstos, I threw my arms around his neck as he held me tightly against him.
“Who did this? Did you see them, Taran?”
