Devarian Uprising Read online

  “Tell me something, Rolen. If I asked you to release me right now, would you?”

  “Do you want me to?” His eyes were equally sober, now, but still dark with desire. A half-smile quirked at his lips as he waited for her answer. And waited. And waited.

  His smile widened, and carefully wrapping one hand around both her wrists, he lowered the other to her breast, cupping it lightly as he flicked the nipple with his strong, rough fingers. “I didn’t think so.”

  Soleyla bit her lip, furious with herself, then felt a jolt of fire shoot through her as Rolen tweaked her nipple, hard.

  “Tell me to release you, then.”

  His face, just inches from her own. His eyes, probing, insistent, as he rocked his hips, slicking his cock back and forth through her free-flowing juices.

  “Tell me.”

  Obstinately, Soleyla gritted her jaw. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  Rolen pulled himself back, sliding his cock almost fully out of her, then thrust it, hard and deep, into her throbbing cunt. Furious, Soleyla heard herself moaning in pleasure, and he withdrew again only to slam himself home once more.

  “Tell me. Guardian bitch.”

  At that, she looked directly at him. “No.”

  Grinning, he pulled out of her and with a strength that left her breathless, flipped her onto her belly. Soleyla scrambled to her knees, and immediately recognized her mistake as Rolen grabbed her, one hand on her hips, one closing in her hair, as he entered her from behind, fucking her like she was a dog, a pleasure-slave. He forced her head down until she was lying, ass tilted high in the air. Soleyla felt him swell inside her, aroused further by her struggles.

  So, she realized, was she. Rolen’s cock dragged against her swollen lips, teasing them as he pistoned himself in and out of her, his pace slowly increasing. His thrusts caused her breasts to drag back and forth against the rough weave of the rug, teasing her nipples into points of fire. Need surged through her, a desire she’d never before felt. She wanted this man to ride her, take his pleasure out on her.

  Shocked, Soleyla repeated the admission to herself. Yes. She wanted that.

  Snaking one hand down between her thighs, she ran her fingers over Rolen’s balls, prodding them, feeling their taut fullness, and heard Rolen’s breath roughen. Releasing her hair, he slid both hands to her ass, grabbing her cheeks and spreading them wide. Soleyla closed her eyes as she imagined what the sight must be doing to him, looking down to watch himself plunge into her exposed cunt. His grip tightened, pinching her flesh, but even that added to her pleasure, betraying as it did how aroused he was, how close to losing control.

  Experimentally, she pressed back against his hard thrusts and heard him groan as her muscles clamped down around him. Utterly inexperienced in the arts, even the idea, of trying to please a man, Soleyla smiled at the success of her maneuver. Levering herself up on one strong arm, she released his balls and slid her finger through the folds of her cunt, pressing her clit even as she caressed the sides of Rolen’s shaft. The double stimulation of his cock pounding her cunt and her own fingers rubbing against her clit made Soleyla moan like a wild thing.

  The sound pushed him to the brink, and Soleyla gasped as Rolen, grabbing her hips, pulled her back against him, thrusting his cock into her so hard she felt his balls smashing against her working fingers. Soleyla rubbed her clit harder, faster, feeling the heat inside her flare up, feeling Rolen ram himself into that heat with an abandon that only fed her need.

  Shoving her forward so that her breasts and cheekbone were pressed against the floor, he yanked her legs further apart, spreading her wide. Impatiently, he drove himself deep into her cunt, and Soleyla felt the first, driving spurt of his orgasm even as she let herself fall, heedless, into the searing fire that raced along her limbs. Her thighs trembled beneath Rolen’s weight. Something black and greedy roared within her, and Soleyla shoved back against him as her fingers pressed hard against her throbbing clit and pushed her, shuddering with ecstasy, over the edge.

  Her muscles clamped down around his shaft, drawing a fresh burst of hot, salty fluid from him. She heard him groan with pleasure as his balls spasmed, and his body, taut as a drawn bow, quivered with the force of his release.

  For a moment they stayed rigid, their bodies shuddering with reaction. Then Rolen slumped above her, his chest resting on her back. He shook, as if with cold. But as he slid out of her and rolled to one side, drawing her down with him so that she lay on her back, her head pillowed on the rolling muscles of his shoulder, Soleyla realized that Rolen was laughing.

  His eyes twinkled as she looked up at him, and he grinned. “Now you know how I felt last night.”

  Soleyla chuckled. “Then I think you owe me a thank you.”

  His expression grew serious, intent. “Thank you.” He wasn’t talking about the sex.

  She nodded back, equally serious. “We will do this, Rolen. If it can be done, we will do it.”

  The look in his eyes deepened, letting her see again a brief glimpse of his emotions; his agony, watching his people die; his terror that he wouldn’t be able to save them; his hope, desperate and yearning, that Soleyla might somehow be their salvation. But this time she wasn’t shut out of those emotions, cut off from them. This time, he let her in. With a sigh that was half-sob, he crushed her to him, hugging her close with need and gratitude -- and trust.

  Soleyla closed her eyes, feeling a wholly unexpected bonding with this man, a leader struggling to protect his people. Different as he was, she could not help but respect him. He was courageous, dedicated, broad-minded enough to try allying even with her, a member of the enemy, if it might save his planet…

  Opening her eyes, Soleyla grinned at the massive Antorean. It was right. It was impossibly, unutterably right that he, the descendant of a renegade Guardian, should be the key to Kantou’s freedom.

  When he grinned back, Soleyla’s rash vow suddenly didn’t seem so insanely impossible to her. With an entire planet’s population for an army, and Antoros as her base of operations…

  Whistling, her head already buzzing with plans and possibilities, Soleyla gave Rolen one last squeeze and rose, dressing quickly. As she buckled on her sword belt, she glanced at the bed where Kantou, still asleep, had curled onto his side, his face half-hidden by his arm.

  Whatever it cost, whatever it took, she would set him free.

  Determined but hopeful, Soleyla flung open the tent-flap and stepped out into the clear morning air.

  And stopped.

  As Soleyla stared, aghast, at the sprawling camp, silent and drowsy in the clear morning air, the whistle died on her lips.

  Knocked unconscious by two of Rolen’s men, she had been dragged, bound and insensate, to the tent where she’d eventually awoken. By the time she’d freed herself from her bonds and escaped the tent, it had been too dark to make out much of her surroundings.

  She’d assumed the camp was temporary, a makeshift outpost well away from the bulk of the Antorean population. But as she noted the milch animals grazing sleepily between the large, sturdy tents, the small patches of tended vegetables, the sleepy toddler who stumbled out of a nearby shelter gazing blankly at her as he pissed before disappearing back inside, a terrible suspicion crept like ice into her gut.

  This was her rebel force, her planetary army with which to conquer a galaxy? There were three hundred tents, perhaps, scattered across the broad northern plain.

  Rolen came to stand beside her, his eyes gleaming with a fierce, protective love as he gazed out over the camp. Seeing his expression, Soleyla’s suspicion turned to hideous certainty.

  The sun was just creeping past the surrounding ring of mountains, spreading waves of tangerine and gold over the lush, dew-specked grass, the sleepy animals and the tents scattered over the northern plain. But to Soleyla, the world was suddenly as black as the darkness on the far side of a moon.

  Chapter Two

  Crouched beside a fire, Kantou shivered. Above h
im, stars flickered in the velvety blackness of the vast Antorean sky.

  For eight days he had watched Soleyla, her face set in a terrifying scowl, drill, train and bludgeon the men of Rolen’s tribe by sheer force of will into some sort of fighting force. That same intensity had carried over into the bed they shared with Rolen, and the two men had found themselves lashed by her commands to almost frenzied peaks, writhing in ecstasy under her steely gaze.

  She was a whirlwind, tireless, driven by some inner necessity beyond Kantou’s understanding. He wondered sometimes, as she strode past him, unspeaking, whether she even remembered he was alive.

  On the far side of the flames, a ragged, tow-headed boy squatted, studying him. Other fires flickered in the distance, dozens of them dotting the plain. Kantou huddled under the sheepskin cloak Maris had draped over his scarred shoulders, and tried not to listen to the voices from the tent behind him -- one deep and gruff, one higher and bell-like, both firm, impatient, used to command. The evening breeze veered, suddenly chill, and carried fragments of their argument to Kantou’s ears.

  “…you mad? I saw what they did to --”

  “If you can think of a better plan, I’d be happy to hear it.” Soleyla’s voice was like metal, sharp and deadly cold. Kantou shivered, and glanced up at the stars whose patterns were as alien to him as the unknown creature which had provided the mottled skins for the tents.

  He didn’t belong here. He didn’t know where he belonged anymore.

  From the tent, Rolen’s voice rose in a bellow of fury. “You cannot ask this of me!”

  On the other side of the fire, Betren, the tow-headed boy, shrugged his skinny shoulders eloquently. “My parents throw me out when they’re arguing, too.”

  Kantou tried to muster an answering smile, and failed. What did one say to a boy who, at eight years old, still ran to his mother for a quick, loving hug?

  He had never known his mother. He wondered for the first time if she’d wanted, even briefly, to keep him. Or had she been eager to rid herself of a hated male child? To hand him over, as all male infants were, to the League’s child-houses to be raised as a slave?

  “If we can’t get to those portals, Rolen, we’re dead before we start.” Soleyla’s voice was hard, insistent. The iron inflexibility in her tone frightened Kantou.

  Cocking his head to one side like an alert, curious bird, Betren asked, “Are you really from another planet?”

  Kantou nodded briefly. It was all the response he could manage. A dull relief trickled through his distraction when Maris appeared, giving him an absent smile as she scolded her eldest son into their nearby tent.

  The fire crackled and hissed. Above him, the stars spun slowly in their unfamiliar dance. People rose, yawning, from around the scattered fires and disappeared, in ones and twos, into the scattered tents. Gradually the camp settled into silence. But the voices in the tent behind him continued, low and urgent, as the fire flared and guttered and slowly burned out.

  Then the night was punctuated by Rolen’s outraged shout. “I will not do it!”

  Kantou heard the tent-flap flung open. Soleyla stormed past him, her back rigid with fury. She didn’t even glance down at him as she muttered, “Don’t wait up,” and stalked off into the darkness.

  * * *

  Hours later, long after the fire had died and even the coals gave off only fitful gleams, Kantou woke, feeling the growing cold gnaw into his bones. Still Soleyla hadn’t returned.

  Why couldn’t they be back in the mountains, just the two of them, planting relay transmitters for the communications grid? Why did they have to help these people? Why couldn’t they just go back?

  He didn’t want to be here. He didn’t even want the freedom she’d bestowed on him. He only wanted Soleyla.

  She hardly spoke to him anymore, barely even acknowledged his presence.

  Kantou glanced around the camp. At this late hour it seemed desolate, utterly empty of life. Even the herd beasts of the Antoreans slept in a silence that felt like death. The wind sighed and moaned, reaching wraithlike fingers under his cloak. Shivering, he rose and went into the only shelter he had.

  A single candle flickered near the bed. By its light he saw Rolen, sprawled across the furs, naked and snoring. A wineskin slumped, three-quarters empty, on the table.

  Quietly, Kantou shed his clothes and slid into the narrow space that was left, careful not to rouse the Antorean. The heat radiating off the sleeping man warmed him, and slowly Kantou’s shudders eased.

  His mind drifted, coming back, as it did over and over, to the image of Soleyla, stretched on the floor below Rolen, smiling up at him as he spread her legs wide. Like a man probing a sore tooth, Kantou flinched at the memory, but studied it, recalling every sigh, every moan as the two of them, believing him asleep, had coupled lustily on the floor.

  Why wouldn’t Soleyla let him inside her? The question haunted Kantou. He longed to penetrate that glorious, powerful body, feel her muscular thighs clamp around his waist, drawing him down into her. But each time he’d tried, she’d pushed him away.

  Kantou’s cock twitched as he imagined plunging into her, feeling her hot, slick passage around him, experiencing the ecstasy he’d seen on Rolen’s face…

  That was the thought which burned like acid. She’d allowed Rolen to fuck her.

  Rolen, but not him.

  Kantou rolled onto his side, hugging the furs close. A strange, clawing emotion for which he had no name shook his long, lean frame.

  Maybe she doesn’t want me anymore.

  Once before, he’d let himself believe that. That night in the mountains when she’d turned away from him and strode into the darkness, he had been certain he’d lost her forever. She’d reassured him, and for a brief, shining moment Kantou had let himself believe she loved him. Soleyla Devarian, daughter of a League Senator, beautiful, brave…

  How could she ever possibly love him? He was nothing, a pleasure-slave.

  No. He wasn’t even that, now.

  The realization was a knife, slashing into his very core. Heedless of the sleeping man next to him, Kantou moaned and curled into a ball, trying to push away the thought. But it only cut deeper, growing into a black, desolate certainty.

  Soleyla had freed him, not because she loved him, but because she didn’t want him anymore.

  Tears coursed down his face as Kantou nodded to himself, the rough, hand-spun fabric of the sheet scraping against his cheek. It all made sense, now. It fit. No wonder she pushed him away every time he tried to enter her. No wonder they never made love alone, without Rolen. Soleyla was tired of him.

  And he no longer belonged to her.

  His sobs became frantic. What was he, then, if not Soleyla’s? He wanted nothing else. He knew nothing else. The future yawned before him, empty and terrifying, and he huddled beneath the scratchy wool blanket, hiding from it.

  Never, not even as a toddler in the child-house on Marbul, had Kantou felt so utterly alone.

  Roused by the sound of sobbing, Rolen swam dizzily out of a wine-fogged sleep. Raging, he’d paced and drunk himself into a stupor after Soleyla had stormed out, finally collapsing into inebriated unconsciousness. Now he lay for a moment, trying to imagine who could be crying in his bed.

  For Rolen, the past week had been full of revelations. Soleyla defied every category of womanhood he’d ever encountered. Beautiful, ferocious, she was more woman than he’d ever seen -- woman enough to master even him. The one time he’d mastered her, Rolen knew full well it was because she’d allowed it. She’d given him that. But in the nights that had followed, she’d demanded -- and received -- an absolute obedience that Rolen blushed to admit to. The experience was intoxicating, erotic in a way he could never have imagined. She used him, and Kantou, with a ruthlessness that made his head spin, flayed him to the core with the passions that buffeted his body.

  Now, wakened by the sound of crying, he was amazed. It was almost impossible to picture the steely, self-assured Guardian ca
ptain reduced to tears. He reached out muzzily, and started as he found that the sobbing form he’d drawn into his arms wasn’t Soleyla, but Kantou.

  Rolen still hadn’t come entirely to terms with the enjoyment he’d found in another man’s body, nor with Kantou’s willing -- hell, eager -- submissiveness to Soleyla. It was all very well in bed; there was something uniquely arousing about obeying every desire she whispered in that stern, commanding voice, about being entwined between their two bodies. Sometimes he’d felt himself to be no more than a projection of Soleyla’s will, a tool she used to fuck her Kantou -- only no tool could take such delight in its employment. Even the sleep-fogged memory of their encounters sent a pulsing heat through Rolen’s groin.

  And now Kantou was lying in his arms, sobbing as if his heart would break. Nothing in his life had prepared Rolen for such a situation, any more than he’d been prepared for the intense attraction he felt toward the lithe, almost surreally beautiful pleasure-slave. Inappropriate as it was, he found his cock growing hard as Kantou’s body quivered against his own, reminding him sharply of Kantou’s shudders of ecstasy when Rolen penetrated him at Soleyla’s command.

  Firmly, Rolen pushed that thought aside. Unsure what to do, he whispered, “It’s all right, Kantou. Whatever it is, it’s all right.”

  Kantou shook his head fiercely, and Rolen found himself instinctively drawing him closer, his hand rising to stroke Kantou’s long, silky hair. Kantou lay with his head pillowed on Rolen’s broad chest, shaking with the effort to control his sobs.

  “Kantou, what is it?”

  No reply. Helplessly, Rolen murmured meaningless words, trying to comfort him. The feel of Kantou’s lean, muscular body pressed against him was almost painfully arousing. His cock hardened further, straining under the sheets. Furtively, he hoped Kantou wouldn’t notice.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Kantou shook his head again. Then, almost noiselessly, he whispered, “Make love to me.”