Leaning down, she lapped gently, bathing the head of his cock with her tongue and savoring his rich, salty flavor.
The extra stimulation of her tongue when she was already pumping his shaft and pressing lightly at his nether entrance appeared to be too much for Saber.
“Lissa,” he gasped, going rigid. “Get back. I’m going to—”
Before he could finish his words, a warm, wet jet of translucent white spurted from the head of his cock and covered her fingers. Lissa was surprised, but only at first.
He’s coming, she thought with a surge of triumph. I’m making him come—giving him pleasure just like he gave me!
Feeling empowered, she continued to stroke, holding his throbbing cock in her hand until he finally stopped spurting.
Finally Saber lay gasping on the bed, his arms still raised over his head and a look of wonderment in his eyes.
“I don’t understand,” he said at last, when he could talk again. “You were so upset earlier when we were just kissing and now…this. What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I guess I’m just tired of being afraid and feeling guilty all the time. And when I saw how much pain you were in, I just…I realized we don’t have the luxury of burying ourselves in shame and recrimination. Not if we’re going to do what we came here to do.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Saber admitted. “I guess…I’ve been feeling pretty guilty myself.”
“Well, I’m tired of that.” Lissa tossed her hair out of her face. “From now on, let’s forget about being from the same clan. We’ll do what we have to do and not feel guilty for any of it. Do you think we could do that?”
“We could try.” Saber sounded doubtful. “I guess. As long as we don’t…”
“No, we won’t go that far,” Lissa promised, her heart pounding. She looked down at her hand, still covered in the evidence of his pleasure. If any of this got into her, if she would have let Saber give her the Deep Touch and pump the white, creamy cum into her pussy instead of her hand…but no, she wouldn’t let her mind go there.
“So we’ll just do what we need to in order to play our parts?” Saber said.
Lissa nodded firmly. “Of course.”
“What about…” He cleared his throat. “Forgive me, but I can’t help remembering the way I’m supposed to acknowledge you when we go to a formal party like the sensation party we’re going to tomorrow night.”
“You mean when you…when you have to kiss my panties?” Lissa’s breath was coming short again and she could feel Saber’s cock, which had grown almost soft, getting hard in her hand again.
“Yes, Mistress.” Saber’s eyes were steady but his deep voice was hoarse. “And remember what Lady Sha’rak said about split panties and that I should…” He cleared his throat. “Should use my tongue on you to show extra respect…”
“Oh.” Lissa bit her lip—she hadn’t considered this. Yet, it still fell under the heading of things they had to do in order to complete their mission. “Do you want…” She looked at Saber uncertainly. “Would it bother you to…to have to do that?”
“Would it bother me to taste your sweet, wet pussy? Of course not!” His hazel eyes were suddenly half-lidded with lust. “It’s my greatest desire.”
“It is?” Lissa felt hot all over. Was this really what Saber fantasized about when he thought of her?
“Mmm-hmm.” His voice dropped until it was nothing but a soft, sexual growl and she felt a hint of his whisper-fingers brush against her cheek.
“I…I don’t know if we should do that, if we should go quite that far,” she whispered. She wanted to look away from him but his hazel eyes were drowning deep—holding her gaze, making her feel like she couldn’t contain herself much longer. “I mean I don’t think—” she began again, stumbling over the words.
“Lissa…” he murmured, still holding her eyes with his. “Amalla…"
Suddenly the tension between them was too much for Lissa. If she didn’t leave the room at once they were going to start kissing again. And this time, Saber had no trousers on to separate them. The nighty she was wearing wouldn’t help either—it was too flimsy and see-through to form any kind of a barrier. If she kissed Saber, if she went to his arms and let him pin her to the bed again, there would be no stopping this time. She would spread her legs and let him give her the Deep Touch, whether it was right or wrong.
“I…excuse me,” she mumbled. “I…I need to clean up.”
She jumped off the bed and raced to the bathroom, her heart beating as she considered what she had just done. And more importantly, what she had agreed to do in the near future.
Chapter Fifteen
Draven was sleeping when L snuck into his room.
She didn’t even know why she bothered. They had said their goodbyes the night before after supper. To her surprise, Draven had been a perfect gentleman throughout the entire meal. He’d been charming and witty and even made her laugh once or twice—which she almost never did. Her life so far hadn’t been very conducive to levity.
And yet, throughout the entire meal, his silver eyes remained blank—devoid of that certain something she couldn’t quite name but which seemed vital to existence. A human element, she supposed she would call it if she’d ever been anywhere near Earth. Which she hadn’t, no matter what her memories might suggest.
Yes, Draven was definitely lacking something but she felt drawn to him anyway. It was almost as though he had a void inside him, a hole that no one and nothing could fill. L knew that feeling of emptiness well. She lived with it every day. And so, though she reminded herself that the Hoard Master was a murdering bastard who would kill her in a moment if he felt like it, she couldn’t help coming to see him once more before she left his twisted realm.
L stood just inside the doorway, still wearing the guise of one of his imps, and watched intently. Trying to understand him. Trying to see what was missing. She’d sent his other attendants away and they were alone in the vast bedroom, which was filled with the treasure of the thousand worlds his forces had despoiled. Empty conquests, she thought, watching as he twisted restlessly between his silken sheets.
For the Hoard Master did not rest easy. He groaned, his face tight with some unspoken agony, then put out a hand as though to ward something off—or warn someone. As L watched, his groans became words.
“No,” he gasped. “No, I will not accept defeat. I will vanquish you even if it means—” The rest of the sentence trailed off into indistinct mumbling but L found herself fascinated all the same. Unaware that she was doing so, she drifted closer to the vast bed until she was standing right beside it, watching Draven much more closely than she had ever intended to.
His face contorted in pain and to L’s surprise she saw something glimmering on the tips of the Hoard Master’s inky black lashes. Were those…could they be…tears? Surely not—Draven would be the first to claim he had no tears to shed for anyone and yet…
Hardly knowing what she was doing, she reached out a hand to him. It was almost as though she was drawn to touch him, to touch the first evidence she had seen of genuine emotion welling up from within. Her hand changed from an imp’s claw to its natural form and she brushed one slender finger against his cheek so lightly it wouldn’t have awakened even the most savage beast.
But Draven was more than a beast. In an instant his eyes flew open and one strong, long-fingered hand was wrapped in a crushing grip around her wrist.
L gasped and barely had the presence of mind to change her hand back to the imp’s claw before he spoke.
“What in the seven hells,” he rasped, “do you think you’re doing touching me?”
“Forgive me, Master,” L begged, doing her best to imitate an imp’s frightened squeak. “There was a bug—it was trying to land on your face. Your cheek. I think…think it wanted to drink your tears,” she added, almost in a whisper.
“Tears?” Draven let her go and put his own fingertips to his fa
ce. They came away wet and he looked at them in bemusement, then sighed. “Damn.”
“Master…” L knew she was taking a chance but she couldn’t help herself. “Forgive my impertinence but if your dreams were bad perhaps…perhaps you’d like to speak of them?”
“What good would talking do?” Draven sat on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. “And why would I talk to the likes of you anyway?” But the words lacked fire and the set of his broad shoulders was dejected, defeated. L’s fingers itched to stroke his bare, muscular back but she restrained herself.
“It’s true, Master. I’m nothing—nobody. You might as well talk to the wall,” she said, still in the imp’s high voice. “But the wall won’t listen as I will,” she added softly. “Or bear witness to your sorrow…whatever it is.”
“Well, aren’t you perceptive for an imp?” Draven lifted his head and gave her a penetrating stare. “Very perceptive indeed.”
“Master is too kind,” L mumbled, doing her best to look unobtrusive. Damn it, she’d pushed things too far. He was going to guess it was her and the Goddess alone knew what kind of vengeance he would take on her for seeing him in his moment of weakness.
“Where is the shadow caster?” Draven asked, standing and taking a step toward her. “Is she here?”
“Her ship has left the planet, Master,” L answered, praying he wouldn’t think to check if it was so. “She left word that she would wear your listening device once she boarded the Mother Ship and not before.”
“I expected nothing less. She’s a secretive one, that L.” Sighing, he sank back down on the bed again and looked down at the floor.
Inwardly, L breathed a sigh of relief. She’d managed to get away with her little deception. Now she had nothing to do but excuse herself quietly and get to her ship, which Draven had modified with his new wormhole technology. A quick skip through space and she would be in deep orbit around Earth—the home world she dreamed of every night and had never yet seen with her own eyes.
She was turning to leave when Draven spoke again, catching her by surprise.
“It was the final battle with the Golgoth—Eater of Worlds, Extinguisher of Stars. A being so vast that his evil could have filled the universe if it had been left unchecked. But my maker and Mistress, the Goddess of All Life, refused to let the Golgoth go unchallenged.”
Slowly, L turned back.
Draven was still staring at the floor, his head bowed, his broad shoulders slumped. He spoke in a voice so weary it tore at her heart—what little heart she had to tear. L didn’t dare to say anything, for fear he would stop talking. After a moment, Draven continued.
“She made me as the pinnacle of her creation—a son to ease her loneliness and a captain to lead her armies. And so when the Golgoth came, threatening to devour and despoil all she held dear, I led the forces of light….” He looked up briefly at L. “I led them straight into its gaping maw. And there I lost them.”
“Master?” L whispered, uncertain of what he wanted her to say.
“I lost them,” Draven repeated, looking back down at his hands. “There was no way to avoid it. The Golgoth opened a portal into the pit—a wormhole that led to the seventh of the seven hells.” He sighed. “We swear by them constantly but few know that they are actually real. And the seventh is the deepest and blackest of them all.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “One by one I watched them try to breach the Golgoth’s defenses and bridge the gap—one by one they failed and fell into eternal torment. Gods!” His hands squeezed into fists and the muscular shoulders knotted with tension. “I don’t want to remember this,” he hissed, his face contorting with emotion. “Don’t want to see it all again. I’ve kept it buried for years—centuries. If it wasn’t for the damn skrillix venom…”
“What happened?” L asked, unable to help herself.
“What?” He looked up and she saw tears glimmering in his eyes again. “What do you mean?”
“To the Golgoth, Master. How did you defeat it?”
Draven’s silver eyes went flat. “What makes you think I did?”
“But, well…you must have. Or else we wouldn’t be standing here, would we?” L asked haltingly. “How else could you—?”
“I absorbed it,” Draven growled. “With evil so vast, there was no other way to contain it. No way to completely eradicate it.” He looked at her, his face cold. “Imagine, if you will, my dear imp, feeling the crushing weight of a thousand billion abominations filling you at once. Murders, lies, tortures and cruelties, the suffering of innocents, the mad laughter of the wicked, the cries of the damned. It was like drowning in poison, like breathing in pus.”
“But you did it anyway.” L, who was used to looking out only for herself, could scarcely comprehend it. Why would he do such a thing? Why would he sacrifice himself to the evil for anyone, even the Goddess mother he claimed to have loved?
“I had to. As I said, there was no other way,” Draven said soberly. Then his face changed, his silver eyes going hard and a cruel smile curving his perfectly shaped lips. “I had to give up my soul to do it, of course—there’s no room for a conscience when you’re pure evil inside. But I’ve found the sacrifice is a small one to make. Being soulless allows me to have so much more fun than I ever did before.”
“Fun?” L whispered.
“Exactly—like the fun I’m going to have with the Goddess’s favorite pets—those damn Kindred. Once the shadow caster plants my little device in their sacred grove, of course.” He gave L a piercing look. “So she’d better get started, don’t you think?”
“I…I’m sure she already has,” L said, edging toward the door.
“I certainly hope so,” Draven drawled. “I hope she doesn’t think that just because I enjoy her company and agreed to help her in her quest to get revenge, I would be anything less than brutal if she failed me.” He gave L a charming smile that never quite reached his blank, silver eyes. “I am, after all, nothing more than a soulless murdering bastard. And what’s more, I enjoy being a soulless, murdering bastard. You could call it my favorite hobby.”
“Yes, Master.” L’s throat had suddenly gone dry. Though she was a stone cold killer herself, she didn’t actually enjoy what she did—it was just a job. The gleeful, half-mad look in the silver disks of Draven’s eyes said he took great pleasure in the torture and pain of others. That he would take pleasure in torturing her if she wasn’t very damn careful. “I, um…” L cleared her throat. “I need to fetch—”
“Go.” He waved her toward the door with a last piercing look. “And do not fail me.”
L left at a run and didn’t stop until she reached her ship.
But as she melted into a more comfortable form and set coordinates for Earth, she couldn’t help wondering why Draven had told her what he did. It was clear to her now he hadn’t been fooled in the least by her form. All along he had known it was her and not some imp he was talking to. So why had he told her his story?
And what the hell was she supposed to think of him now?
* * * * *
Draven tried to go back to bed but there was no more sleep for him that night, no matter how soft his pillows or how silky his sheets. No matter how he tossed and turned, he couldn’t find a comfortable position. And every time he closed his eyes, the same question kept recurring.
Why did I tell her? Why?
It was pointless to think about it, of course. The shadow caster was long gone—presumably to fulfill their mission of mutual vengeance on those arrogant Kindred bastards. The thought of what would happen once his device went off was almost enough to bring a smile to Draven’s lips—almost.
But then the past came raging in again. The memories he hadn’t thought of in years, the feelings he’d tried to suffocate for centuries, flooded him like a tidal wave.
The light in the Golgoth’s eyes fading as I took its essence into myself, the feeling of pure evil filling me, overtaking me. The loss of my soul, the look on the Goddes
s’s face when I renounced my place at her side…
“Stop!” he roared aloud. Putting his hands to the sides of his head, he squeezed as though he could halt the endless flow of painful memories by physical pressure alone. “Stop, I can’t stand it anymore!”
“Master?” An imp—a real one this time—came rushing into the room, its face gray with worry. “Is there a problem?” it asked, its voice trembling with fear.
“It’s nothing.” Draven squeezed harder, willing the painful thoughts away. “Nothing, leave me.”
“But I thought…is there something, anything I can do to ease you?”
Slowly, Draven looked up, a cruel light kindled in his blank silver eyes.
“As a matter of fact, there is something you can do.” Leaning forward he frowned at the imp. “Take the dagger from my dresser—that one there with the jeweled handle.”
“This one?” The imp grasped the lovely but lethal instrument carefully. It was a trinket Draven had picked up on yet another world the Hoard had despoiled. He forgot which one now—they all ran together after a while.
“Yes, that one.” Draven nodded. “Have you got a good grip on it?”
“Yes, Master.” The imp’s claw tightened around the jeweled grip.
“Good.” Draven leaned forward, his eyes narrowing. “Now kill yourself. Slowly.”
And as the imp made the first cut, he smiled.
Chapter Sixteen
“Oh dear, look at the time! We’ve scarcely got two hours before the party,” Lady Sha’rak fluttered nervously as her slaves cleared the table. “Aren’t you excited, my dear?” she asked Lissa. “It’s your first sensation party!”
“Of course I’m excited.” Lissa tried to look happy but the truth was, she was mostly worried. The surge of confidence she’d had the night before when she told Saber they should stop feeling guilty for their illicit actions was hard to maintain. The voice of her conscience kept trying to whisper that she was doing the wrong thing, going too far. Lissa tried hard to cut it off but she was finding that years of guilty thoughts weren’t easy to just ignore.