Page 12 of Taken
Don’t scream don’t scream don’t scream.
My inner thighs tremble as this creature starts to drag himself forward. His hands are by my hips as he makes the final move to drag his body over mine. He doesn’t seem to have a scent, which weirds me out a little and also fills me with both embarrassment and relief. I definitely smell. But at the same time, I’m glad he doesn’t reek.
I remember fucking sweaty boys in the backs of alleyways, in cars hastily parked on the side of the road and then abandoned. I remember the wild need, the lust, the desperation.
I feel it all again now, but the coating of terror makes that pill harder to swallow. Yet swallow I fucking will if that’s what’s required. Ain’t no spitting here. I’m no quitter.
His face drops down, his slitted nostrils sniffing at the skin over my right shoulder. His eyes close for longer than a standard blink. I can’t read his expression.
I whisper, “It’s okay?”
His eyes fly open and he responds, though I have no fucking clue what he’s saying. He could be telling me that he’s going to rub me up in barbecue sauce and roast me over a spit and I’d still have given him the same answer.
“It’s okay,” I exhale even though it isn’t. It sure as shit isnotokay. But I still lift my shaking right hand, slip it beneath the curtain of his black and occasionally white hair, around the smooth, hard scales of his neck, and use it to pull myself up to his mouth.
I slant my lips over his, fangs be damned, and kiss him hard enough to bruise myself. His skin is hotter than a brand, hotter than I expected it to be. His lips are full and neither rough nor soft, but smooth, firm. Stiff. He’s holding still, not reacting to me at all. Fuck.
I try to mimic the aggressive style I saw displayed at the party earlier, but the more urgently I kiss and scrape and bite at him, the more he resists. He still hasn’t wrenched away entirely, but I can tell that I’m doing absolutely nothing for him. Fuck! I feel like screaming my defeat.
I sigh against his chin, tilt my head farther to the side and lose my edge, my fire. I just kiss him softly, gently. His lips part. Success! So I lick along their crease. His mouth opens even more and I shift my hold around his neck into something softer, something more akin to tenderness.
I smooth my hand down his chest, keeping the stroke firm but teasing, taunting but kind. I scrape my nails over his scales. They’re rock-hard and glossy, slick like oil and tougher than I thought they’d be. I keep stroking until I find skin and the moment my nails transition to the softer flesh of his abdomen, he shuffles a half meter toward me, his knees hitting the ground between my parted thighs.
His mouth opens and, unlike his scent-free scales, his breath smells like a rich spice, like a rum or a fine whiskey. Not that I’ve had either, it’s how I’d imagine them. Smoky and divine. The kind of scent to be savored in front of a fire while sitting in a plush armchair surrounded by leatherbound books that tell tales from a people who no longer exist because I’m the only artist aboard the ship, and as a wise yet dead person once wrote,the measure of a healthy society can be found in how successfully its arts are able to thrive, and I’m about to die.
Don’t cry don’t cry don’t…Oh!
His lips move against mine. Hesitantly, like he’s never done this before or doesn’t know if he evenwantsto do this now, he kisses me. It’s a close-mouthed kiss that I accept with a sigh. There’s something sweet about the way he kisses me, and I inhale deeply, feeling stronger than I did a moment before, less panicked.
I readjust my grip on his neck, threading my fingers through his hair, and flick my gaze up to meet his. He blinks quickly, his irises shining a soft yellow. His thick eyebrows are pulled together over his strong nose. Aha! His human nose is back! I smile. He says something to me in an angry hiss. My panic surges, but when I move to give him some more space, he clenches his fangs and lifts one three-fingered hand.
He curls his fingers into a fist the size of a goddamn bowling ball and strokes the backs of his knuckles over my cheek. His nostrils flare and I suddenly feel hot. No, I feelheat. My face feels blistered where I was struck over the jaw and cheek.
“Shit,” I whisper. No wonder he’s so reticent to kiss me. I probably look like hell.
I offer him an uncertain smile. “I’m okay.” I try waving him off, hoping that I’m able to convey that it’s a dismissive gesture while also hoping that even gestures haven’t been lost in translation.
His frown remains, but when I start to pull back, he catches my curls in his yellowish, pearlescent claws. Holy shit, they’re huge. When he was fully in his other…uhh…shape, fighting the jellybean, they were ten times as long, but this close to my face, they don’t look short either. They’re longer than my middle finger and curved at the ends, deadly sharp. God, I hope his tongue isn’t sharp. Lobisomem, please.
His nostrils flare and his eyes narrow further. He looks hot when he’s mad. God wouldn’t have made a monster this hot if he weren’t fuckable, right? Lobisomem, give me strength. I hope I make it through this. I started out my day thinking I had to save humanity! But now the mission has changed. The pod people are on their own. To hell with ’em. I just need to save myself.
I press back in, ducking under his hand so that I can reach his throat with my lips. Holy shit. He may not have a strong scent, but he tastes incredible. His throat is free of scales in parts, so I tenderly trace his thickest, scale-free muscle with my lips and tongue until I reach the scales lower down. I kiss along the border between skin and scale because he seemed to like it the first time. He likes it this time, too. I feel it. His whole body wavers.
I grow bold then and reach down to the top of his pants. They sit low on his hips, torn from when he shifted. I reach past the barrier they present, snaking my hand past the loose band, and he tenses when my fingers trace the edge of his cock. It…doesn’t feel quite like any cock I’ve ever felt, and the curious part of my brain longs to explore it with sight.
I pull back, slip through his grip, bend down beneath the shelter of his chest and yank his pants down to his knees. He makes a garbled sound, but if he’s trying to communicate, I can’t be bothered with that right now because my gaze has snagged on his penis and all my thoughts dwindle to just one, which I voice aloud.
“Holy shit.”
ChapterSeven
Lacchus
The small owelay female is staring at my erection as if she’s never seen a cock before in her life. I would worry that she hasn’t if she weren’t emitting the most intoxicating combination of pheromones. Under the power of her scent markings, it is too easy to blot all other worries out. Even the Vironai warriors scented it, though for us Mpo, the scent borders on maddening. The other two Mpo are happily mated—one with a warrior female with us on this campaign. Mated, they will be able to curb or slake their needs.
Unmated as I am, I could have chosen from another of the females willing to rut me, but I have not desired to rut in the Vironai way in a long time. They like pain and degradation, but I don’t. It makes no sense. I’m Mpo, one of the descendants of the successful experiments our ancestors conducted when the world was much harsher than this one. It is a time our tribe’s memory has forgotten, but the results of those experiments have not been. We are here, celebrated for our continued strength that has not faded with time but only become insatiable, more capable of violence.
Though we are members of the Vironai tribe, all three of us Mpo shifters are violent creatures. The other two seem to relish the brutality they were born into much more than I do. Still, I perform my duty to the tribe with claw and dagger, collecting piles and piles of the prizes they give me. But I’ve never collected a flesh prize before.
