Mastered By Love (5 page)

Tariza bucked her hips
against his. In her heart, she knew she ought to continue fighting
him, but she didn’t want to anymore. He felt too good inside her,
and the pleasure was building, coiling hard and tight as she
climbed toward orgasm.

He released her mouth. His
pace increased, his moans growing louder. She shouldn’t look at
him. She didn’t want to know what he looked like in the midst of
his passion. But the sounds he made beguiled her, excited her,
aroused in her a shameful need to kiss him everywhere, all over
that stunning male body.

Maybe just a peek wouldn’t
hurt.

She opened her eyes. Looked up at him.
His head was tilted back, his eyes shut, his lips parted. Goddess,
he was beautiful. He should have been born in Concordia.

Ecstasy burst inside her and she
sobbed through her climax. An instant later, his face contorted in
what looked like pain. His great body shook. He groaned and flooded
her with hot, wet seed.

Saturnios stopped moving, except to
lower his head to hers until their foreheads touched. His breath
came hard and fast. His lips brushed hers.

“
I knew it would be good
with you,” he murmured. “From the first moment I saw you, I wanted
you.”

She said nothing. He didn’t
need to know she’d felt the same way, that she’d hungered for him
and dreamed of him many times since then. He didn’t need to
know.

He sighed. “I’d like to
linger, pet, but we still have a lot of work to do before the night
is over.” He withdrew from her body.

She avoided looking in
Paolo’s direction. Saturnios took a sleeve of her jacket and used
it to clean her body, his touch gentle and sure. He’d probably done
it hundreds of times before, with hundreds of different
women.

Why did that thought make her feel so
bad?

He extended a hand toward the boy.
Paolo gave him a bundle of cloth. Dario shook it out, revealing a
long, loose dress in either red or orange; it was hard to tell the
color in the darkness. He draped the garment over her body from
chest to toes.

“
Now for the tattoo. Paolo,
fetch me my medical bag. It’s with my saddlebags.”

“
W-what are you doing?” she
said.

Saturnios stared at
her with half-lidded eyes. “Marking you as my property, so there’ll
be no confusion as to your owner.”

Tariza stared
up at him in horror. He couldn’t mark her. Not
permanently. If he did, she’d never be free of him, whether she
escaped or not.

“
No!” She twisted her body,
flipping herself over and bunching her knees under her
body.

She tried to crawl away.
The hobnailed boots that completed her uniform were still on her
feet. As Saturnios lunged for her, she kicked at him. The motion
threw her weight onto her elbows. The hard sole of her boot met his
leg. He grunted.

Dario grabbed her from behind in a
bear hug, despite her attempt to kick him a second time. His heavy
body crushed her against the hard, cold ground and stole her
breath.

“
Damn you, woman,” he
growled. “What are you trying to do? You can’t escape.”

No, but she might force him
to kill her. Tariza slammed her head backward, toward his. He
blocked her attack, using his arm to force her head down to the
ground. Damn. Without the use of her hands, she was at a severe
disadvantage. She twisted under him, but he had her in a hold she
couldn’t seem to break.

“
Milord!” Young Paolo
sounded aghast.

“
Did you bring my bag?”
Dario said calmly.

“
Yes.”

“
Help me turn her
over.”

Paolo came around to her head. He
reached for her hands where they were trapped beneath her chin.
Tariza snapped at him.

“
Damn!” He yanked his hand
out of her reach.

Dario clapped a palm over
her mouth. “Try again.”

The boy reached under her
jaw and grabbed her wrist binding. He pulled her arms forward,
forcing her face right into the rocky soil. “Got her.”

Saturnios took his hand off her mouth.
He lifted his body from hers, while keeping his legs across her to
pin her. Sliding down her length, he took her ankles in both hands.
They flipped her onto her back.

Once again, Saturnios
stretched himself over her, using his weight to trap her.
Traitorous heat swelled inside her, throbbing in time to her
heartbeat.

He reached one-handed into
the bag Paolo had produced, withdrew a flask of brandy and dabbed
some on a clean rag, which he used to wipe the dirt off her right
forearm. From a small, wooden box, he took a huge needle, some
thread, a pen and a jar of ink. Her mouth went so dry she could
hardly swallow. He was going to mark her permanently. Even if she
managed to escape, she’d always have his mark to remind her of what
he’d done to her.

“
You’ll regret this,” she
said.

“
Don’t all the villains say
that in those Galactic vids?”

He’d seen Galactic vids?
They were illegal in Concordia, like most other Galactic
technology. “I’m no villain.”

“
You are to us.” He shoved
a strip of leather between her teeth. “You can bite on this for the
pain.”

“
Shouldn’t she have opium,
milord?” Paolo said.

Tariza spit out the
leather. “I don’t fear pain. I’m a Concordian warrior.”

“
Did you hear that, Paolo?
She’s a warrior.”

Both men chuckled. She glowered at
them, which only seemed to make them laugh harder.

“
I can take the pain, you
animals,” she said through gritted teeth.

Saturnios shrugged. “All
right.”

He wrote something on her
inner forearm with the pen and ink. Because of her position, she
couldn’t see what it was. He wrapped the thread thickly around the
needle and soaked it in ink. It disappeared from view as he moved
it out of the range of her vision. Then the needle bit into her
skin. She gave an involuntary flinch. It hurt more than she’d
expected.

“
Easy, now,” Saturnios
murmured in a soothing tone, as if she were a horse that needed
reassurance. “You don’t want me to mess up the design.”

Yes, she did. Tariza forced her heels
against the ground, using the leverage to jerk her upper body to
the left. Her shoulder protested against the movement with a sharp
pain. Saturnios swore.

“
Hold still, damn
you.”

She wrenched her body to the other
side. The needle flew out of his hand, rolled into some dry grass.
He swore again as he lowered his body flat over hers.

Hard, hot male pressed
against her from her chest to her toes. Hard, dark eyes glared into
hers. Her pussy gave a desperate throb and her heart raced as she
looked up at him. Heat pooled between her thighs. He’d just taken
her, and like the fool she was, she wanted him again.

No man but him had ever put
his body over hers. In Concordia, it wasn’t allowed. Tariza closed
her eyes.

“
I despise you,” she
whispered.

“
Of course you do.” He
reached over, put his hand in his bag and drew out the box that had
held the needle. “Lucky for you, I carry spares.”

He opened the box one-handed and took
out a second needle, repeating the thread process. Keeping his body
over hers, he positioned the needle and pushed it into her skin.
She gritted her teeth.

She couldn’t move beneath
him. There was no point in fighting him anymore. Perhaps later she
would have a chance, but for now she had to surrender and
rest.

The needle punches seemed
to go on endlessly. She fixed her gaze on the sky above them. The
stars looked like white lace over black satin. Or perhaps an
enormous swarm of bees in a summer sky. That’s what the tattoo
process felt like – a bee sting. A whole lot of bee
stings.

The next poke burned so badly she
threw back her head and yelled. He stuck her again. Sweat broke out
all over her body and tears stung in her eyes. She clenched her jaw
so hard it hurt.

Saturnios stopped. “Paolo,
give her the opium.”

“
I don’t need it,
Saturnios.” She glared at him.

“
I do.”

Paolo left her. A moment later, he
returned with a dark vial of liquid and a spoon. Saturnios propped
up her head and Paolo shoved the spoon between her teeth. They held
her jaws shut and pinched her nose until she swallowed the bitter
potion.

“
Curse the both of you,”
she said.

Saturnios blotted her skin
and inspected his work. “We’re half way through the first
word.”

Goddess, that was all
they’d done? Her arm was on fire.

“
What word?”

He grinned.
“Dario.”

Oh, no. He was tattooing his name on
her?

“
Milord,” Paolo said
hesitantly. “I don’t mean any disrespect, but wouldn’t an important
captive like her normally go to the king?”

Saturnios nodded slowly.
“Yes, she would. But my uncle is abroad, and besides, here in the
field I want to claim her as my own to prevent anything happening
with the men. She’s not an ordinary captive and there’s so much
rancor between our kingdoms that I don’t completely trust the men
with her unless they know unequivocally that she’s
mine.”

“
Oh. That makes
sense.”

It didn’t make sense to
her. Didn’t he have control over his own men? That spoke ill of his
leadership. Her women, for example, would never disobey an order no
matter what the temptation.

Of course, these barbarians were
males. No doubt they lacked the discipline and intelligence her
women had.

Saturnios began sticking her skin
again. The opium made her feel dizzy and heavy. She lost track of
time as the piercing went on and on.

Finally he stopped. He blotted away
the blood with more brandy, then wrapped a linen bandage around her
arm. Paolo began to kick dirt on the fire and the flames died,
leaving them in utter darkness.

“
Now you’re mine,” Dario
said with obvious satisfaction.

“
I’ll never be yours.” She
tried to inject deadly scorn into her voice, but the drug made her
sound dreamy and languid instead of battle-ready.

“
Is there anything else you
need from me, milord?” Paolo said.

“
We’ll be moving on in a
few minutes. Ready the horses.”

As the youth left to tend
the mounts, his master crouched next to her and removed her boots.
He jerked the dress over her head, leaving it loose around her
bound arms, and lifted her. The opium still had her floating, her
body limp and relaxed in the aftermath of the pain. Someday she
would emerge from her drugged haze and be appalled at what he’d
done to her, the way he’d permanently marked her as his. Right now
she couldn’t summon the energy for it.

He was going to take her
into the heart of Saturnios, and she couldn’t do anything about it.
She couldn’t fight him with the drug in her; even without it, his
size and prowess made him too difficult for her to
defeat.

Dario carried her toward the horses.
The blackness of the sky showed no sign of fading. It must be near
dawn, though, she thought blearily. Had her women discovered her
absence yet?

Probably not. They wouldn’t
realize she was missing until sunrise.

The stars seemed to turn in
a slow circle as he carried her to his mount. He threw her
face-down, halfway across the pommel and halfway across the horse’s
neck. The stallion snorted, but offered no other protest. Saturnios
swung himself up behind her.

He picked her up and maneuvered her
until she sat upright in front of him. He draped his cloak around
her so it covered her to the ankles. Arms corded with muscle
bracketed her as he picked up the reins.

Paolo came around and
attached a leather strap to her ankles. The strap passed across the
horse’s chest, keeping her solidly on the mount. There was no way
she could jump off and escape.

The youth handed his master a pouch
and a flask before returning to his own mount. Dario un-stoppered
the flask and held it to her lips.

“
Drink.”

“
What is it?”

“
Just watered wine.
Drink.”

She drank. The liquid soothed the dry
fire in her throat and washed the bitter taste of the opium out of
her mouth. He took the flask away and held a chunk of cheese to her
lips. She opened her mouth to accept the offering. It was better to
eat and drink than refuse out of pride and make herself
sick.

Saturnios urged his horse forward into
the night, Paolo riding behind them.

She was too intoxicated to
mind being trussed up like a bird headed for the cooking pot.
Besides, the gentle rocking motion of the horse’s gate and the
hard, warm wall of male behind her gave her a peculiar feeling of
safety. She couldn’t stop her head from lolling stupidly against
his shoulder.