Her breath rushed out in staccato pants, the desperate sound bouncing off the cave walls. It might be bright light outside, but in here, everything was shadows.
She balanced on her tiptoes, her bound arms stretched toward the ceiling.
Before leaving the cave, the beast had lashed her wrists and ankles to metal hooks hammered into the rocky walls and floor, forcing her arms and legs wide. Worse, the rope harness remained strapped around her chest, waist, and between her thighs, allowing no relief from the coarse press of the fiber against her heated core.
None of this made any sense.
Others were stupid and mindless, their love for shiny red metal surprisingly easy to exploit. Except this one wasn’t acting like the rest. He’d refused to accept her offer to trade.
He pretended he was actually concerned with locating the females.
It had to be a trick. Others were violent in every way, their respect for life nonexistent. Especially when it came to their own females. She’d seen proof after proof of that.
But the most confusing part of what was happening was whatever dark magic he was working on her.
Touching her might not have destroyed him, but the impact on her was catastrophic.
Somehow, her enemy had conjured the same heat between her legs that flared whenever she’d spied on pack-mates rutting. Those matches occurred by choice, and the sight of the hunter’s thick swollen staff pushing into the kneeling female’s trembling form had always left her weak and achy, longing for what she could never have.
Now, suddenly, she was feeling those same urges with a disgusting, savage Other, proving she was as unworthy and faithless an abomination as her Talg had always said.
A low thump. Her head whipped toward the cave entrance. The massive rock he’d rolled in front of the exit didn’t move. He hadn’t returned.
He would.
The walls of her prison closed in.
In the distance, the faint sound of water winding free echoed through the cavern walls, but there was no evidence of the underground source where he’d chained her.
Most of what she could see was jagged rock. Sparse and undecorated, the cave stunk of savage.
Besides a small pallet in one corner, there was little of comfort. Only a handful of stacked Other containers and dull metal restraints hammered into the walls, ground, and ceiling. Instruments of torture and pain, Others’ known specialties.
The entire space was illuminated by a crackling fire that flickered like the glowing eyes of a beast on a nighttime hunt—or her captor’s gaze.
Her soul shivered. Her thirst grew.
She could not afford to grow weak, especially now that she understood the Other wanted information about Talg’s plans and how to get to pack territory.
That was information she could never tell.
The Other’s touch might make her weak, but to prove herself to Talg and the pack she’d need to be stronger than she’d ever been in her life.
Another rumble. This time, the rock slid away from the exit, the bright light from the suns only emphasizing the darkness within. A hulking outline appeared in the entranceway.
She bit back a whimper.
The beast’s heavy steps echoed through the cave. He turned, gripped the massive rock, and heaved the blockage back into place, the dark slashes at his back rippling as he worked.
Spots danced in front of her eyes.
The pack slid from his shoulder and hit the ground with a loud thump. She jumped, her chains rattled.
“You’ve sins to answer for and information to impart.” Rumbled words as deep and gravelly as a dust storm rolled across her skin. He propped the pieces of her broken spear against the wall. Next, he unbuckled the harness strapped to his hulking chest.
The heavy weapons clanged against one another as he hung the harness on a hook hammered into the wall. The strap at his thick thigh came next. Then the rope at his waist. The dagger in his boot. Weapon after weapon removed and placed far out of her reach, until all that was left before her was slabs of bulging muscle and huge fists.
His message clear: he didn’t need extra instruments to break her. His body would be enough.
Free of weapons, he stalked closer, each deliberate heel strike against the floor a blow to her chest.
She shrank back, but her binds held tight.
The impulse to bare her teeth slammed through her, but she fought it. The threat that he would extract her fangs something she could not bear to test.
“This could be yours.” The savage held up a skin of water and her anazi covering before placing both on a nearby rocky ledge jutting from cave wall. “If you behave.”
Her thirst returned with a vengeance. Thanks to him, she’d been without water for far too long. If only—
A hand closed around her throat.
The shock of rough contact coursed through her, the charge worse than the surge of her whalh spear tip.
She sucked down a desperate gulp of air, fighting to recover her senses. “Dakash tali, Roter.” Let the curse take you now, Other.
“That didn’t sound like a location.” The savage’s frown deepened. “It definitely didn’t sound like New English.”
She spat in his face. It wasn’t much of a rebellion. Her mouth was too dry, but a small drop of liquid landed on his cheek.
She braced for the blow.
Instead, her captor’s lips tipped upward, his shoulders relaxed as he wiped the droplet away with the pad of his thumb. “I’d gag you for that, but then I wouldn’t be able to hear the location, or all the sweet sounds you’re about to make.”
Her eyes fluttered shut, blotting him out. One flat-toothed brute would not succeed where so many others had failed.
“You think you can withstand.” His soft rasp rippled against the shell of her ear as he leaned in close. “You can’t. All you’ll do is make the ache grow. Until you can’t bear it anymore and you crack.”
He had no idea the trials she’d undergone to prove herself. Talg had promised this would be her last. For the chance to prove herself worthy, she would endure anything. Even death. “You kill me now. I never tell.”
“We’ll see about that.”
She braced for the snap of the rope.
Instead, material as light as a targish butterfly wing brushed her collarbone.
7
Shock slammed through her. “No! Not my anazi.”
She twisted to dodge the soft fur.
His hand seized the hair at the back of her head and locked her in place, his nostrils flaring as if he scented blood.
“Anazi?” His gaze never wavered from hers as he skimmed the soft bristles up the length of her exposed armpit and raised arm. “Is that what you call this ragged, nasty hide?”
Another flash of shame, this one at how easily she’d already given up more than intended.
She clamped her lips shut, determined not to make the same mistake, but the silence only heightened her awareness of the pelt gliding over her skin.
She had worn it for so long that she’d gotten used to the heavy weight of it. In truth, she didn’t know how to be without it. The anazi might be a sign of her shame, but she relied on it as much as she hated it.
Except now this savage was twisting it into a weapon to be used against her. She was prepared for pain. For punishment. She wasn’t prepared for this.