THE MASTERING
Written by
Jaid Black


“The rich rob the poor and the poor rob one another.” —Sojourner Truth



Prologue
My Bella Nellie, I will return to you in a fortnight. Two more short weeks and my arms will be wrapped around you! I can scarcely wait. I miss you, my beloved. Do not let my absence these past six months cause you to think differently. I needed the solo adventure. I needed time to heal. When I received that virtual letter from you informing me of your father’s death…
My wounds, I have realized, are cut quite deep. I had hoped staying gone from Federated Earth for a time would lessen the emotions I am experiencing as a result of Abdul’s death. Your father was a monster. He was a demon amongst men…
But ah, glorious Kalast, how I loved him.
I shouldn’t love him…I know as much. And Cyrus’s truth, were Abdul Kan to miraculously rise from the grave tomorrow I would never return to him. I would fight him to my death before I’d allow him to return me to his harem bed. And yet…
Always, as long as I have breath to breathe, a part of me will love him.
I will see you in a fortnight, daughter. Keep the virtual candle burning in the window for mama.
Nicoletta Kan
August 7, 2250


Chapter 1
October 1, 2225 A.D.
“My name is Nicoletta Isabella Carlotta Apollinaris,” she whispered in a thick Italian accent, her dark chocolate gaze lowered. “I herald from the Greco-Roman biosphere. My talents are—”
“Raise yer voice, wench!” the chattel auctioneer bellowed.
Her heart began pounding in her chest, tiny beads of perspiration dotting her brow. As it was, she was a nervous wreck up on the stage. Sitting there naked, her hands chained high above her head against a wall, her legs chained wide open to bolts on the floor so the curious potential masters could see everything she had to offer them, the added embarrassment of being publicly yelled at felt nearly overwhelming.
She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. You can do this, she staunchly told herself. You have no choice.
Nor did she wish for her seeming lack of finesse to cause the well-to-do males to overlook her. Nicoletta did not wish to end up the wife of a male low in the Hierarchy who could scarcely afford food let alone a wife. Such was the very reality her parents currently lived in, a reality they were hoping their daughter’s exceptional good looks would keep her from repeating.
Not that every wench chained up on the stage wasn’t exceptionally good-looking. All of them, every last one, were stunning beauties with large breasts, gorgeous faces, and curvy bodies. Hierarchy scientists had ensured long ago that no female child would ever again be born less than physically perfect. Any imperfection detected in the womb—from plain looks to pudginess to being overly thin—all of it was engineered out before the child was ever born. Disgusting, piggish, and a total abomination of all that was holy perhaps, but the unfortunate truth nevertheless.
You can do this! Now calm down and speak clearly.
There was little choice. Her looks were no better or worse than any of the other wenches on the marriage auction block this day. Nor could she claim any superior talents from the rest of them. The only rarity about Nicoletta was that she was still a virgin—an eighteen-year-old virgin who would lose her virginity this very eve to whichever male bought her as a wife.
Her heart raced impossibly faster. Sweet Kalast but she hoped her future husband would not be overly hard on the eyes! Male fetuses were not engineered like female fetuses were—a quick glance in the sea of wretched masculine faces confirmed that awful fact. So if fate decreed her bound for life to an ugly Master, she could at least hope for a husband who was semi-high within the Hierarchy.
“My name—” Nicoletta cleared her throat and began again, her voice audible if not loud this time. “My name is Nicoletta Isabella Carlotta Apollinaris.” Her large breasts rose and fell with every breath she took, her nervousness waxing instead of waning. “And I herald from the Greco-Roman biosphere.”
“State yer talents, wench,” the chattel auctioneer mumbled.
She swallowed against the knot of cold fear in her throat. She decided she wouldn’t be surprised if she fainted dead away before her turn was over. “My talents are in the areas of body massage and cock sucking.”
Ah gods, she thought, her heart sinking, every wench in here was possessed of those talents. The sea of masculine faces looked heart-wrenchingly bored. She was doomed.
“I’m a virgin,” Nicoletta said quickly.
The sea of bored faces perked up and paid attention.
Her chin notched up, her confidence restored enough to finish her rehearsed spiel. The others were just as pretty and were possessed of more talents, so she’d have to go with this one rarity she had. “I have never been vaginally or anally penetrated—only orally that I might perfect that skill for my future Master.”
The chattel auctioneer inclined his head then turned to the next wench up for bid and repeated the process. He continued down the line until all ten chained-up females stated their names, origins, and talents. Only then, after the last of the chattel had spoken, did the inspection begin.
The inspection, Nicoletta thought, taking another calming breath. All ten of the brides up for bid had undergone genital waxings so that only a tiny inverted triangle of neatly groomed pubic hair showed on their bodies. They had also been bathed in exotic oils the eve prior that they might smell intoxicatingly arousing to the wealthier male bidders during the inspection period. Poorer males were given no inspection period—they made do with the leftovers the Hierarchy elite didn’t deign to bid upon.
Please let me be bid upon!
Her thoughts drifted back to the tiny two-room quarters that had housed her family of seven for as long as Nicoletta could remember. She slept on a rough floor mat like a dog, begged for food in the airbus atriums in order to keep from starving… Please!
Everything, her entire future, all came down to the next hour in time. Sweet Kalast but she felt close to fainting! She could only pray to Cyrus her virginity would make at least a few well-to-do bidders curious enough to inspect her. She knew her parents would be gravely disappointed in her should she be auctioned off to a male of questionable means. They wanted her to marry well.
Not that she planned to stay married long, Nicoletta silently admitted, her heart drumming away like mad in her chest. Perhaps it was wrong to plan and plot against one’s future husband before she even had a Master to speak of, but she simply wanted more out of her existence than…this.
This, Nicoletta sighed—cock-sucking, body massage, and breeding—this summed up the whole of a wench’s value in Federated Earth. Given the fact that males outnumbered females five hundred to one, she supposed it was little wonder that females were thought of as creatures, as possessions to be haggled over and bought. And yet she wanted more than this, wanted more than to be some man’s lowly chattel…
She wanted to be free.
It was a silly dream, Nicoletta realized, but nonetheless a dream she’d carried deep in her heart from as far back as she could remember. She’d heard rumors about some of the other planets out there—whispers about a woman-run planet called Kalast where wages were fair and a female was free to make her own choices. She didn’t know if the place was truly a woman’s utopia or if it had been idealized and romanticized by disgruntled Hierarchy wives, but she conceded one’s lot in life could hardly be worse there than it was here.
Getting to Kalast would be no small feat. First off, she needed enough currency deposited in the yen chip in her brain to book the flight—such could not be done without access to a well-off person’s virtual bank account. Secondly, she needed a successful escape plan. The law forbade Earthling females to leave the planet without being escorted by the male they belonged to. Thirdly, she—
Bah! Do not think on this! She was getting all worked up over how to execute her plan when she still hadn’t managed to get past the first hurdle: acquiring a well-to-do husband. Calm yourself…
She needed a Master with ample means—not only so she had access to a prosperous virtual bank account, but also so she would not feel guilty when she ran from him. After all, the vast majority of the ugly masculine faces out there wanting to buy a bride this day had saved their yen for many, many years before they had enough to meet the minimum auction standards.
Most men of Federated Earth died having never known a wife. All of the males in the bidding crowd today, save the one percent Hierarchy elite, were the few fortunates who had been frugal enough—and lucky enough—over the years to acquire enough yen. Nicoletta did not wish to run from such a man knowing he’d saved and saved his entire life that he might further his genetic line. She wished to run from a man who could afford to replace her, a man who wouldn’t feel devastated by the loss of her…
She needed to be purchased as chattel by a man in the one percent elite.
She took a deep breath and blew it out. She might as well wish to be named the Queen of all Kalast.
“Nice. Very plump and pretty.”
Nicoletta blinked, her thoughts having been far away. She gazed up at the wealthy male standing before her, then lowered her thick, inky black eyelashes as he continued to tug at her nipples. Her breeding had not exactly been elite, yet she knew the way of things enough not to speak. Wenches are to be seen and not heard—she’d grown up hearing her sire utter that mantra over and over again lest his daughter forget when her day on the auction block came.
The elite male took his time fondling her large breasts. The stage the wenches had been lined up on and chained to rose about waist level on the average male that the Masters would not have to bend overly much to inspect their potential brides. Nicoletta suspected it was also symbolic: females bowed deferentially to males but never the reverse.
Her nipples hardened, elongating for the wealthy male, which seemed to please him. He made an appreciative sound in the back of his throat before lowering his mouth to her chest. He took his time tasting each one, sucking on them like a child’s lollipop.
The sensation felt wondrous, Nicoletta conceded, her breath shuddering. So long as she kept her eyes closed and tried to forget about the fact that the wealthy potential Master was frail enough, and wrinkled enough, to be her grandfather.
She could only pray to Cyrus he decided to bid on her. She would have no second thoughts at all about running from a male as old as this one. Besides, chances are she would not be his only chattel. It might be illegal in Federated Earth for a Master to own more than one wife, yet it was also widely known that most men of status within the Hierarchy purchased as many wives as they desired.
The elderly bidder’s lips unlatched from around her nipple with a popping sound. Her teeth sank into her lower lip when he moved on to the next wench on the stage, hoping with everything she had in her that he would still choose to bid on her following the inspection period.
The next thirty minutes felt interminable to Nicoletta as not one, not two, but three potential Masters rubbed and kissed all over her body. They touched her where they wanted to, kneaded her big breasts like dough, massaged her stiff nipples, and played with her clit until she nearly climaxed…then walked away and inspected the next wench.
Her breathing grew labored as the hour of inspection for the elite males drew nearer and nearer to its finale. She had no way of knowing what any of them thought of her, or if a single one of the males would bid on her during the auction. All she did know was that any of them would do just fine for her purposes—a group of weaker, uglier, more spoiled men she had never seen.
“You have lovely dark hair,” a masculine voice murmured, snagging Nicoletta’s undivided attention.
Her face shot up. Her dark eyes widened just a bit before she thought better of it and attempted to conceal her reaction of surprise. But she was surprised—sweet Kalast was she ever! She knew this male—or knew of him was more to the point. She doubted a single person within the whole of Federated Earth wouldn’t recognize the face of Abdul Kan, one of the wealthiest and most powerful men of the Hierarchy.
Not to mention one of the most handsome, she thought, her heartbeat accelerating. She tried to lower her eyelashes but couldn’t seem to bring herself to look away from his intense, piercing green gaze. He wasn’t handsome in a pretty way, but in a powerfully masculine way—in a way that separates a lion from a peacock.
“Thank you,” she breathed out before she could stop herself. She quickly glanced away, her eyes widening as she realized she’d actually spoken to Master Kan. Idiot! He shall never bid on a wench who can’t remember to hold her tongue.
But the more Nicoletta considered that, the better that reality sounded. She drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Oh no, it would not do at all to be wed to such a man as that one. He was just a bit too wealthy, a bit too powerful, a bit too handsome…
And, she admitted on a heavy swallow as she took in the sight of him, a bit too dangerous. She’d heard the rumors about him—everyone had. Abdul Kan might have been born into wealth, but he had earned his own battle scars.
The wealthiest and most powerful of the Hierarchy’s males tended toward the weak, soft side. Their bodyguards were the brawn, not the elite themselves. But this male…
Ah gods, Nicoletta thought, her heart racing, there was nothing weak or soft about him. The black silk tunic and matching black silk flowing trousers he wore—emblems of his status—did not conceal the muscles that rippled beneath them. Nor did the unreadable expression on his face mask the intensity, the knowing, in his jade gaze. It was as if he could see right through a wench, and right through Nicoletta’s soul in particular. She found herself blushing, wondering if he’d guessed her thoughts.
“You are welcome,” he murmured, his mouth unsmiling but his eyes blazing.
She stilled, not knowing if she should say more or keep quiet. She had expected Master Kan to grow angry with her foolishness in daring to speak directly to him. She had definitely not expected for him to seem even more intrigued by her for doing so.
His warm, callused hands found her breasts and began gently kneading them. She gasped, for some reason momentarily shocked by his touch.
“So very beautiful,” Master Kan said thickly, his thumbs running over her distended pink nipples. She moaned just a bit, unable to suppress the reaction. “I’ve never seen a wench with such plump, juicy nipples as yours.”
Her lashes shuttered as she gazed at him through heavy eyelids. “Thank you,” she whispered, her breath hitching.
His right hand trailed down lower, over her flat belly, through the neatly groomed inverted triangle of black curls. Her nipples grew impossibly harder as she watched his left hand join the right and his fingers spread open her cunt lips.
“You are a virgin?” Abdul asked, his voice tinted with the smallest bit of hoarseness.
She swiped her tongue across dry lips. Her breasts heaved with every labored breath. “No,” she whispered, not wanting him to bid on her.
One side of his mouth hitched up in a semi-smile. “You lie,” he murmured. His gaze was intense—as dangerous if not more so than the rest of him. “Naughty girls who lie to their Master get spanked.”
Her brown eyes rounded. With fear or arousal she didn’t know. “You are not my Master.”
He lowered his gaze and stared at her tight pussy for long moments. His tongue snaked out and made one long lick from the tiny hole all the way up to her clit. She whimpered, unable to suppress the reaction.
“But I will be, ana wahid,” he said thickly, calling her by a name she didn’t recognize in a language as foreign to her as his intimate kiss. “I will be,” he murmured.
Nicoletta gasped as he took her clit into the heat of his mouth and suckled hard. She moaned a bit too loudly, having never felt a sensation like it. The mad desire to thread her fingers through his silky black hair and push his face closer against her flesh was nearly overwhelming, but she was thankfully saved from disgracing herself by the restraints that bound her.
She closed her eyes on a groan…oh glorious Kalast she was going to come so hard for him. She didn’t want to, yet she couldn’t help herself. “Please,” Nicoletta gasped, her breath catching in the back of her throat. “Ah gods.”
She came on a loud moan, her entire body convulsing as a violent orgasm exploded in her belly. He growled in the back of his throat as he lapped up her juices, the sound as deadly as it was aroused.
And then as quickly as she’d climaxed, it was all over. Nicoletta watched through dulled vision as the one elite male she had no desire to be bound to stood up and took his rightful place at the head of the bidding corral. His intense green eyes never wavered, never looked away from the frightened brown gaze stealing hesitant glances back at him.
Ten minutes later her fate was sealed. Ten minutes later the daughter of one of the world’s poorest men became the second harem wife of one of the wealthiest.
Nicoletta’s heart slammed against her breasts. She swallowed roughly as she watched her new Master stare at her. Those calculating, assessing eyes of his roamed up and down the length of her naked, oiled body as the chattel auctioneer unchained her hands and feet and handed Master Kan her leash.
“Get on yer knees, wench,” the auctioneer reminded her with a frown.
Nicoletta came down on her knees before her Master and bent her head to kiss his feet. She went through all the motions expected of a bride during a marriage ceremony, her mind a fog as a ring was placed on either of her nipples and a chain threaded through them, symbolically binding her from the touch of any male but Abdul Kan.
“You will always be Mine,” Abdul murmured, making her head dart up. “Always.”
Her breathing stilled. Her eyes widened. It was as if he could guess her plans and was letting her know she’d never get away from him.
Never.
“Yes, Master,” Nicoletta dutifully whispered. She lowered her lashes, concealing her gaze. “I will always belong to You.”


Chapter 2
August 20, 2250 A.D.
(25 years later)
“…I said, would you care for a chalice of spirits, Mistress?”
Nicoletta Kan blinked, the serving droid’s words finally registering. Lifting her gaze up to meet that of the naked silver female, she shook her head in the negative, too focused on memories to so much as consider imbibing a hallucinogen, even if it was but a mild label. She wanted her wits about her. “No thank you,” she said, a polite smile enveloping her mouth. “I’m not thirsty.”
The droid nodded and continued down the aisle to offer the next passenger on Federated Earth Aerolines flight 127 a cocktail. The star-carrier was filled to capacity, Nicoletta noted, so the serving wench had her work cut out for her.
Nicoletta turned her head and absently stared out the window. Since the star-carrier was currently in deep space, there was little to look at beyond the black abyss on the other side of the viewing portal. They’d been en route to planet Earth for over three days now. She imagined it would still be another hour before they broached the Milky Way. She could scarcely wait! Three hours after that and the aerocraft would touch down on homeland soil. And then a few hours later, Nicoletta thought with an excited grin, she’d be embracing her beloved daughter, Nellie. Nellie…
Oh how she missed her! She had wished to return to Federated Earth the very moment she’d learned of her daughter’s pregnancy, but conversely, she’d been so overwhelmed with melancholia after learning of Abdul’s death that she feared her presence would detract from the happy time Nellie and Kerick rightly deserved rather than add to it.
Abdul Kan—her dead husband. And what’s more, she reminded herself with a tensed jaw, he was a dead husband whom she had no business grieving the loss of. She had run from him, had she not? Her nostrils flared. Yes, she had been on the run from her husband when death had claimed him. He might have been one of the wealthiest and most feared men within the Hierarchy, but the price of that power had come at the cost of so many dead and tortured lives.
He was evil. A demon in human skin. She herself had known as much for longer than she felt comfortable admitting.
It was Abdul who was responsible for Sinead’s death—her beloved friend, his own first wife who had died at his atrocious hands. It was Abdul who was responsible for infecting countless voiceless prisoners. Those Hierarchy chattel had been infected with the most hideous disease imaginable for experimentation purposes. Those unfortunate men had became, at the whim of Abdul Kan…
Monsters.
She shivered. There was no better word for sub-humans, Nicoletta decided.
Monsters. Beasts. Abominations.
Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she recalled her last run-in with just such an infected creature. When first she had fled from Abdul, a sub-human male had absconded with her. It had carried her kicking and screaming into its den, then mounted her for two chilling days and nights.
After she escaped the beast-man and was reunited with Nellie, Nicoletta had worried for weeks that the creature’s babe was growing in her womb. But thankfully, oh so thankfully, her blood cycle came upon her and she knew now that the abomination had not managed to breed her. And yet…
Still the creature haunted her. It was as if her soul belonged to both Abdul and the beast-man, for one commanded her dreams and the other her nightmares.
Despite her fears and the fact she hated to think back upon those two days and nights, she still felt a certain sorrow for the creature. It had, after all, been a man once upon a time. It had felt hope and despair and love and hate and joy and defeat and…

Her eyes narrowed. Once upon a time it had been a man. Abdul and his Hierarchy comrades had taken that humanity away to further their own sickening goals.
Nicoletta sighed as she stared out into the black abyss. She closed her eyes, deciding sleep was better than memories. She didn’t wish to think about the beast-man. Nor did she wish to think about her dead husband.
Her eyes flew open. Her heart skipped a beat. Even in slumber Abdul was always there—always. She resisted the memories, rebelled against recalling anything at all wondrous about the years she’d spent in his harem. She fought and raged against it just as she’d always done with anything concerning Master Kan.
Twenty-five years ago Abdul had vowed she would always belong to him. While alive he had seen that promise through to the end. He might have been able to make that a reality during his life, but she’d be damned if he’d wield that power over her in his death.
Nicoletta agitatedly ran her hands through her long, dark hair. Maybe, just maybe, it would be easier to let go if she understood what it was that had changed him. She needed answers but didn’t know where to look for them. She suspected the daughter of her heart, Nellie, knew…something…something she found difficult to speak of. And so Abdul’s secrets, for all intent and purposes, had followed him to his grave.
Where had it all gone wrong? Nicoletta asked herself for at least the hundredth time in the twenty-five years she’d been wed to him. When Abdul had purchased her from the marriage auction block her hopes had been so high for a blissful married life, second wife or no. All youthful, idealistic thoughts of fleeing from him had been gone the moment their bodies had joined. That she had to share his heart and body with another wench had been difficult to accept at first, but from the moment she met Sinead she’d been too fond of her to let her spirits sink unduly.
At first it had seemed that her new husband might very well be that mythical, glorious, romantic lover all wenches dream will buy them. To be the chattel of such a male would make any wife swoon with happiness and Nicoletta had believed her husband to be just such a prince.
The first couple of months had been all she could dream for and more. He had been kind, attentive, and romantic—everything she’d ever wanted. And, of course, a wife could never ask for a better lover as Master.
Abdul had always been exceptionally lusty, Nicoletta recalled, settling deeper into her chair. She had found it little wonder he’d needed two wives to satiate his sexual appetite. He could make love for hours, spurting his seed left and right into Sinead and herself, his energy for the carnal seemingly endless.
But a few short months later, five years after Sinead gave birth to Nellie, everything began to change, including Abdul himself. A man who had always been dangerous became impossibly more so. A man who had once loved and cherished her—or so she’d thought—would turn on her in the blink of an eye.
She grew to hate him, to despise him, to detest the very presence of him. And yet…
Nicoletta sighed, her smile sad. And yet she had dared to hope. She had not run from him in the old days because she had dared to dream that Abdul would come back to her and once again be her Arabian prince, the knight in shining armor bespoken of in fairytales by the ancients.
But that had never come to pass. She had given him his beloved heir and son, Asad, and still it had not come to pass. Every day Abdul grew colder, every day he distanced himself from her more and more until she felt as though she was wed to a terrifying, volatile stranger.
The distancing continued. More wives were added into their family, bodies for Abdul to spurt into, bodies she suspected he’d purchased simply because he realized they didn’t make him feel—precisely what he wanted.
By the time Nicoletta had been married seven years, the harem bed the Kan family slept in contained six: Abdul, Sinead, Nicoletta, and three more wives Abdul had bought, none of whom either Sinead or herself had ever taken to liking. Many years after Sinead’s death Abdul had purchased yet another wife—another reason Nicoletta had run from him, though she conceded not the biggest.
Why, Abdul? she silently asked, her nostrils flaring. I want to know why. Why did you force me to stay when you’ve loathed the very sight of me for years? Why!
“Federated Earth Aeroflight 127 is preparing to broach the Milky Way galaxy,” a cheerful, disembodied feminine voice announced, breaking Nicoletta from her thoughts. “All mastered and unprotected females are now required to remove their body décor. Thank you for choosing Federated Earth Aerolines.”
Nicoletta stood up and removed the long, flowing robe she wore. She pulled it over her head and handed the body décor over to a passing by droid to store for her. Naked save her nipple rings and chain just as all mastered women of Federated Earth were required to be, she plopped back down in the seat.
That her husband was dead would not signify to the port authorities when they docked and had their virtual passports checked at the space station on the outermost cusp of the galaxy. Nicoletta’s right buttock was branded with the sign of Abdul Kan. To them, whether dead or alive, she was and would always be his exclusive property. By law, no other male would ever be permitted to touch her. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen, only that it wasn’t legal.
Nicoletta took a deep, drugging breath and slowly exhaled as she nestled back into her seat. Her eyelashes fluttered shut. To them, perhaps, she was still Abdul’s property, but Nicoletta knew that she was free…
From now until forever, she thought, she would always be free.
Nicoletta’s heart sank as she watched Abdul finish making love to Sinead. His groan was long and loud as he spurted inside of her. It was long minutes before he removed himself from the harem bed so Nicoletta busied herself by pretending to fix her hair in front of the image map.
“It’s you He loves, Nica,” Sinead murmured, coming up behind her. Her smile was as gentle as her Irish lilt. “You know that, lass.”
Nicoletta continued combing out her long dark hair in front of the three dimensional mirror. “That’s not true,” she whispered. She sighed, momentarily halting the combing. “I’m sorry for my jealousy, Sinead. I could not ask for a better friend nor confidante than you.”
“But you want to be his only wife.”
“I do.” She closed her eyes briefly, pained by her own admission. To wish such a thing was to wish Sinead away and that she could not do. “Please understand this has nothing to do with my love for you. I just want…”
“The fairytale.” Sinead nodded. Her gaze looked far away. “As did I in my own way,” she murmured.
Nicoletta set the comb down then turned around and faced her. “I’m sorry, Sinead. Here I am feeling melancholy for myself,” she contritely muttered as she reached out for her hand, “when you were the first wife. I can’t imagine how upset you must have been when He married me.”
“I wasn’t,” Sinead softly admitted. “I was happy for both of you.” At Nicoletta’s confused expression, she cryptically explained, “There is more to my relationship with the Master than you can know.” She sighed, glancing away. “Just trust in me and in our love for each other when I say I wanted Abdul to find His happiness in you—happiness He will never find with me.”
“I don’t understand…”
“And I’ve already said too much.” She shook her wine-red hair, then smiled and drew Nicoletta into her embrace. “Just know that He loves you, Nica,” she whispered. She ran her hands over Nicoletta’s large breasts and gently massaged her nipples. Nicoletta’s breathing hitched. “As do I,” Sinead said thickly.
Their tongue-kiss was intoxicating, just as all their kisses were. Sinead was the only female lover Nicoletta had ever known—the only female lover she would ever know. Her heart belonged as much to Sinead as it did to Abdul, though the love was different. She loved Sinead…
But she was in love with Abdul.
“I said stand up. Now, wench!”
Nicoletta blinked several times in rapid succession as a male she didn’t recognize forced her up to her feet, jarring her awake from the deep sleep that had claimed her. What’s happening! her mind screamed. What do these males do here?
Her mind was so foggy it was difficult to take in what was going on around her. Women were crying, men were bellowing. What is going on! She fought to rouse herself, to focus her eyes on her surroundings and to think without cobwebs muffling her brain.
Fifteen to twenty armed men were swarming the aeroplane, the expressions on their faces grim. A quick glance out the nearest portal confirmed that the star-carrier had crashed somewhere within the jungles of Federated Earth—where was anyone’s guess. Another quick glance toward one of the star-carrier’s four retractable wings revealed heavy damage…
Her breathing stilled. Reality slowly dawned.
They had been shot down. Sweet Kalast, she thought, her gaze wildly darting about, they had been overpowered by Outsider forces! But what did these bandits who dwelled below-ground want? What were they after?
She swallowed heavily as two rough male hands reached around her from behind and seized her large breasts. Frightened, she gasped as the lecher began tweaking her nipples, his erection poking against her back.
Ah gods, they wanted women, Nicoletta hysterically thought, her breathing growing labored. These Outsider males could not purchase wives legally since they dwelled outside the protection of the biospheres. They couldn’t purchase wives, so they were stealing them. She had been freed from Abdul’s harem bed for this? No…no!
Her heart pounding like mad in her chest, Nicoletta screamed as she tried to break away from the man holding her hostage. He fought with her, snaking her tightly against him so that she couldn’t move.
“Let me go!” she raged, half hysterical and half venomous. This could not be happening. “I belong to another!”
“Stop it, wench,” the man snarled. He bellowed when her teeth sank into his arm, drawing blood. “I said to cease,” he gritted out, whirling Nicoletta around and forcing her to face him. Crimson stains showed in her mouth. “Who you might have belonged to before don’t matter.” His anger was a tangible thing. “The only thing matterin’ to you now is who you will belong to.”
Ah Cyrus, no, she thought, her eyes rounding. Noooo!
She opened her mouth to scream again, but was brutally backhanded before a single sound escaped her lips. Moments later her attacker detained her by the shoulders as a second man held onto her flailing legs. Kicking and screaming, they carried her off the protection of the star-carrier and into the lair of the deadly jungle.
“Help me!” Nicoletta wailed. Nellie—Kerick—somebody must hear! “Help meeee!”


Chapter 3
Her heart pounded in her breasts as Abdul placed gentle kisses all over her face. They’d been making love a lot this past month without Sinead. Sinead seemed preoccupied as of late and Master Kan had not pressed the issue of returning her to the harem bed even though she had yet to bear him a male heir.
There were secrets between the two of them, secrets Nicoletta realized she was not privy to.
“I love you, ana wahib,” Abdul murmured in the dark Arabian accent that had always left her knees weak.
Ah gods, she loved him too—oh how she loved him! She thought to ask him the meaning of ana wahib, but his intense green gaze found hers as he again spoke.
“I…” His nostrils flared, his expression pained as he looked away. “What have I done?” he asked hoarsely, as if to himself. His fingers threaded through her dark hair, holding on almost too tightly, as though she was his lifeline to sanity. “Cyrus—what have I done?”
Nicoletta’s face scrunched up. “Abdul?” She grew alarmed, having never seen him lose his iron control before. Her eyes rounded. “Abdul, what is wrong?”
The mask was back, the raw emotions as though they had never been. “Nothing.” He pulled himself up from between her legs and fell onto the harem bed beside her. His gaze was faraway, his expression so cold and remote it sent chills down her spine. “Nothing,” he murmured.
She must have fallen asleep. How in the name of the ancient saints she had managed to do so under the present circumstances was beyond her, yet clearly she had. Always—always—Abdul haunted her dreams. Ordinarily Nicoletta hated that he wielded power over her in his death, yet even she conceded she’d rather return to her previous state of slumber, her mind busily recollecting days gone by in the harem, than to face this current, more frightening reality.
Bound, gagged, and naked, she had been dragged below ground into the catacombs, a series of dark, eerie tomb-like structures carved into the earth’s belly where Outsiders made their homes. The thatched wood and mud place was lit only by torches on wall sconces. She shivered, goosebumps forming on her flesh from the chill in the air.
Her arms had been stretched high above her on the cold earthen floor and her legs had been hoisted apart at the thighs. Five men were all over her, their hands and mouths exploring all of her crevices. The Outsider rebels keeping her secured to the ground all looked to be brothers in their early twenties to thirties…and they also looked to be virgins.
They had never before mounted a real woman, she thought, her eyes rounding from over the gag. A droid perhaps, but never a human female.
Sweet Kalast, they’d be fucking her for days…
But they hadn’t mounted her yet, she considered with much relief, wondering at that. Nobody was penetrating her now, only licking and fondling her various body parts. She felt no soreness between her legs either so she was fairly certain she hadn’t been taken when she’d been asleep—or knocked out.
Yes, she had been knocked out. The memory was a threadbare one, but Nicoletta possessed the foggiest recollection of struggling with two men in the jungles…and then of a cloth that reeked of a chloroform-like substance called sarsi being wrenched over her nose and mouth until she knew no more.
She also suspected there had been illegal goings-on in the star-carrier itself. Like as not, the rebels had acquired help from the inside because only a gassing would account for being able to sleep through such a crash as that one.
Nicoletta swallowed roughly as she watched two males gaze hungrily at her nipples, nipples that were kept perpetually swollen and stiff from the rings she’d worn on them since the day Abdul had purchased her. She was not surprised when both of the men’s mouths dove for a nipple, their lips latching around them and greedily sucking. The expressions on their faces were of bliss, of finally experiencing a wondrous sensation neither man had ever thought they would know.
Ah gods, Nicoletta thought, her breathing growing labored. These males will not let me go without a fight. Perhaps to the death.
She could only pray to Cyrus she was wrong and that these males had seen and been with real women before. If she was their first and last hope at obtaining a communal wife…
She briefly closed her eyes, terror lancing through her. If these five brothers wished to make her their communal wife, the consequence of that didn’t bear dwelling upon. Escaping one husband had taken her twenty-five years. Escaping five? Sweet Cyrus, Nicoletta thought, her heart wrenching, she’d never be free.
“When’ll the fuckin’ Holyman get here?” one of the brothers mumbled from around her clit. “I want inside her bad.”
Nicoletta winced. Oh no…no, no, no! They were calling for an Officiator, for a male they believed to be sanctioned of Cyrus to perform the rite of marriage. In other words, they needed someone with knowledge of metals and brandings in order to remove the nipple rings she currently wore and replace them with their own—as well as to attempt to conceal the brand of Kan on her right buttock with the seal of their lineage.
“Dunno.” One of the brothers with a nipple in his mouth let it pop out long enough to answer. “I already done paid twenty-five lizards to the Commune for her, though.”
Nicoletta didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, be insulted, or all of the above. Perversely, it was insult that won out. Her nostrils flared from above the gag as she considered the ugly truth that her worth this go-around was but twenty-five lizards. Twenty-five lizards! It was a far cry from the half-million yen Abdul had paid unto her sire. She cursed muffled Italian atrocities at the disgusting brothers from behind the gag, but they paid her no heed at all.
“I’ll go see what’s keepin’ him,” the youngest-looking of the brothers muttered as he stood up and stomped off. “Sweet Cyrus, my poker is hard. He best hurry up.”
For the next fifteen minutes, the four remaining brothers took turns licking and sucking all over her intimate parts. Nicoletta felt disgusted by her traitorous body for responding, even realizing as she did that the unwanted arousal was a perfectly natural reaction to having her clit and nipples licked, kissed, and suckled. She knew as much, yet she still despised the dampness between her legs.
The eldest brother took her entire pussy into his mouth and sucked hard. Nicoletta whimpered from behind the gag, her already stiff nipples growing impossibly stiffer.
The brothers sucked harder. Her tits. Her cunt. A finger in her asshole. Their appreciative moans reverberated within the earthen chamber as they sucked harder, and harder, and—
Nicoletta groaned loudly from behind the gag, her body involuntarily bucking up as she came. Blood rushed to her face, heating it. Blood rushed to her nipples and clit, making them extraordinarily sensitive. She cried from behind the gag as they sucked even harder, the feeling painful with her body as sensitive as it was.
“Sweet Cyrus,” one brother muttered. “I wanna poke her bad.”
The brother sucking from her left nipple moaned his agreement. He released the pink nipple with a popping sound then flicked it around with his forefinger and stared at it, his elbow propping him up.
“He’s on his way!” the fifth brother announced between pants as he ran back into the earthen chamber. “Cut her loose so he can work on them nipple rings!”
No—please no!
An ear-shattering growl reverberated throughout the Underground, the sound snaring everyone’s undivided attention. The brothers stilled.
Something was coming, Nicoletta thought, terrified. Something with a growl eerily similar to that of a sub-human…
No! That wasn’t possible. This wasn’t the first Underground catacomb she’d seen since fleeing from her now-deceased husband. The Outlaws always kept the series of tunnels and chambers sealed off from the predators that dwelled in the jungles. The two species lived as though they’d declared an unspoken, shared tenant: man ruled the caves, man-beast ruled the jungles. How would a sub-human break in? Why would one even try?
The growling sound grew closer, deadlier. She hysterically noted that none of the brothers were armed with flash-sticks. Ah gods, they’d all be made a meal of by the monster. They were all as good as dead!
The brothers cut her legs loose, her arms and mouth still bound, and jerked her up to her feet. “Let’s go!” one of the brothers bellowed as he pushed Nicoletta out of the cavern and into the corridor opposite the one from the growling sound. “Move, wench!” he angrily warned when she struggled with him. He carried the ashen look of a man who knew death was coming. “Move or I leave you here to die,” he rasped.
The attack came without warning—a gruesome bloodbath straight out of a nightmare. In shock, Nicoletta backed up, not stopping until the barrier of a muddy wall prevented further movement. Her heart pounded in her ears. Her haunted eyes stared unblinking as she watched the creature kill off its second victim.
Run! For the love of the ancient saints—run!
The beast whipped its head around. Its crimson-red gaze snared hers.
Nicoletta’s eyes widened. Her face drained of color and her blood ran cold as she got her first good look at its face.
It had found her. That…that…thing that had kidnapped her as she’d searched for Nellie—that thing that had dragged her into its jungle lair and mounted her body for two days and nights.
That thing that had done its damnedest to impregnate her.
It had come back…
For her.
Nicoletta opened her mouth to scream, only then recalling she was still gagged. Run, you idiot! While its attention is turned on the brothers—sweet Kalast, Nica, run!
Finally—finally—her feet cooperated. Ignoring the sickening sound of tortured death screams, Nicoletta fled from the catacombs as fast as her feet would carry her. Faster! she mentally prodded herself, fear feeding her adrenaline. She refused to look back, refused to know if the man-beast was closing in on her. Her naked breasts bobbed up and down as she ran—faster and faster and faster.
Faster! Faster! Faster!
Missing her footing, she fell to her knees, roughly scraping them. She ignored the fire that shot through them as she wrenched herself back up, her hands still bound before her, and continued running aimlessly through the jungle. Her heart pounded against her chest, perspiration soaked her forehead.
It was a solid hour before she stopped running, an hour before her body gave out and, exhausted, Nicoletta collapsed on the ground. You must get up. Her mouth and hands still bound, she attempted to force herself to her feet.
Ah gods she was so tired—too tired to stand up using only her leg muscles, she conceded between pants. But if she didn’t find some sort of shelter she knew she was as good as dead. If it didn’t find her, another sub-human would.
The fuck-doll of a demon or another one’s meal. She didn’t know which scenario she should hope for.
Her dark eyes narrowed as she spotted the entrance to a cave. She realized it might very well be the lair of a sub-human, but also knew there was a good chance it was not.
It’s your only hope. Go, Nica…
With the last bit of energy she had left to expend, Nicoletta used her elbows to crawl into the cave. It was dark, it was cold, but it was also, thank the ancient saints, empty.
She whimpered as she fell back down. Please, Nellie, find mama, she silently begged. Her eyes slowly drifted close. Please find me.


Chapter 4
“You are never—never!—to look at another man, let alone flirt with one!”
His eyes were wild, frightening. The rage consuming him was unlike anything Nicoletta had ever seen. Ice-cold fear seized her as he forced her over his knee and spanked her hard.
“Do you hear Me?” he bellowed, his hand striking her bare ass over and over again.
“Stop!” she cried, the pain overwhelming as he struck her a fifth time. “Ah gods, Master—no more!”
“Do you hear Me?” he raged, smacking her impossibly harder.
She refused to answer. She lay there suspended over his knee, sobbing like a child as he repeatedly spanked her again and again.
“Stop,” she gasped, feeling close to fainting from the pain of it. “Please…”
Abdul growled as he spanked her harder, his rage at a crescendo. When finally he was finished, he yanked her up from over his knee and jerked her to her feet.
“I asked you a question!” he bellowed, his jaw as tense as his eyes were wild. “You are never to flirt. Did you hear Me?” he howled.
Her nostrils flared as she struggled to stand. “No,” she panted. Momentary fear showed in her eyes as he grabbed her by the shoulders, his fingers painfully digging in there, but she controlled it. “You took a third wife,” she ground out, her anger as tangible as his. “How could You do that to me? How! I hate her!” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes. “And I hate You!”
“Thank the gods!” he raged back, shaking her by the shoulders. His fury was all-consuming, over-powering. “I don’t want your love,” he hissed as tears rolled down her cheeks. “Now get into the bed!”
“Never!” she cried, tears of heartbreak flowing freely.
She had prayed to Cyrus for a happy marriage. She had forsaken her plans to run from the moment they’d been joined because she’d foolishly believed Abdul’s love for her was as powerful as her love for him. But that love didn’t exist—it never had. And now, two years later, all she wanted was to leave him. She wanted to be free.
Nicoletta broke away from his hold, her eyes blazing with anger, with hatred, with hurt and betrayal. She straightened her shoulders as her gaze penetrated his.
“Force me if You must,” she said icily, the venom in her voice barely controlled, “because I vow to You that I will never again willingly seek Your bed…” If looks were lethal, the god of death would have claimed him then and there. “Never.”
She awoke to the sound of an eerily familiar growl, a low keening sound that reverberated throughout the cave as if to remind her she belonged to him…to it. Her heartbeat accelerating, Nicoletta shivered from where she lay naked on her belly. She was too afraid to turn her head and gaze upon the man-beast, though she knew it was there. She would recognize his growl and his scent anywhere.
She opened her mouth to scream, remembering when she couldn’t she was still gagged. Her heart sank in her chest, resignation settling in. There was no point in screaming anyway—nobody would rescue her. And even if someone tried, it would only kill the unfortunate for daring to come near her.
Good Cyrus above, why was this happening? Why!
Still on her belly, her head came up and snaked around to gaze upon the creature. It was there, just as she knew it would be, standing upright over her body as if guarding her or preparing to possess her—
Or both.
It walked upright like a man, it gazed upon her with the carnal hunger of a man…
But it was no man.
The haunting red eyes were like a demon’s, the heavy musculature like a superhuman’s. The serrated teeth were like something out of a nightmare, the vampiric nail on each finger sent chills coursing down her spine.
The creature growled low in its throat, baring its dagger-like teeth. The gray, death-like pallor of its skin lightened a fraction as its muscles corded and tensed. It looked like it was preparing to kill her…it should have killed her, Nicoletta knew. That’s what sub-humans did—it’s all they did. They hunted prey and they killed it. Why was this one different?
Why was she different?
Nicoletta forced herself up from her belly and onto her buttocks. Her hands were still bound before her, her mouth still gagged, but nothing signified. All she could do was simply stare at the beast, every question she’d ever entertained there in her eyes for it to see.
Why do you want me? Why will you not leave me alone? Why do you not kill me!
One hand came toward her, the fingernails sharp enough to slice her to ribbons. She tensed, her breasts heaving up and down as her eyes widened from above the gag. It was going for the vicinity of her face…ah gods, her jugular perhaps? No! No! No! No—
She gasped as a single fingernail sliced through the gag, unbinding her mouth. She stilled, too surprised to so much as breathe. Wisely, though, the beast made no move to unbind her hands, as if it knew that would better enable her to flee from him.
Maybe it did know, she considered as she stared into its strangely hypnotic eyes. After all, this creature had once been a man…
Another atrocity she could lay at Abdul’s feet. He had provided the human chattel Hierarchy scientists had experimented on. Had Master Kan not had an ample supply of prisoners to hand over like dogs in a madman’s lab, there would have been no depraved experiments and sub-humans would not exist—this creature that thought it owned her would not exist.
“Why me?” she whispered, her gaze searching the beast’s. Her heart pounded in her chest. Her breath caught. “I don’t understand…”
It growled again, its razor-sharp teeth prominent. She should have been frightened it meant to kill her, the only sane conclusion in an insane world. But this time Nicoletta recognized the sound for what it was: territoriality, domination…
Possession.
Keep him calm, Nica. Sweet Cyrus she felt close to fainting! Just keep him calm.
The growl deepened, reverberated in its throat.
Keep him calm.
“This is what you want?” she whispered.
Lying down on her back, she stretched her bound hands above her head and stared at the creature from between two large breasts capped off with stiff pink nipples. Its crimson eyes tracked each nuance of movement. She slowly spread her thighs open as far as they could go. “This?” she murmured.
The growl continued as it slowly came down to its knees, its jaw tensed and serrated teeth bared as if preparing to deliver a death-bite. Perspiration dotted her forehead, her breathing rate accelerated. She had no idea if it meant to kill her or fuck her.
His thick, hard cock and heavy-lidded gaze suggested the latter. This time, strange though it was, she was hoping for the latter.
“I-It’s all right,” Nicoletta whispered, her assured tone at odds with the ever-present hysteria that threatened to envelope her. “I-It’s all right.” She wiggled her fingers from above her head, reminding him she was bound, showing the creature with superhuman strength she would offer it no resistance.
The growl deepened, though it was lower, less threatening. The man-beast sat before her splayed thighs, his crimson vision tracking the steady rise and fall of her breasts, then lower to her intimate offering.
A roughly callused gray hand palmed one large breast. He kneaded it then released it. She shivered as she watched a single vampiric-black fingernail trace the outline of one nipple ring. The action was done with such gentleness as to induce her forehead to wrinkle with confusion.
The fingernail gently scraped her stiff pink nipple. She moaned, having no idea why a single touch could inflame her entire body.
It was just as it had been back in that cave when it had stolen her the last time. She hadn’t understood it then. She didn’t understand it now.
“What do you to me?” Nicoletta panted, her arousal heightening as the beast gently scraped at both breasts.
Forgetting that her hands were bound, she unthinkingly began lowering them, the instinct to shield herself fairly overwhelming. His answering snarl frightened her, made her jump.
“I-I’m sorry,” she breathed out, blood pounding in her ears. She immediately placed her bound hands back above her head. The action made her breasts raise, the imagery of a submissive offering again complete. “I will not fight you.”
Not that fighting would help, she thought, her tongue darting out to wet her parched upper lip. The sub-human male could kill her outside of a second.
“I give myself to you willingly.”
She didn’t know that it comprehended her words, yet its answering growl of dominance said that it comprehended her actions. Within moments, the sub-human was on her, sucking her nipples and making her moan with fear and arousal.
“What do you to me?” she gasped, her back arching and her eyes closing. “Ah gods…”
The beast palmed both breasts, gaining Nicoletta’s undivided attention. Her gaze sought his. She watched the sub-human male stare at her through heavy-lidded eyes as it settled itself between her legs. Her breathing grew labored, remembering from their last run-in how sexually insatiable the creature was.
It hadn’t managed to breed her the last time. Surely her scent told it as much. She swallowed heavily as she realized it knew—it knew—and perhaps this time it would make certain it impregnated her.
The beast surged inside her pussy on a loud, reverberating roar. Nicoletta gasped, having forgotten how long and thick its cock was. He slid all the way in, burying himself to the hilt, reminding her again and again with his growls of ownership just who her cunt belonged to.
Her legs splayed wide open, her hands submissively bound above her head…it wasn’t difficult to remember she was his possession.
He took her hard, mercilessly, sinking in and out of her flesh in deep, branding strokes. Nicoletta moaned as it fucked her, her big tits jiggling with every thrust.
“Deeper,” she gasped, deciding now was not the time to dwell on the fact she shouldn’t encourage it. “Faster—ah gods—like that.”
The creature rode her harder, faster, fucking her as its low, steady growl continued. She could hear the sound of her pussy suctioning him back in with every outstroke, could smell the scent of her own arousal.
Palming both of her jiggling breasts, it lowered its face and took one stiff nipple between its serrated teeth. It gently scraped the nipple, back and forth, over and over, until Nicoletta was groaning, climax knotting in her belly. Drawing the entire nipple into its mouth, the man-beast sucked hard, hickey-kissing her areola while suckling her stiff nipple.
“I’m coming,” Nicoletta moaned. “I’m com—ohhhhh!”
She screamed as an orgasm exploded in her belly, a violent euphoria that was as painful as it was pleasurable. The sub-human male’s growl grew louder as her pussy began contracting around its cock, trying to milk him of seed. He covered her totally then, his vampire hands possessively holding her bound ones in place, as he fucked her.
Harder. Deeper. Faster.
Over and over.
Again and again.
Nicoletta threw her cunt back at her captor, gasping as her eyes closed and her head lulled back on her neck. “What do you to me?” she asked again, her breath catching.
He answered by fucking her harder, pitilessly. He rode her body like the animal he was, his sole focus on possessing her. Every warning growl told her she belonged to him, every branding stroke reaffirmed his dominance.
The sounds of flesh slapping flesh reached her ears, mingling with his growls of territorial arousal…
Harder. Deeper. Faster.
Over and over.
Again and again.
The beast came on a loud, reverberating roar, a deafening sound that echoed throughout the jungle cavern. The sub-human’s entire musculature tensed and then convulsed, hot cum spurting like a geyser into her womb.
Her breathing had never been so ragged. Her confusion had never been so acute. She had encouraged her sub-human captor to take her—it might not have understood her words, but it definitely understood her body’s actions.
The beast haunted her soul in a way none other but Abdul could rival. It had been six months since she’d fled from either of them, yet they both owned her in ways she could never put to words.
It was in the eyes. Something in the eyes pained her, beckoned to her.
Their eyes could almost make her believe they needed her.
It seemed like half of forever had gone by before either she or the creature moved. And then, surprising Nicoletta with a knowing she hadn’t expected, her gaze widened as she watched one vampire-black nail cut through her binds, freeing her hands.
The creature moved off of her, taking to its side. But it was watching her, she noted. Its red gaze never left her.
It was waiting to see what she would do, she thought, her heartbeat accelerating. It was waiting to see if she would try to run or choose to stay.
Nicoletta rolled to her side too so that they faced each other. Her brown eyes were round, scared, her expression confused. Slowly, oh so slowly, one trembling hand reached for the sub-human’s heart and rested there.
“What do you to me?” Nicoletta murmured. She closed her eyes briefly, dragging in a shaky breath. Her eyes flicked back open. “What do you to me?”


Chapter 5
“You set me up,” Abdul hissed. “Why should I not kill you here and now? Give me but one reason!” he bellowed.
“B-Because you n-need me,” Maxim Malifé sputtered, his fear a tangible thing. “I knew nothing of this. I was as shocked as you—I vow it!”
Abdul’s nostrils flared. The man he had trusted to run Kan Technology in his absence was lying and he knew it. He had made Malifé a very wealthy man—so wealthy that he now held the fifth highest position in the Hierarchy of Federated Earth. Finding out how that had been accomplished made his stomach turn.
Abdul Kan thought Malifé had been handing over prisoners to Fathom Systems to put naught but bloody yen chips in their brains. He had no notion of the atrocities being committed, yet he felt himself responsible for every last one. He had handed those men over like lab rats to be experimented upon…
He had led them like pigs to the slaughterhouse.
“The scientists at Fathom Systems are so close,” Maxim promised, his eyes blazing.
Abdul watched him, his gaze unblinking.
“A few more years, old friend, and immortality shall be ours.” He waved a dismissive hand. “So a few men die. They were born dead. Nobody will miss them.”
Abdul blinked, his expression incredulous. “You are mad.”
Malifé laughed. “I prefer the word ‘inventive’.”
“Mad.”
“It’s done,” Malifé replied. “The wheels are already in motion. And what’s more, I act upon the will of the Hierarchy.”
“Of which I sit higher on the apex than you,” Abdul murmured, reminding him of his rank. “Nor do I believe for a second that a man such as Creagh O’Malley, a man whose position within the Hierarchy is superior to both of ours, would partake in such madness as this!”
Abdul wrenched him around to face him, grabbing his tunic at the neck and pulling it tightly. The slighter Malifé’s eyes widened, his fear returning.
“I will have no part in this,” Abdul hissed, his muscles clenching. “As of this moment your supply of prisoners is cut off.”
“I don’t need any more,” he whispered. “We’ve infected hundreds already then released them outside the perimeter of the biospheres. All we do now is wait…” Malifé swallowed heavily, his eyes bulging. “And learn.”
* * * * *
Three nights later
The gray-skinned creature followed her deeper into the cavern, careful not to let her get too far out of its line of vision as she made her way to a trickling stream that flowed from the top of the earthen lair like a small waterfall. For three days and nights it had fucked her practically non-stop. In her pussy, in her ass, in her mouth—it had taken her everywhere multiple times. She knew from experience her captor had to be tiring.
“Now where will I possibly run to?” Nicoletta asked him without glancing back as she waded into the small pool the waterfall ran off into. “You are faster, stronger, you can see at night, and you’ve already caught me twice.” She cocked her head and smiled slightly at the sub-human male from over her shoulder. “I think you can relax while I bathe.”
She didn’t know what was happening to her mind, yet she was alarmed it might have snapped. She no longer felt the fear that once consumed her. And, perversely, she was no longer wracking her brain for possible methods of escape.
“I feel guilty, you know,” she told the creature as she stood in the cold pool and briskly rubbed her arms. The chill in the air made goosebumps form on her flesh and her already stiff nipples grow impossibly stiffer. “I’ve never been with any male save my Husband. Until you,” she clarified.
She realized the creature probably did not understand her words. Somehow that made them easier to utter. “I’ve never stopped loving Him,” Nicoletta whispered, her gaze faraway. Her breath caught. “I doubt I ever will.”
She blinked, her gaze coming back to the present. “But it doesn’t matter. You have no competition to speak of for He does not love me. And,” she said quietly, “He is dead.”
Nicoletta went down to her knees, the water of the pool not even deep enough to cover her lap. She kept her back to the beast as she washed herself, the curious sensation that it was staring at the sign of Abdul Kan laser-etched into her right buttock hard to dismiss. She glanced over her shoulder and confirmed that, indeed, it was staring at the brand. She wondered if the creature knew what it was. Or perhaps the symbol of ownership only triggered a memory from a former life.
“It means that I belong to another,” she whispered, looking away from him. “I suspect you won’t let that stop you, though.”
And why should he—it? The sub-human desired her presence with a yearning Abdul never had.
She stilled, alarmed by the direction her thoughts had been heading. Perhaps Abdul’s death had driven her mad. She couldn’t stay with the beast-man. She couldn’t even consider such a thing.
“It’s the way you look at me,” she admitted, comforted by the fact it couldn’t possibly understand her words. “Your gaze is familiar to me and yet foreign. Familiar in a way I don’t understand, foreign in a way I do.” She smiled into the waterfall. “I always wanted Him to gaze upon me in the way you do,” she murmured. “Every night I prayed to Cyrus, begging and pleading that my Master might love me.” Her sigh was resigned. “But that never came to be. And now He is gone from this realm.”
The sub-human seemed to be listening, a fact that made her shiver. She shook her head, grinning at the insanity of the situation—and at herself for thinking for even a moment the beast knew what it was she was saying.
She turned her head again, her grin fading as she took in the way it was staring at her. With yearning. With longing. With need.
“Did you love a woman once?” she whispered. “Before you were infected?”
The beast said nothing, only watched her, but then she had hardly expected a reply. She imagined she saw the answer in his eyes, though. They seemed to be absorbing her every whisper, drinking in the very sight of her.
“You did,” she murmured. Her eyes gentled—with pity or shared pain she didn’t know. “And I bet she loved you with her entire heart and soul.”
It looked away and Nicoletta had the mad thought she had stirred something deep within him. She realized she was pinning human emotions onto an inhuman beast, a predatorial Neanderthal whose only instincts were to hunt, kill, and breed. And yet she found herself wanting to offer him solace.
She was definitely going mad.
Nicoletta was already on her knees so going down on all fours took but a second. She thrust her ass up high into the air, using her elbows for support as she spread her legs far apart.
“I need to be loved,” she whispered. She glanced over her shoulder, wiggled her buttocks and smiled. “So do you.”
The low growl began in his chest, a deep, deadly sound that she didn’t fear in this moment in time. Later, she would question her sanity. Later, she would worry for tomorrow.
Two rough gray hands seized her hips from behind, making her gasp with a moment’s fright. She had forgotten how quickly it moved, forgotten too the fatal strength the beast wielded.
Her sub-human captor sank his cock inside her cunt without preliminaries, his possessive roar making the tiny hairs at the nape of her neck fairly stand on end. She moaned as it began fucking her, his long, thick cock sinking into her pussy over and over, again and again.
She threw her hips back at him, sucking in her breath as she met him thrust for thrust. The creature’s fingernails ran over the sign of her Master, its hand then palming the ass cheek it was branded into. Nicoletta’s forehead wrinkled with a curious sense of déjà vu for Abdul had always done the same when mounting her from behind.
It fucked her harder, faster, its growl deepening.
“Yes,” Nicoletta moaned, her tits jiggling beneath her as the beast rode her hard. The sound of cunt meeting cock permeated the cavern as the trickling waterfall flowed over them. She closed her eyes and let herself enjoy her approaching orgasm. “Yes, yes, yessss.”
It rode her pussy without mercy as her vaginal walls began contracting around his cock. Its right hand never once left the brand of Abdul Kan as she screamed out her climax, groaning into the night.
“Harder, Master,” she begged, unthinkingly calling him by the name of Abdul. Her teeth gritted as she gluttonously threw her hips at him, wanting fucked as deep and as hard as he could give it to her. Her nipples were so stiff with arousal they ached. “I want it harder.”
The possessive growl grew louder as the sub-human male fucked her harder. She gasped and moaned as his cock sank into her cunt, lightning-fast motions that were as deep as they were territorial.
She heard his breathing grow heavier, heard too the now familiar roar gurgling up from the depths of his throat. Nicoletta threw her pussy back at him as hard as she could, moaning with him as he convulsed and came inside her.
This time when it was over she knew the sub-human male would be seeking the rejuvenation of sleep. And, indeed, after picking her up with a warning growl and stumbling with her body toward a resting place, that’s what the beast did.
Lying beside him, she watched his gray chest rise and fall before her gaze flicked up to meet his. He was fighting the urge to sleep and he was losing.
Nicoletta stilled. She realized why her captor was fighting it, of course. This was precisely how she’d gotten away the last time. The slumber of a sub-human male is deep, all-consuming, as though in hibernation. It’s the only chance prey has from escaping the one who hunts them.
There was resignation in its gaze, a knowing. The beast realized it was falling asleep, knew it could not stop her from running, yet at the same time wanted to hold on to every second it could with her.
“Sleep,” she whispered, reaching a trembling hand out to stroke his brow. Her breath caught from somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. “Close your eyes and sleep.”


Chapter 6
He wanted so badly to touch her, to hold her and tell her of his love for her just as he had when he’d first purchased her. But he couldn’t—not without chancing that he’d hurt her. Once when they had been making love, his heart soaring with emotion, he had almost turned, had almost killed his beloved Nica. She made him feel…
The very thing he could not afford to do.
And so, not knowing what else could be done, but also realizing he had to keep her away from him until he could find enough answers to beat Fathom Systems and Maxim Malifé at their madman’s game, Abdul had distanced himself from the wife he cherished. He had forced her to loathe him, to despise him, to detest the very sight of him…
Inevitably, sadly, it had worked.
“Do not touch me!” she snapped, pushing away from him. “Cage me, spank me, do what You must! But do not ever,” she hissed, “touch me.”
Her words were more devastating than a deathblow. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, that he would always love her. But her words made him feel, damn it. It made the demon in him rise to the surface.
Abdul plastered a twisted smile on his face. “You think I need you?” he taunted. “I’ve three new wives eager for My touch. I do not need you.”
The look of unadulterated pain and betrayal on her face made his heart wrench. I do not mean this! he wanted to say. Nica, you know I do not mean this!
“Well then,” she whispered, her voice catching, her beautiful brown eyes filling with tears she was too proud to let fall, “You best go to them.”
She smiled as she prepared to open her eyes, wondering what her captor would do when he saw that she hadn’t run from him. Their eyes opened at the same time. Their gazes clashed.
Nicoletta’s smile faded, her face draining of color. Her heart began pounding in her chest, slashing against it like a rock, making breathing difficult. She wrenched herself up from the ground and backed away from him.
“No,” she choked out, stumbling until she hit a rocky wall barrier. Her naked breasts rose and fell with every forced breath. “This is not possible—You are not possible!”
He said nothing, only stared at her, as he slowly rose to his feet.
She was losing her mind, she decided. She had to be. There was no other explanation.
“Now you know My secret, Nica,” he murmured, his intense jaguar gaze filled with such emotion she had to look away. “The secrets I did My damnedest to hide for twenty-five years that you might not look upon Me with revulsion.” His sigh was long, weary, resigned. “And yet in order to keep it, I had to make you hate Me anyway.”
She was going to faint. She was certain she was going to faint. Her heart was ringing in her ears it was pumping so violently.
“I-I…”
She swallowed against a dry throat, words deserting her as she stared at her husband—her allegedly dead husband who was very much alive. She had to be dreaming…or hallucinating. He and the creature—they were one and the same? No—no—it wasn’t possible.
“Abdul?” she breathed out.
“I couldn’t let you go,” he said softly. “You deserve to be free—Cyrus knows you deserve to be. And yet…” He walked toward her slowly, not wanting to intimidate her. “I cannot let you go,” he rasped.
His expression was guarded and yet she could see the misery and loneliness etched into his face. His stance was tense and yet forcibly relaxed, as if he was trying his damnedest not to appear threatening even though his first instinct where she was concerned had always been and would always be to pounce.
There was no way under Cyrus for Abdul Kan to appear non-threatening, Nicoletta thought. Her gaze flicked over his tanned, naked body, over the heavy muscles and battle scars. He was just as powerful and larger-than-life while a man as he was while a beast. Different and yet the same. Now she recognized what it was she’d saw in the creature—
Abdul.
His gaze found hers. “I love you, Nicoletta Isabella Carlotta Kan,” he murmured.
She closed her eyes tightly to keep from crying. Her nostrils flared as tears streamed down her face anyway.
“I love you, ana wahib.”
Her heart painfully twisted. “Don’t do this to me.”
Nicoletta’s eyes flew open, the anguish on her tear-streaked face plainly readable. “It took me twenty-five years to pull myself away from You,” she gritted out. “Twenty-five brutal years where I begged and pleaded with the ancient saints and to every god under the sun that You might say those very words to me one day.”
“Nica…” His voice caught, the first time Abdul had shown a weakness since that long ago night when they’d been making love. “I have always loved you.”
She held up a palm. Her legs were trembling so fiercely she could scarcely stand. “It is too late, Abdul,” she rasped out. “My love for You will always be, yet is there too much between us for anything to come of it.”
His jaw tensed. “Can you not understand why I closed Myself off to you?” he growled, trying again to command the overwhelming urge he had to force her to stay. “If you had died at My hands I…” He sighed, his eyes closing briefly while he calmed himself. “I could not have bore it.”
Silence.
Abdul’s intense green eyes clashed with hers. “I will not force you to My side, Nica,” he murmured. His smile was sad. “There was so much pain in you when first I bought you, years of poverty and neglect I wanted to erase from your memories as though they never were—”
Her eyes filled with renewed tears as she listened to him speak. She searched his haunted gaze, drank it in.
“—There was so much I wanted for us to share together. So damned much.” He looked away as if lost in memories. “Yet all fate granted us before I became ill was a few short months.”
“Abdul…”
“I love you,” he murmured. His bloodshot eyes searched hers. “Even should you choose to walk away forever, I want you to know in your heart that there will never be another love for Me but you.”
Silence.
He held out his hand but didn’t approach her, letting Nicoletta make her own choice. Tears streamed down her face. There was so much emotion between them—there always had been, even when Abdul had wished it otherwise. And yet for all the emotion there was also much anguish…so much pain and so many years worth of loneliness and isolation.
Abdul.
Her first love. Her only love.
Nicoletta cried out as she reached for him, a guttural sound gurgling up from her throat. “I-I love You,” she gasped, wrapping her arms around his middle and hugging him tightly. “I thought—” The tears were making it difficult to say the words. “I-I thought You were dead.”
“I wanted to be when you ran from Me,” he said hoarsely, his nostrils flaring as he hugged her just as fiercely. “I wanted to be,” Abdul murmured into her hair. “Never leave Me, Nica,” he said in a soft rasp. “Please…come back to Me.”
Her mouth sought his, their lips clashing with the passion that had always existed between them. Abdul lowered her to the ground as they kissed, their tongues hungrily touching as he laid her beneath him.
He ran his callused hands all over her breasts, breaking the kiss and staring down into her beautiful face while he gently but firmly kneaded them in the way he knew she liked. She gasped when his fingers ran over her distended pink nipples, moaning when he lowered his face and took a plump one into his mouth.
“Abdul,” Nicoletta said thickly, her eyes closing and her back arching. She pressed his face in closer to her chest, sucking in her breath as his tongue flicked her nipple back and forth.
“Spread your legs,” he commanded from around her nipple in his sexy Arabic accent. He released her nipple with a popping sound and gazed down into her face. “I want to feel My pussy,” he murmured, his eyes heavy-lidded as he settled himself between her thighs. “My pussy,” he said thickly, possessively, poising his hard cock at her entrance.
Nicoletta shivered, knowing as she did how territorially Abdul had always guarded her. The fact he was the only man who’d ever been inside her had always made his territorialism all the more acute.
He sank into her cunt on a groan, his eyes tightly closing and his teeth gritting. “Mine,” he ground out. “All Mine.”
Nicoletta moaned as he began making love to her, her stiff nipples growing impossibly more aroused as they brushed against his chest with each thrust. He picked up the pace of their mating, sinking in and out of her sticky pussy with a hunger that bordered on maniacal.
“Abdul,” she gasped, throwing her hips back at him to meet each possessive stroke. “Harder.”
His nostrils flaring, he threw one of her legs over his shoulder without missing a beat. He gave her what she craved, riding her body hard, pumping in and out of her as she moaned. His jaw hotly clenched as he pounded her mercilessly, fucking her faster. Perspiration soaked skin slapped against perspiration soaked skin, her tits jiggling beneath him as she begged and screamed for more.
“My pussy,” he growled. “Mine.”
Nicoletta cried out her orgasm as Abdul rode her, sinking into her tight flesh over and over, again and again. He fucked her harder and faster and deeper and—
His teeth gritted as he tried with all that he had in him to keep from coming. He wanted the moment to go on and on, to keep sinking in and out of her forever. He fucked her harder, animalistically, moans echoing throughout the jungle cavern that were as tortured as they were filled with pleasure.
Always there had been this between them. Always.
“I’m coming,” he rasped, unable to hold himself back another second. His nostrils flared and his muscles tensed as he repeatedly slammed into her pussy. “Nica.”
He came on a territorial roar, his body convulsing, his cock jerking and spurting inside her. Nicoletta threw her hips at him, frenziedly milking him of seed, while he groaned and came.
It was a long while before they moved, a long while before their breathing became normal. They clung to each other the entire time, two haunted souls whose ghosts could only be put to rest by the other.
“I love you, Nicoletta Isabella Carlotta Kan,” Abdul murmured. His gaze found hers and held it. “I will always love you.”


Chapter 7
He had known almost from the beginning that he was changing, knew too that Sinead was as well. He had no notion how Malifé’s hired thugs had gotten to his first wife, yet clearly they had. He could see the changes within her happening as surely as he could see them within himself. Thankfully, Nica had been spared. So too had his daughter, Nellie, and his son, Asad, whom Nica had bore him.
When Abdul had first realized what was happening to him and Sinead, he had hired the best scientists he could muster within the Hierarchy to find a cure. Day and night they toiled in their labs, a ten million yen reward the prize they raced to claim. The scientists thought they had found a cure…
They had been wrong.
Sinead grew worse, her bouts with madness nearly overwhelming her on several occasions. Abdul himself had injected her with what he’d prayed to Cyrus was the cure, only to find that the alleged remedy made her grow worse. And Nellie…
There was something in the way she would look at him, a haunted expression in his daughter’s young eyes as she stared at him. It was as if she knew her mother was sick and she blamed him for it. The fear he saw in her innocent gaze when she beheld him was enough to break his heart.
Abdul wondered, not for the first time, if his daughter’s memories had been tampered with. He realized his own memories had been erased, for try as he might, he could not recall what had led to his and Sinead’s infections. And so if his memory had been altered, perhaps Nellie’s had been too…
And Sinead’s as well.
Sinead, Abdul thought, sighing as he raised a chalice of spirits to his lips and sipped from it. Poor Sinead. She had never wanted to become his wife as she had always preferred the company of women to the company of men. She loved Abdul—as a friend—but she could never be in love with him.
And yet, in a world where women could make no rules, Sinead knew she would never be free to love another female. Creagh O’Malley had wanted his sister to be owned by a Master who would respect her, respect also the limits of her love.
And so Abdul had married her. Sinead had given him his Nellie and been a good mother, so he’d never regretted the union. And then Sinead had found Nicoletta for him.
Ah, Nica, as long as I have breath to breathe, there will never be another love for me but you…
* * * * *
Two days later
“I know You are nervous to see Nellie again,” Nicoletta announced as they left the cave hand-in-hand. She frowned at the scratchy makeshift clothing they’d fashioned for him out of animal skin, brushing a patch of dirt off the tunic sleeve. “Yet rest assured she will be happy to see You.” Her smile was warm, gentle, just as it had been in the old days when she’d given her love to him freely.
It was time to begin the journey through the jungle and into the heart of the rebel Underground catacombs. Within days Abdul would be reunited with his firstborn child and her husband. A new destiny was unfolding for all of them, a future he could not control or foretell. It was at once exciting and frightening. But whatever was to come, his beloved wife would be at his side. For that, Abdul would be forever grateful.
Things between Nellie and himself wouldn’t be so easy as Nicoletta imagined and Abdul knew it, though he conceded now was not the time to upset his wife with what was to come. But, no, it would not be so easy…
Nicoletta had not been the only one he’d turned away from in an effort to keep the madness from claiming him. He had hurt Nellie too. She had wanted his love despite it all, despite what he deeply suspected were faulty beliefs that he had a hand in her birth mother Sinead’s infection and eventual death.
While different, the wounds inflicted on Nellie were cut just as deep as the wounds that he had inflicted on Nicoletta. Back then, when infection had been a new disease and nobody had any guesses as to how it might be cured, Abdul had done the only thing he could think to do to keep from succumbing to it.
He had refused to feel. He had refused to show love or accept it.
In his heart, he still knew it had been the only way. He had told himself over and over again that one day—someway, somehow—he would find that cure and all would be as it should again.
But then one year turned into two, two into a decade, and a decade into twenty-five years…
No. Nellie’s forgiveness would not come easily or quickly. But he was determined to earn it. He wanted his life back, a life that had been on hold in lieu of a quarter century long nightmare.
A nightmare that was still not over. Until he was cured and his family again stood as one, it would never be over.
“Cease Your worrying, Abdul,” Nicoletta chided him. “I can read You true, You realize.” She smiled. “Nellie still loves You.”
Abdul raised Nicoletta’s hand to his lips and kissed it. His cherished Nica was more beautiful than even he had remembered. Naked, clad only in her matrimonial nipple rings and chain, his brand on her right buttock for the world to see, everything—at least between the two of them—was once again as it should be.
“I hope you are correct,” he murmured.
She inclined her head. “I am. I know You doubt me, but I am. And what’s more, I think she might be able to cure You. I distinctly recall her stating that the serum the Underground scientists had obtained worked on those who have not yet fully turned.” Her eyes were filled with excitement, with hope. “You have not yet fully turned,” she breathed out.
Abdul nodded. Had he fully turned there would be no man to speak of left within him. “No. I have not.” He sighed, admitting, “The only good thing to have come of the past twenty-five years.”
She returned his sigh, knowing nothing could be said to that for it was the truth. They walked in silence for a while, clutching the other’s hand as they made their way deeper into the jungle—and soon into the catacombs that would reunite him with his eldest child.
“I have much to explain to you,” Abdul said, squeezing her hand.
Nicoletta shook her head. “No, You are wrong.” She came to a halt and swung around to face him. “You’ve told me plenty and the rest I have figured out for myself.”
His gaze searched hers. “Do you forgive Me?” he murmured.
“I do,” she whispered, her heart in her eyes.
They had a long road to haul but they would travel it together. She stilled, a thought occurring to her. Her gaze narrowed on a frown.
“I have but one question to put to You and by Cyrus I swear You had best have the right answer.”
His forehead wrinkled. “You have successfully gained My attention,” he slowly drawled. “Go on.”
She grunted. “Dumb, Dumber, Dumbest, and Hopelessly Moronic,” Nicoletta hissed, making him grin at the names she used to refer to his other wives. “Will You keep them?”
He scratched his chin, pretending to give the matter some thought. He chuckled when she swung around and began stomping off, his arm snaking around her and drawing her back into his side.
“No,” he said simply.
Nicoletta’s chin notched up, her expression smug. “Good,” she sniffed.
Before Abdul knew what came over him, he was laughing, the first laugh he’d entertained in more years than he cared to remember. Throwing his yelping wife over his shoulder, he made his way through the jungle, both excited and tense over the prospect of being reunited with his daughter.
Abdul Kan was a man with many regrets. Confiding his secret in his wife that they might battle it together would never be one of them. Giving his other wives their freedom so that the only woman his heart had ever cherished could know happiness was no sacrifice at all.
Always there was Nicoletta.
There could never be another.


Epilogue
Later that night
“What does ana wahib mean?” Nicoletta whispered, her head on Abdul’s chest.
She couldn’t get the question out of her mind for he’d called her and only her by that name for as long as they’d been married. Her face came up. “What does it mean?”
His smile was gentle, his eyes filled with tenderness. “It means my one,” Abdul murmured. He lowered his face and softly kissed her lips. “My only one.”
She searched his gaze. “As You are mine.”
Abdul made love to Nicoletta in the cave they took shelter in that eve. He was the same husband she’d cherished with her whole being in the early days, the same husband she had always prayed would one day return to her. She was not afraid of the beast that dwelled within him, nor would she leave him to wage the battle against it alone.
As Abdul sank into her, possessively impaling her flesh again and again as he moaned and made love to her, she vowed to herself that come what may, she would be with him always.
She had left Abdul that she might find her destiny. Ironically—joyously—it was in Abdul that she had found it.
There was nothing quite like the love between a man and a woman. Love for all others can be fierce, even border on the maniacal, but the love between a man and a woman carries a hunger, a longing—an intensity—unlike any other.
“I love You,” Nicoletta whispered again and again as her husband made love to her. Twenty-five years, good memories and horrid ones. Children and soon a grandchild. There was more between them than mere words could say.
And yet she tried. She smiled, cried, and told him over and over again just what was in her heart. “Oh how I love You…”