Chapter 11: Kiara

Chapter 11: Kiara

He had to have known that the instant he agreed to the deal, I would make my escape. I didn’t hide my intentions. My body was coiled, ready to spring, and yet he still opened the cage.

As soon as the door was unlatched, I lunged, pushing it open with my shoulder and barreling out to freedom.

Of course, he knew. He anticipated it. That was why he dropped the water bottle and jumped back instead of letting me push him down. My knees scraped the concrete, and I tucked my feet underneath myself, immediately springing upward, only to be greeted by the wide arms of my captor. To my surprise, he ensnared me and pinned me close to him, gripping one bungee cord in both hands and stretching it around me. I shoved his chest away and turned, trying to escape, but he’d already bound my arms against my body and hooked the cord behind my back. My mistake was turning. I couldn’t bend my arms backward to unhook it. “Shit,” I snarled.

A second bungee cord hanging out of his pocket was wrapped around my wrists. I leaned forward and tried to stomp on his feet but either missed or ground my heel into his toes, and he just endured it with a groan. Before I knew it, he had secured my wrists with the cord as well, and I was robbed of the use of my hands. I turned around a second time, surprised that I was able to, and faced him.

Colt smugly peered down at me with the third bungee cord.

I looked past him at the door he’d left half-open. All I had to do was get past him.

But I was too obvious in seeking my escape. As I pushed forward to run, he grabbed my arm and swung himself behind me, then looped the cord once around my neck. He secured it with the hook on one end and stretched the other hook down, attaching it to the cord on my wrists so that my throat was strangled and my head wrenched back. I was reduced to thrashing against him once more, scowling as he held my wrists with one hand, his other firmly on my throat. His fingers cradled my windpipe, squeezing under my jaw.

“Please,” Colt muttered in my ear, “I thought that would be harder.”

My desperation to escape must have made me sloppy. These past few days were difficult. I was losing my touch, letting myself get captured, unable to fight my way free. My eyes shut in a grimace as I fell still, trying to think.

“What exactly do you think I want to do to you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper and floating on notes of subtle laughter.

I swallowed. “You just want to stick your dick in me, you fucking pig.”

“For a creature of such divine purity, you have an awfully crass vocabulary,” tutted Colt.

“Only half of me is pure,” I shot back. “The other half wants to rip your throat out.”

“Just try,” he taunted.

The pressure against my ass proved that he was trying to goad me into physicality. Memories of our fight from the Moondream flushed me with unwelcome heat. I had resisted him at first, but the closeness between us became intoxicating in a way I couldn’t understand. He rekindled it here, holding onto me like we might lose sight of the boundaries of our bodies again. I didn’t want him. But when we fought and when we became close enough to breathe each other in, nothing else satisfied my emptiness the same way his touch did. Frustrated, I clenched my jaw and ripped away from him.

Colt retaliated by pulling me in closer, embracing me against his chest. “I’m tired of being pushed away by the people I want. So, okay, you’re right. I do want to fuck you,” he said against my ear. His hot breath and the harshness of his confession made my spine tingle. “But despite everything I’ve lost, I still can’t bring myself to be selfish. I’m not going to do anything you don’t want me to do.”

Bullshit, I thought.

He freed one hand to go for the water on the floor. Then he forced my body down to the ground with him until we were both kneeling, his knees on either side of my hips, his body arching to reach the bottle until he’d grabbed it. With his chin on my shoulder and his arms around me, I watched him unscrew the cap and lift it to my face. “I don’t want you to be dehydrated.”

True, my throat felt awfully dry, but it was because of the constant struggling and nothing more. “I’m still pretty fucking hydrated from when you hosed me down.”

“It turns me on when you swear at me.”

I pulled my head back as much as I could as he sat the spout of the water bottle against my lip. Then he tipped it up, even as I pressed my lips tight. Water trickled down my face and onto my chest.

“Drink, please. I know you’re thirsty.”

As much as I didn’t want to, I relented, opening my mouth to the mild flow of water. Colt rumbled with satisfaction as I drank. After a few gulps, he pulled the water away.

“Good?”

“Yeah,” I said hoarsely.

“Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“Are you cold?”

I hesitated, thinking of how I could use my next answer to my advantage. “…Yes.”

“It is pretty cold in here, isn’t it?” Colt leaned over and set the water bottle down. “We have to keep it cold in here. This room is where we butcher our kills. The cold keeps the meat fresh.” His arms stayed firmly around me. If I thought he was going to leave me alone or at least detach from me to give me the sweater off his back, I was wrong. “There’s been so much blood in here that it stains the floor. Can you smell it?”

He lowered his voice into my ear, smooth and calm intonations betraying the unnerving morbidity of his words.

“No,” I growled.

“Don’t lie to me. Gorging yourself on that carcass did nothing for your appetite,” he hummed. His lips grazed my ear and elicited a sharp inhale from me. “I know you’re still hungry.”

A fire woke within me. I wanted to hide every part of myself away from Colt, but those words alone threatened that I would never be able to. He would know about my gluttony and greed. He would know every twist of desire I felt, especially that which tortured me now, churning in my loins and aching to be confronted. I was so, so hungry.

“Let me feed your hunger,” he murmured.

Our dizzying closeness was ever more persuasive. Our fated bond ignited lust that I couldn’t contend with as long as he was touching me. My body and mind entered receptive heat that craved him—and I hated it, but right now, I only wanted relief.

One hand traveled down my stomach, fingers dancing lightly around my belly button and toward my mound, through my field of soft, light hair. His right hand, the one I’d slashed, and he had bandaged, stayed on my chest, thumbing my nipple. A soft kiss behind my ear promised tenderness that lulled me into a sense of security, but whether he would follow through or not, I supposed I would find out.

I wasn’t about to tell him that I’d never been with anybody before.

I’d always made myself rare and elusive. Most of my time was spent with my mother, and the fact that she had homeschooled me to protect me from the outside world kept me from getting too close to anyone. Not that I was ignorant to sexuality—I just thought I’d never want it, that I was too good for it. Colt was proving that wrong.

The cunning Hexen heir made me want to shed my purity and succumb to him.

As soon as his middle finger dipped between my plush labia, I tensed, growling. Colt paused, waiting until my shoulders relaxed again before rubbing me. He didn’t stray into my wetness but instead stroked my exterior, kissing my neck and leaning into me with a gentle rhythm of grinding against my butt. His erection wasn’t shy, its stiffness nuzzling between my cheeks from inside his sweats.

“Does this feel good?” he whispered.

Without invading me, he stimulated my clit enough to flood me with pleasure until my flesh felt swollen and sensitive. I followed the natural inclination of my body to move with his.

“Answer me,” rumbled Colt.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“Want me to put my fingers inside you?”

The hair on the back of my neck rose. His touch was only teasing me at this point. “Yes.”

Colt didn’t waste any time pushing his fingertips into my folds, massaging just under my clit and submerging himself in the sweet, sticky result of my excitement. An electric shock of surprise and pleasure made me arch my back into him, sitting up and inadvertently granting him better access to my pussy. A satisfied hum crawled from his throat as he slid two fingers inside me, continuing to massage my clit with the soft pillow of his thumb.

“You’re making me drip,” he panted into my neck, thrusting against me in time with the rotations of his wrist.

I couldn’t help the sounds of gratification from chiming out of me. Breathing harder, I moved my hips against his, inhaling the musk of arousal that beaded off of us. His hand worked me up into a dizzying swelter as pleasure coiled inside my stomach, aching to be unleashed.

“Am I going to make you cum?” A breathless laugh escaped him.

I pressed my lips together, moaning.

“Orgasm for me,” he encouraged. “Choke my fingers with your tight pussy.”

The cadence of his voice in my ear drove me wild.

“Come on, Kiara.”

His heavy panting elevated me into overwhelming ecstasy. Heat gripped my body, pleasure trembling through me. I cried out in surprise at how intensely the feeling enveloped me, leaning back into him at the same time that he slipped his other hand into his sweats, muffling a staggered groan into my shoulder. His hard jerking behind me and subsequent shudder told me he’d fallen victim to the same pleasure. As my body slowly relaxed, Colt kissed my neck a few more times, then stood. Behind me, where I couldn’t see, he walked to a nearby counter, presumably grabbing a cloth with which to clean his hands.

I still felt pleasure even after he’d detached from me. Now leaning forward, I bowed my head between my shoulders and caught my breath, searching for clarity through the erotic haze.

“I’ll give you that all the time if you want it,” said Colt, running the tap. “Let me mark you. Then I can protect you, help you rescue Muriel. We can work together.”

I prickled, remembering Aislin’s warning. His touch was pleasing, but my anger was quick to blossom from where it had initially taken root. “You’re shameless. I’m not letting you mark me.”

“We would have a telepathic connection. You think I’d really let anything bad happen to you after that?”

“Fuck you,” I snapped. “Just because you made me feel good doesn’t mean I want you. I’m rejecting our fated mate bond.”

Colt lingered behind me. Perhaps it was a good thing I couldn’t see his expression, but it didn’t save me from the crackle of fury and hurt our bond reflected off of him and onto me. I suspected he only wanted to mark me to take advantage of me, but something about the feelings I experienced then rang with sincerity I hadn’t expected. After drying his hands on a towel, he threw the towel aside and stormed up to me, grabbing my wrists again.

I wasn’t prepared for his sudden aggression. My body was still weak from pleasure. He threw me into the cage, giving me little chance to retaliate. By the time I had turned onto my back to kick at him, he’d slammed the door and locked it again, leaving me still bound by the cords.

This time, he didn’t meet my eyes as he loomed over the cage. “I’ll give you some time to think about it.” The disembodied lack of emotion made him sound different than his heady growls in my ear just minutes ago.

Then Colt whipped around, heading back to the door before I could think of anything else to say.

Minutes of silence stretched into an hour before I realized he’d abandoned me for the night.