Surrendered Read online

  Without warning her small hand shot between his legs from behind and suddenly she was holding his balls in her hand in a very firm grip.

  “Mistress!” Thorn’s voice came out sounding hoarse.

  “Hmm—I dare say this is a pain that will bother you. At least a little,” she murmured sarcastically and for just a moment Thorn actually thought she meant to squeeze and bring him to his knees. Because she was right—there were some kinds of pain a male simply couldn’t ignore.

  Instead, though, Neh’sa released her grip on his sac and began to tickle the sensitive area, using just the tips of her soft little fingers. Then she reached further between his legs and stroked his now-hard shaft several times, drawing a low groan from Thorn’s throat.

  “Now you see the reason for the special trousers,” Neh’sa murmured, still stroking him.

  “So you can jerk me off any hour of the day or night?” Thorn demanded through gritted teeth. Though he didn’t like to admit it, this situation was turning him on—he’d never had a female push him up against a wall and stroke him this way before. It was fucking sexy, especially since, if he’d wanted to, he could have thrown her over one shoulder and carried her straight to bed to have his way with her. But he couldn’t do that—he would never take a female against her will.

  Also he didn’t want her to stop what she was doing.

  “I’m not jerking you off, Thorn,” she whispered, still stroking. “In fact, you had the last orgasm you’re going to for quite a while yesterday during your first training session.”

  “What?” Thorn demanded. Her soft little hand was enflaming him—his shaft was so hard it felt like he could fuck through a plasti-steel wall—he was dying to come. And now she was telling him he couldn’t?

  “You heard me—I control your orgasms now. You’re going to have to earn them, Thorn.” She smiled at him. “Which means you need to be very good and very obedient if you want one.”

  “I…” He licked his lips. “I don’t—

  “And if you’re thinking you’ll help yourself—well, just try.” Using the long crop, she twitched the loincloth to one side and nodded at his throbbing cock. “Go on—try to touch yourself.”

  Thorn reached for himself, almost reflexively. But the moment his hand touched his erect shaft, he felt a sharp, electrical shock in his fingertips.

  “Ow!” Grimacing, he pulled his hand away. He had forgotten the non-contact bracelets.

  “I think you can see the hope of touching yourself again is useless,” Neh’sa told him sternly. “I want you, as much as possible, to be in a constant state of arousal. Which is why I’ll do this…” She grasped his thick shaft again and stroked several times—long, slow strokes that went from the root of his cock all the way to the flaring crown. “Anytime I want,” she concluded.

  “Mistress—” Thorn began hoarsely.

  “I might even do this.” Leaning over him, Neh’sa put out her small, pink tongue and swiped delicately over the broad head of his cock. The soft, hot heat of her mouth made Thorn’s hips jerk with need.

  “Gods, Mistress—you’re a fucking sadist!” he growled.

  “No—I just have to find a way to control you besides pain,” Neh’sa told him, looking up into his eyes. “And pleasure is the next logical option.” She straightened up. “Welcome to the world of tease and denial, Thorn. Follow me.”

  Cock throbbing, Thorn took his hands off the viewer and straightened up stiffly, well aware of the awkward tent he was making in the black loin-cloth. Gods, did she really want him at this level of arousal all the time? It would fucking kill him! And it made the fire inside him so much harder to control when he was aroused.

  Where was the sweet Neh’sa who had let him hold her and pleasure her the night before—who had knelt before him and treated his wounds? Somehow she had disappeared to be replaced by Mistress Neh’sanna who was every bit as ruthless as Thorn had imagined she would be when he had first agreed to take this mission.

  And yet…despite his irritation and sexual frustration, he couldn’t help admiring her. She was tougher than he’d thought. Despite her petite size, she wasn’t afraid to take him on, even though he was so much bigger than her. And the touch of her small, soft hands still affected him in a way no other female’s touch ever had.

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself sternly. Doesn’t matter how she affects you—it’s better to ignore it. Ignore the feelings she raises inside you. Don’t let her get to you—you’re only here to get the information from the Library of All Knowledge and as soon as you do, you’re leaving.

  He’d allowed his new Mistress to get under his skin, Thorn admitted to himself. For a little while during that first night, he’d been acting like a true body-slave and had almost forgotten his real purpose here. Well, he wouldn’t let it happen again. He made up his mind to consider everything she did to him as just another form of torture, the same as the blood snails or the fire whip which had been used on him in his former missions.

  He wouldn’t let his heart be touched again.

  Neh’sa seemed to have made the same promise to herself because she kept up the persona of the strong, remote Mistress perfectly and he didn’t see the soft, vulnerable female who had allowed him to take her to bed and pleasure and cuddle her again.

  At least, not for almost a week…

  Chapter Eleven

  Sovereign Ysldred X’izith paced around the small, irregularly shaped room which seemed to be made of some kind of reddish rock. He was the leader of the Hive, an insectile race of beings from beyond the Void, and Brynn found herself watching him now, with the same horror as the first time she’d seen him without his disguise.

  But how am I seeing him? she thought, shuddering. And why?

  She had no answers—just the image of the Sovereign pacing around the red rock room in slow, measured strides.

  In Earth terms, he most resembled a cross between a cockroach and a wasp, with the long hard shell-like wings of the former and the narrow waist and stinger of the latter. His head, bulbous and triangular, resembled that of an ant with its curving, serrated mandibles, mobile, twitching antennae, and huge black, soulless eyes. His entire body was shiny black slashed with crimson and his long, chitinous legs were lined with coarse, wiry hairs and tipped with gripping claws.

  Now he was missing one of his long, thin arms and when he turned his head, Brynn could see that one eye was only an empty socket. The long, insectile abdomen at the bottom of his body was twisted with scar tissue and the black breeding barb he had longed to sink deep inside her appeared withered. But for all his injuries, he was alive…still alive, Brynn saw with horror.

  On a raised stone platform beside him sat several gem-like stones. Two were small and purple—about the size and shape of the Earth candy called M&Ms which Brynn’s new friends had given her to try. The third stone was bigger—the size of a human palm. It glowed green with some strange, alien energy that made Brynn shiver for some reason.

  “My Sovereign,” came the buzzing voice of one of the Hive’s sentient workers. “My Sovereign, good news! Good news!”

  “What is it?” Sovereign X'izith snapped in an angry tone as the worker came into view. It looked like a slightly smaller version of the Sovereign himself although its wings were longer and lighter—more like a dragonfly’s wings, Brynn thought numbly.

  “It has to do with the latest scouting expedition we sent out.” The worker groomed its long antennae excitedly. “One of the scouts brought back the most extraordinary sample—”

  “What good are samples to me?” X'izith demanded. “When the females they are getting samples from are forever out of my reach behind the energy shield those blasted Kindred have erected around Earth?”

  “But my Sovereign we have found such a female—”

  “I need more than one female and you know it!” X'izith’s tone was surly. “Not that I will enjoy breeding them with my barb in this state.” He gestured to the withered husk of his once long and