Vanished:Brides of the Kindred 21 Read online

  Harper gasped and blinked. Looking around her, she found she was in a huge, square room with ceilings that were cathedral-high. She and Shad were standing on a glossy black floor about ten feet by ten feet which was surrounded by deep channels that formed a kind of square moat around them. Flowing through these channels, on all four sides was something bright green that shimmered and pulsed. It looked to Harper like living Jell-O.

  But the Jell-O moat only drew her attention for a moment. In front of them, across the nearest channel, was a mountainous creature which seemed to be made entirely of brownish-black slime. It had wide yellow eyes as big as softballs and it was lying reclined on some kind of couch while the blue blobby customs agent who had brought them there floated nearby.

  This must be the Controller.

  As Harper watched, it opened a yawning, toothless mouth, and something black and slimy wiggled out, like a snake or a worm seeking blindly for prey. The thing came to a blunt point and dripped slime on the shiny black tiles as it extended easily nine feet from the Controller’s lipless maw.

  It’s tongue—that’s what touched me! What slimed me!

  Disgust so deep it nearly nauseated her twisted her stomach into a fist. For a moment Harper honestly thought she might be sick.

  “Ugh,” she gasped again, her hand curling into a fist inside Shad’s. “What is it?”

  “The Controller is the supreme being—the keeper of the gateway from the space port to the rest of Juno,” burbled the blue blob. “If you wish to enter the city and partake of the many delights our planet has to offer, you must pay his tax.”

  “Verlex number nine-seventeen speaks the truth,” the Controller snarled in his thick, muddy voice. “And my tax must be paid now!”

  Suddenly Harper felt something at her back. Turning her head, she saw that a thick pole, the same color and consistency of the shiny black tiles beneath their feet, was shooting up behind her. Before she could exclaim, the top of it had reached the vaulted ceiling overhead and small, shiny black tendrils began to grow from the pole’s sides. These curled like vines around her wrists and ankles. Her hand was torn from Shad’s grip and her arms were fixed above her head in an unbreakable grip. At the same time, her legs were dragged apart and more of the shiny black vines started lifting her dress.

  She gasped as her dress and the t-shirt she wore were pulled up to her chin, leaving her naked and struggling, pinned to the cold black pole behind her. Her thighs were spread wide and since she had no bra or panties on, everything was completely on display.

  “Now, my dear,” the Controller burbled in his slime-choked voice. “Simply submit to my tasting for a few moments and the two of you can go and explore the city. I assure you, I will bring you only pleasure when I part your nether lips with my tongue and stroke inside you.”

  “The hell you will!” Harper shouted, fear and rage lending strength to her voice. “Keep away from me, you bastard! I don’t want any part of you anywhere near me!”

  Her protests did no good. The Controller only gave her a wide, yawning grin and the horribly long, slimy tongue slid out of his mouth again. Black and dripping with unspeakable ooze, it headed right for her.

  “No!” All this time Shad had been trying to free her. But though his muscles bulged, he was unable to break any of the shiny black vines holding her to the pole. To Harper, they felt like some kind of solid, living metal.

  She felt something slimy against her leg and shrieked breathlessly. Looking down, she saw that the blunt, dripping tip of the Controller’s tongue was sliding up her inner thigh.

  “Seven Hells!” Shad growled. He abandoned his quest to free her and reached down to seize the dripping tongue instead, no doubt meaning to yank it away from her.

  But the moment his fingers made contact, there was a sizzling sound and he shouted and jerked away. There were red marks on his hand which looked like they’d been made by a hot iron where he’d touched the slimy thing.

  “You see?” The Controller sounded smug, though how he could talk, let alone sound like a smug asshole with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, was beyond Harper. “My taste-touch gives pleasure to those whom I deem worthy…and pain to those who deserve it. Now step back, Kindred, and allow me to pleasure your female. In just a moment it will all be over—your tax will be paid and you can leave.”

  Harper felt sick with disgust. Was this her fate? To be tongue-raped by this slimy bastard while she was tied to the black metal pole, spread-eagle and helpless?

  “No!” she shouted. “No!”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart.” Shad faced her and pressed himself against her, his broad chest crushing her bare breasts as he wrapped his arms around the pole she was pinned to. One leather-clad knee came between her thighs, pressing hard against her open pussy and blocking the slimy tongue from licking her exposed sex.

  “Ah!” Harper gasped at the unexpected contact. It was uncomfortable but she had to admit it was about a thousand times better than letting the oily tongue of the Controller penetrate her.

  “Be still,” Shad growled, looking down at her, his opalescent eyes burning. “I won’t let him taste you—I swear it, Harper. Trust me.”

  “I…I just…” She shivered and shifted her hips, but that increased the pressure of his knee against her clit, shooting a bolt of unwelcome pleasure through her entire body.

  “Be still,” he repeated and there was a look of grim determination on his face.

  There was an angry hiss and Harper looked over the big Kindred’s broad shoulder to see that the Controller’s huge eyes, formerly yellow, were now shaded an angry reddish-orange.

  “You will regret this, Kindred,” he declared. “One of you must pay the tax and if it is you, I swear it will be a tax of pain and not pleasure.”

  “Do your worst,” Shad growled over his shoulder. “I don’t fear you.”

  “You should!”

  The tongue whipped out suddenly, landing like a lash across the big Kindred’s broad back.

  Shad grunted and stiffened and Harper saw a wisp of smoke rising from the place where the tongue had struck across his shoulders. The tongue lashed out again…and then again… Shad’s black t-shirt was in the way but that didn’t seem to matter. The acidic slime of the Controller’s tongue was burning its way through the fabric to reach the vulnerable flesh below, making him jerk with each blow, though he never left his post.

  “Shad!” Harper exclaimed when she realized what was happening. “Oh, no—oh no, no, no!”

  “I’m…fine.” Shad seemed to force the words out. His jaw was clenched and his eyes were slitted in pain but he bore the beating stoically, though beads of sweat popped out on his forehead.

  For me—he’s doing this for me, Harper realized. He’s taking the pain so I don’t have to let this slimy bastard lick me all over.

  She was simultaneously grateful and horrified. She wasn’t tall enough to look down his back and see what the damage was, but from the rising wisps of smoke and the scent of burning flesh, she had a sinking feeling it was going to be extensive.

  “Shad,” she whispered. “Shad, please…I don’t…don’t want you getting hurt like this for me.”

  “Fine,” he ground out. “I said…I’m fine. Over…in a…minute.”

  Harper hoped so. As big and strong as he was, she wasn’t sure how much of this he could take. For a moment his eyes rolled up in his head and then he shook himself, making a visible effort to return to consciousness and remain at his post. God, this was horrible!

  “Stop it!” she shouted over the big Kindred’s shoulder. “Stop it, you slimy bastard—you said your tax was pain, not death. You’ll kill him if you keep this up. Stop!”

  She found that she was crying but she didn’t know when she had started. How had the situation gotten so desperate so quickly? Was this another symptom of the past refusing to be changed? If either of them died the time-loop would reset, at least according to Shad. Was that about to happen now? But this was their