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  Tariza shuddered at his filthy touch. “Unhand me, Saturnian.”

  He laughed and picked her up, carrying her toward a small campfire burning at the foot of an enormous boulder. The scent of his body caused a bizarrely misplaced jolt of lust in her belly. Lust? How could she feel lust for this barbarian animal? Maybe the blow to the head had addled her mind.

  She had to resist, no matter what the cost. Tariza twisted in his grip, struggling against the stiff chill of his light leather armor. All her strength, honed over a lifetime of training as a Concordian warrior, merely earned her bruises on her arms and legs. The barbarian’s grip seemed unbreakable.

  The Saturnian crouched down near the fire and laid her on the ground. A stone poked her right in the center of her spine. He loomed over her.

  By the Goddess, he was huge. He didn’t merely loom. He towered. She could hardly make out his eyes in the flickering firelight, but they seemed to be some dark color. The rest of his features hid behind thick facial hair.

  Those eyes. She’d seen them before. A shiver of dread slithered down her spine. Where had she seen him?

  Concordian men rarely got this big. And even when they did, their natural male arrogance was always tempered by the chains they wore and the discipline meted out by their female owners. This man clearly had no owner, and no sense of his proper place in life. But then, no Saturnian male did.

  A full beard and moustache, black as the deepest cave, covered the lower part of his face–another affectation not allowed males in Concordia. Large dark eyes regarded her with amusement. He was exceptionally good-looking, even with the facial hair partially concealing his features, with a blade-like nose, high cheekbones and full, sensual lips she knew would make for glorious kissing. Not that she would ever kiss a swine like him.

  “How dare you accost me,” she said, forcing her voice to harden.

  His lips quirked up on one side, as if he were about to laugh. “You are Concordian. We are at war.”

  Was it possible he didn’t know who she was? If so, she must be careful never to reveal her true identity, for if her captors knew it, her life would be worthless.

  “What is your name, Saturnian?” she said with a confidence she didn’t feel.

  The quirk became a lop-sided smile. “I’m wounded that you don’t recognize me, Your Highness.”

  Confound it all. He did know who she was.

  Tariza tried to shrug, although her bound hands made it difficult. “My apologies. Perhaps you might refresh my memory.”

  “I’m Dario Saturnios.”

  She clamped down on a startled gasp. “You!”

  “Me.” He gave her a courtly bow.

  “You looked different then.”

  He’d been clean-shaven. She’d ... wanted him. Her fantasies of taming him returned in a rush, making her face burn.

  “As did you,” he said. “If I recall correctly, you wore a dress then, like any normal woman.”

  She narrowed her eyes. He mustn’t know how weak and exhausted she felt. She must show him a strong Concordian face. “Don’t imagine that kidnapping me will gain you any ground in the war. As a warrior, I’m prepared to lose my life and my mother is willing to sacrifice me.”

  “You are her heir. She’ll negotiate.”

  “She’ll sacrifice me for the good of Concordia.”

  He smiled a little more broadly as he leaned over her. He smelled like healthy male sweat and some spice that was his alone. A bolt of lust speared her, made her sex ache and her heart suddenly pound for reasons other than fear.

  Goddess, what was wrong with her? This man was her worst enemy. Yet she still lusted after him, although he’d captured her and was about to do terrible things to her. Unspeakable things.

  “What you don’t seem to understand, Tariza,” he murmured, staring into her eyes, “is this. I haven’t kidnapped you. I’m not holding you for ransom. What I am doing is making you one of my girls.”

  Her lips parted in shock. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “Oh, but I would.” He grinned openly, his gaze traveling over the battle-stained uniform in which she’d slept. “I’ll bet once we get you out of those man-clothes, I’ll find I’ve stolen a real prize.”

  To her shame, her nipples hardened eagerly under his regard. Apparently her body didn’t know the difference between a decently chained male and a beast like Dario Saturnios. She swallowed hard and licked dust-dry lips.

  “Shouldn’t I go to the king himself?” The king was a wrinkled old man, not a virile young warrior like Dario. He would be no threat to her.

  A mask seemed to slip over Dario’s handsome face. “Maybe you should, but you’re not going to. Paolo!”

  An adolescent boy with a shock of dark blond hair wandered over from where they’d hobbled the horse. “Yes, milord?”

  “I’ll need a witness to this.”

  Tariza shrank back against the stone. “A witness to what?”

  Saturnios gave her an expression she’d seen before ... but not in a male. It was the way a Concordian woman looked at a slave she planned to dominate. Maybe to fuck.

  “No. You can’t. I’m the heir to Concordia. This isn’t the way an honorable soldier treats hostages.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re not a hostage. You’re my slave.” He reached for the knife at his belt.

  Her heart thundered and her pussy clenched in eagerness. Curse her stupid body. She was a warrior, not some adolescent girl with her first slave. She ought to have better control over herself than this.

  The knife flashed darkly in the low light. Saturnios turned it so the blade rested against his palm as he unbuttoned her jacket. His fingers lingered against the linen of her shirt, teasing her with what was to come.

  Probably a hurried rutting, like an animal. These Saturnians couldn’t know how to please a woman, since they never had to. They weren’t required to please their women the way Concordian men were, and he would be an ignorant brute. But her body yearned for his touch anyhow.

  He unbuttoned her shirt as well. He certainly wasn’t in a hurry. Didn’t he know her women could be following them?

  No doubt he believed he could fight off a Concordian attack blindfolded and with one hand tied behind his back. Fool.

  Of course, he’d killed her guards. Killed anyone who could have raised the alarm. The thought of her friends dead, because of her, because of this barbarian, sluiced icy water over her lust and drowned it.

  He cut away her jacket sleeves. Then the blade slipped, cold and hard, inside her shirt. He carefully repeated the action with her shirt sleeves, pulling the tubes of fabric from her arms and tossing them to the side.

  He contemplated her breast-binding for a moment. “I hope you haven’t ruined your figure with that bandaging.”

  Tariza merely glared at him.

  With a grin, he cut the breast-binding down the middle. It sprang open, displaying her breasts. Her nipples pearled in the chill night air. Paolo let out a sigh. She couldn’t look at him as her face burned with shame.

  In Concordia, women went bare-breasted all the time in the summer, but that was different. There, men didn’t dare to ogle women or touch them uninvited. Here, she was bound hand and foot, helpless, while two enemy males stared at her in undisguised lust.

  Saturnios cupped her left breast, lifting it, his touch surprisingly gentle. She stifled a whimper of pleasure.

  Show no weakness. No weakness.

  He rolled her breast in his hot palm, while his thumb stroked over her straining nipple. Tariza bit her lip. He bent down, lowered her head. Goddess, no. He couldn’t. She’d –

  Saturnios took her nipple in his hot, wet mouth and suckled her. Delight arrowed straight from her breast to her cunt. She moaned. The sound slipped out without her conscious intent or knowledge. It just happened, and she couldn’t take it back.

  He gave an answering moan. His response to her excited her even more, at the same time as she flushed with even greater shame. She couldn’t
stop her back from arching, from pushing her breast up like an offering. The head blow had surely driven her mad.

  His blade touched her skin again. The cold made her jump. He drew away from her breast and carefully cut the fabric of her trousers in two slashes from the fly to the side seams. Another couple of cuts freed the trouser legs from her body, leaving her sex bare to his gaze.

  And gaze he did.

  His eyes grew so dark they looked blacker than the sky. She felt a trickle of moisture from her cunt as her body warmed and opened for him. He put a hand beneath her right knee and lifted her leg as far as it would go against the ankle bindings, opening her for his inspection. Then he brushed her lightly between her legs. Tariza jumped, gasping.

  “You’ve trimmed your hair here,” he said.

  Most Concordian women kept their pubic hair short for reasons of hygiene. It wasn’t done for the convenience of their slaves, that was certain. She said nothing.

  He dragged a fingertip lightly along the crease between her crotch and her inner thigh, making her shudder and gasp again. She hadn’t had a male in a long time; she’d been too busy with war. That was the reason she responded so strongly to this barbarian beast. It was the only explanation that made sense – besides head trauma, anyway.

  Saturnios toyed with her, stroking her inner thighs, then each fold of her sex, his touch gentle as he explored her. She quivered under his exploration, her cunt flushing with more cream.

  “Get on with it,” she snapped. “Or do you want to be caught?”

  “We won’t be caught.” He leaned over her and captured her mouth.

  Concordian women never allowed men to loom over them. The man was always beneath the woman, often chained to the bed or floor. Dario’s body heat seared her, his weight oppressing her even though she knew he wasn’t really leaning on her. He was too close, too big, too –

  Her heart zoomed so fast she felt dizzy. She kicked out, twisting her head away from him. “Don’t! Don’t crush me.”

  “Shhh.” He stroked her hair. “I’m not crushing you. I won’t hurt you, Tariza. I’ll never hurt you.”

  “Yes, you will. You want to hurt me. Isn’t that why you kidnapped me?”

  “Not to hurt you. To make you mine.”

  “To bring down Concordia.”

  “That, too.” There was a smile in his voice. He took her by the jaw and urged her face toward him. “I’m only going to kiss and pet you. There’ll be no crushing.”

  She panted as he leaned in again and pressed his lips to hers. He kept his weight off her, although their torsos met, the waxed leather of his armor cold and smooth against her bare nipples.

  “You see?” he whispered. “I’m not crushing you.”

  He took her mouth once more. Somehow he managed to be gentle and overpowering at the same time. His lips caressed, sucked at hers; his tongue dipped into her mouth in a rhythm that mimicked the way he would possess her cunt. He tasted of wine and man.

  She tried not to respond. Her body betrayed her, as she unthinkingly angled her head for a better fit with his mouth, as she swept her tongue across his and sighed against his kiss. Those lips of his were even more glorious than she’d remembered.

  Saturnios found her breast again, pinching her nipple as he moaned and kissed her. His weight pressed into her, just a little. Tariza’s breath came faster, fear and arousal mixed with the taste and scent of him.

  He broke away from her mouth to kiss his way down her front, his beard tickling her skin. When he reached her navel, he dipped his tongue inside and her breath caught. Then he settled between her thighs.

  Paolo stood to the side, watching. She knew he was there, but she didn’t look at him. If she didn’t see him then she could pretend he was somewhere else.

  Dario spread her open with his thumbs. Cool night air met her pussy. He bent his head and enveloped her with his mouth.

  She moaned loudly. His tongue ruthlessly possessed her, plunging inside her, so hot and wet and perfect. She bucked against him as her moans turned desperate.

  “In a moment, pet.” He kissed her inner thigh.

  When he rose above her, his trousers were already unfastened. His cock jutted out, straining with undisguised eagerness for her body. He was enormous.

  Saturnios lifted her other knee and positioned himself at her entrance. He thrust into her in one powerful stroke that made her cry out in shock and near-pain. Then his mouth recaptured hers, mating with hers, tasting of her pussy, and she moaned helplessly.

  She couldn’t fight him and win. He was too much for her.

  He withdrew almost all the way from her sheath. Then, with a groan, he plunged deep. Ruthless pleasure speared her all the way to her womb. She cried out again, the sound swallowed by his kiss.

  His hips moved in a lazy rhythm against hers, each thrust sending a burst of delight through her pelvis and into the rest of her body. It felt so good. So different from the female-superior position she was accustomed to. The shove of his pelvis against hers, even the slapping of his balls against her created a fuller, richer pleasure than she’d ever experienced.

  Tariza bucked her hips against his. In her heart, she knew she ought to continue fighting him, but she didn’t want to anymore. He felt too good inside her, and the pleasure was building, coiling hard and tight as she climbed toward orgasm.

  He released her mouth. His pace increased, his moans growing louder. She shouldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to know what he looked like in the midst of his passion. But the sounds he made beguiled her, excited her, aroused in her a shameful need to kiss him everywhere, all over that stunning male body.

  Maybe just a peek wouldn’t hurt.

  She opened her eyes. Looked up at him. His head was tilted back, his eyes shut, his lips parted. Goddess, he was beautiful. He should have been born in Concordia.

  Ecstasy burst inside her and she sobbed through her climax. An instant later, his face contorted in what looked like pain. His great body shook. He groaned and flooded her with hot, wet seed.

  Saturnios stopped moving, except to lower his head to hers until their foreheads touched. His breath came hard and fast. His lips brushed hers.

  “I knew it would be good with you,” he murmured. “From the first moment I saw you, I wanted you.”

  She said nothing. He didn’t need to know she’d felt the same way, that she’d hungered for him and dreamed of him many times since then. He didn’t need to know.

  He sighed. “I’d like to linger, pet, but we still have a lot of work to do before the night is over.” He withdrew from her body.

  She avoided looking in Paolo’s direction. Saturnios took a sleeve of her jacket and used it to clean her body, his touch gentle and sure. He’d probably done it hundreds of times before, with hundreds of different women.

  Why did that thought make her feel so bad?

  He extended a hand toward the boy. Paolo gave him a bundle of cloth. Dario shook it out, revealing a long, loose dress in either red or orange; it was hard to tell the color in the darkness. He draped the garment over her body from chest to toes.

  “Now for the tattoo. Paolo, fetch me my medical bag. It’s with my saddlebags.”

  “W-what are you doing?” she said.

  Saturnios stared at her with half-lidded eyes. “Marking you as my property, so there’ll be no confusion as to your owner.”

  Chapter 4

  Tariza stared up at him in horror. He couldn’t mark her. Not permanently. If he did, she’d never be free of him, whether she escaped or not.

  “No!” She twisted her body, flipping herself over and bunching her knees under her body.

  She tried to crawl away. The hobnailed boots that completed her uniform were still on her feet. As Saturnios lunged for her, she kicked at him. The motion threw her weight onto her elbows. The hard sole of her boot met his leg. He grunted.

  Dario grabbed her from behind in a bear hug, despite her attempt to kick him a second time. His heavy body crushed her
against the hard, cold ground and stole her breath.

  “Damn you, woman,” he growled. “What are you trying to do? You can’t escape.”

  No, but she might force him to kill her. Tariza slammed her head backward, toward his. He blocked her attack, using his arm to force her head down to the ground. Damn. Without the use of her hands, she was at a severe disadvantage. She twisted under him, but he had her in a hold she couldn’t seem to break.

  “Milord!” Young Paolo sounded aghast.

  “Did you bring my bag?” Dario said calmly.

  “Yes.”

  “Help me turn her over.”

  Paolo came around to her head. He reached for her hands where they were trapped beneath her chin. Tariza snapped at him.

  “Damn!” He yanked his hand out of her reach.

  Dario clapped a palm over her mouth. “Try again.”

  The boy reached under her jaw and grabbed her wrist binding. He pulled her arms forward, forcing her face right into the rocky soil. “Got her.”

  Saturnios took his hand off her mouth. He lifted his body from hers, while keeping his legs across her to pin her. Sliding down her length, he took her ankles in both hands. They flipped her onto her back.

  Once again, Saturnios stretched himself over her, using his weight to trap her. Traitorous heat swelled inside her, throbbing in time to her heartbeat.

  He reached one-handed into the bag Paolo had produced, withdrew a flask of brandy and dabbed some on a clean rag, which he used to wipe the dirt off her right forearm. From a small, wooden box, he took a huge needle, some thread, a pen and a jar of ink. Her mouth went so dry she could hardly swallow. He was going to mark her permanently. Even if she managed to escape, she’d always have his mark to remind her of what he’d done to her.

  “You’ll regret this,” she said.

  “Don’t all the villains say that in those Galactic vids?”

  He’d seen Galactic vids? They were illegal in Concordia, like most other Galactic technology. “I’m no villain.”

  “You are to us.” He shoved a strip of leather between her teeth. “You can bite on this for the pain.”